34 – Coping with crisis - racial riots – Malaysia 1969
May 13th 1969 – a day to be remembered but we hope and pray that it will not to be repeated in our multi racial society. It was the worst storm we had ever been through in the fourteen years we spent in Malaysia.
It began with a victory parade coursing through the streets of Kuala Lumpur, organised by the jubilant opposition parties, all non-Malay. It was a celebration of their triumph over the Alliance ruling party comprising UMNO (Malay) MCA (Chinese) and MIC (Indian) parties. Emotions ran high among the various racial groups that took part in the elections – the victorious and the defeated. On the whole people live peaceably together, but often it is the extremists that stir up trouble.
At the Selangor State the opposition had won an equal number of seats in the state legislature. This created an impasse in the state legislature. Who should be the Mentri Besar (Chief Minister)?
UMNO supporters decided to hold a counter victory celebration on May 13th. In such a tense atmosphere, there were rumours of racial riots circulating freely. The gullible accepted the rumours as facts without checking! There was a reported incident of a group of Malays armed with parangs and other weapons surrounded a Chinese cinema at Batu Road. When the show ended the Chinese, coming out of the theatre, were attacked, resulting in many deaths.
Riots which started in the city area of Kuala Lumpur soon spread to the whole state of Selangor and beyond, as far as Penang and Singapore. A state of emergency was declared and a nation-wide curfew imposed. Thousands were arrested. In the predominantly Chinese estate where we lived, residents organised themselves to defend the area. Many of the leaders came from the massage parlour on the other end of our block of shophouses. They respected The Salvation Army; and one of them, a tough looking man whose body was covered with tattoos, said to me “Pastor, you stay home. We look after you.”
It was frightening to see through our upstairs bedroom window the men armed with poles, sticks, knives and whatever weapons they could get hold of. We could hear the shouts calling out for volunteers to join them. And when the sirens of police vehicles were heard, these men would run to hide.
Gone was the dream of an idyllic – happy, harmonious Malaysia where the different races could work together. There were the Malays who claimed that not enough had been done for the ‘bumiputras’ (sons of the soil) after twelve years of independence. The Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman was blamed for allowing foreigners to remain in control of important sectors of the Malaysian economy. Dr. Mahathir Mohamed who later became the Prime Minister had written a book called the “Malay Dilemma” which was banned by the Tengku.
We had been in Kuala Lumpur for about three years. That evening when the riots started in the city, I was on my way to the home of Canadian OMF missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Ellergodt to join them in a prayer meeting. This was a follow up of the Dr. Grady Wilson Campaign. On the way, I was told to go home – a 24 hour curfew had been imposed because of the riots. I made a hasty retreat home. We shut all the doors and windows. I peeped out of the window and soon saw police vehicles and riot squads outside our house. It was frightening and we really had to pray hard for God’s protection.
Brigadier Arthur Smith, the Public Relations Secretary was in Kuala Lumpur and he scheduled to conduct our meeting on the Sunday. He hurriedly left Kuala Lumpur, driving behind a convoy of Military Army trucks to Singapore.
Dora Poh Chin was born on 26th April 1969, just slightly over two weeks’ old. She was crying most of the time. She was being breast fed, but my wife had insufficient milk for her. Poh Chin kept vomiting, causing us much stress, but we could not go to the doctor as the curfew was on. The two older ones – Gladys and Stephen, nine and seven years old respectively were very good children and cooperated beautifully. We did not have enough food as we had only a small personal refrigerator (officers’ quarters were not provided with refrigerator in those days)
Next couple of days; I had to slip out quietly to buy food from the nearby shops. Gladys and Stephen would help me look out to ensure the coast was clear – no police or soldiers around. I would then run to the back lane and knock on the doors of the shops. Then when I got home again with whatever food I could get, the children would be there waiting to unlock the gate and door and let me in quickly. That was a very tense week for us all.
The Sunday following the racial riots when curfew was lifted for a few hours, our hall was full to overflowing, for Christians who could not go to church came to The Salvation Army to worship. We had to borrow chairs from the nearby coffee shop.
While the country was still in turmoil, we received farewell orders! We had to pack and leave for Ipoh in July 1969 to take up our new appointment. When curfew was lifted for a few hours, I would make my way from our quarters upstairs to the back of the hall downstairs. There was no internal staircase, so I had to get out of our quarters and enter the hall from outside. Gladys and Stephen would let down different articles in baskets tied with ropes through the air well at the back of the hall. Then I would unload and pack them into wooden cases. It was fun for the children, but quite stressful for me.
Poh Chin was sick most of the time and demanded a lot of attention. This kept my wife extremely busy seeing to housework and helping me to sort out our belongings. I still continued with my pastoral visitation during the off curfew hours. The folk appreciated my visits to read the word of God and pray with them. Mr. and Mrs. Robertson harvested vegetables in their own garden and I helped him distribute to the neighbours, including the Malays.
May 13 led to the enactment of the Sedition Act – no more discussion on sensitive race issues, the special position of the bumiputras and the citizenship rights of non- Malays. The Keturunan Malayu became an important issue – no questioning of the special privileges and rights of Malays.
The Alliance comprising the three race parties was changed to Barisan National. UMNO being the largest party had more say than the others. The simmering discontent exists to this day – forty one years later at the time of writing.
Yes, as we look back, we have much to thank God for. “The promises of God are sure to them that believe” declared William Booth, the Founder of The Salvation Army. It is in desperate moments like times like these, that we really prove His grace sufficient. An old saint once said, “You never know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you’ve got.”
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