Muhyiddin: Unite to avoid a repeat of May 13
The young generation has to be united in order to ensure the country remains stable and peaceful and to avoid a repeating of the May 13, 1969 tragedy, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has said.
The young generation has to be united in order to ensure the country remains stable and peaceful and to avoid a repeating of the May 13, 1969 tragedy, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has said.
Sin Chew Daily
today quotes Muhyiddin as stressing that Malaysia is a special country because it never experienced racial riots, while such riots, bloodshed and civil wars took place in other countries, even though they were single-race countries.
"While our country has cultural conflicts among the races, this is normal. Not long ago, Sudan's vice-president sought help from Malaysia to solve his country's ethnic conflicts.
"Civil wars always erupt in Sudan. A few millions have been killed and there are problems of starvation there as well.
"But in Malaysia, we don't have people dying from starvation, but people die because of eating too much and getting high blood pressure and diabetes," Sin Chew Daily quotes Muhyiddin as saying at a national youth leaders conference yesterday.
He stressed that Malaysia must first achieve national unity and then political and social stability before it could implement the necessary economic development programmes to become a fully developed country in eight years.
Muhyiddin also related his personal experience in May 13 tragedy to remind the people that they should treasure peace within society and in the country.
He said he was at that time a second year student in University Malaya and stayed with his brother outside the campus.
"I saw Malays chasing Chinese, Chinese chasing Malays, they were all holding parang. They were confronting each other in the middle of the road and as a result, some people were injured and houses were burned.
"But, this situation didn't spread out, because the then deputy prime minister Tun Abdul Razak announced a state of emergency for Kuala Lumpur and controlled the situation."
Muhyiddin said the government them carried out research found that the riot was caused by disparities among the races and that it was also instigated by the opposition.
"We don't want May 13 repeated," he added.
Related stories
