Looking deeper into the May 13 Racial Riot

Exactly 45 years ago a great tragedy occurred in Kuala Lumpur where many people were killed and injured. This tragedy came to be known as the May 13, 1969 incident. Today, the very mention of May 13 still bring shudders and strike fear in the hearts of many Malaysians.Generally, the subject of May 13 is a social taboo in Malaysia and it opened the eyes of our national leaders, opened everyones eyes that unity among races is not a minor thing and actually has great influence towards the nation development. Basically, the issue of May 13 highlight the issues of unity among races but now let us look at this incident in a new perspective. In order to solve a problem we need to identify the main reason first. If we scroll down the history, the racial riot happened right after the 1969 Elections where the opposition parties obtained encouraging victory. DAP and Gerakan had organized a grand scale parade on the 11th -12th of May 1969 which was unauthorised by the police. UMNO which was challenged also held a parade upon their success in forming the government. Such provocative parades ignited the spirit of every race, until fights and riots broke out and military help had to be called when the police failed to control the situation. The official number of casualties was 493 but it is estimated that the unreported casualties might be more. Everyone see this tragedy as an act of racism and violence. But, as I study this incident, as a learner, something popped into my head. Questions rushed into my head, asking for rational. What were they were thinking? Why did they even have to use violence? After I know about all the racism, about the provocation, about the politics at that time, what I can actually see is EGO. From my point of view, the leader at that time focus too much about the development of the country but they forgot to develop the peoples mentality. We need to be strong from inside in order to be tough outside. Yes, I understand that people were proud, people were mad, people were holding grudge and dissatisfaction among races at that time but when it comes to conflict, it is the leaders job to solve it. They said that the proper ways had been used but there was no outcome and that was the only ways to solve the problem. But I don't see that violence had produce anything great at all. There was no problem actually but the sedition and bad whispers keep on taunting the people making it worse at that time. As I said, it was the mentality. People were not very educated and they just believed and follow their leaders which failed to shed away their emotions in making decision regardless which party. I dont completely blamed the leaders because they were also normal human but what make the leaders differ from the people is how they react in the mist of hardship.But what had been done is done and we need to move on. May 13 had been a history for us to learn. George Santayana once said that Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The topic cannot be screened from our young generation as they need to know, to understand as well, what actually happened. There is no use in burying the history because at one point it will surface again. It is better to educate the young generation, to prepare them of what are coming so that when the same issue rise, they would stay calm and react wisely. In educating young generation, May 13 is not the issue actually. The real deal here is to inject the value of unity, acceptance and toleration in their mind. Why did I highlight the young generations education? Because they are the asset of our country. They are the one who will take over and lead the nation. They are the hope of the country. When I see our country nowadays, honestly I can say that the racism is still there. The people are not so unite as we hope but look at the bright side, we actually still live in peace and harmony. And why is that? The only reason is because we have developed the peoples mentality. We have learnt that violence is not going to help. Here, I also like to give my gratitude to our Prime Minister Dato Sri Najib Tun Razak for introducing the concept of 1Malaysia. Although he receive a lot of criticism, at least he did something in order to preserve our unity and harmony state in the country. I can see that 1Malaysia had succeed in nurturing the young minds of Malaysian. The effort in uniting the people is still on going and I do believe that his effort is a long term crop and patience is worth it here.In a nutshell, the May 13 incident is sure a tragedy for all Malaysians and we need to understand the real causes of it; ego and mentality. We need keep moving forward and I hope that everyone can see that education is the keyword towards unity and prosperity of a country. I hope that every Malaysian will be grateful and actually support all the efforts done to promote unity as it is my dream to see us, Malaysian, united as one.