24-07-2025
The Malaysian Protest Museum
JULY 24 — On June 22, 2013, people descended on Padang Merbok.
More than a month after a general election, Pakatan Harapan folks dreamt seven weeks of nationwide protest rallies since May 5 polling day culminated in a city crescendo.
Instead, a tepid gathering of thousands in a moderate haze marked the end of the pointless reactionary scream and started the longer slog to 2018, when Pakatan eventually won power.
More than 12 years ago those events. Two days away is the 'Turun Anwar' rally. A haze has already descended on the city for this weekend's festivities and media folks ready their goggles to count the turnout between liquid sips.
This column recorded in 2013: The last (#Black505) rally was on June 22 at the city's Padang Merbok, next to Parliament. A combination of prolonged rallies with no rallying point and a hefty haze plaguing the city, the mixed attendance somehow ended the resistance.
For full disclosure, the columnist was part of the protest organisation.
Today, the attention is not on how many are likely to experience breathing difficulties on Saturday but the air of freedom experienced by the country through protests over the last quarter of a century.
Changed our tanah air.
Reformasi 98 to Bersih, in stages Pleasantville-like Malaysia discovered colour. Malaysians turned away from democracy strictly at the ballot box to expressions on the streets, and that changed how a docile nation turned fashionably louder — not loud enough if I'm asked.
Though the misfortune is that these exhibitions about our people have been inadequately safeguarded. They deserve their place in a gallery. Even those pictures of PAS cadres passing bottled water to attendees in Padang Merbok 12 years ago. Incidentally, one of my team members broke his leg on that day. Not evading police but rather on an isolated staircase.
Black505 was a badly phrased title for a movement, and probably contributes to why it has steered clear off the population's imagination, though the low visibility and torrid air quality on the fateful day a dozen years ago played a far bigger part.
'Turun Anwar' writes its own history however it turns out this weekend.
Regardless, the stories of our relatively new protest culture deserve a central place in the rakyat's imagination. Not in the cold archives of academic libraries but in a museum.
The Protest Museum, preferably a stone's throw away from Dataran Merdeka. The fundraising would be a walk in the park.
Pick a pamphlet at the lobby
First floor, the Batu Arang coal workers' unrests between the Japanese Occupation. Some space for Umno's formation through a collective protest action towards the Malayan Union.
It would be crikey to get British radio broadcasts about troubles in the colonies. Before the floor exit, the Hartal of 1948.
Opinions are divided but they are our protests and not talking about them will not do. Welcome to the information age!
A whole floor for Reformasi 98, and another for the evolution of Bersih. Audios from those who showed up to face the water cannons and tear gas cannisters.
Shouts and pandemonium in and around Tung Shin Hospital and the long wait at Tunku Abdul Rahman around the now-disappeared Coliseum.
Finally, a museum visit that might actually appeal to younger Malaysians. It aids to contextualise the purpose of protests to the young.
The prime minister's team is worried about all protests these days as they are directed at them. Maybe they have it the wrong way around.
Movements require a cause to march ahead for, to uphold. A sense of injustice.
Currently, the prime minister's opponents lack one. While cost of living and less money always upsets people, it has to be at the extreme end for people to show up on the streets.
People protest against rising fuel prices in Kuala Lumpur on September 6, 2013. — Picture by Saw Siow Feng
When comparing apples with apples, Anwar Ibrahim has the far more compelling story. Two medium terms in prison and an early start in student activism.
Running hard, from George Town to Putrajaya with countless number of setbacks. The crowds love to hear about his wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail's letters to him in prison.
The prime minister should feel tempted to drive down to the city on Saturday and meet the organisers and egg them on. Or even send them tips on how to organise a successful rally.
The tenth prime minister is the first one to have a protest background. Which is not a small matter.
Our Pms have been prosaic civil servants with technocratic leanings rather than imagining themselves as characters in a Gabriel García Márquez novel.
Which is why he should be the patron for Malaysia's Protest Museum.
Though there is a warning. Do not sanitise the past, which means also the prime minister's past.
Rebellions excite because they are flawed. Rich on ideals, weak on details. The moment the museum is selective about the past and its information, that's when it turns staid.
It will be cool to have an inscription at the front entrance. About how these seminal protests have taught Malaysians and driven discussions about civic consciousness far more than 11 years of standard public education's textbooks.
And admission should be free — it is state and rakyat funded. They, the patron, eventually pay admission price when they eventually participate in their own protests.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
