五月十三日，馬來西亞夢碎

The Breaking of a Dream: May 13th, Malaysia

一九六九年五月十三日，許多無辜馬來西亞公民死於種族暴動，一個世代遭受創傷，他們曾以同樣的熱情和冷靜學唱馬來歌曲和英文歌曲。這個創傷顯示透過各族融合成為國族的展望落空，形成壁壘分明甚至種族隔離。從我這一代開始，馬來語和英語書寫顯然分道揚鑣，再也無可挽回。「五一三事件」之後，種族優先政策成為新常態，那已是幾代人的共同經驗。但是，就算五一三事件無法公開討論，我們絕對不能遺忘；五十年來，創傷後壓力症候群不斷提醒我們另一種國族認同理想的存在。記憶控制是一種維穩手段，透過激烈方式壓抑憤怒和恐懼，以消除反對的聲音。對離散馬來西亞人來說，「回家」充滿挑戰；他們未受惠於新經濟政策。土著文化主義取代了五一三以前土生華人所表述的多元文化主義。這並非根據純正血統或社會傳統，而是基於穆斯林的身份政治。然而，儘管種族敵對情緒持續高漲，馬來西亞人仍心存希望。在這個世紀，一方面，半個世紀以來憲法將種族優先論的「卜米主義」合法化，視之為馬來人特權。另一方面，儘管土生華人不受承認為土著，新的認同論述已漸冒現：在重組當代的、未來的馬來西亞國族基因時，固然以馬來人為基石，但印度裔、歐裔、華裔等族裔也交織其中。

The May 13th 1969 racial violence, arson, and deaths of innocent citizens achieved a traumatic wounding of a generation of unique Malaysians who learned and sang Malay and English language songs with equal fervor and sang-froid. This trauma marked the shift from probable recombinant nation-evolution to reified, or even apartheid, raced identities. Beginning with my generation, the split between Malay and English language writing in Malaysia is overt, evident, chronic, and seems no longer redeemable. After May 13th, non-merit, race-preferred governmental structures were enforced as the new normal, which is all a couple of generations of Malaysians have experienced. But PTSD symptoms have recurred through the past half-century to remind there once was a different national identity-ideal. Even as May 13th cannot be openly accessed or expressed, it must also never be forgotten. Memory control acts as a means to ensure civic peace and to obviate oppositional elements by hyper-arousal of covert or barely disguised anger and fears. “Returning ‘home’” for disaporic Malaysians may be increasingly challenging, for they are less inured to the on-going consequences on civil service and socio-economic equality brought on by the processes of NEP in the aftermath of May 13th. However, despite on-going episodes of racial hostility, under the scabs may be discerned some healing. Instead of the multiculturalism that Peranakan Malaysians displayed pre-May 13th, a Malaydominant recombinant culturalism dominates in the 21st century nation, not grounded on genetic purity or on social practices but on religious identity as Muslim. On the one hand, the Constitution has normalized a half century of ethnic or race preference, officially tagged as “Bumiputraism” and often boasted of as Malay supremacy. On the other hand, while it is a fact that Peranakans have been rejected as Bumis, new identities have evolved in which Malay forms the foundation ethno-identity, together with Indian, Caucasian, Chinese and other ethnic strands in the recombinant national DNA of many contemporary and even more future Malaysians.