I wanted to write some thoughts down about Ops Lalang, today being its anniversary. I find I can’t say anything that hasn’t already been said by those more able and closer to the events of those days. It’s been about 18 years since Ops Lalang by my reckoning. I was barely a teen and only interested in badminton and comics from the Sunday Star, which was I noticed it missing at the time.
I don’t know if the memory of Ops Lalang remains a rallying point for anti-ISA activists, or just plain normal folks who think giving the government the wherewithal to lock you up without question is wrong. Do Malaysians even bother, these days?
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t remember Ops Lalang at all. It just doesn’t form part of my memories of those days. I wasn’t as obsessed about politics then as I am now, I suppose, and more’s the pity. It became a non-event for me, and straddling as I am between a generation that grew up under the spectre of the ISA and a generation that grew up on a staple diet of MTV music videos, I find my position in the larger scheme of things rather disturbing.
I suppose old events fade like a bad stain over time: a residue of memory lodged deep in the collective consciousness, but slowly fading like a candle burning down to its roots. Here’s to the 106 arrested and held without recourse to the most basic of rights. I just hope more people would remember.
