I am not sure what to make of Teropong Negara’s letter to malaysiakini on his recollection of May 13 - not so much on those ‘smoking guns’ he mentioned, but more on his observation of Tunku Abdul Rahman.
I quote him:
The Tunku was already clearly overstaying his welcome. His love for drinking and too frequent ‘ronggeng’ sessions and love for horses were eroding away Umno's credibility among conservative Malays. On being interviewed by the Far Eastern Economic Review of what he thought of the proposal that adulterers be stoned to death, he replied that: ‘I fear that there would not be enough stones left to construct our roads’.
Some speculated that in order to contain the endemic rot within Umno, it was decided by the party’s inner circle that it was imperative to create a major incident as an excuse to clean, consolidate and restore Umno and thence the Malays to their rightful places.
“The endemic rot within UMNO …” and today, what of UMNO?
We are now 50 years into independence. In another 50 years, Tunku may well stand out as the only Prime Minister of Malaysia in a century who left office virtually destitute. His successor Tun Razak had to quickly pass a bill to endow him with a pension appropriate to a retired PM (including a house in Penang).
Yet, even today we hear some young turks condemning him of corruption. Yes, Tunku was a PM who was known to buy goat meat in Kedah when he visited Alor Setar occasionally because he said that meat was cheaper there than in KL - hmmm, obviously 'signs' of a naughty PM?
When he was stripped of his powers and packed off into retirement, he continued to be surrounded by his friends of all races, but particularly Chinese. Those were the days of that silly old concept called loyalty, even when a man was no longer in power to be of any use to anyone.
As a man who, in Teropong Negara’s words, loved his drinks, he was, after retirement, selected by the Saudi King (Good Lord, the king of the holy land?) to be the first secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC).
Initially he refused, explaining to the king that he was not a good Muslim as he loved his drink – no one can accuse Tunku of being a hypocrite, that’s for sure.
The King replied rather interestingly that he didn’t want Tunku to be the Mufti of Mecca but as the secretary-general of the OIC.
So I wonder if it was the King of Saudi Arabia who had said: “I fear that there would not be enough stones left to construct our roads”, would it be received any differently?
But in the final analysis, Tunku could well be spot on, indeed right down to a T, in that there would not be enough stones left to construct our roads if we stone every Malaysian adulterer or for any act of incest.
Showing posts with label may 13. Show all posts
Showing posts with label may 13. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Monday, January 09, 2006
The Real Cause of the May 13 Riots
A guest writer over at Malaysia-Today blog, Nurihsan Majid in an article titled Time for a non-race based agenda, which basically is a political plug for the PKR approach towards the National Economic Policy (NEP), wrote the following:
“The NEP was launched to remedy the socio-economic inequality that led to the May 13, 1969 racial riots.”
Well, that’s patently incorrect!
While socio-economic inequality regretably did exist, what had led to the May 13 racial riot was not that. It was true that the Malays grew disenchanted with then Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman’s Perikatan (Alliance) party, resulting in massive losses for his coalition.
The true reason leading to the riots was the ruling Perikatan party, or to be more specific, its dominant component, UMNO, losing so many seats that it was on the verge of surrendering Selangor to the DAP, and very nearly losing Perak to the PPP of the Seenivasegam brothers.
That was what caused the riots!
The Selangor UMNO could not cope with the thought of losing Malaysia’s premier state (at that time) to the Chinese-Indian parties. When the Selangor State election results became more obvious, there was already discussion of how to accommodate a non-Muslim Menteri Besar (MB or Chief Minister) in Selangor, because one of the principal roles of a MB is to advise the Sultan of the State on religious affairs. Those issues would undoubtedly have infuriated some Malays.
The Perikatan had already lost Penang to the new rising star, the (then) mighty Gerakan Party. But, unlike Selangor, Penang had always been a Chinese-majority state, so its loss was not so sensitive to Malay pride. Also, judging by the (1969) voting trend, UMNO perceived that by the next election, it would probably lose Perak as well.
The UMNO members’ anger was further aggravated by some thoughtless jeering by the DAP-Gerakan party victors in Selangor as they conducted their jubilant victory motorcade around Kuala Lumpur (though the leaders of the Gerakan Party made a public apology the following day). That anger at the unthinkable loss of Malaysia's premier State to a Chinese-dominated party and the jibes and jeerings by an insensitive DAP-Gerakan were what lit the racial fire, and not the socio-economic inequality.
After-note: since then, recent facts revealed by Prof Khoo indicate that it was not the DAP but the Gerakan Party which did the provocative jeering
The racial-political tension in Selangor then was like, to use a cliché, sitting on a powder keg of explosives in tinder dry conditions while attempting to light a cigarette. Two days after the final results were determined, the riots started in Kampong Baru, Kuala Lumpur, right in front of the MB's official residence after incorrect (or fabricated) rumours that Chinese gangs in Setapak had attacked Malays.
Apart from UMNO losing support from its Malay constituencies, how did the opposition do so well?
In the 1969 election, the opposition parties comprising DAP, Gerakan, PPP, and PAS (yes, PAS) developed a joint double-prong strategy where (1) they avoided running against each other in order to prevent vote splitting, and (2) campaigned for each other, asking their supporters to vote for anyone other than the Perikatan. Many Malays had voted for the Gerakan because (at that time) it was truly a multi-ethnic party.
Digressing for a while, compare that opposition unified election strategy and discipline in adhering to the plan with the 2004 opposition debacle, where an overconfident PAS wanted to go it alone while a wishy washy PKR wasn't sure where to put its best foot forward. To make matters worse, the Chinese-Indian component of PKR tussled with the DAP for Chinese seats.
I believe the DAP was actually sincere in wanting a coalition with PAS and PKR because Lim Kit Siang was (still is) obsessed with denying the Barisan Nasional its two-third majority, and that could only be achieved if the opposition parties are united. But with a runaway PAS that was frightening the shit out of its supporters, an annoying Chinese section of PKR trying to wrestle traditional DAP seats away, and remembering its painful lesson in 1999, it wisely (for that election) decided to stick to its usual standalone strategy which of course had a limitation in terms of winning seats.
Anyway, this posting is to set the facts correct about the real cause of the May 13 racial riots in 1969. Even the National Security Commission in its official report on the riots did not attribute the cause to the socio-economic disparity, but to 'the Malayan Communist Party and illegal Chinese gangs'. We need to bear in mind this was a Government report so we shouldn't expect it to say some losers were bloody unsporting.
It resulted in asilent quiet political coup d’etat within the Perikatan party, with Tengku Abdul Rahman removed from power, and the ascendancy of Tun Razak as the next Prime Minister. Because Razak wanted the Malay votes back for the Perikatan he devised the NEP to address the economic position of the Malays. The NEP was in fact based on Dr Mahathir's seminal work The Malay Dilemma, which proposed a strong affirmative economic programme for Malays to address their disadvantaged socio-economic standing. Tun Razak also brilliantly emasculated the Gerakan, PPP and PAS by absorbing them into a new Barisan Nasional - I'll blog on this another time.
I suppose one could argue through a tenuous chain of cause and effect that at the root of it, the socio-economic disparity led to Perikatan's loss of Malay support, which led to UMNO's massive losses of Federal and State seats (even Dr Mahathir lost his Kota Setar Selatan parliamentary seat to PAS), which led to fear and anger among UMNO members, which coupled by insensitive provocations by the DAP members, led to the outbreak of the riots.
But that would be stretching it. Let’s keep our eye on the fact that it was the pending loss of Malaysia’s premier state of Selangor that triggered the fear, hatred and consequential rioting. In other words the cause was UMNO's inability to tolerate an erosion of its dominant political position. Addressing the socio-economic disparity through the NEP was merely to avoid further loss of its political powers.
“The NEP was launched to remedy the socio-economic inequality that led to the May 13, 1969 racial riots.”
Well, that’s patently incorrect!
While socio-economic inequality regretably did exist, what had led to the May 13 racial riot was not that. It was true that the Malays grew disenchanted with then Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman’s Perikatan (Alliance) party, resulting in massive losses for his coalition.
The true reason leading to the riots was the ruling Perikatan party, or to be more specific, its dominant component, UMNO, losing so many seats that it was on the verge of surrendering Selangor to the DAP, and very nearly losing Perak to the PPP of the Seenivasegam brothers.
That was what caused the riots!
The Selangor UMNO could not cope with the thought of losing Malaysia’s premier state (at that time) to the Chinese-Indian parties. When the Selangor State election results became more obvious, there was already discussion of how to accommodate a non-Muslim Menteri Besar (MB or Chief Minister) in Selangor, because one of the principal roles of a MB is to advise the Sultan of the State on religious affairs. Those issues would undoubtedly have infuriated some Malays.
The Perikatan had already lost Penang to the new rising star, the (then) mighty Gerakan Party. But, unlike Selangor, Penang had always been a Chinese-majority state, so its loss was not so sensitive to Malay pride. Also, judging by the (1969) voting trend, UMNO perceived that by the next election, it would probably lose Perak as well.
The UMNO members’ anger was further aggravated by some thoughtless jeering by the DAP-Gerakan party victors in Selangor as they conducted their jubilant victory motorcade around Kuala Lumpur (though the leaders of the Gerakan Party made a public apology the following day). That anger at the unthinkable loss of Malaysia's premier State to a Chinese-dominated party and the jibes and jeerings by an insensitive DAP-Gerakan were what lit the racial fire, and not the socio-economic inequality.
After-note: since then, recent facts revealed by Prof Khoo indicate that it was not the DAP but the Gerakan Party which did the provocative jeering
The racial-political tension in Selangor then was like, to use a cliché, sitting on a powder keg of explosives in tinder dry conditions while attempting to light a cigarette. Two days after the final results were determined, the riots started in Kampong Baru, Kuala Lumpur, right in front of the MB's official residence after incorrect (or fabricated) rumours that Chinese gangs in Setapak had attacked Malays.
Apart from UMNO losing support from its Malay constituencies, how did the opposition do so well?
In the 1969 election, the opposition parties comprising DAP, Gerakan, PPP, and PAS (yes, PAS) developed a joint double-prong strategy where (1) they avoided running against each other in order to prevent vote splitting, and (2) campaigned for each other, asking their supporters to vote for anyone other than the Perikatan. Many Malays had voted for the Gerakan because (at that time) it was truly a multi-ethnic party.
Digressing for a while, compare that opposition unified election strategy and discipline in adhering to the plan with the 2004 opposition debacle, where an overconfident PAS wanted to go it alone while a wishy washy PKR wasn't sure where to put its best foot forward. To make matters worse, the Chinese-Indian component of PKR tussled with the DAP for Chinese seats.
I believe the DAP was actually sincere in wanting a coalition with PAS and PKR because Lim Kit Siang was (still is) obsessed with denying the Barisan Nasional its two-third majority, and that could only be achieved if the opposition parties are united. But with a runaway PAS that was frightening the shit out of its supporters, an annoying Chinese section of PKR trying to wrestle traditional DAP seats away, and remembering its painful lesson in 1999, it wisely (for that election) decided to stick to its usual standalone strategy which of course had a limitation in terms of winning seats.
Anyway, this posting is to set the facts correct about the real cause of the May 13 racial riots in 1969. Even the National Security Commission in its official report on the riots did not attribute the cause to the socio-economic disparity, but to 'the Malayan Communist Party and illegal Chinese gangs'. We need to bear in mind this was a Government report so we shouldn't expect it to say some losers were bloody unsporting.
It resulted in a
I suppose one could argue through a tenuous chain of cause and effect that at the root of it, the socio-economic disparity led to Perikatan's loss of Malay support, which led to UMNO's massive losses of Federal and State seats (even Dr Mahathir lost his Kota Setar Selatan parliamentary seat to PAS), which led to fear and anger among UMNO members, which coupled by insensitive provocations by the DAP members, led to the outbreak of the riots.
But that would be stretching it. Let’s keep our eye on the fact that it was the pending loss of Malaysia’s premier state of Selangor that triggered the fear, hatred and consequential rioting. In other words the cause was UMNO's inability to tolerate an erosion of its dominant political position. Addressing the socio-economic disparity through the NEP was merely to avoid further loss of its political powers.
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