Urban realities of Low Yat Plaza incident
COMMENT As many Malaysians were busy shopping and preparing for the long trip back home for the festive season, the nation’s Internet community was rocked with the unfortunate violent incident at the very heart of Malaysia’s commercial centre.
The Low Yat Plaza incident since then has viral-ed out of proportion and has taken its own narrative ranging from consumer protection, treatment of offenders and racial slurs to conspiracy theories and political sentiments.
Statements were also recorded calling for Internet regulation, Sedition Act usage with extensive analyses on race and even religion colouring the case and its circumstances.
COMMENT As many Malaysians were busy shopping and preparing for the long trip back home for the festive season, the nation’s Internet community was rocked with the unfortunate violent incident at the very heart of Malaysia’s commercial centre.
The Low Yat Plaza incident since then has viral-ed out of proportion and has taken its own narrative ranging from consumer protection, treatment of offenders and racial slurs to conspiracy theories and political sentiments.
Statements were also recorded calling for Internet regulation, Sedition Act usage with extensive analyses on race and even religion colouring the case and its circumstances.
What can be deemed to be an isolated incident, a melee between two groups of people due to its circumstances sparked into bigger turf violence? It also opened up a new wave of political rhetoric with opportunist and template politicians and their operators milking the issue for their own agenda.
Template and simple-minded politicians ranging from MCA to Gerakan Harapan Baru jumped into the fray with their own conclusions based on anecdotes including one-sided analyses extending the existing sentiment on the ground.
What was only to be a problem between rowdy and street-gang elements have taken a racial angle due to sentiments and personal prejudices alone.
The Low Yat Plaza incident is not the first of its kind as we have seen similar incidents in Malaysia as in Kampung Medan, Pasir Gudang, Johor, Kampung Rawa, Penang and Keningau Market in Sabah with many more incidents of such nature.
If studied carefully, these incidents have a strong connection to urban commercial and socio-economic realities as they occurred in the congestion of the city and suburban working class habitats.
As learned and monitored, such incidents are normally isolated with a spark of bigger anger but are often amicably resolved by the right-thinking elders or the authorities. This was evident in the Keningau Market incident and Kampung Medan as community and religious leaders extended solidarity and reconciliation to ease the tensions both during and post-conflict.
False perceptions
Squeamishness and misunderstanding in the context of a city is normal especially in congested commercial and customary habitat as vulnerability, 'territorialism' and socio-economic interest clash while we mix and learn about each other through experience.
Incidents of such nature, however, need to be seen objectively based on the locality and the social status of the parties involved. The incident at Low Yat also carried a strong social sentiment as per the perception that Bukit Bintang is controlled by local triads and gangster elements.
The perception is measured as seen in the recent grenade incident and the perception of vice and prostitution that is deemed rampant in the Golden Triangle. The unique nature of the locality and false perceptions would easily spark a fight or gang-related violence for any reason.
All it takes is a simple misunderstanding or incident and the forces will react to it based on their sentiment and perception due to adrenalin and short fuses.
The incident is victim to this factor and the unfortunate narrative here is the sentiment that the dominant gangs are of a particular race hence the race factor played its role when the incident happened even though the evidence is to the contrary as these elements have multiple layers of muscle, economic and political power that are colour blind.
The Low Yat Plaza incident is, in a nutshell, an incident involving gangs and rowdy elements both in the perceived local controllers and the outside elements based on perception and social status.
It is also to be noted that factors like messy citizen arrests are also to be considered as Malaysians are prone to vent their domestic and city tensions on the arrested person and this too could easily spark gang violence if the wrong person is beaten up.
The story, in brief, shall end with police action and cleaning up the streets of rowdy elements but it somehow – in this case - has turned racial.
The real issue of reason, however, is with the Clicktivist, Slacktivist and pseudo-political elements that have expanded the Low Yat incident beyond the parties involved. This was indeed fuelled by weak journalism that engaged social media to project negative and racial comments as news that have created a climate of fear and concern of racial violence among many.
Bad news obsession
Such actions are oxymoronic in nature - rehashing existing online content has indeed prolonged the racial narrative instead of an objective analysis due to the nature of the incident.
The actual parties who are involved were arrested and actions were taken on the culprit, order restored but the issue continued online including the reputation of Low Yat Plaza as a dodgy place with fake and deceptive commercial activities and racial profiling with crime and criminal tendencies.
Low Yat Plaza is indeed a place known for its terrible customer service and one needs to learn Urdu or Bengali to communicate with the staff but there was much improvement in place in terms of counterfeit products if we monitor the evolution and reforms.
The issue here is attributed to the unchecked sentiments as many went on expressing their opinions based on what they heard or experienced in the past. We indeed are unable to measure our sentiments with time as once we think the place is dodgy, it remains so in our heads forever despite changes.
This is due to our Internet culture of bad news obsession. These sentiments were seen as the major contributing factor to the online melee and propaganda that created the climate of concern.
The pattern of comments and social media entries were largely surrounding the said theme of Low Yat Plaza’s credibility while the others dabbled on the subtle issue of theft and profiling activities that raised the temperature online.
The Low Yat incident is not a matter of race politics or Biro Tata Negara as those are mere collateral issues and personal sentiments. Nor it is an issue attributed to Umno or DAP as politics is not a factor in such incidents as it is purely attributed to the nature of the locality, rowdy elements, corrupt practices and fear-mongering.
Racial and religious violent extremism doesn’t simply happen over an incident nor is it decided by the weather. Violent extremism and racial riots are carefully planned and orchestrated systemic activities aimed to cripple and damage the social fabric and system and it’s often political.
Lessons can be learned from previous experiences in Malaysia, Indonesia and many parts of South Asia and to draw the line between isolated fights involving people of particular race and racial and religious violent extremism and their actions.
In the wake of the Low Yat Plaza incident, politicians and the public at large have indeed jumped up to issue statements and call for perpetual action and regulation.
Better understanding
All based on sentiments and personal or party interests but this has failed to bring together the people or create a political conversation to come out stronger from such incidents.
The only political conversation that is taking place is one talking to their laptops and Blackberries. The incident has unfortunately taken a racial undertone and made racial outside of the actual incident and it is only feasible if parties from both sides were brought together for reconciliation beyond enforcement and the placing of more police at Low Yat Plaza.
This is due to the fact that arrests and crackdowns will only create unhappiness and allegation of bias hence prolonging the impact of the incident.
It is also to be noted that a crackdown on social media space is also a cause for concern as we have to come to terms that the Internet is an infinite place and will forever be filled with negativity. If one could sweep the Internet for comments and entries on race and religion, the whole world will be a prison.
We have to learn to deal with the Internet users and their short-term thinking as time and space will rectify it accordingly. It is therefore futile for the government to focus on netizens unless it is a case of clear organising of violent action in progress.
As for us, it is indeed the responsibility of citizens to reconcile and foster better understanding and not capitalise on the incident further. From East Timor to South Africa, politicians have failed to promote reconciliation and solution as such incidents are just fodder for them to exploit and gain votes.
It is indeed the role of the citizens to reach out and reconcile in the face of such incidents and the general sentiments created.
The Low Yat Plaza incident should be studied as it is - of city and gang elements and their involvement in corrupt activities and impunity to hamper the creation of an open and viable commercial environment and social habitat.
It’s also time for Malaysia to re-look into single race dominated commercial centres besides cultural zones like Little India and Chinatown to break down racial territorialism and foster an open society.
The city is a fast moving and dynamic in time and space and life at Low Yat will move on as everyone is sharing the space for economic benefits and survival.
Everything will become a major issue if we paint it with our sentiments and based only on what we want to see. And we don’t want to see racial violence in this country.
K SHAN is chairperson of the National Institute for Electoral Integrity (NIEI).
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