AFTER a century* of British rule and
a period of wartime Japanese occupation, Malaya became a sovereign nation on 31
August 1957. Five years later Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak in Borneo
were federated into West and East Malaysia. The watershed, however, is 13 May
1969. The post-election riots that erupted that day on the Malay Peninsula would
test the new nation’s mettle and set in train an agenda that has brought
manifest economic success, remarkable social progress and more than a modicum of
international notoriety, thanks largely due to the anti-Western rhetoric of
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman, a
scion of the sultanate of Kedah, the northern Malaysian State and founding
father – Bapak – had led the new nation until then. The Tengku’s appeal to
Malaysians as a peace-loving nation acted as a balm to the rule of bureaucracy
and a constitutional system that had passed seamlessly from British colonial
rule. Executive government worked according to an indeterminate process of
patronage and privilege until May 1969, just as it had done in the days of the
British.
The bubble burst in the late hours of
May 13 after results pointed to a decisive turn against the ruling Alliance. The
Chinese and Tamil minority had swung to the newly emergent Gerakkan Rakyat
Malaysia based in Penang and the Democratic Action Party based in Kuala Lumpur,
the capital. The results showed clearly that a motley coalition of opposition
parties was close to forming an alternative government.
Party activists were euphoric. Never
had the populace imagined that politics might better its lot. Celebrations in
Kuala Lumpur quickly fanned north to the major cities on the west coast and
degenerated into partisan communal violence.
The details of how the victory
celebrations deteriorated into the now infamous May 13 Riots and how the
government mobilised Malaysia’s crack riot squads and the military remain
sketchy to this day. Martial law was declared in a matter of hours as the Tengku,
from his residence, watched fires rage in his once peace loving capital. The
flames licked at his hold on power as chief executive. The Tengku was soon to be
ousted in a party coup.
The crackdown was decisive as it was
ruthless. A dusk to dawn curfew was in full force by the next day. Orders to the
troops were to shoot to kill anyone violating the curfew. Countless reports
circulated of how army sharpshooters fatally shot people peeping through
shuttered windows.
The Alliance had ruled unchallenged on an average of 70
per cent of the national vote and the uprising was a massive slap in the face to
the status quo. The response was a hardening of powers, an extension of
constitutionally protected Malay privilege – from an agreed 10 years at
Independence to 30 years – and the almost complete quashing of dissent.
A
personal account of this time is given below;
The history of Malaysia has
always been rife with racial conflict. One always talks about May 13 - the
infamous racial riots of 1969 - but before and after this there were other
incidences, minor and major, to remind us that Malaysia is far from stable. In
fact, racial conflicts in Malaysia has been going on for almost 200 years from
the time the Chinese first set foot in this country to work the tin mines in
Selangor, Perak and Negeri Sembilan in
the early 1880s.
One incident in Lukut involved the Sultan of Selangor's entire family
being wiped out by the Chinese due to a conflict over the rich tin fields. That
incident sparked the entry of the British who came in to restore law and order
and Lukut, which was originally part of Selangor, became an "independent" territory later to be known as Negeri Sembilan.
Closer to our
generation, the worse racial conflict was immediately after the Second World War
in 1945 when the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army came out from the jungles
to take revenge on all those suspected of being Japanese sympathisers and
collaborators. This was the period when the British were still suffering from
shellshock and no government had been formed yet in Malaya.
This orgy of killing went on all over the country but states such as Johor,
Negeri Sembilan, Perak, Kedah and Perlis were the worse hit. Among the more
serious occurrences were in Batu Malim in Raub, Pahang, Kuala Pilah in Negeri
Sembilan, and Manong in Perak where the Chinese were practically massacred by the Malays.
But the Malays were
not spared either. In Bekor, Perak, the Malays suffered the same fate at the
hands of the Chinese. It must be remembered, though, more Chinese were butchered
than Malays, though both sides did suffer casualties.
Then we had the "famous" Penang riots of 1957 when the British
almost did not grant Malaya independence as they thought the Chinese would be exterminated if the British ever retreated from our shores.
Many think that the
May 1969 racial riot was an unanticipated outburst. In actual fact, racial
skirmishes had already occurred in Singapore in 1964 and 1965. This went on
until 1966 where there were occurrences of up to two skirmishes a week. By 1967
it got worse when gangs of 40 to 50 Chinese and Malays
pounced on each other in places like Negeri Sembilan and Kedah.
May
13, 1969, was a tragedy waiting to happen, and all it needed was the politicians
to "give the word" for the mob to go on a rampage and killing spree.
FOR the past three decades, "May 13"
has been used to describe the blackest period in Malaysian history.
In classrooms, the incident
is regarded a taboo subject and while government leaders often raise the spectre
of another round of race riots as a warning against unrestrained political
behaviour, their comments skim the surface on violent clashes following the 1969
general election that took 196 lives.
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