Anti-ICERD Rally

No, I haven't gone down to ground zero to cover it.

It's probably the first rally that I haven't attended despite being in KL - for obvious reasons. Haha.

I am, though, unpleasantly surprised to note that the participants number 30,000 approximately (Update: Turns out it was closer to 80,000 people). That's a huge number of unhappy customers, much bigger than I was expecting, if I was completely honest.

It's about 0.1% of the Malaysian population.

It's a big number of people who are that insecure about their future.

I am not sure which part of their Bumiputera privilege is what they're fighting for.

Property ownership - reduced price and allocated percentage; despite that, most property developers have disclosed that this allocation never gets fully utilised by the Bumiputera. There is, after all, a financial limit to the number of houses you can buy, even if you are one of those professional property buyers with 20 loans in your name.

University placement - those who have the brains pass their exams and graduate and those who don't, they just pick up an unfulfilled student loan debt and a low self-esteem.

Jobs - if they're good, the headhunters lure them abroad, if they're not, they just work for a lousy salary. Often some of these members of the workforce belong to the group that really should not have graduated university. In which case, they live in a lot of fear as they do not want to be identified as under-performers in the job scene. Frequently, they work for civil service.

As always, I have never believed in placating people by giving them something they don't deserve. That's how America became so ... lembap.

Not the booming tech sectors that are frequently populated by migrants, mind you, but the sectors soon to be taken over by robots. Also, industrial workers, shop assistants etc. Basically the people who are expecting Trump to improve their lives.

I have met loads of Malays (who are Bumiputera) who are willing to work hard, given sufficient mentoring and encouragement.

I really hope they don't feel compelled to join a rally that does nothing to improve their quality of life.

Related: The anti-ICERD protest is a chance to show this government is different from the past administration