This was our Agreement, our Contract, THE Social Contract, a Magna Carta of sorts. And that is why we defend this Social Contract in the form of The People’s Voice and The People’s Declaration with passion and zeal.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Tomorrow I will be on the road to make my way to London to attend the inaugural meeting of the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) on Saturday. I will also be attending an anti-ISA demonstration at Piccadilly that same afternoon.
I will repeat what I said in my earlier articles. The first and primary objective of the MCLM is to promote and propagate The People’s Voice and The People’s Declaration (YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THEM BELOW). This is of course not the only objective of the MCLM, as what I have already explained in great detail in my earlier articles (which you can read here).
1. The Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM)
2. Why the mad scramble
3. When you don’t trust your own people
Now, “why this fixation with The People’s Voice and The People’s Declaration?” you may ask. Simple, because this was what was agreed prior to the 2008 general election. Six political parties, three of them within Pakatan Rakyat, signed a Contact with those of us from the civil society movement at the Blog House in Kuala Lumpur (see the photographs below).
We entered into an Agreement and signed a Social Contract with six political parties contesting the last general election. (In fact, we invited ALL the more than 20 political parties to attend the signing ceremony but only six turned up). And we want this Agreement or Social Contract honoured and respected.
This was our Agreement, our Contract, THE Social Contract, a Magna Carta of sorts. And that is why we defend this Social Contract in the form of The People’s Voice and The People’s Declaration with passion and zeal. Call us fanatics, if you wish, because that is what we are when it comes to the Social Contract or Magna Carta that we signed with these six political parties.
Then, of course, it was not the MCLM. Then, it was a grouping called Barisan Rakyat. And note that Barisan Rakyat existed before Pakatan Rakyat was created. But now people think that Barisan Rakyat and Pakatan Rakyat are one and the same. Some even think that Barisan Rakyat is a ‘merger’ of Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.
So, to make it clear that we are not a political party or a wing of Pakatan Rakyat or a merger of Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat, we decided to call ourselves the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement, which was actually ‘soft-launched’ six years ago back in 2004 as the Malaysian Civil Liberties Society but never got past the Registrar of Societies.
THE PICTURE GALLERY OF BARISAN RAKYAT SIGNING A SOCIAL CONTRACT WITH SIX POLITICAL PARTIES AT THE BLOG HOUSE PRIOR TO THE 2008 GENERAL ELECTION AND THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN THAT FOLLOWED IT
The Barisan Rakyat poster that flooded the country in March 2008
Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud, the representative from PAS
Ronnie Liu Tian Khiew, the representative from DAP
Badrul Hisham Shaharin a.k.a. ‘Chegu Bard’, the representative from PKR
Wee Choo Keong, the representative from MDP
A group photograph of the signatories to The People’s Voice and The People’s Declaration
The Barisan Rakyat campaign team and shots of the election campaign (below)
DOWNLOAD THE PEOPLE’S VOICE AND THE PEOPLE’S DECLARATION HERE
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