May 13th Incident

Causes of the Riot

On independence in 1963, Malaysia suffered from a sharp division of wealth between the rich, entrepreneurial Chinese and the poor, rural Malays. Race riots in Singapore in 1964 were a large contributing factor in the expulsion of the state from Malaysia, and racial tension continued to simmer, many Malays dissatisfied by their newly independent government's perceived willingness to placate the Chinese at their expense.

In the May 10, 1969 general elections, the ruling Alliance coalition headed by the United Malays National Organization suffered a large setback in the polls. The largely Chinese opposition parties Democratic Action Party and Gerakan gained in the elections, and secured a police permit for a victory parade through a fixed route in Kuala Lumpur. However, the rowdy procession deviated from its route and headed through the Malay district of Kampong Bahru, jeering at the inhabitants.

While the Gerakan party issued an apology the next day, UMNO announced a counter-procession starting from the head of Selangor state Dato' Harun bin Idris on Jalan Raja Nuda. Reportedly, the gathering crowd was informed that Malays on their way to the procession had been assaulted by Chinese in Setapak, several miles to the north. The angry protestors swiftly wreaked revenge by killing two passing Chinese motorcyclists, and the riot begun.

The riot ignited the capital Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding state of Selangor, but except minor disturbances in Melaka the rest of the country stayed calm. A nationwide state of emergency and accompanying curfew were declared on May 16, but the curfew was relaxed in most parts of the country on May 18 and rescinded even in central Kuala Lumpur within a week.

According to police figures, 184 people died and 356 were wounded. 753 cases of arson were logged and 211 vehicles were destroyed or severely damaged. Other sources place the number of dead at 196 or even above 200.

Repercussions of the Riot

The riot led to the expulsion of Malay nationalist Mahathir Mohamad from UMNO and propelled him to write his seminal work The Malay Dilemma, in which he posits a solution to Malaysia's racial tensions. The government swiftly moved to placate Malays with the New Economic Policy, enshrining affirmative action policies for the bumiputra (Malay) class. Many of Malaysia's draconian press laws, originally targeting racial encitement, also date from this period. This incident also led to the elevation of the Malay language above others - as an example, where English was the main language of instruction in schools before, Malay replaced it gradually over time. The excuse for this was to promote national unity under one language, but this decision led to repercussions of its own and eventually in 2002 the government decided to return English as the language of instruction for Science and Mathematics.

See also: History of Malaysia

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