This is something I got in my email from Beth Yahp. I took a travel writing class under Beth last year and sometimes she emails us her insights about Malaysia. Here’s her piece about the elections. She’s referring to the front page of NST, which shows a picture of a woman’s face with the mouth ‘erased’ and the headline “No Representation, No Voice”. That’s what riled her to pen this piece.
DAP ceramah
Up to the Moon
Even before the election fever started, we had been looking forward to listening to the campaign ceramah(s). In 2004, we had great fun trailing the DAP as they organised ceramah here and there. Since we were mostly around this Bukit Gambir area, we of course braved the massive crowds and pushed our way through to hear Karpal Singh when he was fighting for the Bukit Gelugur seat. (This was before he met with the accident so this was before he became wheelchair-bound. Poor guy!)
Last Wednesday night, we were again on our rounds to Air Itam to look for the DAP ceramah. Sadly, DAP could not get a permit and didn’t manage to hold a ceramah at the appointed place!
This year too we wanted to go to a DAP ceramah, if only to hear blogger Jeff Ooi speak! I know many bloggers in Penang are working hard for him either helping him on polling day or at least helping him spread the news and vote for Jeff Ooi/ vote for Jelutong, THE place where the Tiger of Jelutung (Karpal Singh) used to be.
But finally hear Jeff Ooi we did. I must say he did floor me with his arguments which were rather well-thought out with extremely hard hitting facts. Although he spoke with an American drawl, he spoke well too in Hokkien, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia.