May 13th incident

Well i'm pretty sure that most of u would noe what today signifies; 14 May, Mother's Day of course!!! Well at least in Malaysia and a number of other countries...

Mother's Day, be it a day of joy and happiness and respect and reflection for mothers all around the world...

Mother's Day, be it a day for greeting card companies, and florists and giftshops to double their revenue...

Mother's Day, be it a day to hide the bleak events that happened just a day before, exactly 37 years ago... That's right, while most of u noe that 14 May represents Mother's Day, what most of u would not noe is that May 13th (yesterday) marks the anniversary of a bleak event that scars Malaysian history... a bleak event in 1969 that most of us have forgotten or worse still, most of us do not noe of...

What has come to be known as the May 13th incident was the worst racial riots to have been recorded in Malaysian history, a riot that would cost around 190 lives...

Some history lesson... on May 10th 1969, the Alliance Party lead by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) suffered an upset in the elections to the DAP and GERAKAN (mostly chinese) and the former secured a permit for a procession... a procession that would be the spark of the racial riots... the DAP and GERAKAN drifted off course from the initial procession route and entered into a malay district where they shouted 'anti-malay' slogans and started jeering at the inhabitants.... though an apology was issued the day after, UMNO went on with a counter procession in which they received information that malays had been attacked by the chinese community and imediately retaliated by killing two passing chinese motorcyclists...

Now, who was to be blamed? was it the chinese community that shouted "Semua Melayu kasi habis"? or was it the malay community that did no better by reacting violently? the answer... it doesn't matter who is to be blamed... what matters now is that today, only a minor 37 years later, despite minor racial 'sentiments', we Malaysians have found a way to get along well with one another... We have found a way to work together, to thrive together... and that has made all the difference...

What is surprising is the fact that most of our youth of today noe not much about the May 13th incident... what is more surprising is that this particular event, with the magnitude it held and still holds occupies only a small mention in our history books... are we tryin to make them forget how vulnerable we once were and how much progress we've made in such little time? isn't it only thru history that we improve and learn from our mistakes?

i have used the limited information i could find in the process of writing this article and cannot be held responsible for any misleading facts...

-aDRiANo-