It has been 35 years since the worst racial riot occurred in Malaysia. At least 184 Malaysians were found dead on that day. Wikipedia has a short description of what the May 13 Incident was all about.
Looking back in time, Malaysia has gone far in achieving racial harmony. I can’t deny this but I fear that racial harmony is not enough. The harmony in Malaysia actually depends on the suppression of free speech. This suppression does not solve the racial tension but it merely delays the day when it is supposed to explode.
Because of this, Malaysia actually depends on pseudo-harmony rather than a real harmony.
A real harmony lives without any kind of restriction. A real harmony does not need suppression of free speech. A real harmony does not need a law to impose harmony. A pseudo-harmony on the other hand does need an artificial mechanism to prevent racial tension.
With a mechanism to suppress free speech in place, the underlying reasons that continue to divide Malaysia along racial line will never be addressed properly. The inability to discuss the matter as it should be will be the undoing of the law that tries to impose this pseudo-harmony. Without the ability to discuss on the issue, distrust will always be there because a simple understanding between one and another is simply hard to reach. One cannot understand somebody when that somebody is being silenced.
With free speech, dialogues are possible and the real issues could be addressed without the fear of being detained for committing thought crime by the thought police. Without free speech, Malaysia would never reach a real kind of harmony. With this thought police around, free speech and freedom in general will always be a privilege instead of a right.
As long as free speech is not our right, a real harmony will always be out of any Malaysian in Malaysia grasp. And as long as we live in a pseudo-harmony, we will always recognize ourselves as Malay, Chinese, Indian or God knows what else instead of as Malaysian.
Finally, as we will recognize ourselves along racial line, the next May 13 is bound to happen all over again. It is just a matter of when.
