Races: Ececheria

Group Members : Samuel Tee, Ivan Wong, Tan Jinghan, Joshua Teng

Singapore is a multi-racial place as we see today. But this was not always so. A walk to the past would show you how we benefit from the racial ties we see today. It was the year 1964 and it was the festival of Chinese New Year. That meant a noisy, cheerful and happy time. There were exploding firecrackers, giving of red packets, lion dances and activities that were all part of Chinese New Year. Despite the happiness filling the atmosphere, a blooming hatred was about to take charge of the streets.
It came to the ears of a Chinese gang leader, Lim Ah Hock, that a drunken Malay man had thrown a beer bottle into a gathering of Chinese people. A stray glass bottle had hit a man and killed him upon hitting his head. Ah Hock was infuriated. He was totally enraged with the drunken Malay man’s behavior. He called on his gang and soon they were on the streets hurling vulgarities and beating up any Malays they saw. Ah Hock’s younger brother, Ah Gao, who was a policeman strongly objected to this. He tried to advise his brother that this was not going to solve the situation. But even after a good deal of persuasion, he could not change Ah Hock’s mind
The Malays would not stand for such intolerable atrocity. They couldn’t just allow themselves to be bullied. That afternoon they planned to hit back. They would hit back, and they would hit back real hard.
They came together, arming themselves with whatever they could find. From parangs to krises and took them to the streets, killing any Chinese in sight. It was tit for tat, you kill me and I kill you. Within moments, a gruesome riot had broken out. Immediately, both sides suffered tremendous casualties. Bodies piled up on the streets. Nearby canals and rivers were filled with blood. It was an intense fight that looked as though no survivor would walk out in that blood dyed street alive.
When Ah Gao heard of this, he gathered a group of Chinese and Malay policemen and with their help tried to keep peace within the two sides. The situation was still chaotic and the police called for reinforcement. Suddenly, the battlefield had expanded to twice its size. There were the police trying to keep the rioters down. Tear gas was used but the tremendous amount of rioters just overwhelmed the police. It seemed that to control a group of berserk Chinese and Malay was impossible. Many policemen were killed and at many occasion, Ah Gao was nearly killed himself. Ah Gao and his fellow mates struggled to keep the riot down and at the same time to live on.
In the midst of fighting, Ah Hock saw a police not watching his back. Slowly and quietly, Ah Hock sneaked up to him and stabbed the policeman in the back. He watched in horror as the man turned around and dropped to the ground, dead. It was his brother, Ah Gao! Ah Hock grabbed his brother in his arms. Blood flowed rapidly from the wound of his brother. Ah Gao had died without his last word. At that moment, Ah Hock realized that he was such a fool. His cold-hearted prejudice of Malays had caused such a crazy riot. His brother had died because of him. Ah Hock called back his men to back out for a retreat.
A series of talks were held between the Chinese and the Malays after a few weeks later. Peace loving mediators from both sides spoke up to the situation and tried to calm down the tension. Both sides were open to the idea of living together. It took four long weeks before the two races found peace with each other again
From that day onwards, Ah Hock and his gang never got into any more riots. In fact Ah Hock quitted the gang and joined the police force, as he believed that that was his brothers final wish. He was hardworking and soon rise to the rank of chief commissioner.
This story shows that peace is so important in Singapore. We Singaporeans live in a multi-racial society. If we do not have peace between the races, we can never live happily together in a neighborhood or a community.