The real story behind May 13, by Tunku Abdul Rahman
The May 13 incident as personally related by Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaya/Malaysia and ‘Bapa Merdeka’
From his residence in Penang, 1972:
‘It was clear to me as well as the police that in the highly charged political atmosphere after the police were forced to kill a Chinese political party worker on May 4th, 1969, something was bound to happen
to threaten law and order because of the resentment towards the Government by the KL Chinese on the eve of the general election. This was confirmed at this man’s funeral on the 9th May when the government
faced the most hostile crowd it had ever seen.
Therefore, when the opposition parties applied for a police permit for a procession to celebrate their success in the results of the general election, I was adamant against it because the police were convinced that this would lead to trouble.
I informed Tun Razak about this and he seemed to agree.
Now, without my knowledge and actually ‘behind my back,’ there were certain political leaders in high positions who were working to force me to step down as a PM. I don’t want to go into details but if they had
come to me and said so I would gladly have retired gracefully.
Unfortunately, they were apparently scheming and trying to decide on the best way to force me to resign. The occasion came when the question of the police permit was to be approved.
Tun Razak and Harun Idris, the MB of the state of Selangor, now felt that permission should be given knowing fully well that there was a likelihood of trouble. I suppose they felt that when this happened they
could then demand my resignation.
To this day I find it very hard to believe that Razak, whom I had known for so many years, would agree to work against me in this way.
Actually, he was in my house as I was preparing to return to Kedah and I overhead him speaking to Harun over the phone saying that he would be willing to approve the permit when I left. I really could not believe what I was hearing and preferred to think it was about some other permit. In any case, as the Deputy Prime Minister in my absence from KL, he would be the Acting PM and would override my objection. Accordingly, when I was in my home in Kedah, I heard over the radio that the permit had been approved.
It seems as though the expected trouble was anticipated and planned for by Harun and his UMNO Youth. After the humiliating insults hurled by the non-Malays, especially the Chinese, and after the seeming loss of Malay political power to them, they were clearly ready for some retaliatory action. After meeting in large numbers at Harun’s official residence in Jalan Raja Muda near Kampong Bahru and hearing inflammatory speeches by Harun and other leaders, they prepared themselves by tying ribbon strips on their foreheads and set out to kill Chinese. The first hapless victims were two of them in a van opposite Harun’s house who were innocently watching the large gathering. Little did they know that they would be killed on the spot.
The rest is history. I am sorry but I must end this discussion now because it really pains me as the Father of Merdeka to have to relive those terrible moments. I have often wondered why God made me live long enough to have witnessed my beloved Malays and Chinese citizens killing each other.’
[From Raja Petra Kamarudin’s blog, Malaysia Today]
Philip Bowring
16 May 2007
A new book presents the view that 1969 race riots were instigated by ambitious Malay politicians. Now it seems the book will be banned by the government.
Thirty-eight years on, the traumatic ethnic riots of May 13, 1969 in Malaysia remain as much a subject of official censorship as the events of June 4, 1989 in China. Now a new book by a Malaysian Chinese academic is on the point of being officially banned for suggesting that May 13 was the occasion for what amounted to a coup against the independence leader and Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman by his United Malays National Organisation colleagues who were pushing pro-Malay policies. Officials of Malaysia’s Internal Security Ministry Tuesday confiscated 10 copies of the book from a Kuala Lumpur bookstore, advising the store not to sell it as it may be banned. According to a letter issued by ministry officials, the book is suspected of being an “undesirable publication.”
What happened on May 13 remains highly relevant to UMNO’s position as the leader of the Barisan National, the alliance of race-based parties that has ruled the country since independence 50 years ago.
“Declassified Documents on the Malaysian riots of 1969” by Dr. Kua Kia Soong, the principal of New Era College, is based not directly on Malaysian sources but on now-open British documents held at the Public Records Office in Kew Gardens, near London. These consist of contemporary British diplomatic and intelligence reports which suggest that the riots were not spontaneous acts of communal violence, as is constantly alleged by UMNO, but were fanned by Malay elements, with support from the army and police, wanting to discredit the accommodating prime minister and impose a much more rigorous Malay agenda. One British document concluded that the goal was to “formalize Malay dominance, sideline the Chinese and shelve Tunku.”
The official Malaysian government version of events was that the riots were sparked by opposition parties “infiltrated by communist insurgents” following huge opposition gains in the election. Although the UMNO-led Alliance, the predecessor of the Barisan National, retained an overall majority, it lost its two thirds majority and its control of Selangor state was threatened. Certainly there was much celebrating among the mainly Chinese opposition parties at the election result, which angered Malay politicians who sensed their political dominance was under threat.
By the time the riots were over, official figures said 196 people had been killed, 6,000 made homeless and more than 700 buildings destroyed or damaged.
Non-Malays in particular have long believed that though there was violence on both sides, it was a mostly one-sided affair with some Malay politicians, notably Selangor Chief Minister Harun Idris, encouraging mobs to attack Chinese areas and that the security forces initially did little to prevent violence. This is largely confirmed by contemporary reports such as those of Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent Bob Reece.
Kua’s thesis suggests that there was a grander political design behind the episode, which from the beginning was intended to create a new political agenda and new leadership. He attributes this to a younger Malay group dissatisfied with the aristocratic, pro-British the Tunku.
In any event, the Tunku effectively stepped aside as emergency powers to rule by decree were (temporarily) placed in the hands of a National Operations Council headed by his deputy Tun Abdul Razak – father of current deputy prime minister Najib Abdul Razak. The Tunku remained prime minister until September 1970 but had little authority any more. In 1971 he also stepped down as president of UMNO after virulent criticism by the Malay “Young Turks,” headed by Mahathir Mohamad, the future Prime Minister. The same year the government enunciated the New Economic Policy and began aggressive affirmative action programs to advance the economic and educational level of Malays.
However, while the consequences of May 13 may be clear, there are disagreements about Kua’s thesis even among those who attribute the riots to Malay politicians. For example, Dr Syed Husin Ali also a respected academic and deputy head of the opposition Keadilan Party, has suggested that while some UMNO figures used the events as an opportunity to sideline the Tunku and set out a pro-Malay agenda, it was not planned as such.
In other words, Razak and others took advantage of the situation which arose after the election and the appearance of Malay mobs to grab the reins of power from the Tunku, with whom they were dissatisfied, but that it was not premeditated. Syed also takes issue with Kua’s view that they represented an aspirant Malay capitalist class when most had traditional and feudal links.
Bookstores have been advised not to sell Kua’s book and a formal ban looks likely on the grounds that it will stir up racial animosities, which it could well do in the short run. However, from a broader perspective it is hard to see how a multi-racial, multi-religious Malaysia can flourish if events such as May 13 can only be discussed in private, while the public is fed a distorted official version in order to sustain the legitimacy of UMNO politicians.
May 13 more accurately ‘genocidal’ than racial riots
December 14, 2010Written by CT Wong (cpiasia.net)
The deputy Utusan editor-in-chief Zaini Hassan (left) had recently written that May 13 should be celebrated as ‘tarikh keramat’ — an auspicious and sacred day. He opined that May 13 is a blessing in disguise and without May 13 the Malays would not have enjoyed the benefits as what they are enjoying today.
From the Oxford Fajar bilingual dictionary, ‘keramat’ means “place or object that is (believed to be) sacred with supernatural or magical powers.” The powers refer to the special ability to cure sickness or to provide protection.
So far, May 13 has not cured the malignant sickness of racism dating from colonial times – colonialism is a form of racism. Neither do the citizens feel more protected from its relapse. What we witnessed was not supernatural powers, but authoritarian powers that destroy the very foundation of democracy – separation of powers of the executive, the judiciary and the legislative.
I find it difficult to understand how May 13 might wish to be celebrated as sacred, as spiritual. The predators become heroes and idols. Where is the sacredness? When unarmed Malaysians who were non-combatants were sacrificed by those in the deadly pursuit of power and wealth, God or gods were also sacrificed. In fact, civilisation, if not God, abandoned us during those dark days.
To the Germans who are proud of their Einstein, Beethoven and Sigmund Freud, these names are forever linked to Auschwitz in the land of Germany. To many a Malaysian, ‘Islamic’ civilisation and the ‘Malays’ are eternally linked to the May 13 genocide.
The Germans do not celebrate the Holocaust, but to create a museum right in the centre of the SS headquarters and exposing all the crimes against humanity of Hitler and the Nazi party, lest the future generations forget. In this land of Malaysia, the ethnic minorities are repeatedly reminded of “May 13 or equality!”, lest they forget.
We can always look for a silver lining in our tragedies if we want to. However, the Utusan editor seemed to find the smell of death quite sweet and fragrant. This brings me back to the times how I lived through the days of May 13.
May 13 to me
I was an adolescent living in a rather isolated Chinese-owned rubber-holding up north. Just a mile away was a formerly foreign-owned rubber estate with mostly Indian rubber tappers. And a few miles away was a Malay kampung. When the news or rumours of ‘racial riots’ in KL reached us, we were shocked not only by the killings but the way it was carried out.
On May 13, life and death depended on skin colour; the skin that protects us as a biological organism suddenly becomes a death sentence and our vaguely friendly Malay neighbour could suddenly be a murderer. Such fearful thoughts disturbed me for quite a number of days.
My family and I had been forced to move to the nearest small town to stay just in case we happened to be the victims.
As times went on, the traumatic memories and the rawness of receiving a rude shock out of the deep slumber of racial accommodation slowly faded. I moved on with my life. But, time and again, non-Malays like me are being reminded of May 13.
What is May 13 then? And why call it racial riots?
Social contract destroyed
To me, May 13 means that the Alliance government of the day failed to protect its citizens. It means that the social contract between the state and citizens was deliberately broken.
May 13 means the killing of civilians. It cannot be justified by any rules of war.
May 13 means the extension of politics by an unjust and immoral war.
The use of the phrase ‘May 13 racial riots’ is constantly being circulated and recycled in all our narratives, including that from the opposition parties. It is understandable if we use euphemistic terms to describe something awful so that we can cushion off the emotional overwhelm. But the phrases ‘racial riots’ or ‘racial clash’ or “May 13 incident” only serve the purpose of bleaching the mass atrocities, the mass murders of May 13.
Dissecting the label
The word ‘racial’ is quite a harmless term. You can use it for ‘racial harmony’ also. It does not bring out the sense of cruelty embedded in racism. When killing based on race is so ruthless, you don’t call it ‘racial’ anymore. It would be more appropriate to use ‘genocidal’ instead.
From etymology of the word, ‘geno’ refers to race and ‘cide’ refers to killing (e.g. homicide, suicide, patricide, etc).
From a definition by the United Nations, genocide refers to the destruction in part or whole of an ethnic group based on religion, ethnicity and racial identity. It does not need to be total as the Final Solution of the Nazis; neither does it need to be deaths in the magnitude of the hundreds of thousands or millions as in the Rwanda genocide.
S.A. Budd, the British High Commissioner to Malaysia in 1969 was quoted as saying “…that of 77 corpses in the morgue of the General Hospital on 14 May, at least 60 were Chinese…” (Kua Kia Soong, 2007). The demography of ethnic identities is obvious.
Gregory Stanton, the President of Genocide Watch, argued that “The motive of the killer to take the victim’s property or to politically dominate the victim’s group does not remove genocidal intent if the victim is chosen because of his ethnic, national, racial or religious group.”
The intent was clearly genocidal in the case of May 13. So, May 13 may be more accurately redefined as the May 13 genocidal mass killing, or May 13 genocidal massacre, or genocidal mass atrocity, or if we retain the ‘riots’ terminology, at least May 13 genocidal riots, lest we celebrate the historical events for the wrong reasons.
Riots as we understand it from the experience of the United States, Britain and Europe is that of an expressive act of hostility by the aggrieved and subordinate group or class. The American blacks, for example, were so marginalized economically and culturally that violence was used as a counterbalance against power inequalities. Rioting is often used defensively by the ethnic minorities to confront the authorities who are from the dominant group, in particular the police, to bring them to the negotiating table.
Riot is not usually an instrument employed by the state.
May 13 was not perpetrated by the skinheads or a Chinese secret society. It was “a planned coup d’etat by the ascendant state capitalist class against the Tunku-led aristocracy.” (Kua, 2007).
In other words, it was state-sponsored, or at least state-tolerated with deliberate and conscious planning.
Nothing sacred to celebrate
Without the green light from the top and Malay power elites, the scale and magnitude of the destruction would not be possible within a mere few days. The Malaysian official statistics of casualties as of May 21, 1969 were: “137 killed — 18 Malays, 342 injured, 109 vehicles burned, 118 buildings destroyed, 2,912 persons arrested, mostly curfew breakers.”(Kua, 2007).
TIME magazine (May 23, 1969) cited Western diplomatic sources as believing the death toll was closer to 600, with most of the victims Chinese. It also wrote that “…By the time the four days of race war and strife had run their course, the General Hospital’s morgue was so crowded that bodies were put into plastic bags and hung on hooks.”
Hence, May 13 may be re-conceptualised as the 1969 Malaysian Genocide, of which there is nothing sacred to celebrate. We, whatever our race and religion, would like to die with dignity in a spiritual or cultural sense. This desire is a human norm as only men bury our dead.
The violent deaths of May 13 were otherwise than dignified.
I could still remember those days when the adults were talking excitedly, at times with horror, under the rubber trees about the deadly slaughter happening hundreds of miles away in Kuala Lumpur.
There were the stories of the Chinese secret societies which were viewed as a nuisance in peaceful times but during May 13 becoming the protector of community. Also, I heard that there were courageous soldiers who refused to be willing executioners. The truth, be it from the perspective of the perpetrators or of the massacre survivors or the conscientious objectors, is yet to be openly told.
Ian Ward of the London Daily Telegraph reported on May 23, 1969 that “The initial stages of the government crackdown produced glaring discrimination against the Chinese.” (Kua, 2007).
Minorities vulnerable to violence
I would celebrate May 13 if an anti-genocide standby unit is formed today in the armed forces or the police forces specifically trained and dedicated to handle racist malignant conflicts.
It is risky to pray for heroes to emerge or to hope that soldiers would act professionally rather than become willing executioners in ugly and brutalizing times. On May 13, there were some heroes and some soldiers who valued professionalism. But we have a better chance of saving more lives if the prevention of massacres is taken as a professional duty of the armed forces.
Gregory Stanton in his “8 Stages of Genocide” proposed that genocide is also a cultural question. He wrote that “… A plan for genocide doesn’t need to be written out. An act of genocide may arise in a culture that considers members of another group less than human, where killing members of that group is not considered murder. This is the culture of impunity characteristic of genocidal societies.”
Those who use genocidal threats of May 13 are in fact operating in a cultural environment that condones or affirms a new moral code of behaviour: Killing is not murder.
Killing is repulsive to many a human. Once it is rationalised, the normal moral restraint is removed. Police could kill suspects when they believe or justify that they are killing crime, and not criminals, real or imagined. Or a soldier could kill old people, women or children if he believes that he is killing ideological enemies and not human beings.
And the intelligentsia would have no qualms about justifying mass murders.
Brutalizing ideology can kill
Of course gun or machete kills. But it is the justifying words of a destructive racist ideology that direct the brain to give green light to the fingers to pull the trigger. Hence, ideology kills, be it in the print or electronic media.
Being conditioned by a coercive and brutalizing ideology, the power elites rationalise unequal and oppressive treatment of the others when perceiving themselves as the victims due to historical injustices. This sows the seeds of genocide and waters its growth.
The threat of repeat of May 13 is to suppress the raising of civil rights issues. May 13 is in actual fact democide, a mass killing because of democratic demands by the ethnic minorities. Genocide is justified because democratic demands pose a threat of the loss of power of the dominant race or rather the power elites.
May 13 is state-tolerated genocidal violence deeply rooted in cultural and social conditions.
May 13 is an unjust and immoral war against the ethnic minorities asking for legitimate democratic demands. The threat of its repeat is being used to legitimise social inequalities and to deprive citizens the freedom of thought and discussion.
The intelligentsia class is often guilty of complicity in mass murders. Our own intelligentsia class urgently needs critical self-examination and self-reflection, not celebration and not bleaching of mass murders.
Reference
Kua Kia Soong, 2007, May 13 Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969, Petaling Jaya, Suaram Komunikasi.
