Case Study

writer witnessed. Obviously the author of all those books cannot be at all places at one time. I heard stories from the adult Malays from the Malay dominated areas for years. And when I grew up I heard stories from my school mates (my seniors ) who were Chinese and experience the riot when they were only 9 or 10 years old. They dont know why it happened then but when they gre up, they were just like me. It was not a topic that is openly talked about in the presence of both races. Even my parents prohibits us from talking about it. Finally when I was around 24 years old I lived in a 90% Chinese community and pick Cantonese as well. I began to hear stories about it from few Ah Soo's (those who were close to me). Those who were not close enouigh will not say a word about it. The stories diiffers from one community to the other. One thing I must remind you that the level of thinking of the Chinese then and the Malays then were totally different than now. The fact is, the riots only happened in a highly populated Chinese area. In my hometown,Kedah, we lived like nothing happen. To us it is the problem of some Chinese & some Malays in KL and few isolated incidents in Penang. And it is done by the secret societies and the samseng. It is also important to say that the Malays and the Chinese in the Kampong areas or underdeveloped states mixed well and understand and respect each others culture because they mixed ecspecially the Chinese, they mix a lot with Malays and speak good Malay too. But sad to say, the Chinese in areas like KL where the population is dominated by Chinese, they hardly mixed with Malays except in some schools. They cant even speak Malay. Even untill in 1987 a lot of Chinese middle age cant speak Malay and I end up learning Cantonese. So do the Malays that came to KL or rather migrated to KL. They came from areas where there are no Chinese at all. So, the perception towards each other was wrong. That includes me to a certain extend. And the Chinese in KL then are divided into 3 types if I can use the word. Type 1, the English Educated that studied in English a- English Educated. Type 2, the Chinese educated and the type 3, not educated at all. It is the type 3 Chinese and type 3 Malays that blows up the riots and the fire sparked by irresponsible leaders at that time. For example, if an Educated malay were to see a Chinese guy urine in front of the mentri besar house, he might just say "what a pariah act" and thats all. But the type 3 will interprete it as a Chinese guy representing the majority Chinese people way of thoughts and thinking humiliating the entire malay population. Do you see my point? The answer is when two race with a totally different culture and beleifs live on the same land but do not intergrate (since there is no reason to intergrate) one society feel insecured and the other feel threatened and with majority have low education plus got nothing better to do, they can easily sparked by irresponsible

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