Come May 13, 2014 this nation of ours would have clocked 45 years since the race riots rocked a young nation.

For the surviving mostly senior citizens, May 13, 1969 was completely baffling then. It took everyone by surprise on that fateful working day evening as we did not understand what was going on. The elders only had the fearful memories of the dreadful Japanese Occupation as they tried to connect their thoughts and emotions to May 13 then.

As dusk set in, it slowly the news passed around  - through word of mouth largely (as that was the sole ‘social media’ then), that there were killings and burning everywhere and a curfew to follow consequently.

Unprepared, many city folk huddled together within ‘kampung-like’ tamans (shanties actually) as they supported each other with food supplies, coffee and biscuits. The neighborhood grocer would have donated his entire stocks to nearby temples, mosques and churches whose volunteers then saw to the quick and fair distribution of supplies in the villages, regardless of race and religion.

Memories of soldiers and the Federal Reserve Units with their M-16s and endless sirens kept everyone behind shut doors. Occasional gunshots rang out, leaving entire communes snuffing off their candle lights or sole electric bulb.

Even though we were all told through the black-and-white television that it was a racial riot, the many neighbors of Malays, Chinese and Indians who huddled around in front of the sole TV available in a wealthier neighbor’s house looked perplexed.  

What race riots? Why? What is race anyway? We are all Malaysians. So how come? It seemed like nuclear science to the citizens for they saw each other as 1-Malaysia-Malaysians then in May 1969.

In everyday encounters at the kedai kopi, pasar or at work, we relished the unity in the diversity, as we spoke a mixture of Malay, Indian and Chinese in one sentence.

We did not know what discrimination was. Instead we busily prided in our working together as one nation of people rushing to build an independent, progressive nation, leaving behind all the sore memories of the Japanese torture and communist attacks.

We invented no ‘1-Malaysia’ slogans nor did we have to sacrifice our earnings to see to the allocation of huge budgets for such campaigns.

Today after 45 years as we enter the anniversary of that dreadful history, we see that what was not there then in 1969 has actually rooted today.

We are everyday arguing about race rights as we have drifted into the majority-minority cavities; we are fighting over religious exclusivity as we see each other as a threat to our own growth and spiritual renewals; we are sledge hammering our way through against our own citizens while campaigning for a crafted ‘1Malaysia’.

Sedition and treason the daily diet from the media

Anything and everything is so craftily carved out to be race and religion sensitive. Sedition and treason is the vocabulary of our daily diet from the media.

“Balik negeri” and “pendatang” seem to be more fashionable these days.

Opposition political parties and constitutionally and democratically elected Members of Parliament are seen as enemies of state while legal punishments are a weekly affair. Going to court is the new political currency of our times in Malaysia.

Indeed, the nation is treading on thin ice - all the work of politicians after 45 years of a bitter lesson.

All the physical progress around us which even the sixth prime minister Najib Abdul Razak trumpeted to Barack Obama, cannot hide the ugly divisiveness that is slicing this nation into race and religious divides.

How can we citizens who remembered May 13, 1969 not fear over what we will be leaving behind as we take our place under a tombstone or set adrift on a river, given Malaysia’s sinking politicking after 45 years of race riots?