FREE YOURSAY 'How does this movie ‘help to prevent May 13 happening again'? It's like saying watching horror movies will help us get over our nightmares.'

Tanda Putera a double-edged sword

Bender: Is this how we are supposed to overcome the trauma of the May 13 incident? I didn't experience the riot first hand and I have no idea what went on that day. But if I were to watch this movie, I may get traumatised by it.

Now ‘Tanda Putera' director Suhaimi Baba, can you explain to me why I feel traumatised just by reading this account of the movie (imagine what would happen if I did watch it) when you said it is supposed to have the opposite effect?

I imagine if people who were actually there during the riot watch this, they would be experiencing the same thing too, perhaps with more devastating effect because they would have all their bad memories brought back.

Clearly this another tool meant for BTN (Biro Tatanegara) or BTN-style brainwashing. I swear I'm not going to watch this movie (and neither would any of my family members, if I can help it), not even if somebody gives me a HD (high definition) version of it for free.

YF: Where is the healing process? Suhaimi Baba, you're lying . You don't seem to know what you are producing, unless it is not you who are producing it but Umno.

And the fact that the opposition logos and Mao Zedong's face are shown so clearly in this movie is proof that it is an Umno movie trying to pin the blame of the May 13 incident on the opposition with the intent of accusing them of being in cahoots with the communists.

This accusation is not history, this is ‘fitnah' (slander). The nation was at war with communism so who in their right mind would carry Mao's picture in 1969? Historically accurate? Hardly!

It is historically adulterated to suit Umno's racist agenda prior to GE13. These are Nazi tactics. Stop it.

Kgen: How does a racially provocative movie like this "help to prevent May 13 happening again" as the stakeholders are fond of saying? It's like saying watching horror movies will help a patient get over his or her nightmares.

Anonymous #19098644 : The worst propaganda are the half-truths and untruths. It is a documented fact that weapons had been stored at the Selangor MB's residence at the time of the May 13 riots.

It was Umno that instigated the riots. Malay rejection led to Malay seats like Balik Pulau falling. To regain power, Umno instigated racial hatred of the Chinese using exactly what Perkasa is doing now. They falsely claimed that the Malays would lose power and be sidelined.

Can you imagine opposition leaders Anwar Ibrahim and Abdul Hadi Awang sidelining their own race? The difference today is that it is not the Chinese versus the Malays, but Pakatan Rakyat versus BN. It is the corrupt Umno versus the people.

It is the lies of the mainstream media versus the strength of the Internet media. It is truth versus ignorance of information.

The rakyat today are better educated, more urbanised, more comfortable with the other races after 44 years. It means the threats and deception of the BN no longer work. Ultimately, it means the end of the BN.

Anonymous_4031 : Everyone should read Kua Kia Soong's book ‘May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969'. The author took great pains and at great cost and time to piece together this ugly and tragic episode of Malaysian history.

Mind you, Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister and Hussein Onn, the third prime minister, who both believed in justice, equality and fair play for all Malaysians, had to eventually resigned from Umno.

They could not stomach the wrongs that were being done under Dr Mahathir Mohamad's regime.

JohnnyIpoh: The best unbiased version to read about the May 13 incident is Leon Comber's ‘13th May 1969: A Historical Survey of Sino-Malay Relations'.

I've read Kua's ‘May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969'. It's a good reading but I found the analysis of the riots rather flimsy and academically not so rigorous where most of it were based on conspirational theory of internal power struggle within Umno to oust Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The best reading is still Comber's book which traced the roots of May 13, 1969 ethnic riots way beyond the incident itself.

The academically rigorous historical survey done by Comber cover many decades of Malay-Sino relationship since the first Chinese community landed on the shores of Malaya up until the May 13 incident happen as well as the effect of the incident on ethnic relations afterwards.

Get Comber's book as well as Kua's book. Compare and evaluate yourself. Never limit yourself to only one source of information.

OMG!!: May 13 may have been eclipsed by the citizenship-for-vote scandal as the saddest and darkest day of Malaysia's young history. It was the turning point of racial disunity in Peninsular Malaysia and is often used by irresponsible politicians to serve their own ends, this time, by the current PM and ex-PM.

There are as many stories as theories as to what were the actual causes of the tragic incident, including an allegation that it was a coup by some Umno ultras to grab power from the Tunku.

It therefore necessary to have a RCI (royal commission of inquiry) to establish the truth so that the wounds could be healed; innocent bystanders were adequately compensated and bring to a closure this tragic chapter of the country's short history.

LJC: This is dirty politics for personal gain. Shame on the PM for approving the screening of the movie just before the general election, which is meant to fire up a certain group - the rural Malays - as well as to spook them.

PM, please use your position to bring the people together, not tear us apart. We are already a divided society, even though we pretend like we are not, and you are widening the division.

Kim Quek: So this is Umno’s secret weapon unleashed on the eve of the election - a complete distortion of history to portray the Chinese as aggressor and the Malays the victim. This film, which is selectively played to Malay audiences, is designed to incite racial hatred and fear, so that Malays will instinctively cling to Umno to seek solidarity and security.

Whereas, the truth is: both Malays and Chinese were victims of certain Umno leaders’ greed for power, whereupon, hundreds, if not thousands of innocent lives were lost in this ugliest chapter of the nation’s history.

Such dastardly election tactic has also unmasked the deceitful and two-faced Najib, who would risk engulfing the nation in racial fire so that he and his party could cling on to political power.

We were made sacrificial lambs once (in 1969) - to satiate Umno leaders appetite for power;  let us be very determined that we -– Malaysians of all races - will not be made suckers again.

Maju: Najib, why show the film now? Are you telling the rakyat "like father, like son"?

Umno unleashes its politics of fear

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