This session of talk “Over Teh Tarik” moves its focus from legal debate on constitutional issues to oral history: the stories of Malaysians who were present at significant moments or periods of our country, tales recounted, but never recorded.

Over and after a meal of fish noodles and teh tarik, Thor Kah Hoong’s lunch guest was Abdul Rahman Mohd Noor, a retired civil servant (his last posting was as deputy secretary-general, Ministry of Transport).

What follows are the memories of a 21-year-old Rahman who proudly enrolled as an undergraduate in the Arts Faculty of the University of Malaya (UM) on the morning of May 13, 1969. He lived in a house rented by his elder brother, then working for RTM, on Jalan Watson, just 60m from Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Harun Idris’ house where abrasive racial relations erupted in violence that afternoon. (Warning: Graphic verbal images and disturbing material.)

Insight: As a prelude to the events in May ’69, just to have an idea of your personal journey in racial relations, you were born in Pekan, 1948.

Rahman: Yes, March 1948. Two years later moved to Kuantan for a while. Of course I was too young to remember anything. My first memory of other races was in Frasers Hill where my father worked for the Frasers Hill Board.

I was about four. Our neighbours were Indians. No Chinese. That’s where my mother – she’s half-Chinese, half-Siamese from Pasir Mas, Kelantan – picked up Tamil.  

Then I moved to Kuala Lipis and I studied in Clifford School where there were a few Chinese schoolmates. Then I moved to Penang where…

Insight: There was an explosion of Chinese.

Rahman: (laughs) That’s where I picked up a bit of Hokkien. My mother picked it up very fast. Hokkien is simple. Within three months you can pick up the basics.

About 60% of my classmates in Francis Light School were Chinese. Our neighbours were Chinese.

Insight: Coming to the events of May, did you have any indication, any clue in the days before that things were going to turn violent?

Rahman: No, but the situation was very tense because a few days before that, there was a major procession and the Chinese came out in large numbers and did things they should not have done. Maybe it was pent-up anger, years of kowtowing to Malays, now with election victory possible…

I felt it was deliberate that they had the procession pass through Chow Kit, so near to Kampung Baru. I got angry myself. It was provocative.

Then the successes in the election, I think there was a hung government in Selangor. Gerakan was then in the opposition and they with the Socialist party and DAP went round Kampung Baru shouting expletives, “balik kampung, tanam jagung.”

That procession – they were mainly Indians, I saw very few Chinese. They even showed their private parts.

I have a good friend, Harun Salim from UiTM days… he retired as general manager of PKNS. After enrolling in University of Malaya on May 13, after lunch, on the way home, in Foch Avenue, we decided to catch a war film at Rex Cinema.

A pak cik Sri Jaya bus-driver saw us and asked: “Adik, nak pergi mana?” “Wayang.” “Balik. Balik. Mungkin ada gaduh.” In hindsight, that pak cik probably saved our lives. If we had gone for the film…

So we went home. Harun lived on Jalan Peel. When I got home, nobody else was in. The eldest brother was working, the other was in technical college.

Then there were a few cars with loudspeakers telling people that there was going to be a procession to counter the opposition’s procession. Ladies and children were advised to stay indoors and not go out. That was about 3.30pm, 4pm. The start was to be 5.30pm or 6pm.

By 5.30pm there were about 300 gathered at Datuk Harun’s house.

Then a few eh… over-enthusiastic, exuberant youth went to Chow Kit and started a fight. They were shot by Chinese gangsters. They… I don’t know whether they were wounded or dead… were taken to Datuk Harun’s house and that…

Insight: Was the trigger?

Rahman: That’s when everything broke loose. That’s when Jalan Raja Muda became a death-trap for many.

There was a sundry shop at the corner, a mak cik’s… all the sundry shops in Kampung Baru used to get their supplies from one Chinese wholesaler in Chow Kit. He was known to everyone in Kampung Baru, delivering supplies on his 3-wheeled cycle.

When this thing happened, the mak cik told him, don’t go back, and he hid in the mak cik’s house for three days. So not everyone is bad. Friends know a lot of people are innocent.

I too, was influenced by the feelings then, even though I had had six years exposure to the Chinese in Penang. Most of my friends in Penang were Chinese.

Insight: Your brothers got back safely?

Rahman: Yes. The eldest was sent by a RTM van.

My father was there too. At that time, my late father was working in Terengganu as a field information officer, you know where they go to a kampung and show a film, and during an intermission, you give a talk.

He was… how shall I put it… cheesed off with Umno. So during the intermission, instead of making a speech praising the government, he told the audience to vote PAS. He was reported to headquarters, he was pulled out and was in Kuala Lumpur at the time.

My father was a very religious man. They were girls in the kampung who had become hysterical, merasuk, after what they saw. So he was asked to go and say prayers, calm them down.

The four of us, during the curfew, had nothing to eat in the house. My brother went out to search – everything sold out, no rice. One guy said semua habis, only kepala ikan bilis sahja. No choice. My brother bought half a kati.

Luckily, somebody complained. In the first days, they stationed the Sarawak Rangers in Kampung Baru. The Rangers are Christians. They followed orders. Break the curfew. Shoot. So they shot.

After the complaint, the Malay Regiment moved in and within Kampung Baru there was no curfew, but we were not allowed to leave Kampung Baru.

Insight: What was the feeling the next day? Was there a build-up of anger or were people shocked at what happened?

Rahman: Everyone was confused because those people who started it, I don’t think they were from Kampung Baru, they were outsiders. Of course, there were people in Kampung Baru too…

My friend, Harun Salim, his family had evacuated their house on (Jalan) Cochrane. The house was ransacked. When the father returned with a Ferret car and soldiers – the father was in the Navy Reserve – and found his property gone, he got a loudspeaker and said: those who ransacked my house, you return everything by tomorrow. If not… Next day everything was back in his house.

Luckily the army intervened, and outsiders were stopped from converging on KL, otherwise it would have been worse.

After that, for a while, there was a Buy Malay movement. Those days, the Chow Kit market for fresh fish and veg was mainly Chinese. So they started a wet and dry market in Kampung Baru. It started dying after about two weeks because the Malay traders, mainly outsiders, didn’t know how to get produce fresh to the customers, the fish was not fresh, and because the Chinese stalls were cheaper – I know because I did the marketing for the house – everyone soon went back to Chow Kit.

Insight: What about residual resentment?

Rahman: Not that I noticed. But I noticed the Chinese were extremely nice to Malays. When things were normal, and I could start my studies in UM, nobody dared rag me as a freshie. I just told them I was from Kampung Baru and they left me alone.

Insight: On that note of black humour, thanks for time and the painful memories. – May 21, 2017.