today is the anniversary of may 13th 1969, the date forever remembered by all malaysians over the infamous riots that paralysed the nation of malaysia 39 years ago. i was 12 years of age and living in kampar, a very small town built on tin mine a century ago. i remembered that morning awakened by shouts and horning of cars. there were some chinese driving in cars and small lorries horning and waving political flags and banners. soon after, i went downstairs, my parents informed my sibilings and I that a curfew was imposed on the town. i was too young to understand what a curfew was but what it meant then was to stay indoors at all times.
my father ran a small grocery 'cold storage' shop and we had ample food supplies in the form of tin food except we had no greens. i remembered my parents would sneak out sometimes to the market across the road to do some shopping. how many days this lasted i cannot remember. TV was something new in those days. radio was where we got most of our news. we heard frightening stories of massacres of chinese by the malays in KL. years later, these stories would be told and retold. they will become part of the memory consciousness of a generation of chinese.
my best friend, the late rev paul george ponniah, was a KLite. at that time he was a young insurance salesman. he was caught that morning out in town in chow kit area and couldn't return home. being of mixed parentage (indian, chinese, siam), he could speak hokkien and cantonese apart from english. one kind old chinese man sheltered george in his house. others foudn themselves rounded up in stadium merdeka for their protection. when the riots had calmed, he was able to return home safe and sound.
39 years later, we are still fighting the ghosts of this event. our politicians still raise the spectre of may 13th to instill fear among the citizens (dr M included!). as a nation, we have painfully gone through it and like the Tunku said, 'to keep repeating them is like telling ghost stories to our children to frighten them to prevent them from being naughty'. we need to lay to rest this spectre and move on. 2008 showed us the way forward. we do not need communal politics. race should not be a factor anymore in malaysian politics. the 'cut-and-divide' rule imposed by the british should be laid to rest. all malaysian blood is the same colour.
see the wiki entry on may 13th 1969 below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_13_Incident
read dr kua's book on may 13th. see the review by elizabeth wong:
http://elizabethwong.wordpress.com/2007/05/11/the-story-behind-the-publishing-of-may-13/
and reviewed by jeff ooi:
http://www.jeffooi.com/2007/05/surviving_the_may_13_bloodshed.php
may 13th 1969, ISA and Operation Lallang should all be laid to rest.
see wiki's entry on Operation Lallang:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Lalang
and the reb's take on Ops Lallang:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIsHgwB3N48
http://oldtestamentpassion.blogspot.com/search/label/Op%20Lalang
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Steven Sim