Bad for business? It's a money-spinner: SALAM BERSIH!

When I first read the “traders/businesspersons association” (or whatever the fancy name is) call on the Bersih 2.0 organizers to call-off the rally because it might get unruly and disrupt their business, I was shocked, for two reasons.

Firstly, it appeared that these poor, naive souls were under the impression that it was the BERSIH 2.0 organizers that fired water cannons, launched tear gas, and beat people up with batons.

No wonder they were so terrified – wouldn’t you be, if you thought the upholders of law, and defenders of rights and champions of democracy, and fervent believers in our Federal Constitution actually drove big, frightening tanks and shot stinging rounds of water bombs on ordinary citizens, or raised their arms and thwacked down with all their might at those peacefully walking for fundamental liberties?

It sounds terrifying! Nobody would want that happening!

The good news is, dear traders/businesspersons, you can actually stop all unruly, violent acts from being realized! You see, the persons you should be sending your pleas to are not the harmless Bersih 2.0 lot, but rather the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Police – all of whom hold the power to turn a peaceful march from getting a bit out of hand, thereby disrupting your precious businesses.

So, if you’d like very much to have thousands of people walk by your shops (read: POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS), and not have things get all messy and maybe rowdy, please send your comments to those powerful people, and ask them not to have water cannons/tear gas/batons/roadblocks, etc in KL on the 9th of July. I’m pretty sure since you are all pretty powerful yourselves (you ARE after all *business* people – our government’s favourite kind of people!), you can actually make this happen.

Secondly, I was shocked for this reason – I’m not a business person, but I thought that the true spirit of a business person is to look for opportunities everywhere! If there’s a big concert, I would expect throngs of little vendors to set up outside the stadium. It only makes sense – thousands of people going to concert = thousands of potential customers.

So, you can understand now why I’d be shocked that our Malaysian ‘traders/businesspersons’ weren’t so savvy to seize on the hundreds of thousands people the BERSIH 2.0 folks are calling on. The only rationale I can think of is that they were temporarily crippled mentally by their irrational fear that these people are actually thugs – but since we’ve sorted that out (see paragraph above), I hope their business minds will start going ka-ching!

Now, to get them started, I’ve put together a short list of potentially profitable items to stock up on.

Potential business-savvy ideas:

Things rally-walkers may need

1. Yellow umbrellas

2. Bottled water

3. Fizzy drinks (apparently helps with the stinging tear gas/water cannons)

4. Toothpaste (see above)

5. Yellow raincoats

6. Yellow boots

7. Yellow t-shirts

8. Pay-phones (to call lawyers – in case mobile phone networks are jammed)

9. Yellow caps (or even hardhats)

10. The Malaysian flag

Other fun/relevant items:

1. Yellow flowers (i.e. chrysanthemums)

2. Yellow cleaning gloves

3. MyConsti “Know Your Rights” brochure

4. Bar Council’s “What to do when you’re arrested” RedBook

5. Roti jala (hey, all that walking/running gets you hungry. And it’s yellow!)

6. ...(feel free to add on!)

So there you have it! Good ol’ traders/businesspersons, now that you’ve seen the light, start writing to all those powerful people, and ask them to make sure they don’t deny you a day of good, clean profits at your shops! Wouldn’t that be an act of betrayal!

Salam Bersih!

- Malaysia Chronicle