May 13: After the ‘love’ is gone

 

“Post-traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD) is a mental health condition that afflicts those who experience or witness a traumatic event.

Those who suffer from PTSD compulsively re-live terrifying events from their past together with the attendant stress, even if such events are unlikely to re-occur in the future.

Many people have different theories to explain the May 13 incident. To me, though, it is unlikely that the incident was triggered by a single cause.

Instead, I suspect it was the accumulation of many small but stressful incidents which happened over a period of years, building up tension which ultimately brought about one catastrophic event on that fateful day in 1969.

It must have been like an earthquake. Two tectonic plates in the earth’s crust pressed against each other, causing stress over a prolonged period, until one day, the accumulated tension burst out in the open in the form of an earthquake.

To me, the idiom best suited to describe the May 13 incident would be: “The straw that broke the camel’s back”.

There is no point asking which straw it was that broke the camel’s back. They all did. Individually, each straw is innocent, but collectively, they were all responsible.

On a microcosmic scale, I also see the May 13 incident as a case of “domestic abuse”.

On Aug 31, 1957, the different Malayan races fell in love with one another and decided to “get married”.

Like spouses caught in a stressful relationship, May 13 saw Malaysians, for the first and only time, raise their hands at each other, bringing about a case of “domestic abuse” on a national scale.

You would think that once the love dies, so will the relationship, but relationships can survive even after the love is gone.

Unlike love, which appeals to our idealistic side, relationships appeal to our pragmatic side. We form relationships to increase the quality of our life. Even without love, a relationship can still bring some measure of quality to our lives.

Some people want us to be more open about the events of May 13 so that we can reconcile ourselves with the past and lay the groundwork for love to blossom again in Malaysia.

While that may be ideal, perhaps the time for reconciliation may not yet have arrived.

Reconciliation can only take place when the parties to a relationship accept their own flaws before going on to forgive the flaws of others. On the other hand, we will not succeed if we see ourselves as faultless.

Perhaps too many among our veteran leaders have their own memories of the May 13 incident and suffer from political PTSD, which prevents them from accepting their own faults and forgiving those of others.

This has led to constant stress, giving rise recently to squabbles over issues such as the Malay Proclamation, the kalimah “Allah” controversy and the UEC recognition stalemate.

Maybe the way forward is for the country to look to younger leadership.

Those 54 years and younger, having no personal memories of that fateful day, may be better placed to focus on the present and the future without needing to revisit the horrors of the past.

The time for a full reconciliation may not be now, but it will surely come. When it does, Malaysians will surely fall back in love with each other again.

Until then, let’s just find ways to get along. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.