428 Afterthought

It was around 9am in the morning of Apr 28 here in Juba, 2pm at home in Malaysia. Many of my fellow countrymen were all donned in yellow, taking it to the street demanding for a change for the better for our beloved country. Here in Juba, my 2 colleagues and I, coincidentally all wearing red, were having breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Yeah, we were so wearing the wrong color for the day. I guess we did not get the memo. Anyway we were following the beat by beat accounts of the rally in KL on Facebook and Twitter. 

For the following days, I was reading various comments and blog postings as well as looking at the photos of the rally online. A few aerial shots of the massive turn out at various places really caught my attention. Those were the people gathering at various meeting points before marching towards Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) for the sit-down protest. To me, the photos were powerful, sea of yellow packing the streets, peacefully and orderly, ready to voice out our dissatisfaction, ask for change. It was all calm. And then the march started and we all knew what happened next. 

It got me thinking a little.

What if everyone just sit down there and then on the streets at the meeting points, for the sit-down protest? Would that not be effective enough? There'd still be hundreds of thousands (as claimed by various quarters) of people in yellow sitting down at various locations in town, in protest of the severely corrupted system in our country. Is that not good enough? Like I said, from the aerial shots, they were powerful. 

I couldn't be any more certain than the next person to say that the rally might turn out differently if people sit down just at those different meeting points. But at that moment, it was serenely calm. If we could just sit down there and then, do we still need to march to the already heavily barricaded square for the sit-down? 

At the end of the day, there are many ways to skin a cat. And of course, things are always easier or making more sense in hindsight. 

But I'm sure of one thing, the quest for change for the better must not stop, should not stop and will never be stopped. 

Go yellow!