Previous PMs portraits were painted on the wall of the Cafe-eye-catching!The 3 speakers presented by Penang Watch on behalf of GMIThe audience.Speakers' Corner Cafe's flyerThis is n evening with many differences from others: we went to a Speaker Corner Cafe in Simpang Empat in SPS to present an anti-ISA forum to the patron of the special cafe, located in the middle of no where. The venue's operator Jarvis Wong said that the Cafe hope to sell `political talks' by all political parties as well as NGOs instead of their food and drinks. They hope that people are interested enough to come over to listen to the speakers they line up every weekend and then spend on their simple food and drinks-which include alcohol. So: politial talks are saleable-what a marketting idea-which could be a 1st in the country! 

Now this is our wonderful experience being recruited to speak at the Cafe: We were called to pesent a talk-any topic, at the Cafe by the manager Jarvis. We were offered this deal: we can talk on any topic-and we only need to bring the speakers to the venue. The rest they will handle eg applying for the neccesary police permits , make publicity and promote the forum in whatever ways they can. What an offer-so I look around for a suitable topic. Then there is an ISA campaign going on -so I suggested to them-which they readily agreed.

I put together 3 speakers to speak about their experience and understanding of the ISA: Cheah Hooi Giam from GMI, Muhd Nuruddin Bashah (JIM) and Ram Ji from Hindraf(who came from KL).  They have to supply their personal details like Mycard no to enable the cafe to apply for police permit.

When we arrived at the cafe at 7.30pm it was too early yet. The Cafe is housed in a corner lot of a shop house -which allowed it to utilise the considerable spaces on the side as aopen air seating space. We were entertained with some food n drinks. Then the customers slowly rolled in -and the forum didn't start until 9.30pm. All this while there was a continuous screening of political ceramahs eg Anwar's latest talk-may be in KL. I was told that the customers were a bit slow tonite because there is also a Chinese festival in town that distracted the customers' attention. I thought that actually ISA is not a hot topic in Penang or anywhere yet. But we should still keep pushing it whether there is any votes in it or not-afterall we are doing this from a civil society rather than a party platform!

We finished about 10.30pm. It was a really refreshing experience. Hopefully we can organise more forums for the Cafe later. Hopefully readers here who think this is a good offer from the Cafe -why not contact the ever welcoming Cafe manager?