I try to read (and finish) at least a book a month. That is a slow, given there are hundreds of titles in my to-be-read list. So long is the list, that I have stopped updating them altogether, realizing keeping track of my appetite is a futile exercise. But when We Are Marching Now by Danny Lim came out, I put it right into the list and bought it when the author launched his book at Central Market in downtown Kuala Lumpur. I paused my current read—Bill Hayton’s The South China Sea, which is about the history of China’s territorial claim in the area—and started going through my latest purchase.
I enjoyed the book. It was an easy read.
While reading it, I struggled to think of similar books published in Malaysia. By similar, I mean a book in the style of investigative journalism. There is Billion Dollar Whale but that is not a Malaysian publication, though it is about the country. While I have not read it, Money Logging by Lukas Straumann is another. I have not read too many investigative genre myself. My last read before Billion Dollar Whale was Bob Woodward’s The Agenda about the Clinton administration.
I might be wrong, but it does look like We Are Marching Now is one of its kind, as far as Malaysian publication is concerned. If not, then it has to be a very rare breed at the very least. That makes it refreshing within the context of local publication.
As for the topic of the book itself, I have a short remark: the book is about the genesis of Bersih, understood through various interviews the author had with personalities involved in the early days of the organization. I think the author did a good job weaving the interviews together to form a coherent narrative.
Additionally—others have mentioned this—it is worth highlighting that political parties played a crucial role in making Bersih a success.
I think this is an important point to be remembered by civil activists who value non-partisanship above everything else. It is not easy to gain public support and then corral it towards a cause. More often than not, political parties excel at that, more than anyone else. Yes, party politics are messy and self-interested. Events in the past two or more years have been nothing but angering. But when it is done right, these parties could be a powerful force for good, as in the case of Bersih.
I have been to all of the Bersih protests, and here, I want to leave you with, possibly, the favorite of mine, out of thousands I snapped from those protests:
