A Call for Synchronized Action To Help RPK (Action Proposal No. 001)

(Sep 26 2008 Update: This Action Proposal #001 is expired, please check the main page for currently active actions)

Kudos to RPK for upholding his ideals and principles consistently.

It pains me to think someone who upholds justice with peaceful means is arrested without trial. I think the nation is crying for you. We cry, but we shall be calm, and find ways to prevail.

I would like to propose a synchronized action to help RPK as well as to advance the people power for a stronger civil society. Before I layout my proposal, I would like to acknowledge the more effective contribution done many men and women at the front lines - those who are at the trenches risking their well being and freedom in defending the people. My proposal below is designed to help RPK and civil right advancement in a small but specific way.

I would like to start with characterizing our opponent, and help us have a clearer picture of who are we dealing with. While we might be passionate and emotional as the event unfolds, we should maintain our cool heads in analyzing our opponent. I wish our comments on this call-for-action article will also be cool-headed.We shall define our opponent as the current BN-UMNO regime.

We shall define ourselves as Anak Bangsa Malaysia who subscribe to the 1998 Permatang Pauh's Declaration. Among us, we have two rather distinct groups, one is more structured Pakatan Rakyat as political opposition, and another is more loosely organized people such as bloggers, readers, and common people. This call-for-action will be focus on later "us" who are less organized. We shall use "Our Opponent" to refer to BN-UMNO regime as a way to conduct cool-headed analysis and actions.

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The Objective of Proposed Synchronized Action

The objective is to reduce the ferocity of the ruthlessness of the ruling regime in strangulating the right of the people. Saving RPK, an iconic figure, will be the rallying cry to achieve the objective.

All the subsequent analysis, including the strength and weakness of our opponent, shall be done based on the above objective.

The Strength of Our Opponent
Our opponent has the tight grip of state instruments; Our opponent strongest strength is its near complete control of police force for countering the political opponents as well as the dissidents from common people. That strength is in full displayed when Our Opponents detain RPK under ISA, and completely shut up the most influential blogger of the nation. The other yet exercised state instrument well inside Our Opponent pocket is the authority to declare state of emergency. Our capability to counter the above two state instrument is indeed very limited up to this point.

Many might have despise Our Opponent's making use of racial and religious sentiment. However, all truth be told, we might have to recognize Our Opponents' gut in making use of racial sentiment as one of their strongest strength. Even if we might think AAB himself have not subscribed to racial politic, I think we should assume Ahmad Ismail incident which attracts 13 division heads' support for his racial remark, shows, in no-uncertain term, that they are high level leaders, with enough political power, in UMNO-BN, who are ready to "divide and conquer" whenever the situation is ripe. Some of those leaders in Our Opponent camp are ready to sacrifice the people well being and future for mere political end -- this statement should not be read as condemnation but as a way to recognize the reality. Our capability to counter the UMNO-BN strength in making use of race and religion can not be overly estimated even with the presence of Internet. An example of the Our Opponents strength is that they are still capable of marshaling state religious institutions to blast RPK before they rein in with ISA arrest; We might not want to under-estimate the influence of those religion institutions on general public, especially those without access to Internet.

The Weaknesses of Our Opponent
I think the most glaring weaknesses of Our Opponent is the lacking of idea for rallying the people. Good proposals and ideas from Our Opponents are few and far in-between.

In the past 51 years, Our Opponent had slowly lost its ideal and vision. While it is not clear whether the money political causes the lost of ideal or the lost of ideal causes money political, it is clear that we can hardly find a leader from Our Opponent to expound hope and visions for the people. It should not be a surprise that public gatherings by Our Opponent can no longer be glued together with ideal and hopes, but by fear and defensiveness, as shown in ITuM protest, series of "post-mortem" meetings after March 8, and recently, Ahmad Ismail's press conferences and on-going "road tours".

What motivate Our Opponent
Without ideal and vision, Our Opponent can only be motivated by very few things: The greed for power and money. The greed of power includes the unstoppable desire to hold on power with despicable means such as ISA arrests and lies. The greed for power and money exhibits both the strength and weaknesses of Our Opponent.

Our Strengths
Our strongest strength is that there are many of us, which amount to hundred of thousands, if not millions.

We have one abstract but highly valuable strength, and this is our ideal and vision, as inscribed in 1998's Permatang Pauh's Declaration, and as re-iterated and expounded innumerable time in different words in the cyber space. Those ideal and vision, while cannot be realized over-night, are powerful "thing" that glues us together. The ideal and vision are bound to produce creative ideas if we were given appropriate ecology to nurture them.

Another strength in our pocket is our connectedness through the cyber space. Amazing Internet is a heck of good fault-tolerance system; Attempt to shutdown Malaysia Today fails to remove our connectedness. Instant communication in cyber space is both additive and empowering. We are also connected not only within the border of Malaysia; We are connected everywhere in the world. The power of such connectedness can hardly be over-estimated.

Our Weaknesses
While there are many of us, each of us is highly vulnerable to state power. This weaknesses is self-evident as shown in the arrest of RPK and Teresa Kok; The arrests are easily executed despite RPK as highly popular and respected blogger, and Teresa Kok being the people representative with formal mandate. Our vulnerability is even more visible when we realize that all we can do to save the detainees is through begging the authority -- because ISA is not subject to judicial review and no judge can undo the ISA detention without himself violating the laws of the land.

In the cyber space, we are not structurally organized. Our distributed nature is the source of our creativity, but it is also our glaring weakness in asserting focused pressure. Without the mean for focusing pressure, we are quite helpless in asserting our civil right.

The Call For Action

Taking account the above analysis, I have created the 1-2-3-Step to help release RPK:

Step 1: Post Call-For-Action Proposal and Comments

I, serve as the author of this proposal, posted this article.
Everyone please analyze and post your comments on the action options contained in the Step 2. Please feel free to comment any other areas in the article.
However, you are not allowed to change the actions list because the changes will invalid the vote result. However, I or someone can in the future raise another proposal to cover good actions not currently listed.

Step 2: Please votes on the following actions:

Option 1: Flood PM office with phone call around the clock

This option requires us to make calls to PM office. PM Office Phones are: 03-8888-8000 / 03-8888-8032. Let's coordinating the calls so that it goes round clock for 2 days. Use the first letter of your first name; And mapped it to the hour starting from 00:00 AM. That is, the hour 00:00 is for those with first name starts with letter "A" to make the calls. 01:00 for letter "B", and so on. Let's start the calls at 1 PM Sep 22 (Monday), and our last call at 1 PM, Sep 24
Effect: There should be some psychological impacts if we have thousand of calls. PM secretary might tell AAB: "Lines are flooded with demand to release RPK the whole day; Statistic shows we have 10,000 calls today..." . It will be even better if the phone system is simply shutdown accidentally or deliberately (by the PM staffs)-- then we can report it here and possibly make it a news.

Option 2: Send synchronized emails to PM Office
This option requires us to send email at the exact time. The PM office email is ppm@pmo.gov.my. We need to send email at exactly 10 AM Sep 23.
Effect: The sheer number of emails should have some psychological impact. The secretary might report to PM: "I received 20000 emails all within 5 minutes, and they all ask for releasing RPK. Can I just delete all of them?".

Option 3: Flood calls to Deputy IGP Ismail Omar's office
The option requires us to call the Acting IGP Ismail Omar through Bukit Aman phone number 03-2262-6222. When you call, you of course will be directed to his staff but you probably should start with "May I speak with Tan Sri Omar directly please, ..." to show that you mean business. Let's coordinating the calls so that it goes round clock for 2 days. Use the first letter of your first name; And mapped it to the hour starting from 00:00 AM. That is, the hour 00:00 is for those with first name starts with letter "A" to make the calls. 01:00 for letter "B", and so on. Let's start the calls at 1 PM Sep 22 (Monday), and our last call at 1 PM, Sep 24

Option 4: No action for now
You might want to choose this option if you think the other options are not appropriate or effective.

Please cast you vote here by 11 AM Sep 22 (Monday) here: http://malaysiacivilright.blogspot.com/
(At the right hand column).

When you cast your vote, please assume you are committed to execute the action that you plan to vote. Otherwise, you should just vote "No action for now".

Step 3: Everyone executes the action with the highest score
Please come back to check the scored votes after noon Sep 22 (Monday) at http://malaysiacivilright.blogspot.com/ (At the right hand column); I will close the poll by then.
In order to make the maximum impact, you are highly recommended to execute the action with the highest score even though you have not voted the highest score action.

My fellow Malaysians,
This is time for action with the 1-2-3 Step above, let's roll!
The clock is ticking while RPK is languishing in the jail!
You need to believe the future is in your hands before you can shape your future.


Note 1: If the above format of asking for synchronized action works well in cyber space, we could make use of it's framework for other purpose going forward.
Note 2: The above action alone is not likely to release RPK; So, executing the action above should not be an excuse not to do other things that can help releasing RPK.