Today we are going to talk about an incident that everyone in Malaysia has kept silent about – the May 13 incident. This is an ethnic conflict in Malaysia that broke out on May 13, 1969 and lasted for several months.
What really happened to the May 13 incident? There are many different versions of this story. Let's take a look at the official statement first.
The May 13 incident occurred on May 13, 1969. That is, a few days after the third session, the ruling party "Coalition" (the predecessor of the current Barisan Nasional) at that time had a very poor result, although they did not lose the government, but they lost the state power in Penang, Kelantan, Selangor, and the majority in parliament. On the contrary, the opposition party has achieved very good results, gaining more than half of the support for the first time, so many opposition supporters took to the streets to march to celebrate.
According to Malaysia's first Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman's "Around 513", the above is a parade for the victory of the opposition party**.
During the march, these opposition supporters were too arrogant and ran to mock the ruling party, the Malays and their supporters. Most of the opposition supporters are Chinese, while the majority of the ruling party's supporters are Malays. As a result, the Umno Youth League was dissatisfied, and they decided to hold a counter-march on the evening of May 13.
As a result, supporters on both sides of the road violently clashed on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, forming an ethnic conflict between Malays and Chinese.
Although no official investigation information has been released, in recent years, more and more people have come out to tell their stories about the May 13 incident
There is a Malay man with the pseudonym "Mr. R":
In 1969, he was only 20 years old and had just arrived at the University of Malaya. His seniors told him to go to a rally to get together. He didn't think much about it himself, thinking that he was just helping to hold up the scene and go to eat and drink. When I went, I found out that this was a rally to kill.
The above content is quoted from: "Rebirth on the Wounds: A Personal Oral Narrative of the May 13 Incident").
The first deceased of the May 13 incident was likely to be a Chinese boy who came to deliver food. The boy had only come to deliver water, and as a result, he was hacked to death on the spot. The bodies were also dumped in the ditch.
From Malaysia**: Malaysia today).
There was also a survivor of the May 13 incident who had just completed the moon at the time of the incident. At that time, many relatives and friends came to their house to attend his full moon wine, but a group of Malays rushed out, locked the family in the house, and then set fire to the house, trying to burn them alive. Fortunately, someone came to put out the fire and rescued him and several family members. But his brothers and sisters were not so lucky, and all died in the fire, when they were all children under the age of 10.
From Malaysia**: China Press).
There are many more cases like this, although most of the dead were Chinese, but it is not only Malays who attack Chinese, and there are incidents that show that Chinese people also attack and kill Malays. The most famous is the "Federal Theater" incident. At that time, after the Chinese rushed into the theater and let the Chinese go, they ** all the Malays in the theater.
From Malaysia**: Malaysia today).
At that time, the streets of Kuala Lumpur were terrifying, with corpses, burnt cars and motorcycles littered with them. The riots did not disappear until October. In the end, the official figure was 196 dead (143 Chinese, 24 Malays, 13 Indians, and 15 unidentifiable) and 439 injured (18 of whom suffered gunshot wounds). Chinese NGOs believe that at least 1,200 people died, almost all of whom were Chinese.
Many people questioned the official reason for the May 13 incident, which is very strange. There are also various accounts of this event among the people.
If you ask some Chinese who have experienced the May 13 incident, they will tell you that the reason for the May 13 incident is not actually because of the celebration of the election, but the real reason starts from May 4 before the election.
On May 4, 1969, a member of the Chinese Workers' Party took to the streets to call for a boycott of the election because he was dissatisfied, but was shot dead by the police. This incident made many Chinese voters angry. On the eve of polling day, the Workers' Party held a funeral for the slain party members in Kuala Lumpur, and thousands of people were present at the scene, and the situation was very tense.
Originated in Malaysia**: Sin Chew**).
On May 13, there was so much anger that they met the majority of Malay supporters of the coalition and exploded.
But if you ask the Malays, they will give you a completely different version. In this version, the time needs to go back even further, on April 25, 1969. There was an UMNO member who was killed, suspected to be Chinese. So in the Malay version, it was the Chinese who did it first.
Source: Malaysian Bar Badan Peguam Malaysia).
In order to find the answer, the scholar Co Carson studied the declassified files of the 513 incident in the United Kingdom, and finally he believed that the 513 incident was not a racial conflict at all, but a political conspiracy.
Scholar Carson Cog. is the author of "513 Declassified Documents").
Co Carson believes that the May 13 incident is not a momentary impulse among the people, but that someone is planning behind it. Behind the scenes are the people of the Abdul Lhasa faction of Umno.
From Malaysia**: Malaysia today).
At that time, there was infighting within UMNO, and Abdul Lhasa's faction wanted to pull in the founding prime minister of the time, Tengku Abdul Rahman**. At that time, there were actually two factions within UMNO, one was the founding patriarch led by Tengku Abdul Rahman, who successfully fought for the country's independence. The other is the emerging bourgeoisie, led by Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Lhasa's faction. On the whole, the Senate was more lenient towards non-Malays, this faction advocated the relaxation of citizenship rights, and so on. This new bourgeois faction is very conservative.
**10,000 Fans Incentive Plan In order to create riots, Abdul Lhasa's faction staged this riot in Kuala Lumpur, and then took the opportunity to question Tengku Abdul Rahman's incompetence and force him**.
Ahmad Mustapha Hassan, former Malaysian News Agency (PMS) General Manager, was interviewed by Malaysiakini
The above statement is not without evidence, and later archives have found that many of the Malay rallies at that time were organised by the leaders of Umno's Abdul Lhasa faction. And some Malays are obviously not from Kuala Lumpur, they gathered in Kuala Lumpur from a far away place the day before. This suggests that they were most likely organized and premeditated, and not a fortuitous event in which the parade broke out.
Ahmad Mustapha Hassan, former Malaysian News Agency (PMS) General Manager, was interviewed by Malaysiakini
In hindsight, after the May 13 incident, Tunku Abdul Rahman's position was indeed not guaranteed. Since it was so serious at that time, the head of state declared a state of emergency. All the affairs of the state are entrusted to the Council of the Interior Minister, headed by Abdul Razak.
From Malaysia**: Malaysia today).
In September of the same year, Tunku Abdul Rahman resigned** and Abdul Razak took the throne as Prime Minister. Later, Abdul Lhasa introduced the New Economic Policy, which gave a lot of benefits and assistance to the Bumiputera and Malays. It was at this time that the economic and educational system began to be established.
Is this interpretation true? There is no way to be completely certain until the May 13 incident file is declassified. However, this interpretation was later agreed by other scholars, including Lee Kuan Yew and Abdul Razak himself, suggesting that this interpretation was likely to be the truth of the May 13 incident.
*: Malaysia Chinese News Network).
To date, no historical documents have been declassified. Due to the fact that the newspapers and other ** were all banned, there are very few materials we can see at the moment, most of which are oral accounts of witnesses and foreign ** information. Therefore, the internal archives of ** are of great significance to our understanding of this event.
Today's divergent opinions are only inferences made by some experts and scholars based on the local historical materials obtained. I look forward to the early declassification of the May 13 incident, which is the first step towards the real racial harmony in Malaysia, which originated from Malaysia**: Malaysia today).
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