The other day my mum who was reading news alerts on her mobile asked me, "Hei have you heard about this festival - 'Seksualiti Merdeka'......?" And I was like: "Seksualiti what....??" Then I promptly googled it and oh then I knew! My first reaction? I was mighty impressed that we actually have such a festival here and wondered how come I never knew about it before this. I'm sure a lot of you out there are hearing about Seksualiti Merdeka for the first time too.
But imagine this guys, if the powers that be didn't go all frothy at the mouth and decide to ban it, would the majority of us even know about this annual sexuality rights festival that has been around since 2008? Now not only city folks know all about Seksualiti Merdeka, even those in Baling......where is that again? Are up in arms about this event which they fear will encourage more gayness in society......well people will always delude themselves silly if they want to.
So what's gonna happen now? Marina is threatening to sue, Ambiga says Malaysians have no shame, like we ever did! Anwar mulled it over and decided not to lend his support (can we blame him?), the NGO heads are busy having their statements recorded (we put too much trust in police statements in this country) and giving press conferences to the press whose duty is to lap up everything and report everything. The supporters will get more ardent and the haters will get more hateful. God only knows which animal's head or body part they will decide to kick around this time. Naturally not the "haram" one coz it's too "haram" right?
The Verdict?
Remember Bersih 2.0?? despite all the opposition it went ahead and got the message across. And a few months later the unthinkable happened.........we are staring at the prospect of an ISA-less Malaysia. Well Seksualiti Merdeka might face more of a challenge than Bersih coz as much as we love freedom, we can't stand it when people are different and actually have the nerve to flaunt their difference. But love them or hate them - Seksualiti Merdeka is here to stay. You can ban their events, but you can't stop them from spreading the message of Education not Recruitment! Why? Because there's this platform called social media that has even brought down governments......remember Egypt?
Seksualiti Merdeka is on the net. Check out their blog and mayhaps you will be more informed and less threatened?
http://www.seksualitimerdeka.org/ |
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