Badbye Nasri?

Honestly, I didn’t think the Nasri situation would culminate in an actual transfer away from Arsenal. I thought it was just the usual storm-in-a-teacup we see every summer. Until I read these quotes from Arseblog today:

 

“

The Mail

We’ve got Nasri! Manchester City claim £19m deal for Arsenal rebel

Manchester City believe they have captured Arsenal playmaker Samir Nasri for £19million. The deal is close to completion and will represent a significant victory for City with both Manchester United and Chelsea also keen on landing the Frenchman.

The Sun

Man City nab £20m Nasri

MANCHESTER CITY were last night on the brink of completing the £20million transfer of Arsenal’s Samir Nasri. The French midfielder is close to agreeing a £150,000-a-week deal as City step up their summer spending spree 

” 

               

               – quoted from Arseblog which were quoted from The Mail and The Sun respectively.

That caught me off guard. Like I said, I didn’t really put much stock into the whole Nasri thing, but details like “£150,000-a-week” makes it pretty damn convincing. I could be wrong, since pretty much the same thing happened with Cesc last year with Barc**ts, but then again, the Catalan media is about as independent as Utusan is – not very. While I can’t trust the credibility of the English tabloids, I can at least vouch for their independence on this matter.

Basically, I’m quite resigned now to Nasri leaving. In hindsight, I guess it’s been coming for awhile now, what with all the non-commitment and dodging by both player and agent, the usual rhetoric of ‘prove your ambition before I commit’ and the player’s rejection of the £90,000-a-week offer by Arsenal.

That’s the thing isn’t it? It was always about money. About Nasri and his agent trying to milk out of the Arsenal cow as much as they can get. So much that even £90,000-a-week doesn’t cut it for them and remember, this is a player that has only had ONE good season – in fact, not even one but more like ¾ of a season, and he’s demanding the same wages as Cesc? Cesc earns about £110,000-a-week, and even that was earned after 5-6 solid seasons with the club, Nasri barely had one good season.

All that ‘prove your ambition before I commit’ crap is just what it is – crap, and frankly, a bit insulting by Nasri. Prove your ambition? Arsenal have always been challenging for the PL’s top spot and qualified for the UCL. Man City have only just qualified for their first UCL season in 2 millennia. Sure, we haven’t been successful in getting trophies in recent years, but it’s not Wenger or anyone else in the club that’s playing on the field, it’s the players like Nasri who are the ones kicking the ball around. Haven’t had trophies in a long time? Blame yourself.

I won’t even miss Nasri when he’s gone, and I think most fans wouldn’t. Players come and go, some do so more elegantly, some really leave their mark on the club, and some are just individual grains of sand in the beach of Arsenal’s history (heh). Nasri would be the grain, not just the usual golden-colored grain, no, he’s not quite good enough. More like the grain near the inland edges of the beach, the grain that’s too close inland it’s barely considered part of the beach. The grain that eventually gets scraped off the actual beach and is simply forgotten. And then gets shit on by a stray dog.

But back to more important matters - how does this affect the grand scheme of things at the club? Surely Cesc would not be let go now. Don’t get me wrong, I would prefer Nasri to accept the extension and stay, but I’m starting to think that maybe it’s a good thing that Nasri leaves. At least we’ll keep Cesc, and I’d much rather we keep Cesc. Not forgetting the rumored £20 million we’re getting for a player who we’ll get nothing for this time next year. It seems Man City are building up a solid reputation of getting screwed by us.

And the left-wing forward position that will be left vacant? I’m assuming that’s where Gervinho will slot in. A player who says he’s coming to Arsenal to just do one thing – win. No crap about how he’s been a lifelong fan of the club even though he grew up in France and he’s already 27 *ahem*chamakh*ahem*. I just wish the Gervinho deal would be wrapped up before they leave for pre-season in Malaysia and China, which would give the player more time to gel with the squad, so to speak. Even better, if they wrapped up the deal in secret and revealed the player in their pre-season game in Malaysia, sending the Arsenal fans flying through the Bukit Jalil roof!

I also like his seemingly bullish attitude here, basically telling Chamakh he’s taking his place in the team. Now that’s healthy competition! And frankly something this club has needed in a long time. No more Mr. nice guy.     

Bersih 2.0: Mission Accomplished?

With Bersih seemingly given the green light on holding its rally (albeit in a stadium), the common citizen would perhaps wonder whether a solution has finally been found, that we can put all this behind us and go back to our normal lives.

Maybe? Maybe not? I don’t know myself but one thing is for sure; the Bersih 2.0 rally, or rather its build up, has caught the attention of virtually every Malaysian, and for better or worse, has forced every one of us to consider and ask more questions about the state of the electoral system in our country. Among other things, it has also revealed some insights into how we feel about public rallies/demonstrations, but more importantly, it has further revealed the level of fear that the current ruling party has of losing its grip on power and the lengths which it will go to in order to keep that power.

In my opinion, that was the objective of Bersih all along (even from 2007 during the first rally), to shift the focus away from all the distractions by the government and back on to the real issue, i.e. the government itself, specifically its flaws, its very large flaws; flaws that it continually and shamelessly tries to cover up. For Bersih, it was really just a matter of opening the can of worms, as one might say, and everything else falls in readily. The fact that none within BN but only PR jumped on the Bersih bandwagon is not a mere coincidence, but a smart move, as evident in the 2008 GE results.

It wasn’t really about the rally itself; in fact I would go so far as to say that the upcoming rally is now quite irrelevant, sort of like the after-party to the Oscar’s, or the Community Shield, or the Emirates Cup trophy. It’s still necessary to hold the rally, but Bersih basically just have to show up now.

So far, more than 200 people have reportedly been arrested in connection with the Bersih 2.0 rally¹. A non-violent rally that calls for free and fair elections, the very foundation of a democracy. To those who are still wondering about whether these arrests are justified or not, let me remind you of one thing:

i.)                  Malaysia is a democratic country.

These arrests amount to are examples of political imprisonment and to a democracy like ours, that is simply unacceptable whichever way you spin it, whether it be the absurd idea of a communist insurrection or not. It borders on lunacy when you consider the fact that anyone wearing yellow colored or Bersih-related clothing items were arrested (or were at least threatened to be).

Seriously though, it’s no laughing matter, and to give the term ‘political imprisonment’ the weight it deserves and to help you grasp its significance, this is exactly the same type of oppression that Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi went through, and in the case of the latter, still goes through.

Thankfully, I’m only speaking to the minority here, I hope.

The arrests, together with the initial ban on the rally, UMNO Youth and Perkasa’s (ridiculous) counter-rallies, the smear campaign against Bersih activists and PKR members and the thuggish attempts by Perkasa and Ibrahim Ali to turn it into a race issue (among other equally bad attempts in what was a hilarious series of performances where they continually shot themselves in the foot, in fact, Ibrahim Ali will henceforth be referred to by me as ‘foot-shooter’), the eventual resignation of the PM to allow the rally to go ahead, have all combined to make a satisfactory outcome for Bersih.

I guess the idea of the Bersih rallies is a very solid one; it was always going to achieve what it was set out for, whichever way it went about. All it needed was support and support was what it got, plenty of it.

All that’s left to do now is for the Electoral Commission to do the right thing, to do their job. I’m not convinced they will, but fingers crossed.  

¹ Chooi, C 2011, ‘Najib lets cops decide on Bersih arrests’, The Malaysian Insider, July 5, viewed July 5 2011, <http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/najib-lets-cops-decide-on-bersih-arrests/>