Saturday April 19, 2008

One posting on Facebook drew 1,000 to take part in KL Freeze

THE BANGSAR BOY
By NIKI CHEONG

IF I was totally honest, I was one of the few who were rather sceptical about the impact of new technologies on the recent General Election.

Sure, the “alternative” news outlets and bloggers had their respective campaigns, but surely they were preaching to the converted? I am not a political analyst, so until recently, I was not quite sure whether or not it had a major impact on the election results.

Then, KL Freeze in Unison happened in the heart of Jalan Bukit Bintang last weekend and I was convinced.

Kicker: The massive crowd of 'freeze' participants and observers during KL Freeze in Unison held at Pavilion KL.

I had reported that more than 1,000 people attended the event that had the participants freezing – yes, they all just stopped moving – for four minutes at Pavilion KL.

The event was organised by Zain HD, a 24-year-old who just wanted to demonstrate, in simple terms, unity in diversity. I had spoken to him after the event at a nearby location (he and his team members had run off really quickly after security started questioning what had just happened) and he told me that the event had been organised in less than a week.

Sure, the idea has been floating around for a couple of months now, but it was only after the success of Free Hugs (Tugu Negara was the venue, where people met for a fun afternoon, and at the same time offered free hugs to anyone who wanted them) on April 6 that they decided to organise KL Freeze.

That was all it took – he posted an event listing on Facebook and invited more than 1,000 of his friends, who in turn invited more people, and by Saturday, more than 1,000 had said that they would be there and almost 2,000 said they might show up. In the end, more than 1,000 showed up, although not all froze. Many, like me, just enjoyed the moment and tried to capture it on cameras.

Heck, the idea is not even original. With all due respect to Zain and the other organisers of such events around the world, I think the Malaysian education system was the pioneer (granted, I’ve done no research to verify this). My ex-schoolmate John and I were just talking about the time when the three-bell system was introduced.

Twice a day – before school started and during recess – the bells at Methodist Primary School, Petaling Jaya, would ring three times – the first time it rang, everyone had to freeze, no matter what we were doing. The second bell was for us to walk to the assembly area and by the final bell, we should have been all standing in our lines, shortest to tallest.

Okay, I know it is not the same thing but hey, it was good practice for an event like KL Freeze!

But I digress. With regard to the event last week, I am not quite sure if everyone who participated was aware of Zain’s original intention. On his team’s website, www.randomalphabets.com, he posted this about the event: “Where human beings get together to do something in unison, without speeches or reference to their age, colour, sex, beliefs and background.”

Sure, many saw it as the purest way to show global unity (many foreigners participated, and it is believed that some even flew in just to participate). But, the fact is, many people showed up because it promised to be fun. Most had watched the same thing done in New York and London via YouTube, and it looked pretty cool, so why not?

To me, the event held a lot of significance to the people of Kuala Lumpur. Of course, there was the diversity card that we have long embraced. But, it also showed how easy it was to rally people together for a cause. Most of all, it showed that people would do anything if they believed enough in it – whether it was a call for unity, or just a fun afternoon out.

I attended the event because it meant that right in the heart of our city centre, a thousand pulses would beat together as one. These were the pulses of the people who lived in this city, who ran this city and who loved this city (whether or not they were Malaysians).

These were the people who, to me, made Kuala Lumpur unique and dare I say it, more so than other cosmopolitan cities like Paris, London or New York.

It took a 24-year-old graduate in his gap year to show us that we are no longer at the dawn of the digital age, and that city life does not have to be about working hard, making lots of money and social status. It showed that we could all take four minutes (maybe more with waiting and travel) of our lives to participate in an event that might mean nothing to most people.

And that is okay.