Explaining economic growth...

Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/macro/penis-size-economic-growth

Penis size and economic growth (UPDATES)

Yeah, there's an economic study for that.

Thomas MuchaJuly 18, 2011 11:12

A Roman statue of Venus and Mars is displayed at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's office on Nov. 18, 2010 after being restored. Mars got a new penis and Venus a new hand under orders from the Italian leader. (Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images)

Adam Smith had a penis, but to my knowledge, the world's most famous economist never wrote about it.

But his seminal work on economics, The Wealth of Nations, is so 1776.

Today, thanks to the world wide web and Google, those interested in either (or both) penis sizes and the global economy can find economic paperswith titles like this: Male Organ and Economic Growth: Does Size Matter?

(More from GlobalPost: Penis sizes worldwide: Yeah, there's a map for that)

Written by Tatu Westling at the Helsinki Center for Economic Research (and, yes, we're fact-checking), here's the paper's abstract:

This paper explores the link between economic development and penile length between 1960 and 1985. It estimates an augmented Solow model utilizing the Mankiw-Romer-Weil 121 country dataset. The size of male organ is found to have an inverse U-shaped relationship with the level of GDP in 1985. It can alone explain over 15% of the variation in GDP. The GDP maximizing size is around 13.5 centimetres, and a collapse in economic development is identified as the size of male organ exceeds 16 centimetres. Economic growth between 1960 and 1985 is negatively associated with the size of male organ, and it alone explains 20% of the variation in GDP growth. With due reservations it is also found to be more important determinant of GDP growth than country's political regime type. Controlling for male organ slows convergence and mitigates the negative effect of population growth on economic development slightly. Although all evidence is suggestive at this stage, the `male organ hypothesis' put forward here is robust to exhaustive set of controls and rests on surprisingly strong correlations.

Here's the paper's money chart:

Hat tips to Business Insider and Paul Kedrosky at Infectious Greed.

Update:

I had a brief email conversation this afternoon with the author of the paper, Tatu Westling. Here's a rough transcript:

Is this a serious economic study or a lighthearted parody?

It started as a half-serious attempt, but frankly speaking I did not expect the correlations to be so robust as they turned out to be. Hence the seriousness increased as the study proceeded, and I may submit it to an economics journal at some point. But seriousness does not imply that I believe in causality at this point.

How and why did you decide to cover this particular topic?

I saw the online "world penis size map" by accident, and immediately recognized an economic narrative. The paper resulted from pure curiosity to assess this peculiar link.

What reactions have you received from your colleagues and others about the paper?

Reactions have been both amused and serious. The latter means that some have speculated whether there is actually some causality or are the links completely spurious. It might evidently be either way.

What is the most surprising or interesting thing you learned about this subject?

The most perplexing issue was that the negative relationship between 1960-1985 growth rates and male organ was so robust in statistical sense, and even survived the region and polity controls.

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Related article: http://www.periscopepost.com/2011/07/the-bigger-a-countrys-average-penis-length-the-smaller-the-rate-of-gdp-growth/

The bigger a country’s average penis length, the smaller the rate of GDP growth

Size does matter: New research insists there is a link between a country’s average penile length and its rate of GDP growth.

Photo credit: Tatu Westling of the University of Helsinki, Finland.

There is a strong correlation between a country’s GDP growth rate and average penile length. That’s according to new research undertaken by the University of Helsinki’s Tatu Westling, who explored the link between economic development in 121 countries and penile length between 1960 and 1985 in his report “Male Organ and Economic Growth: Does Size Matter?” The findings? When it comes to GDP growth, big is not necessarily better. Average is best. To be precise, 13.5 centimetres is the “GDP maximising size.”

Westling reported that countries that averaged smaller penis sizes grew at a faster rate than their larger rivals. Every centimetre increase in penis size accounted for a 5 to 7 percent reduction in economic growth. The study also revealed that overall GDP was at its highest in countries with average-sized penises. GDP falls away at the extremes of penis length, noted the report.

For the record, the country with the largest average penile length of the 121 studied was Zaire (17.93 centimetres). South Korea possessed the smallest average penile length – 9.66 centimetres. View all the data here.

• Top-line findings. “The size of male organ is found to have an inverse U-shaped relationship with the level of GDP in 1985,” insisted the report’s abstract. “It can alone explain over 15% of the variation in GDP. The GDP maximizing size is around 13.5 centimetres, and a collapse in economic development is identified as the size of male organ exceeds 16 centimetres. Economic growth between 1960 and 1985 is negatively associated with the size of male organ, and it alone explains 20% of the variation in GDP growth. With due reservations it is also found to be more important determinant of GDP growth than country’s political regime type.”

“Somewhat surprisingly, male organ was a stronger determinant of economic development than country’s political regime type at the Polity IV autocracy democracy spectrum,” marvelled the report.

• Some fast-growing countries may be compensating for something. “The opening question to most undergraduate macroeconomics courses usually is, ‘Why are some countries rich and others poor?’ The lecturer will then probably dive into all of the usual suspects behind economic growth – natural resources, technological innovation, savings rate – without mention of perhaps the most primal of measurements: penis size,” joked Dino Grandoni at The Atlantic Wire, who dug down into the apparent link: “Penile length and income are both factors that contribute to an individual’s level of self-esteem, and if a person has more of the former, he’ll need less of the latter. Or, to put it in layman’s terms, some fast-growing countries may be compensating for something.”

• Feasible policy recommendations? Even the report questioned the practical helpfulness of the findings: “For obvious reasons the male organ narrative yields little in terms of feasible policy recommendations. Beyond mass [im]migration, not much can be done on the average size of male organ at the population level. Still, one practical and serious implication stands out. Namely, these findings spell trouble for countries with large male organs since they evidence both low levels and growth rates of GDPs.”

Malaysia c.bank head calls for need to rein in inflation - Reuters

Source:http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/25/malaysia-economy-idUKL3E7IP0GW20110725

Malaysia c.bank head calls for need to rein in inflation

KUALA LUMPUR, July 25 | Mon Jul 25, 2011 10:39am BST

(Reuters) - Malaysia's central bank governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz on Monday said the country needs to keep a check on the rising rate of inflation as it would undermine its future prospects.

"We have to rein in inflation," Zeti told reporters on the sidelines of a central bank function. "This is something we really want to address so that it doesn't undermine our future prospects."

The central bank had earlier forecast inflation to average 2.5-3.5 percent for the year.

Malaysian annual inflation touched a 27-month high at 3.5 percent in June, reinforcing expectations of a rate hike in the next monetary policy meeting in September.

Bank Negara surprisingly held interest rates steady at 3 percent in its last policy meeting on July 7 as it braced for growth to slow.

However, some economists expect a rate increase of at least 25 basis points as strong demand and high energy prices keep inflation elevated.

"The rate of inflation - it's now 3.5 percent - has increased and this is largely due to very high energy and commodity prices," Zeti said, adding that high inflation would erode domestic purchasing power.

"It has resulted in higher food and fuel prices, which are very much felt as they are important components in our consumption basket."

Zeti has been credited for overseeing key policy developments such as being the first Asian central bank to lift borrowing costs in 2010 to keep a lid on inflation. (Reporting by Purwa Naveen Raman; Writing by Min Hun Fong; Editing by Ramya Venugopal)

Source: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/07/27/the-ghosts-of-mahathirism/

The ghosts of Mahathirism

Stanley Koh

| July 27, 2011

Is Mahathirism back with a vengeance?

Recent events do make it seem like the Najib regime has decided to adopt the former prime minister’s authoritarian style in saving its flagging political fortunes. It has resorted to using draconian laws and shameless propaganda in the face of an awakening electorate and increasing exposures of its misdeeds.

The government seems to have ignored the strong signal given by the 2008 election result that Malaysians want more democratic space. And what was Bersih 2.0’s July 9 rally if not a reaffirmation of that demand?

But instead of using the occasion to promote his much-vaunted liberalist image, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak seemed to have done what Dr Mahathir Mohamad would have done—crush them and damn what the world says.

After May 13, 1969, Mahathir ominously proclaimed: “There is not going to be a democracy in Malaysia. There never was and there never will be.” He was speaking then as a critic of the government, but during his 22-year tenure as prime minister, he seemed to have applied himself to ensuring that his prediction would be realised.

Khoo Boo Teik, in his Paradoxes of Mahathirism, wrote: “Certainly Mahathir did not balk at using authoritarian means to restore his control over mass dissent in October 1987. Then he professed to lament the irresponsibility of misfits who had abused his liberalism, not unlike how, after May 13, 1969, he spoke of the immaturity of the people as an obstacle to the full practice of democracy.”

The Mahathir era witnessed the full exploitation of repressive laws, notably the Internal Security Act and the Police Act. The latter law requires police permits for public gatherings. This condition was stringently enforced against opposition groups but ignored for government parties. Things have not changed.

Mahathir’s government amended the Societies Act in 1981 and the Official Secrets Act in 1986 to constrict further the arena of public debate. It also consistently exploited its two-thirds majority in Parliament to make constitutional amendments aimed at strengthening its political position.

Money politics

It was also during the Mahathir era that the Malaysian judiciary lost its independence and respectability. Mahathir tried to keep whittling away at that independence even in the last years of his tenure. In 1999, he was quoted as suggesting that the judiciary needed further reform because judges “tend to favour” the opposition.

The practice of “money politics” deepened its roots during the Mahathirism era. Scholars Graham K Brown, Siti Hawa Ali and Wan Manan Muda wrote in their research paper on Policy Levers in Malaysia: “Initially, under the guise of the 1971 promulgated New Economic Policy, the regime developed a fearsome machinery for dispensing patronage to supporters of the government. This money politics involves both state and private funds the BN parties control between them, a massive corporate empire that operates on the individual, corporate and even state level. The abuse of public funds is often unabashed.”

Another defining feature of Mahathir rule was electoral gerrymandering. A Commonwealth observer group invited to oversee the 1990 general election concluded that the conduct of the elections in the country was free but not fair.

Academician Lim Hong Hai, who conducted research on the delineation of electoral constituencies, said regular constitutional re-delineation exercises carried out by the “nominally independent” elections committees invariably favoured the ruling regime.

In the 1999 general election, the BN regime won more than three quarters of the electoral seats on a popular vote of barely 56%. There were allegations of actual fraud during the election, but these have always been difficult to substantiate with proof.

In October 2003, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi succeeded Mahathir, inheriting a governing structure and a political system centralised in the hands of the prime minister. But he promised reforms and, largely on the strength of those promises, helped BN win a landslide victory in the 2004 general election.

But the ghosts of Mahathirism got the better of Abdullah. Vested interests in BN, particularly Umno, prevented him from delivering on those promises. And so he met his Waterloo in 2008.

Leadership blunders

Will Najib repeat the same mistakes? Before Bersih 2.0, many used to argue that Najib, born a snake according to the Chinese horoscope, was unlikely to commit the same leadership blunders, despite the limited success of his 1Malaysia campaign and widespread criticism surrounding his “transformation from within” rhetoric.

However, his handling of the Bersih issue has changed that perception somewhat. In the age of the social media, it is indeed a major mistake to resurrect the ghosts of Mahathirism, which thrived on government propaganda aimed at an electorate that had little access to alternative information.

The glossary of words used in Internet discussions about the anti-Bersih operation are telling: “demonise, discredit, doublespeak, double standards, draconian detention”.

Najib has failed in the leadership test, principally because of his failure to exorcise the ghosts Mahathirism.

Should we allow our nation to be made the laughing stock of the 21st century by our dependence on the communist bogey to silence dissent and by our use of black ink to censor articles widely available on the Internet?

Ironically, the one way we can escape ridicule is by following an advice given by Mahathir himself. In a press interview in 1995, he said the only form of censure he found acceptable for an elected government was its replacement through an election. “Hence, if they prefer another government, they are welcome to it.”

The choice is yours, Malaysians.

Stanley Koh is a former head of MCA’s research unit. He is also an FMT columnist.

UKM Don: Gold as Currency is Not Flawless

Source: http://www.ukm.my/news/index.php/en/extras/794-ukm-don-gold-as-currency-is-not-flawless.html

By Shahfizal Musa

Pics by Hairul Azmi Mohd Jahid

BANGI, 21 Julai – Using gold as currency is not free from weaknesses as it has many disadvantages, a UKM economics Professor said today.

Prof Dr Mansor Jusoh from the Faculty of Economics and Management giving his inaugural lecture on “Losing Control of Money: Financial Stability and Inflation Control” said because gold is a commodity it could be taken out of circulation for profiteering and that would result in increases of its price.

This will cause deflation and even worse resulting in the lack of currency for trading.

“These two situation will not help to handle a crisis but only will make it worse. The gold currency do not ensure financial stability or price stability and is prone to deflation,” he said.

Right now the money in use is valued using the floating exchange rate mechanism or fiat money where the money issued by the government of a nation is declared as legal tender and thus accepted for trade. This is where the value of currencies is determined by market forces.

In a fiat financial system, there is no restrain on the amount of money that can be created thus allowing for unlimited credit creation whereas using gold as currency, the amount of money available for circulation is limited by the amount of gold that is available in a particular country.

Islamic scholars and intellectuals have urged the world to go back to using gold as currency because it was recognised as the financial system that is more stable and practiced during the time of Prophet Muhammad.

But Prof Mansor said that using gold as currency is also not an Islamic system.

“Before the time of Islam, the Arabs of Mecca and Medina had been using gold and silver which were introduced by the Romans and the Persians. Islam came and continued with the use of that currency without any changes,” he said.

He said the fiat monetary system if accompanied by sound policy implementation, can in principle ensure price stability. He argued that the perception of fiat money is the cause of usury by some Muslim is misleading .

“This view is not accurate. Usury does not originate from the fiat system. Usury had already existed even in the times of prophets Jesus (Isa) and Muhammad and the currency that is used then was gold and silver,” he said.

Based on economic consideration, it is difficult to imagine any country that would switch the present system to the gold system which have failed in the past. It do not ensure price stability and can force the government of a country to give up its control on currencies when its value could be determined by the international commodity market.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Tan Sri Dato’ Wira Dr Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin, Deans of Faculties, senior universities officials, lecturers and students attended the lecture.

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Total revamp of local varsities needed, says don

Source: http://www.freemalaysiakini.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=16514&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Total revamp of local varsities needed, says don Tuesday, July 19 @ 07:33:02 CDT

Syed Farid Alattas says the real problems lie in poor administration run by inefficient staff. A Malaysian professor of sociology in Singapore left no stone unturned when asked about the status of universities in the country. The real problems confronting local institutions, in the eyes of prominent academic Syed Farid Alattas, lie in poor administration run by inefficient staff. These include lack of autonomy for university administrators and hiring of staff and professors without proper credentials, which all lead to poor standards, he said. The immediate remedy to this problem, he added, is a total revamp of the university system, which includes replacing all the vice-chancellors. Other remedies, he offered, include introducing a system of tenure and rewards for deserving professors, and curriculum reviews. Syed Farid (left), who teaches at the National University of Singapore (NUS), said if local institutions are not prepared for an overhaul, they would never be ready no matter how long it takes. “Because once you start initiating a new system, heads will roll, people will lose their jobs, they will be stuck, they will not be promoted because they do not deserve promotion. People will be angry,” he said in an interview with Malaysiakini. “Of course, we do not want to fire people and disturb people's ability to make a living, but slowly we have to introduce a system where the right people are promoted and rewarded and those who are not, will not be promoted. Slowly we need to weed out the deadwood,” he added. Syed Farid was responding to the ranking of public higher learning institutions in Malaysia, which have suffered in the past to the point of dropping out of the top 200 universities in the QS World University Rankings last year. Syed Farid was in Penang recently and participated as a speaker at the International conference on 'Decolonising Our Universities', organised by Universiti Sains Malaysia and Citizens International. The three-day conference heard various papers presented by top-notch academics in the region, from Iran to China, on the topics of decolonisation - Western emphasis on knowledge - in various aspects, especially university education. 'Two tier problem in Malaysian varsities' Syed Farid went on to say that Malaysian universities have a two-tier problem - they have not dealt with the issue of decolonisation and worse still, low standards. He said there has to be strong directives from the (Higher Education) Ministry that standards must be maintained and then, allow the university administrators to do their jobs. But why isn't this happening? Syed Farid said that one can only speculate that in various sectors, not only education, the government has not been performing as efficiently as it should. The more conspiratorial theories, he added, would suggest that the government is not really keen in developing education because it has to deal with the intellectual class, who are independent-minded and critical of policies. Asked if a change of leadership in Putrajaya would address the deteriorating state of Malaysian education, Syed Farid said this would merely be a response to the problem. “Whether they (a new government) would be able to do things differently was another matter,” he added. On whether there was still a chance for the government to initiate internal reforms, Syed Farid said he was rather pessimistic about it. “From within Umno and Barisan Nasional, the entrenched interests are too strong. I do not think they have the right people in the bureaucracy, or in the civil service,” he said. “We need a total overhaul. We really need a competent civil service, which will remain regardless of who is the government,” he added. On the question of racial quota, Syed Farid said Malaysia was facing a “dangerous trend” where eventually the best universities would be private and foreign. “We have the worst of all worlds. Standards have deteriorated, our graduates are not articulate in any language,” he said. 'Education seen as purely functional' “Education is not seen as an end in itself, it is seen as something purely functional. But even then, if it is purely functional, it should be of high standards, which we don't have,” he added. On the issue of eurocentrism, Syed Farid cited his own personal experience where he had studied in an American university and now teaches in Singapore, a eurocentric university, “if you will”. But he is conscious of the problem, he says. “At least I know my students are getting a decent education in terms of academic standards. I have the freedom in NUS to talk about eurocentrism or decolonisation of the mind. I am not restricted from doing that,” he added. “There is non-interference from the government, that there is an academic freedom to talk about eurocentrism and other kinds of biasness, for example, there is a male bias in universities as well, not just the problem of eurocentrism,” he stressed. In Malaysia, however, several restrictions on freedom of expression are placed on academics and students, the most obvious being the Universities and University Colleges Act and 'Aku Janji' (I pledge) which prevents the community from political participation. Syed Farid said that academic restriction is not an Islamic tradition although it happens in a Muslim country like Malaysia. “In this sense, the problem is not due to eurocentrism, in European and American universities, there is freedom of expression. So it can be good to be eurocentric in this way,” he quipped.

Gov't feels threatened, says Marina

Source: http://www.freemalaysiakini.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=16435&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Gov't feels threatened, says Marina Monday, July 18 @ 07:44:12 CDT Since the 2008 GE losses, they have been in a state of total panic and they can’t think clearly at all, says the activist. The Malaysian government feels threatened, is in a total state of panic and cannot think clearly, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's eldest daughter Marina Mahathir says. “They do feel threatened because they underestimated Bersih in 2007 and then in the 2008 general election, they lost a lot of seats in Parliament and the state assemblies. "And since then, they have been in a state of total panic and they can't think clearly at all. Now they are obsessed about how to win them back. “You can win back people just by being nice. You can't win back people by being nasty. You can't say that those people who marched are hooligans. Maybe there was a handful, not all of them. "The majority of them were professionals. The group was so diverse and it was really one Malaysia - young, rich, poor of every race, creed and every religion,” she told Malaysiakiniin an exclusive interview. On July 9, Marina (right) took part in the Bersih 2.0 protest, with her daughter and friends. They started from near Jalan Pudu (Berjaya Times Square) and walked along Jalan Hang Jebat (formerly Davidson Road) in front of Stadium Negara towards the Olympics Council of Malaysia building, where she encountered other friends. She added that the people who marched were proud of the Bersih 2.0 movement. “I may not agree with your cause but you did a really good thing. We all became One Malaysia. “Now, they are labelling us all sorts of names and let me tell you that they have lost all these votes. They may think they have lost them anyway, but let me tell you that there were a lot of people sitting on the fence and they have definitely gone to the other side. I see this clearly in the social media, especially email, on Twitter and in the blogs.” Marina explained that the July 9 march had dented the image of the government and would obviously affect the ruling party “from the all the stupid statements that they are making and have been made by the government officials”. She added: “Imagine saying that the police fired into the Tung Shin Hospital to protect the patients. It does not make sense. Again, they cannot think clearly and it is having an effect on the government. “The prime minister came to give a briefing to 6,000 people the following day after July 9. If you are constantly surrounded by people who are telling you that you are wonderful and you are right, you are not going to get a true picture of what happened. You have to go and talk to people with different, not mutual views. “If they refuse to listen to the people, the government leaders are going to be cocooned in complacency. And they are going to react in absolutely the wrong way.”

Shamsul Amri: Isu Bersih munasabah, Putrajaya pula guna taktik Perang Dingin - Malaysian Insider

Source: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/bahasa/article/shamsul-amri-isu-bersih-munasabah-putrajaya-pula-guna-taktik-perang-dingin/

Shamsul Amri: Isu Bersih munasabah, Putrajaya pula guna taktik Perang Dingin

Oleh G Manimaran dan Debra Chong

July 11, 2011

Shamsul Amri Baharuddin (kiri) ketika sesi dialog pada majlis pelancaran kajian bertemakan ‘Nilai, Impian dan Ideal: Belia Muslim di Asia Tenggara’ di Bangi hari ini. Bersama beliau ialah Ibrahim Suffian (paling kanan). – Foto oleh Choo Choy May

BANGI, 11 Julai - Sementara isu-isu dibawa Bersih adalah “munasabah”, pentadbiran Najib tidak lagi boleh menggunakan taktik era Perang Dingin dalam berhadapan dengan bangkangan dan menguruskan aspek sekuriti negara, kata Datuk Dr Shamsul Amri Baharuddin.

Sehubungan itu jelas profesor Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, musuh Barisan Nasional (BN) bukan lagi komunis yang bergerak dari hutan, tetapi pergerakan madani yang mempunyai kesedaran politik yang meningkat.

“Saya mengatakan poin bahawa perikatan yang memerintah masih berurusan menggunakan cara traditional, yang menggunakan konsep Perang Dingin, kita bukan berurusan dengan komunis,” kata beliau.

Oleh itu kata beliau, pentadbiran Najib perlu beralih daripada pendekatan tradisional kepada bukan traditional, yang menurutnya mempunyai lima komponen iaitu tenaga atau kuasa, air, makanan, kesihatan dn pendidikan.

“Kesemua lima komponen bersepadu antara satu sama lain... ini yang diabaikan, bukan lagi soal sekuriti tradisional,” kata Shamsul Amri ketika ditemui selepas majlis pelancaran kajian bertemakan “Nilai, Impian dan Ideal: Belia Muslim di Asia Tenggara” dikendalikan bersama oleh Merdeka Center, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Goethe Institut Malaysia dan Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom di sini hari ini.

Susulan Bersih pertama tahun 2007, perhimpunan Bersih 2.0 diadakan di ibu negara di sebalik tahap keselamatan ketat.

Penganjur Bersih 2.0 mendakwa telah dapat menghimpunkan 50,000 orang, tetapi angka ini dinafikan oleh Ketua Polis Negara Tan Sri Ismail Omar yang mengatakan hanya sekitar 6,000.

Seminggu sebelum itu Putrajaya mengisytiharkan Bersih 2.0 yang dianggotai 62 pertubuhan bukan kerajaan sebagai satu badan haram manakala segala lambang dan barang terbitan membawa mesej Bersih 2.0 juga diumumkan sebagai haram.

Berkaitan dengan perhimpunan ini juga lima pemimpin Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) termasuk Ahli Parlimen Sungai Siput ditahan di bawah Ordinan Darurat atas dakwaan cuba menghidupkan kembali fahaman komunis.

Shamsul Amri, yang terkenal sebagai penganalisis politik di lokal dan global diajukan soalan mengenai cara kerajaan khususnya pihak berkuasa polis menangani perhimpunan Bersih 2.0 di ibu negara Sabtu lalu.

Dalam pandangannya, Shamsul Amri, ahli akademi jurusan sosiologi dan pengasas Institut Kajian Etnik berkata, isu-isu yang dibawa oleh Bersih 2.0 adalah sesuatu yang munasabah.

“Isu-isu yang diketengahkan oleh Bersih 2.0 adalah isu-isu yang sah dalam Perlembagaan Persekutuan, dan ini isu-isu yang berterusan, dari segi kebebasan berhimpun dan bersuara.

“Ia satu perkara yang berterusan dan ia tidak akan berakhir di sini,” kata beliau lagi.

Malangnya kata beliau, kerajaan yang memerintah ketinggalan zaman dan sangat perlahan dalam memberikan respons kepada isu-isu yang wujud.

“Mereka sudah begitu biasa dengan respons ketika zaman Perang Dingin,” kata beliau.

Katanya, jika anda meneliti manual latihan sama ada polis ataupun tentera, ia sama seperti yang digunakan ketika era darurat.

Dalam komennya beliau juga mempersoalkan pendirian pasukan keselamatan menangani perhimpunan aman.

“Apabila publik mengadakan demonstrasi di depan Kedutaan Amerika Syarikat sebelum ini, mengenai isu Palestin, adakah polis datang? Tidak. Jadi, mengapa mereka datang sekarang (Sabtu lalu)?” kata beliau.

Mengenai tindakan Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak mengadakan pertemuan dengan pemimpin-pemimpin bahagian dan pertubuhan bukan kerajaan semalam, kata beliau, mereka bertindak cepat kali ini.

“Beliau (Najib) akan lebih banyak melakukan perkara ini,” katanya lagi.

Ketika ditanya mengenai kelahiran ikon-ikon baru ekoran perhimpunan Bersih 2.0 seperti Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan dan Sasterawan Negara Datuk A. Samad Said, Shamsul Amri berkata: “Ikon adalah ikon.”

“Mereka tidak memberi kesan ke atas perubahan kecuali mereka bertanding dalam pilihan raya dan menang... Datuk Ambiga tanding di Kuala Lumpur,” katanya.

“Pada akhirnya, ia berkenaan dengan menterjemahkan dalam bentuk undi,” kata beliau menjawab soalan sama ada perhimpunan Bersih 2.0 akan memberi kesan ke atas keputusan pilihan raya umum ke-13 kelak sebagaimana disaksikan pada 2007/2008.

Pilihan raya umum ke-12 2008 diadakan beberapa bulan selepas Bersih 2007.

Sehubungan itu Shamsul Amri juga berkata, trend pengundian negara ini akan dipengaruhi oleh corak kempen dalam tempoh berkempen.

Beliau juga mengakui bahawa mesej yang diperoleh daripada perhimpunan Bersih 2.0 ialah kesedaran publik bahawa mereka berkuasa dalam menentukan arah aliran pembaharuan dalam kerajaan.

“Bagi mereka, saya boleh mengundi untuk memilih siapa saya mahukan. Sekarang saya boleh mengatakan apa saya mahukan?” katanya.

“Persoalan di sini ialah sama ada terdapat ruang publik untuk saya melakukan yang ini,” katanya lagi sambil menambah, “jawapanya ialah ya dan tidak.”

“Mereka boleh melakukan, tetapi bukan di jalan raya, tetapi di kawasan lain,” jelas beliau yang turut meramalkan bahawa akan ada lebih banyak perhimpunan dan perarakan seperti yang disaksikan Sabtu lalu.

“Ini bukan yang terakhir. Ini bukan tentang soal bangkangan. Orang ramai sudah mula berani, tetapi juga rasional dan munasabah,” kata beliau.