John Slimming’s book Malaysia: Death of a Democracy was one of the first counternarratives to May 13. As a European foreigner, he could freely move throughout the city without fear of being targeted for his race.11 He was also fluent in Malay and Cantonese, the dialect spoken by most of the Chinese population in Kuala Lumpur.11 His fluency allowed him to collect the personal experiences of various people during May 13. And as a former member of the Federation of Malaya10 Police, Slimming gained the confidence of security forces for interviews.11

Furthermore, there were several opportunities where Harun could have decided to and was actively prompted to discourage the UMNO procession. The first was when the idea for the procession was pitched. Dato Harun had ‘tried to discourage [a group of UMNO supporters] from holding a victory procession’ for fear that ‘something untoward might happen’.14 He only approved the procession under the assurance that it would proceed in a ‘peaceful and orderly manner’.14 Harun was popular in Kampong Baru and among the UMNO Youth, but he was overconfident to think he could control a group numbering in the hundreds with just his voice. 14

Even as the crowd grew outside his house with palpable intensity and obvious weaponry, Harun rejected his second chance to call off the procession. At around 3pm on May 13, Slimming cites that two senior police officers warned Harun about the possibility of violence from the procession and asked him to call it off. The Selangor Police Headquarters seconded these rumours of violence. The NOC reported that the HQ had heard rumours that it would be a ‘peaceful procession but one that could respond in kind if attacked’.14 This shows that it was common knowledge that the procession participants were armed, yet no one did anything to stop it.

In Slimming’s view, the riots directly resulted from UMNO’s encouragement and its willful ignorance of the impending violence. Or to quote Slimming directly:

Why was the Government taken by surprise when so many people, police and civilians alike, were fully aware of what was going to happen, several hours before the slaughter began?14

Slimming also disagreed that the Communists were a significant cause of May 13. The Communists held a peaceful demonstration even with every opportunity to disrupt the general elections, proving, according to him, that the Communists were not involved. His book examined the Labour Party funeral procession on 9 May 1969 as evidence. The government approved the request for the funeral procession on the eve of the polling day, despite the country’s sensitivity to communist threats after their insurgency during the Emergency (1948-1960). The police did not stop the procession when Maoist chanting and diversions from the approved route began.14 The lack of response from the police and government suggests more than Slimming explicitly dives into in his book on how little perceived power the Communists had.

So was Slimming or the NOC right? 

The unsatisfying answer is that we won’t know. The NOC was not transparent about how it conducted its investigation. Moreover, the investigations were not conducted by a neutral party but by the government itself, which has a vested interest in ensuring the narrative of May 13 favours them. On the other hand, Slimming has no apparent motive for pinning the blame on the government as a non-Malaysian who has shown a commitment to the country in his military service.

However, we are similarly unable to reproduce his interviews with witnesses. Nevertheless, history is not an endeavour for the Truth. Slimming’s book and the NOC’s report reveal different aspects of May 13, which we need to carefully examine as readers to gain a fuller understanding of what the tragedy means for Malaysia.

Goh Cheng Teik was a history and international relations professor at the University of Malaya who later joined Parti Gerakan Malaysia.14 Before moving into politics, he published The May Thirteenth Incident and Democracy in Malaysia in 1971. The book focused on understanding democracy in Malaysia in light of May 13 and the structural features of Malaysian society that caused the tragedy. It also includes a comparison of the political climate in Selangor with Perak and Penang, where the Alliance Party did not win the majority vote and a detailed appendix of all significant political entities and actors during May 13.

Goh’s book interpreted the events as a series of rational decisions made by anxious people. He argued that the riots were a rational response to the racial slurs and threats between each ethnic community and the Alliance’s increasing loss of power. 

The racial slurs and threats from the Chinese to the Malays came from the processions of three political parties leading up to May 13. The first was the Labour Party of Malaysia (LPM) organised a funeral procession on 9 May 1969, the eve of the elections, with police approval.14 The funeral was for a Chinese youth LPM member who was allegedly shot dead in self-defence by a police officer after being caught putting up anti-election posters in Kepong, Kuala Lumpur.14 The procession was meant to be limited to non-main roads and a thousand participants, but the LPM went all out.14 The almost entirely Chinese procession shouted Maoist chants and racially incisive remarks against the Malays as they marched through the main streets of Kuala Lumpur, stalling traffic and creating a fearsome display.14 No one was injured or killed at the end, but it thickened the Malay-Chinese tensions. 

The day after the election results were released (11 May), DAP held a procession to celebrate their unexpected electoral gains with some unlicensed offshoots. The police interviewed by the NOC reported seeing separate processions by the DAP going around the city, jeering at the police with obscenities.14 The insults were directed at civilian Malays and the police, with one of the processions consisting of about 500 scooters on 12 May.14 According to police accounts, these insults continued for two whole days, all day long. The police also granted Gerakan a permit to hold their procession on the morning of 12 May.14 Gerakan and DAP supporters were also reportedly jeering at Malays and Malay houses.

Goh’s argument on agent rationality comes under fire here. If the government were acting rationally, why did it not take rational steps to preserve public order? The police and Malays were insulted for multiple days, yet the police continued to issue permits for processions and did not take precautionary measures against the slew of racial insults. The government seemed content to allow the people to run amok, perhaps, as Kua Kia Soong suggested, to show them that they had inadvertently chosen a chaos-ridden future by not supporting the Alliance.14

However, his account is perhaps influenced by founded fears of persecution under the Sedition Act. The act criminalises any speech or text which questions the Federal Constitution or generates ‘feelings of ill-will and hostility between the different races’.14 Interpreted broadly, Goh and Slimming’s books potentially fall under the Sedition Act. After publishing his book, Slimming never returned to Malaysia, purportedly because he was denied entry.11

In the conclusion of his book, Goh suggests that minority groups in Malaysia should appease the existing Malay-leaning structures to achieve democracy. However, his solution contradicts the democracy’s purpose to represent its people’s interests fairly. If the goal is to prevent future violence, putting aside the minority (who make up almost 40% of Malaysia’s population) only exacerbates the problem. As Goh argues, the people were moved by anxiety over perceived threats to their status in Malaysia which is better solved by better representing the interests of all Malaysians.

There were no substantial works written about May 13 until Kua Kia Soong’s May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969. He published the book in 2007, almost 40 years after the tragedy. His book was based on documents released from the Public Records Office (now the National Archives) in the United Kingdom after 30 years.11 These documents include dispatches from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Offices in countries like Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, reports from the British High Commissioner in Malaysia and several banned reports from foreign correspondents.11

It is difficult to determine the impact of the Sedition Act on the production of academic works. But there was a shortage of primary sources with media censorship and the taboo with speaking about May 13. Kua has had personal experience with Malaysia’s freedom of speech laws after being arrested under the Internal Security Act in 1987 for being part of a Chinese education movement.11 Despite that, he continued to publish critical works about Malaysia and founded human rights NGO, Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM).11

Kua’s book framed May 13 as  ‘coup d’etat of the Malay state capitalist class against to depose [Tunku Abdul Rahman] who represented the outdated Malay aristocracy’.11 He reinforces Slimming’s assessment that there was disproportionate police and army brutality against the Chinese. Kua drew on statistics from the declassified documents to prove this.

Kua argued for three main reasons that ‘clearly show that there was a plan to unleash the violence’ by the Malay elites.11 However, these factors prove that the government stood to gain from premeditating May 13, not necessarily that they did. 

The Malay aristocracy governed the Malay peninsula before British colonial rule in the 19th century. There were nine independent kingdoms which were each governed by its own sultan. Then, the British began indirect rule over these kingdoms and direct administration over the Straits Settlements (Penang, Melaka and Singapore).

After being co-opted in Malaysia as a constitutional monarchy, the sultans have had their powers severely limited. Every five years, one of the nine sultans is nominated and elected amongst themselves to be the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong.11 These sultans carried on the past feudal system and their roles as protectors of the Malays and their rights.11

The new Malay elite were those without royal lineage but still came from good backgrounds. There were tensions between how the Malay elite and the Malay aristocracy preferred to direct policies. For example, the Malay elites preferred increasing private capital over state-held capital, giving more control to the individual over the collective.11 Kua showed that Tun Abdul Razak had the motive to unseat Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s first prime minister and the Kedah state prince, to shift power away from the Malay royalty to the Malay elites.11

The opposition parties were putting up a strong resistance against the Alliance who operated on a strategy of compromise between races.11 This strategy diluted their supporter base by only appealing to an increasingly non-moderate polity. These opposition parties were:

A radical party which appealed to the anxieties of the lower-class, religious Malays. PMIP claimed that UMNO had betrayed the Malays by joining hands with the Chinese MCA and Indian MIC parties in forming the Alliance coalition.11

The party appealed to the urban Chinese and Indians by directly opposing the special privileges afforded to the Malays.11

A new party formed in 1968 which appealed to moderate Chinese and Indian professionals. Gerakan took a non-communal political stance.11

Kua highlighted three main policies which ultimately benefited only one segment of society while consolidating power in the hands of the ruling elite.

Amended Sedition Act
The NOC used the state of emergency to amend the Sedition Act to criminalise any written or spoken acts that question the Federal Constitution or generate ‘feelings of ill-will and hostility between the different races’.11 The amendment prevented dissension and allowed the government to silence its opponents with a broad interpretation of the law.

New Economic Policy (NEP)
Since May 13 was framed as a result of economic inequality, the government used the tragedy as a stepping stone to increase Malay wealth. The NEP of 1970 aimed to eradicate poverty by transferring capital ownership to the Malays and encouraging Malay entrepreneurship.11 Despite the scheme’s generous use of public funding, the NEP failed to reach its targets and instead turned into a sinkhole for corruption.11

Rukun Negara
The NOC aimed to foster racial unity with a set of national ideologies. For ideologies that are meant to represent the people, there was no public consultation on what values the people themselves cared for or identified with.11

Sabah and Sarawak Petroleum Mining Act
Although not covered by Kua and other academics11, Sabah and Sarawak had the Petroleum Mining Act forced on them during the state of emergency, which took away their oil rights in 1969 and enriched the Malay elites of the Federal Government without proportional benefit to East Malaysia.11

Kua’s book is scathing and unapologetic in its demands for a better Malaysia, starting with ending racial discrimination in government policies. Even though it does not provide strong evidence that the Malay elites planned May 13, it shows that they took advantage of the situation to consolidate power.

There is little biographical information about Karl von Vorys related to May 13.  He was a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of several other works on the USA and Pakistan. According to the book’s description, von Vorys had observed the riots first hand, but the contents of the book don’t provide any more explanation as to why he was in Malaysia during the time, his relationship with different entities in Malaysia or even where exactly he was during the riots. This is important because his book provides a highly detailed account of the events leading up to May 13 with virtually no reference to how he acquired the information. He cites events, speeches and even the internal thought process of several party members with such accuracy and drama that it is difficult to discern fact from fiction.
 
His earlier chapters do a much better job of citing newspaper reports and the original manifestos of each party to provide a robust analysis of the political parties involved in the General Elections. However, his work on May 13 itself does not hold water and is therefore inadmissible in understanding what happened during May 13.