Farce.

Confused by the announcements of the many rallies, all happening simultaneously on July 9th? Don't be. I'm here to explain and satirise things for you!

First, BERSIH, an election watchdog group campaigning for electoral reforms, announces that it is going to organise a (peaceful) street rally to bring to the attention of the general public a list of demands for a fairer election. They have the support of Pakatan Rakyat parties and activists. Since it claims to be a civil society group, this taints its non-partisan angle a bit.

Fairly comprehensible, for now. But this is followed by an announcement by Perkasa and several other NGOs that they will organise a counter-Bersih rally to protest against rallies and the negative effect they have on our country's economy and stability. Though it really beats me why they're organising a rally in protest of rallies - this seems awfully like an oxymoron, like fucking for virginity is. But Perkasa isn't a group generally known for reaching decisions after thinking it through logically, so this isn't an extraordinary turn of events.

Two rallies isn't very confusing what, you say. No, but today the powers that be decided to turn the notch up a bit and news floating in the cybersphere tells me that UMNO Youth is also organising a rally to counter/rival the Bersih 2.0 rally. Are they against rallies, like those who are getting together people for the anti-rally rally? No, it's organised to 'strengthen the democratic system'. Now, some news article that doesn't specify that it's having its own rally will lead you to conclude that UMNO Youth is just joining Bersih and are asking for electoral reform. Not so. If you pay closer attention, they're not asking for electoral reform precisely, but their rally is organised to 'strengthen the democratic system'. Positive electoral reform would strengthen the democratic system, sure, but electoral reform may or may not be one of their demands to strengthen the democratic system. This is also supposed to 'rival' the electoral reform group rallying on the same day. Khairy Jammaluddin said that they're not joining BERSIH because it has opposition agenda. So no, this is another, different rally. In other words, UMNO Youth also wants a piece of the pie.

Which makes three rallies, in toto, for now. But would more groups mushroom up and announce that they are organising rallies for something silly like protesting against the anti-rally rally? In fact, Kam Raslan was talking (not quite seriously) about organising a rally gathering music-lovers to demand for the deposition of Max Martin. By golly, maybe we should jump into the fray and have it on the 9th of July, since that's what everyone is doing! Or, you know what? The government should give up and consecrate July the 9th as Rally Day, where, for one day in a year, everyone can come together to protest whatever they're against. Just imagine, a day with a protest against Justin Bieber, a protest against people who are against Justin Bieber, a protest against Apple products, a protest about everything in general, and a protests about protests, even. A day where people with similar dislikes can unite and unleash the fury pent-up for the rest of the year.

In short, these rallies are quickly turning farcical. I support democracy, fair elections, and demonstrations in general (the latter two seems to me to be a necessary component of democracies anyway), but by God can't we have all three without sinking to the ridiculous?