Location: Brisbane, Australia
Time: Morning workshop: 11am – 1pm. Afternoon rally: 1.30pm – 2.30pm. +10UTC
Number of participants: 150+
The event kicked off at 11am on Saturday morning with an educational workshop organized by Ben Mok, Sree, and Jon-Michale Chia. The workshop was held inside the Brisbane Square State Library and the aim of the workshop was to educate our participants on what Bersih really is, what are the 8 points of Bersih, and how they can contribute back home even though they are living overseas. The workshop was supposed to start at 10.45am but we pushed it back a bit to allow more participants to arrive (since it had been raining heavily non-stop since the night before). Finally, we were able to get 20 participants and we had a presentation slideshow. One of our exercises that we did was we broke the participants into groups of 4 and were given 2 out of the 8 Bersih points to discuss. At the end of the discussion, the group leader is supposed to present what those 2 points meant to them, how it affected them, and what are the possible solutions/recommendations that they can think of to address the 2 points.
We concluded the workshop at 1pm and were busy packing up until 1.15pm. As we walked out of the library, we were amazed that a large crowd of 150 people in yellow already waiting outside, under the shade to protect themselves from the rain. The crowd consisted of people young and old. There were Chinese, Malays, Indians, and even a few Aussies. They waited patiently as we told them to give us an extra 10 minutes to settle down. I think God must have also helped us because when we were about to start our rally, the rain automatically died down to a drizzle. It was a cheerful atmosphere with people carrying home-made posters and everyone was mingling among themselves. We started off by thanking everyone for braving the rain, and we continued on with Ambiga’s statement for Global Bersih. We then had individuals to come out to give a short speech on what Bersih meant to them and why they came here. In the background, we had a crew doing video interviews on their thoughts and opinions regarding Bersih. At 2.30pm, we sang the ‘Negaraku’ and while the half of the crowd dispersed after that, many stayed back to paint the two Bersih banners that we brought. Overall, it was a good day for us Malaysians in Brisbane because we showed that we can do great things together and nothing, even the rain, can stop us from achieving our goals.
