For others, May 12 may just be a simple mother's day.
For me, it was something else.
For some others whose children/parents/friends/relatives did not come back on that day, it was something else.
It was May 12, 1998 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
It was two days before my birthday.
I was almost 5 when I first saw an empty bullet shell.
There were people running at the road by my house.
All of my neighbors were outside, ready to defend our houses.
I don't remember much of it, but I can't forget the empty bullet shell.
My parents told me that I asked them to get me a birthday cake even though there were riots all over the place.
Sorry ma and pa.
What can you do when you're 5?
I was 5, I didn't know what happened at those days.
But at least, I know about this much:
Suddenly the roads I usually walked by are full of buildings with broken windows.
I heard gunshots everywhere.
We didn't have to go to school (yay!).
After years, I learned that it was a horrible day.
Some college students had a demonstration and were shot by the army.
After a while, we had a new president. By a while, I meant 32 years.
My teachers at high school talked a little bit about how they had to protect the students at school, about how people living around the school helped them in protecting the students, about how they had to secretly send the students home and the students had to hid under the seats of their cars.
I learned that it was a traumatic day for some people: some people lost their loved ones who were just hanging out inside a mall, which was set into fire, and died.
Some others got raped, tortured and killed.
Being a Chinese on that day didn't help at all; we were the main victims.
It was as if we did something wrong, while in fact, most of us were suffering from the economic depression just like most of our fellow countrymen.
People sold their belongings and flied to Singapore/other neighboring countries, fleeing the terror.
People in the uniformed service are not the heroes. They are not people who I can look up to. People in the uniformed service are those who planned this crap and pulled strings behind their backs.
In the end, up to this day, 15 years after the riot, there are still so many people missing, while nobody knows whether they are dead or alive.
At least, I know this much.
At least, I know that the price of the democracy is never, never cheap.
If we can finally live in a somewhat democratic country, (cough cough) compared to our neighbor there by Borneo and Malaya, it's achieved through many sacrifices: those who never come home on May 12-14.
Never forget the price of democracy.
Melawan lupa.
further references...err, I can't recommend anything better than google.
But, to start, try wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1998_riots_of_Indonesia
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