A Most Singular Carnival

OK. As promised in my previous blog post, here are some photographs from the fuel price hike rally that was held at the Kelana Jaya stadium recently on Sunday of 6th July 2008. It was supposed to be a fuel price hike rally but turned out to be more or less as a carnival of some sort. Nothing wrong in that, I suppose, and perhaps it was just as well as it was a cooling off period for all Malaysians after a politically charged week whereby unbridled mudslinging and an ominous joint police-army exercise took place in the background. I noted many bloggers and Internet news portals made extensive coverage of the fuel price hike rally, so I really do not have much to add. However, the following twelve photographs shown here reflect the four main themes that particularly captured my interest that day.

We will first take a look at Unit Amal Malaysia. Amal is an auxiliary organization affiliated to PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia) and was one of the two bodies tasked towards crowd control and event security for the day; the other being Skuad AMK, which was an arm of PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat.) This photograph was taken just moments before they were deployed and are seen singing the Amal song with gusto. I noted many of the members came from various states of Malaysia, Sabah included! I even encountered some of them on the RapidKL bus as I made my way to the Kelana Jaya stadium from the LRT station.

To those who had had attended the rally that day, most of you would have encountered them and I trust that many would have had a pleasant and polite encounter. I most certainly did. Here they are seen raising their arms in unison after a pep talk by their unit director.

I was later informed that around 1,000+ Amal members were pressed into service for the rally. When I made my way back home around 3pm, I encountered a contingent of 55 Amal members in their teens and early twenties from Penang who were also making their way back home after passing over their duties to another Amal unit. Their behavior and decorum, though reflecting their youth, was exemplary. My hats off to a Mr. Azman of the Penang Amal contingent for his show of leadership.

The fuel price hike and its domino effect didn't just hit a couple of wise guys in designer clothing moving about in SUVs and helicopters; the inflationary pressures particularly hit hard a significant segment of Malaysia's social and economic demographics. I will not elaborate further on this and prefer to let the following three photographs tell the story instead.....

.....and I think that says it all.

Another aspect the rally that attracted me was the diversity of those whom attended. From Malay Malaysian ladies clad in hijab...

...and, of course, MAKKAL SAKHTI!

And Chinese Malaysian university students. Seeing is believing.

As I hinted in previous blog post, I like to introduce to my fellow readers to two extremely singular gentlemen who also attended the fuel price hike rally. I really cannot say what was so singular about them and perhaps I am missing the point. Anyway, as I was making my way back home, I came across two guys from Pahang and asked them for directions. Of course, being Pahang folks, they were as clueless as I was. Noticing my camera, they informed me that it would be most interesting if I would photograph these two fine looking gentlemen. Suffice to say, even the 55 members of the Penang Amal contingent, whom I later showed the following photographs, saw what those two Pahang guys saw. I still do not see the singularity.....

.....I really need new eyeglass prescriptions.