The making of: May 13, 1969.

(Pic 1) Here are the covers of the book, May 13; Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969, by Kua Kia Soong - which was nearly banned from our local bookstores.

I got it for RM20 from Popular Bookstore. They are selling it, but not displaying it openly. If you want it, just ask the staff.

(Pic 2) I reckon this report by Bangkok World is the most pertinent and concise summary of the events on May 13, 1969.

(Pic 3) Kua Kia Soong's take on how Malay 'rights and privileges' started out in 1957 as a tool to help the underprivileged; deforming into a scheme to create a small group of politically connected Bumiputera uber-rich after 1969; and currently mutating into a plot to entrench these racist policies as an pseudo-apartheid caste system based on the bigoted premise of 'Ketuanan Melayu'.

If you are a non-Malay born in the 70s like I am, you would have been fed a relentless lifelong guilt-trip of lard-free propaganda about how our forbears [verbally ie. non-violently but nonetheless effectively] "provoked" their own "deserved" slaughter in 1969. Coupled with the 'social contract' (where our ancestors supposedly bartered their basic rights [and that of their children after them], for what amounts to second class citizenship)... non-Malays today are supposed to accept all injustices and manner of discrimination foisted upon us, quietly and with smiles on our faces.

I strongly encourage you to read this book, as well as Ousted! by Patrick Keith, and Lee Kuan Yew's Memoirs to get a counter-balancing version of that most unholy episode in our history.