The Mystery that is History in Malaysia

I am appalled by the history debate that's raging right now. It's absolutely laughable to think that an "academic" could claim that Malaya was never colonised by the British, as an attempt to give Umno an upper hand over Pas. It is distressing to see how the politicisation of our public institutions are leading us down the path to ridicule and ruin. Didn't Professor Datuk Dr Zainal Kling anticipate that his attempt to curry favour with his political masters would diminish Umno's much vaunted and over-stated role in Malaya's independence movement?

Of course, what started off the whole debacle was Mat Sabu's Merdeka address in which he said that the communist fighters who attacked the Bukit Kepong police station were heroes. Far from being a storm in the teacup, it has escalated to the point that the home minister said that he would hold off on using the ISA against the Pas deputy president Mat Sabu  but would consider using other laws.

But I'm sure Mat Sabu, Pas and possibly, the whole of Pakatan Rakyat are loving this attention.

More interesting is the fact that archaeological findings say that the Kedah sultanate pre-dates the Malacca sultanate. This of course, has been followed by a demand by an "independent researcher" that the history books be rewritten. My personal take is that the books should be corrected, not re-written. But of course, we all know why all the earlier Malay kingdoms were sidelined in favour of Malacca.

Then this morning over the radio, I heard that there's a task force looking into the accuracy of school history textbooks, and it is going to present a report of its findings very soon. This got me thinking of the many, many cohorts of Malaysians who studied, were tested on and now, I guess, espouse inaccurate history. What happens to them? How is the government, in particular, the education ministry going to rectify this?

The adage, history is written by the victors, trips off everyone's tongue very easily. But what events of the past weeks have revealed is that history in Malaysia is nothing but myth fashioned and re-fashioned by Umno and its sycophants.

Further reading:
Use and Abuse of History by Dato' Mohd. Ariff Sabri
Media Lynching and Academic Collaborators by Dr Lim Teck Ghee
Toying with History Again in Malaysia by Farish A. Noor
Is it Really, Professor? by Art Harun