The seeds of modern online activism

Websites that provided much of the reformasi opinions and information at the time were the two Maha’s: Mahazalim, and Mahafiraun.

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By Raja Ahmad Shahrir

Life is a full cycle, a journey of arriving at the beginning after circling through the infinite. History repeats itself, and thus we witness that the Reformasi movement is now reincarnated as Reformasi 2.0.

With the PKR polls going on now and party democracy in full swing, it is time to revisit the reformasi movement’s fledgling support to maintain it’s momentum back then.

The origins of the reformasi movement, of course, lies with the launch of reformasi back in 1998. Due to extensive restrictions on media and on political activism back then, to a large extent, the momentum had to be kept going through unseen hands.

This was the birth of anonymous “journalism”, the beginning of Malaysia’s online political activism.

It was not just a means of passing news, events, updates, but as a means of sharing hope, motivation, laughter and camaraderie.

It was difficult to follow events in Malaysia during the start of the reformasi movement as internet existed only a couple of years earlier.

There were no templates for websites, rather the laborious effort of HTML programming for each shade of colour, size of font, requiring 5-6 hours of uploading and downloading patience.

Blogs did not exist, and social media, Facebook, tweets were long time coming. There was no Astro, and Cable TV with five channels afforded a mild luxury from the autonomy of mainstream media.

The reformasi movement triggered an online explosion of support, which led to the first organised large scale protest movement. A couple of months later, over 50 pro-reformasi websites were created.

Websites that provided much of the reformasi opinions and information at the time were the two Maha’s: Mahazalim, and Mahafiraun.

Despite initially having other notable websites like Dot Moi, the momentum to continue did not last and there were no other significant online information sources for locals or those overseas, and it was easy to fall into the mainstream arguments at the time.

Mahazalim was a basic website with news and opinion pieces related to the events, demonstrations and updates on the Anwar Ibrahim court cases. Many articles were in fact submitted by ordinary citizens and uploaded to the website.

Mahafiraun was similar, but included satire and lampoons of leaders at the time. To design and develop numerous cartoonish caricature would have taken up an incredible amount of effort in those days.

The two Maha’s were extremely popular. While internet penetration was at it’s infancy, perhaps 10% at the time, (cf now it’s 67%) the two websites enjoyed unique views of more than 100,000 and 40,000 daily respectively.

At its 1999 peak, Mahazalim or Laman Reformasi site received more than five million visits, protesters went online like ‘ducks taking to water‘.

Because of restrictions on internet access, the slow dial in speed at the time, and limited internet availability, information did not reach many people via this channel.

Since the early months of reformasi, information reached people without internet access by means of faxes, CDs, print-outs, photocopies, letters and word of mouth.

Many employees in private sector offices started to print articles from these websites, and brought back printouts to the kampungs for their parents to read as an alternative to mainstream media.

At the time, Malay support for reformasi was at it’s peak. Informal sources and post the fact election results put Malay support anywhere between from 55%-70% depending on the area.

And it was mainly attributed to the anger felt by the rakyat at the time and to some extent the persistent and almost real time distribution of information via the “balik kampung” movement.

These websites either had runners or excited volunteers on the ground. Accounts of demonstrations and ceramahs were uploaded speedily, and many were personal accounts of these events. Even speeches of student organized programs overseas, whether in remote areas such as Lampeter, Wales or happening London or Dublin were quickly reported.

In the UK, the Malaysian Muslim student NGO’s were divided to three main groups, PAS’ Hizbi, the Ikhwan inspired JIM, and ABIM. Each group had their followers and a different mindset and approach to propagating to students.

Each to their own, but during the reformasi period, the three NGO’s decided to combine forces to support the same cause.

One such program was a ‘mega’ summer camp in Lampeter, Wales. The amazing thing about the event was that less than an hour after the speech by the guest speaker the event was captured in an update in Mahafiraun.

The government was also proactive then, the Malaysian Student Department in London organised a talk by the then PM, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, attended by students and wage earners from all over UK.

One of the participants, a young Malay graduate, made quite a scene when he demanded, with a straight face, that Mahathir immediately resign as PM. Again this event was instantly captured online and became sensational coffee shop news.

Online activism was a definitely a major force in continuing the reformasi agenda then. The activism was from the rakyat, and will, in various media, continue to be from the rakyat in the future.

This article is dedicated to the memories of arwah Adlan Benan Omar, the first Cantab Director. He was one of a kind, and a mentor to many.

Raja Ahmad Shahrir is Research Associate at Institute Rakyat, a think tank affiliated with PKR. He tweets at @RajaShahrir