Bloody Early Warning Signal
CHIAROSCURO                
MGG Pillai  

What frightens in five days of violence, terror and fear Petaling Jaya is not of people killed and wounded, nor of 400 policemen surrounding an area supposedly under control, or ordering us to disbelieve rumours without telling us why when the government's leaden response suggested worse, but the cynicism surrounding it.

Where racial and political harmony is presumed with pious intonations to pat itself on the back for it, combined with threats when official equanimity is challenged, it takes but little to throw it out of gear. When disparate communities and races find their political, social and cultural bonds fraying with neglect and political chicanery, something must give.

As in Malaysia. What caused the fracas last week and how it spread is unimportant. But how it was handled and contained is. Officials insist what happened was not racially tinged, but allowed the media to suggest it was: it was Indian gangsters against the Malay residents, and the identity of those killed.

There were portentious statements of what should not, but little words of reassurance or goodwill. The Selangor mentri besar, Mohamed Khir Toyo, and a state assemblywoman, visited the Malay areas, but not the Indian, in the large deprived urban poor concentration in Petaling Jaya where it all took place, and the MIC the Indian areas. The MCA and the Gerakan stayed out. Why?

The MIC president, S. Samy Vellu, went over the weekend because he cancelled an earlier visit because "secutity could not be guaranteed." But the PPP president and his beta noir, M. Kayveas, outstaged him and went earlier. The deputy prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, also visited the area, but he should have gone earlier than he did.

Finger-Pointing

But how they reacted told a different story. The MIC, after calling a press conference, got cold feet, and called it off. The presence of 400 policemen, with water cannons and other paraphernalia that area common sight at opposition rallies, said what words could not portray.

What happened was, indeed, more serious than the government was prepared to reveal, including a measure of official panic. And, to not put a fine point to it, a semi-official finger-pointing.

Malaysiakini quoted the Taman Muda state assemblywoman, Norkhaila Jamaludin as saying that the Malays in the area have "long been patient although the Indians have attacked us again and again." In other words, she, a government backbencher, challenges the official denial that what happened was racial.

The violence occurred in an horribly deprived area, where gangsterism predominate in appalling social, health and economic conditions. One living nearby said it reminded him, in some areas, of the appalling slums of Mumbai. An overexaggeration, but it is in relative terms. Such areas exist in every major town and city in Malaysia. It does not take much to ignite, especially if it reflects national preoccupations

. The genteel racial confrontations in the national arena -- between UMNO Youth and Suqiu; the PAS-UMNO talks on Malay unity accentuating the racial divide, however you look at it, between the Malays and the non-Malays; insisting one political party is not Malay because it accepts non-Malays as members; the needly confrontation between government and Chinese community over a school -- must eventually trickle down to affect racial tension in every community.

This cannot be denied.

'Betwixt The Cup And The Lip

When those who govern insists multiracial unity could exist only upon reaffirming the iron-clad rights of one community, the multiracial bounds of Malaysia necessarily weakens. When political correctness suffuses it, with parties not daring to speak up even in closed door conferences, as over the Suqiu proposals to the second National Economic Consultative Council, the bottled-up feelings must erupt when least expected.

The government should act quickly to show that what happened in the area around Taman Desaria is not the harbinger of what could. I would have expected cabinet ministers and multiracial groups calling on all and sundry to reassure. That has not happened. Why?

If what happened was not serious, why the show of force the police laid on? Why has not the Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, or the deputy prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, or both, visited thea areas yet? The rumours that spread complicated what happened with reports of isolated incidents far from the affected area.

But what happened in Petaling Jaya is not the first. An incident last week in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, with a few casualties, involving the Malays and Indians, but distinctly not racial, raises other fears.

It took Malaysia three decades from May 1969 to exorcise the racial demon. And less than two years to reappear in a more diabolical form to strengthen the racial divide. What happened last Thursday is an early warning signal. But is anyone listening?