July 21, 1964 Racial Riots
[source from http://www.littlespeck.com/ThePast/CPast-64riots-640721.htm]

Celebrations to mark the birthday of Prophet Mohammad were held throughout Malaysia. In many towns, it was a grand occasion. Various units of the armed forces, police, fire brigade and ex-servicemen for instance, participated in the celebrations at Merdeka Stadium in Kuala Lumpur.

During the procession, at the Kallang area, some one threw a bottle at the procession. Tempers were frayed. When a federal reserve unit policeman asked the procession-marchers to stick to the route near the Kallang gas works at around 5 pm, he was attacked. Disorder quickly spread. By 6 pm, arson affected the Geylang area between Kallang and Geylang Serai, and cars were overturned. By 6.30 pm, clashes in Chinatown and Tanjong Pagar were reported. At 6.45 pm, there were further reports of clashes at Arab Street and North Bridge Road junction. 50 injured people, mostly with head injuries, were treated at the Singapore General Hospital by 8.30 pm. The disorder was so great that many cinemas announced the cancellation of their 9.30 pm film screening. In the first day of rioting, 4 were killed and 178 injured.

Disorder spread to some other areas of Singapore in the next few days. 2 men were assaulted in the Upper Serangoon area at 9.15 pm on 22 July. Malay families living in Queenstown left their homes for fear of their personal safety. A dusk to dawn curfew was imposed island-wide to control the disorder on 23 July, and was only completely lifted on 2 August, 11 days later. 45 curfew breakers were jailed.With instability, the prices of food and provisions shot up during this period. All work had to cease for three days. Most important of all, fear was widespread. In all, 23 were killed and 460 injured.

Causes of the racial riots

Racial sentiments were aroused in Singapore in various ways. On 12 July 64 UMNO held a convention of about 150 Malay organisations in Singapore. It was chaired by Syed Jaafar Albar, secretary-general of UMNO in Malaya. He concluded that Malays in Singapore had not been treated fairly by the PAP government as they had not progressed in material terms. He urged the Malays to unite to overcome this unfair treatment.

There were more fundamental reasons why some prominent members of UMNO and MCA were eager to create social and racial tension in Singapore, and thus weaken PAP rule and reduce its political threat. Certain elements of UMNO were from the outset opposed to Singapore's merger with Malaya as Singapore had a large number of Chinese. These more extreme Malay nationalists within UMNO were also unhappy with the high profile adopted by Lee Kuan Yew, an ethnic Chinese politician, in the negotiation for Merger and the immediate period after Merger.

Relations between MCA and PAP were worsened by constant antagonistic public statements, of a political and personal nature. Such statements came thick and fast in the midst of the campaigning for the April 1964 elections in Peninsular Malaysia, when PAP contested unsuccessfully in the urban areas against MCA, in order to show that PAP was more useful to UMNO electorally than MCA. Tension was further raised when Tan Siew Sin, the federal Finance Minister, refused to implement the common market in Malaysia as agreed during the negotiations prior to the Merger, unless Singapore remitted 60%, instead of 40%, of her national revenue to Kuala Lumpur.

In the period from September 1963 to May 1965, there were 42 bomb explosions by Indonesian-directed saboteurs. After the racial riot on 21 July 1964, Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, condemned Indonesia as the possible agent behind the riots. However, the Indonesian saboteurs would not have been successful, if racial tension has not already been heightened.