Dear Mr Tan Keng Liang,
Thank you for your interest in Bersih4 and in my photograph. As the name Bersih plainly says, it is in for a clean fight. For what? Clean elections, clean government and so on. Whether I believe or accept its slogan is another matter entirely.
Now, your Twitter asserts, “This photo (above) circulated in social media to attract ppl to Bersih street demo.” Which is then followed by the question, “U asking ppl fight 4 country or see girl?”
Mr Tan, you already have the answer before even asking the question. So the thing that comes to mind is, what is the point of your asking? In the photo what do you see that prompted your assertion then the question?
Let me answer it for you. What you saw is me, a ‘girl’, who doesn’t seem to fit your idea of Bersih. And why not? What is your idea of the ‘girl’ that seems incompatible with Bersih because you seem to like operating on assumptions.
You assume that such a ‘girl’ can’t take up politics, and if she can’t she has no business wearing the T-shirt. You assume Bersih the organization ‘circulated’ my photo, and in circulating it the organization was therefore promoting itself not the girl. So what’s your idea of me, this ‘girl’ as you see her? It hasn’t occurred to you I had worn it purely out fashion?
Along with your assumptions and your prejudices — of the ‘girl’ — you also suggest that the photo was a lure, a form of deceit luring people onto the streets and not for the expressed purpose mentioned earlier (in the opening lines).
Suppose I grant your assumptions that both Bersih and I are deceitful. How would you answer if the same girl was photographed without showing her midriff? Why do you think that a bare midriff is both incompatible with Bersih and incompatible with a girl in a T-shirt which happens to be printed Bersih? Because I, the girl showed a bare midriff, you are thinking what? It’s dirty? Why do you think so? Your mother has no midriff at which she got a Ceasarian to let you out into this world, soggy, slimy and filthy?
Related: Tan Keng Liang facebook
You see Mr Tan, the problem isn’t in the photo or even the girl or their implied association with Bersih (and this is just implied). The ‘girl’ especially isn’t in question. You are. Your character, your thoughts, your biases are identical to those PAS mullahs, DAP evangelists and those Jakim arseholes deciding other people’s morality.
Suppose, again, I let you in on the argument you are just trying to be political, and so grant you some leeway with your posting the photo and then tar me and Bersih in one stroke. Suppose you aren’t a towel head and so we won’t have to debate the merits of the way I dressed — and it is after all just the way I dressed. You don’t like it? Too bad.
But consider this: Each time politics are at stake, characters like you and your colleagues and the newspapers such as Malaysian Digest (which can’t tell the difference between midrift and midriff) bring in sex and morality and especially this — race. When it was Anwar Ibrahim, they say he was with a Chinese ‘doll’. When it was Najib Razak the police were told they were going to monitor a Chinese-looking girl harassing Baginda Razak. Being Chinese is therefore somebody you can blow up when not spit on.
My bet is this: if you were named, say, Ridhuan Kengliang bin Tan, you would have added the word Chinese to your question: U asking ppl fight 4 country or see Chinese girl? Of course you won’t be alone in your insinuation between immorality and race. Many others have done so before you, Umno ministers, Ahi Attan, Wong Chen, Petra Kamarudin, Helen Ang and so on. Malays are pure, so sweet, innocent and tolerant; Chinese are money grubbing, dirty and racist so that Bersih is quite nearly a contradiction in terms.
I won’t disappoint you in your prejudices and your thoughts. No, I’ll just say this: go fuck your filthy mother.
Sincerely,
Bersih Girl
