IF you're the Malaysian celebration of the mass this, you will have seen what happened during Bersih 3.0. Whether or not you were in Kuala Lumpur upon 28 April, or glued to Facebook or Twitter, you must have encountered images, videos, or reports of the colossal convene which started as the gratifying sit-in as good as finished in rip gas.
The fumes have cleared, though the air is still thick with claims as good as counterclaims. Many have accused the police of excessive force. The police have identified more than 100 suspected lawbreakers during the rally. To contend nothing of the barrier breaching, censorship, political hijacking, presumably UN-approved teargas, as good as unidentifiable policemen.
And afterwards there have been the stories. Stories from extraordinary Malaysians who participated in Bersih 3.0 for different reasons, as good as who encountered different amounts of rip gas. But who all felt the usual incentive to share their observations with the wider community.
So what was the stroke of Bersih 3.0? High-profile statements as good as central turn aside, you believe it's this! common storytelling which will stroke democracy in Malaysia.
Democracy as good as stories
Political scientists have nonetheless to determine upon the definition of democracy. One thing is clear: it's not usually elections. It isn't even usually pure as good as satisfactory elections.
In fact, elections have been the bit of the domestic oddity. Political scientist Benedict Anderson records in The Spectre of Comparisons (1998) which choosing by casting votes "is roughly the usually domestic action imaginable in undiluted solitude". While most forms of domestic appearance engage manifest as good as organic common action, choosing by casting votes is rigid as good as private. At the polls, domestic communities have been fragmented in to particular actors, for the consequence of next to illustration of each individual.
But this illustration has little meaning unless the choices driving it have been built upon great information, as good as unless the representatives have been held accountable to their mandates.
At one extreme, you have elections the curiously constrained though universal partial of democracy. At the other, there have been rallies similar to Bersih 3.0 climactic though mostly polarising moments of domestic participation. And in in between have been the ongoing as good as infrequently unexciting though nevertheless vital discourses which define the domestic sphere.
This is where the Bersih stories come in. We have been witnessing the swell in the series of Malaysians expressing personal opinions in public spaces, since they righteously wish to jot down as good as share the fact which they were there upon 428.
Crucially, these stories do not stand alone. Many writers contend they were desirous to share after celebration of the mass someone else's story. The reader comments upon many accounts of Bersih 3.0 show genuine, if occasionally ! confront ational, engagement with each other's experiences of being Malaysian.
Building bridges
The Bersih stories have been bridges. They bond the systematic symbolism of elections as good as the raw symbolism of mass assemblies with the practical realities of people who have been behind to their everyday lives. Only with more yellow clothing as good as less toleration for some of the nondemocratic norms in the country.
They also bond particular Malaysians. The Bersih 3.0 narratives have come from the humbling variety of people. Seasoned bloggers. First-time protesters. Mothers. The daughter of an FRU officer. And you accept charges of nepotism for this one my cousin, the SEA Games medalist who attended the convene as the medic though was beaten by the police.
This practical post-Bersih show-and-tell is democratic to the core. By pity the stories, you affirm which particular knowledge matters to the incomparable group. That each voice has next to value.
For reasons which domestic scientists also have nonetheless to determine on, Malaysia has seen the lot of bridge-building over the final couple of years. The Mar 2008 elections were pivotal. The results were the startle since no one, not even those who had voted for the opposition, had imagined there were so many others similar to them. After Mar 2008, it got the ! bit easi er to dream together.
Then final Jul you had Bersih 2.0, where the fanciful mixture of Malaysians flooded Twitter with Bersih stories. After the event, images of the lady holding the flower as good as drenched in chemically laced H2O done Anne Ooi the rallying indicate for large netizens who claimed her as their Aunty Bersih.
Global bridges
Here's another key approach in which the Bersih stories have been bridges: they bond Malaysians across the globe. After Bersih 2.0, the steering committee expelled the inform titled "The awakening of the Malaysian diaspora", celebrating the 4,000 abroad Malaysians who came together in 38 cities upon 9 July.
Bersih 3.0 convene in London.
Bersih 3.0 had an even incomparable general presence, reportedly spanning 85 locations in 35 countries. Watching print montages of the Global Bersih 3.0 demonstrations is enough to trigger comfortable fuzzy patriotism, as good as incredulous laughter during the glorious improbability of it all.
This kind of overpass is necessary when you're vital abroad. First, these common social platforms facilitate the logistics for diasporic Malaysian gatherings in the initial place. Second, they allow abroad Malaysians to express their continued stake in the country, as good as to share which articulation with those during home.
Internet bridges
Internet-based media has been key to my own bridge-building experience. Over the final 6 months, you have seen my electoral roll jot down upon the Election Comm! ission website shift from the unchanging choosing by casting votes status, to the unchanging choosing by casting votes standing with the postal voter duplicate in process, as good as afterwards behind to the unchanging choosing by casting votes standing with no acknowledgement of my absent voter application. My IC series afterwards dead utterly from the electoral roll for the couple of weeks.
My original voter registration has nonetheless to reappear in the electoral roll, though during slightest now the website says which my absent voter registration is being gazetted. Throughout this process, support from Facebook friends Malaysian as good as otherwise has kept me from thinking which you am the funny brat for perfectionist my right to vote.
In some ways, there is nothing brand new about communications record formulating the common space for the development of egalitarian inhabitant consciousness. In Imagined Communities (1983), Benedict Anderson argues which the pity of ideas by the printing press is necessary to the development of the "nationally-imagined community".
In Malaysia, the government has always kept the sincerely firm hold upon the print media, stunting the development of the democratic imagined community.
Enter the internet. As Digital News Asia editor A Asohan observes, the disorderly decentralisation creates the practical space for connections, stories as good as truth. Regardless of how most rip gas as good as censorship the government inserts in to the earthy public space.
We have the long approach to go. We need to means the pity of stories as good as reflections beyond the aftermath of the catalytic eventuality by the drawn-out slog for domestic liberties. We need to discuss ways to interpret the tentatively common dreams in to dirty policy solutions. We need to occupy these bridges both defending them as good as stuffing them ! with tra ffic, in the name of the democratic Malaysia. 
Hwa Yue-Yi is the unapproachable Malaysian as good as the demure though carefree product of the internet age.
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