It was Mother's Day – 13 May 2007. But as my mother has long departed
for me to pay tribute to her personally, I had decided to focus my
attention on the other historical significance of the date.
Thirty eight years ago that day nasty race riots broke out in the
Kuala Lumpur-Petaling Jaya area and in one or two other large towns
in Peninsular Malaysia.
The event was such a significant watershed in the modern history of
our nation, that to this day a full understanding of the significance
of it has not been attained by anyone that I know of – and neither
had anyone come out with a full causal and satisfactory socio-
political explanation for the riots.
And now Dr Kua Kia Soong has come out with a new book, May 13:
Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969 (Suaram: Kuala
Lumpur, 2007), and the book was to be launched at the Selangor
Chinese Assembly Hall (SCAH) that morning. There were other speakers,
too, at the event: Dr Syed Husin Ali, Dr S. Nagarajan and Ms. Beth Yaph.
I thought that the book must be both interesting and important – as
no analysis of the tragic and unfortunate event has been attempted
before based on declassified materials at the Public Records Offfice.
Among those who have done some kind of documentary research relating
to some historical and socio-political aspects of Malaysia (a former
British colony) the significance of having access to declassified
materials at the important London institution cannot be overemphasized.
As I have some interest of my own – both scholarly and personally –
on the tragic riots that occurred some 38 years ago, and thinking how
important Dr Kua's book must be and how enlightening the speakers at
the launch would be, there was naturally no place else that I would
rather be that morning but at the second floor seminar room of the SCAH.
Interestingly enough, I have last year posted an item on this
blogsite entitled "Are we heading towards another May
13?" (09.09.06). The posting was later published as an article in
Aliran Monthly (September, 2006).
The concern that I expressed in the article was that the nature and
intensity of the political discourse and maneuvers that was taking
place during that period appears to me to be chillingly similar to
those that occurred during the time of the May 13 riots in 1969 – and
I was worried hat they could lead to similar tragic political and
social consequences again this time around.
Having purchased a copy of Dr Kua's book at Pak Chong's stall in the
lobby of the seminar room, and having quickly flipped through the
pages before the launching event actually started, there was
absolutely no doubt in my mind that Dr Kua had penned a very
important book – indeed, to my mind, he has made "publishing history"
of sort.
On the question of whether the availability and usage of declassified
documents from the Public Records Office has enriched our
understanding of the event itself and provide a final explanation on
its socio-political significance, however, I was not so sure. This is
the doubt I had even before having a glimpse of the book – i.e. on
reading some promotional materials on the book posted earlier in
Malaysiakini.com.
I was glad that Dr Syed Husin alluded to the same matter in his
presentation, reminding us that the observation found in foreign
press correspondents' dispatches and reports of British and other
Commonwealth diplomats are not necessarily always more perceptive, or
even more reliable, than even the untrained observation of local eye-
witnesses.
To my mind, Dr Kua's most significant conclusion that he drew from
analyzing the declassified materials is that the May 13 riots were
basically the outcome of a successful coup d'etat against Tunku Abdul
Rahman staged by other leaders of Umno and members of an ascending
Malay state capitalists.
Without the need to participate in quibbling over the words coup
d'etat or just coup (as occurred during the launch presentations), I
actually do no have much to quarrel with Dr Kua's conclusions.
The only observation that I would like to add, however, is that even
some local social scientists and journalists who had adopted a
"class" mode of analysis, and forsaking purely ethicists or racist
ones, had all along made similar conclusions even without the benefit
declassified materials.
While I support the call by both Suaram and Dr Kua for an independent
Truth Commission or a Commission of Inquiry for the purpose of
uncovering the whole truth about the tragic May 13 event, I am also
very concerned with the need to ensure that the "mission statement"
of the Inquiry itself must be stated very carefully and in its most
"unracist" terms.
Otherwise, the whole undertaking would be rendered to be of no
significance other than to open up old racist wounds in the in the
context of the current, persistent and unchanging racist atmosphere
of out political and realpolitikal environment.
Already, as it is, I do detect an existence of an untenable
perspective of the May 13 event, indeed of the political terrain of
our country in general, as a model of a fascistic repression by the
racist Malays (or leadership of that community) on the non-racists
non-Malay groups who are only fighting for their political rights and
cultural preservation and survival.
My own perception of the terrain, however, is based on an analytical
model that tended to point towards our collective intellectual/
conceptual failure to steer us away from the sense of ethnic
separation, competition and mistrust that was created by the colonial
situation and perpetuated by the Alliance "model" developed among
racist political parties after independence.
The need for multi-ethnic political parties had been mentioned
several times during the book launching discussion. But the reality
of the matter is that all such attempts in the past have ended as
failures (PUTERA-AMCJA, IMP, Socialist Front) or have slowly steered
their paths towards becoming what can virtually be defined as one-
dominant-race parties.
Racism has therefore been by far the most dominant mode of political
thinking among Malaysians of all ethnic groups, and at various
critical junctures (May 13 is just one of them) there would be
unscrupulous racist politicians ever ready to exploit them – for
their own selfish ends.
I have myself seen the ugly heads of racist politics emerging on
several occasions. During the early stages of the reformasi, for
example, one of the derogatory names leveled against the hated
Mahathir was "Mamak Bendahara" – obviously not in reference to his
unjust and absolute abuse of power but more to his racial origin.
It did take quite a lot of effort by unofficial "leaders" of the
reformasi movement, that was very slowly acquiring its multi-ethnic
stature then, to remind their followers how improper that particular
name-calling was.
Again the racist perspective became dominant during the controversy
that followed the Lee Kwan Yew statement that Chinese in Singapore's
neighouring countries are being shabbily treated by their respective
governments. Even during the heat of campaigning in the recent Ijok
DUN by-election racist perspectives and arguments had been used.
During the infamous victory processions by the opposition supporters
on the eve of the May 13 (1969) riots, I was celebrating among
friends in the in the predominantly non-Malay ambience of Imbi Road
(I was a final year UM undergraduate then, actively involved in the
Socialist Club).
I can still remember that the atmosphere was distinctly anti-Malay in
tone, that even I had the chill for being there. The atmosphere was
certainly no less racist than the gathering of the Malay "hoodlums"
in front of Harun Idris' residence in Princess Road.
One thing was constant though in all these events: that stark racism
and ideas of racial superiority and supremacy, is hardly the sole
monopoly of Malays or of just parties within the ruling coalition.
This to me is the ongoing and innate problem of Malaysian politics
and society. The May 13, 1969 was but a cumulative consequence of
that innate characteristic that was allowed to be perpetuated and
developed during our post-independent nation building process. That
basic innate characteristic, however, has not change, let alone
eradicated, even to this day.
I came out of the book launch feeling only half-satisfied with the
discussion that took place and half-pessimistic about the future. It
did not, however, detract me from considering Dr Kua's book an
important contribution to my understanding of Malaysia's contemporary
history, and from being enlightened by such interesting and
thoughtful presentations by the guest speakers.
All in all, it was indeed a good and intellectually satisfying way of
spending a May 13 morning. After all that, I still had some time to
myself at home to say a silent prayer for the soul of my late mother.
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