There was a kerfuffle in Dewan Rakyat this week. It’s been polite days in the house but on Monday, Pendang got Jelutong’s knickers in a knot by warning racial inequalities in a careless 13th Malaysia Plan may result in another May 13 riot.
When and if Malays are left behind.
Three times, May 13 was mentioned in that news report covering the petty parliamentary exchanges between legislators Awang Solahuddin Hashim and Jelutong’s RSN Rayer. The portal is traditionally pro-Umno.
The story was fine, it was the headline which caught me strange, or reactions to it.
“Pendang MP’s May 16 tragedy quip if 13MP sidelines Bumiputera causes a ruckus (Kaitkan tragedy 16 Mei dengan RMK13 ketepikan Bumiputera, ucapan Ahli Parlimen Pendang cetus kecoh)
Without intending it informs more about the present. For, the headline somehow misunderstood May 13 as May 16.
Until a short while ago, there were two kinds of Malaysians. Those who lived through the race riots in 1969, and those who lived their lives learning about the race riots as a cautionary tale.
The columnist falls in the latter. For a fair bit they both inhabited the land.
Apparently, as a natural function of time, a new generation sprung and eventually nudged into play the game.
These younger ones know somewhat about the riots as historical information. However are not encumbered by it. They will soon dominate the population as the first generation of Malaysians to slip away from centre-stage.
The younger, uploading editors did not fret that they got the 13 as a 16. It is an error, and errors happen on the news floor, it is not a mortal sin to them.
Forty-eight hours later, the headline remains uncorrected. Nobody alerted anybody.
They did not grow up when May 13 meant May 13.
What a wonderful reality to wake up to.
Generation oldest would be incensed. Up in arms about it if nap time did not interfere. And their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, from the youngest generation remain lukewarm about the distant past.
And they’ll be increasingly in charge until the next generation comes in to replace. To the generation yet to emerge, it would be cold news.
It’s not only the overlook about the headline, there is a sense that the conviction that the hateful can shout in the dark and wait for a pliant lynch mob is fast expiring.
The spectre of May 13 is not quite a thing to many, surely not as much as Anwar Ibrahim being imprisoned in 1998 or Mahathir Mohamad being PM again in 2018 or Muhyiddin Yassin the lockdown watchman in 2020.
The recent past to them matters more than what grandma told mama.
And in a further future, our recent past is a distant past and for other grandmothers to retell.
That is expected, which leads to the material focus of the report and another recent development.
