Essay based on the sources

Essay

After doing research on the Maria Hertogh riots, we found out a lot on the people involved and the cause of the riots. We learnt that there are three main ideas and points to learn from the sources, that answers to the question: Why must we remember its importance?



















Source A: Our first point is that the riots were very severe, and that many people were injured and killed and it was mayhem everywhere. Source A states that "18 people were killed and 173 were injured. Nine were killed by rioters while the others were killed by policemen". This tells us that the Malays treated the case very seriously and the riots were very serious and many people were killed or injured from the riots, regardless whether if they were involved in the riots or not. From here we can learn that the main idea is to maintain racial harmony since modern Singapore now is made up of 4 different races: Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian. To prevent such chaos and riots regarding racial issues from happening again, we must remember the importance of the riots happened in the past days.



Source B: From the source it shows that the casualties of the riot was very serious as from the source it shows, 5 dead 100 hurt therefore this shows that the casualties of the riot was very serious as it was fatal and huge number of people was injured and the fact that the riot was fatal as 5 people were killed were serious as someone had died in the riot thus indicating that the authorities had to use violence in order to control the riot thus concluding that the riot was very serious. From the riots we can learn the main idea is to ensure that we should not let sensitive information get posted online on social medias so irresponsibly.

Source C: The British government were insensitive about the case which resulted in them playing a part in causing the riots to take place later. The source shows that Maria truely loved her foster mother, and did not wish to leave her to join her biological parents at all. However, during the battle over her custody, the British government were insensitive about the case and handed Maria's custody over to the people she did not not even want to be with. This led to many Malays feeling sad for the mother and daughter, and that the British were biased to their race. This resulted in the Malays going around attacking Europeans out of anger. Therefore to make sure that tragedies like the Maria Hertogh riots never happen again, we must not be biased to any race in our country to prevent such incident from happening again.

Hence, based on the three sources, we can learn three main ideas that exist in modern Singapore today, till now. We must learn from them and learn to remember the importance of this riot to prevent such tragedy from happening in Singapore again.