I spoke at a PAS event yesterday. It was called Impian Malaysia (The Malaysian
Dream) and held at the Library in section 13, Shah Alam.
There
was a sense of frugalness about the entire event. After registering myself as a
speaker, I was given a plain green goodie bag (no logo or wordings) which
contained some PAS literature, a small bottle of mineral water and a packet of
coffee flavored sweets. To identify myself as a speaker, I had a corsage of
ribbons shaped like a flower pinned to my shirt. By a male volunteer, of
course.
We
were then led to a nice breakfast area facing a beautiful lake. I was politely
told that there were no VIP’s in PAS and that I had to serve myself breakfast.
There were 4 chafing trays and they were all filled with the exact same food –
fried beehoon noodles with a little shredded cabbage and red chillies. Drinks
consisted of hot teh-o and kopi-o in self serve pots.
Another
eye opener was that the crowd trickling in to attend the event consisted of a
large number of Indians and some Chinese besides the Malays. I did not see any stereotyped
hard core turbaned, bearded and robe clad PAS members.
When
we were ushered into the auditorium, we had to take our shoes off. Thank
heavens I wore a good pair of socks without any holes! I was led to the holding
room where I met up with the person who had invited me – YB Datuk Dr Haji
Mujahid Yusof Rawa, MP for Parit Buntar.
He
in turn introduced me to YB Dr Haji Abdul Rani Osman, ADUN for Meru, Klang, and
YB Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud, MP for Kota Raja, Klang. I also met another speaker, Sherab
Wong from the Vajrayana Buddhist Council of Malaysia.
Later
in the auditorium proper I approached the tech guys to ask if they could download
my powerpoint presentation to their laptop and check if it would play smoothly.
They readily agreed but looked flustered when I asked for the clicker and laser
pointer. I took my seat rather unsure of how to conduct my presentation.
The
guy later got back to me and whispered that there was no clicker available, but
I could call out to him verbally to change slides. Just then the Emcee started the event by
asking us to stand for a video rendition of the Negaraku and the Selangor state
anthem, followed by a video “PAS Untuk Semua”.
Truth
be told I found the PAS video quite comical as they tried hard sell to convince
Malaysians that PAS was for us all via a song in Mandarin, Tamil and Malay.
Here it is for you to decide for yourself.
I
was the third speaker after Lim Kit Siang’s political secretary Kasthuri Patto,
daughter of the famous P Patto, and Sherab Wong. Despite having to nervously
say “next slide, please” 12 times, I ended up enjoying my talk as the audience
freely interacted with me in a casual dialogue manner and clapped at relevant
points.
Unfortunately
I had another function to attend after speaking and the organizers were kind
enough to invite me to again speak at their other events and present me with a
memento – a framed programme of the event.
Ok
with that the Spanker feels that he has been naughty enough with this post. No,
I was not giving a ceramah on politics, although there was more than enough of
that flying around at the event.
I
was speaking on crime awareness and prevention methods as the founder of Malaysians
Against Rape, Assault and snatcH. I was invited because I had attended YB
Mujahid’s book launch the day before and he had urged me to speak at his event.
Attending
has been good as I had some preconceived notions about PAS that are now being
viewed with an open mind. I also resolve to attend more events from both sides
of the political divide to decide for myself if PAS’s raw “what you see is what
you get” rather unsophisticated style of holding events is not just another
slick psychological attempt to woo more non Malays into the fold.
Venture
forth, we shall - to see and decide and for ourselves. Keep watching this
space.
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