| Did our History teachers lie to us? |  |  |  |
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| Sunday, 28 September 2008 20:30 | |
| The new generation of Malaysians want a peaceful interpretation of history - one that will not continue to blame this or that group for this or that engineered and well-crafted conflicts seen as factual, objective and official narrations of Malaysian history. Azly Rahman But whose history must man learn? Whose construction of history must we craft as official knowledge? What is the conception of human nature must we hold in writing about history? There are no historical 'facts'. The term itself is an oxymoron and a contradiction. There are only selected memories we pursue out of our ideological biases. Underlying the selection process lie the act of historicising and the base and superstructure that shape the manner history is written. The modern state - the 'necessary evil'- dictates the ideology of historicising; thus the maxim "winners write history, losers write poetry or study anthropology". In these days, those marginalised by the state-sponsored history will join opposition parties because history is such a powerful and decisive factor in the social reproduction of human beings. The historical-materialistic basis of history predominates; teaching historians what dialectics mean in the march of history. The Japanese revised their history of the Pacific War, the American Indians had intellectuals documenting their rights to the land of the Indian nations, and the occupying forces in Iraq have perhaps completed their version of history of the Iraqi people. In America, revisionist historians such as Howard Zinn devote their lifetime writing the "people's history" to counter argue the 'historical facts' produced by and about dead white men in American history. History is memory. And memory can be our biggest liar. This is the greatest challenge we Malaysians must face in the next 50 years if we are to survive as a new 'nation'. The word 'nation' itself is problematic and ever changing - it breeds another dangerous term called 'nationalism. Who writes Malaysian history? The intelligentsia of the ruling class who had the means of producing history wrote Malaysian history. Marx was partly correct - the history of any nation is… the history of the ruling class. Those who owns the pen writes and as the hand writes, nothing is erased. The feudal Malay and Javanese kings had their court historians who produced historical 'facts' on batu bersurat (talking stones) on which ideologies were inscribed. The Hindu kingdoms from antiquity had their Valmiki to write about the story of Prince Rama, and the blind poet Vyasa to narrate the history of the great war of Mahabharatha. The Japanese Shogunate had Lady Murasaki to write the 'Genji Monogatari' (The Tale of Genji), and the Malays had their Tun Sri Lanang to write about the glory of Malay feudalism. The British East India Company probably had a stable of historians, including Stamford Raffles who is said to have "founded Singapore" even though there were already natives living happily under tyrannical traditional rulers. Richard O Winstedt was certainly playing the quadro-hybrid role of historian-apologist-propagandist-Otherist of the dying British Empire. The Malacca Sultanate too probably had a stable of oral and print historians who craft selected memories for the future generations so that the legacy of the Sultanate would continue; legacies that produce the signs, symbols, signification, and representation of feudalism that have neatly evolve into this cybernetic-neo-corporate-crony-capitalistic-feudalism which legitimises the sustaining of an economic order based on the feudal system of profits through patronage. Tun Sri Lanang was the quintessential historian-apologist-propagandist-Otherist of the dying Malacca Kingdom; one that succumbed to the might of the technologies of guns, guts and glory of the Portugese. In Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), this court historian's name is inscribed on its main library. 'Naming' is history's political tool in which inscriptions become institutions that produce and reproduce ideologies. Revise everything if we wish to have a people's history of Malaysia, we must do two things: rewrite history and teach our children multiple perspectives in historicising. After 50 years, the state of Israel is having a problem holding on to Zionist interpretation of history. What is happening now is a continuing fallout of the dangers of selective historicising, especially when such as history is produced as a biblical truth, grounded in 2,000 years of 'memory' etched in passages of the Old Testament. After 200 years of American Independence, high school textbooks had to be constantly revised to accommodate newer interpretations of multi-culturalism; one that takes into consideration the contributions of groups, peoples, and nations that helped build America. The idea of inclusive historicising guides textbook writers to produce historical 'facts' that speak to the masses more than propagate post-colonial propaganda. America was an former colony and a nation in which no group can claim the land as theirs. Perhaps this explained the popular slogan of post-9/11 America which consoles the nation as 'Home of the Brave, Land of the Free'; a slogan that reminds Americans to be 'patriotic' (a foreign word in the American psyche). After 50 years of Merdeka and if we are to survive like the 200-year-old America, we must question authority, including 'authoritative sources' in history. The modern owners of the means of producing history lies in the 'panel of experts' whose consciousness that help them do history is limited to the dictates of the ideology of post-colonial Malaya. The curriculum in textbooks and teaching manuals are not neutral artifacts; they are political tools for psycho-social reproduction. It must have been difficult for historians of Universiti Putra Malaysia, UKM or even Universiti Malaya to understand the wave of post-structuralism and counter-factual historicism as spectres that are haunting the way we ought to revise history. Old way of looking at events in history and propagating them as truths may no longer work with this generation of Malaysians that are tired of the lies their history teachers told them. The new generation of Malaysians want to read about the sufferings of the peasants under the Malay feudal lords; the dehumanisation of Indian rubber-tappers under the British colonialists; and the hardship of living in slums and dwellings in tin mines. The new generation of thinking Malaysians - especially in public universities - want to hear what actually happened to the indentured serfs and slaves and hamba sahaya under oppressive systems created by those with knowledge, power, and ideology to oppress others in the name of history. The children of these indentured human servitudes want to know how much of their blood, sweat and tears were used to first build Lisbon, London and Amsterdam and next, Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru, Penang and Ipoh. The new generation of Malaysians want a peaceful interpretation of history - one that will not continue to blame this or that group for this or that engineered and well-crafted conflicts seen as factual, objective and official narrations of Malaysian history. What then must we do? We ought to be makers of history whose resolve is based on peace. We must approach the writing of history based on the idea that it is capitalism, greed, racism, militarism, colonialism and imperialism that must become the major themes of the study of history. Historians must have a heart for radical humanism in order to guide the nation in examining itself and using history to rehumanise society so that we may not become another Bosnia, Palestine, pre-Columbian America or Tibet. This is our challenge. This is the biggest challenge for our historians - to revise our outdated perspectives that propagate peace and reconciliation. I revise Gasset's quote to read: Man may not have nature … and what he has is history, but what nature of man/woman must historians hold in order to provide him/her with a better history? --
Comments (20)  ... written by densemy, September 28, 2008 21:19:31 But what's the point in writing the 'new' history..the history as the people see it. Its still going to be the ruling classes ( the political aristocracy in this case) who decide whether this history sees the light of day Its OK for you sitting in your comfortable office in the USA, but what about the poor Malaysian Historian who's hold on his post depends solely on whether he toes the party line or not Read the article on AI also posted on MT today to find out what is holding Malaysia back You might also add FEAR to the issues of APATHY and INDIFFERENCE which plague this country report abuse disagree 1 agree 19 ... written by Liberace, September 28, 2008 21:27:32 I don't know who writes our history but I do know that the history that's taught in schools today is very different from what I learned. There are names in our history books today that were not there before and there are names that are slowly being eased out (Hang Tuah for instance). Some factual observations: 1) the Old Testament is more than 2000 years old. It's the New Testament that's 2000 years old. 2) "Home of the free and the land of the land of the brave" is not a post 9/11 slogan. It's as old as the US national anthem. Patriotism is big in America, a result of being a nation of immigrants who value what they have in their new country. It's not an foreign notion. report abuse disagree 0 agree 31 ... written by Liberace, September 28, 2008 21:34:24 Apologies, correction: "the Land of the free and the home of the brave" report abuse disagree 1 agree 8 ... written by indianputra, September 28, 2008 21:37:09 70% of Gerakan Members wants Gerakan to leave BN and join up with PKR. Damn you KSK, what the hell are you waiting for? report abuse disagree 1 agree 32 ... written by pelukis, September 28, 2008 21:43:19 Did our History teachers lie to us? YES Dr.Azly Rahman, it's 100% true...example, they told us "Hang Tuah" is a Malay, and yet he's not! They taught us 'myths' not 'facts'. report abuse disagree 2 agree 24 ... written by Motherchell, September 28, 2008 22:06:29 It may seem bewildering , well there are some profound History teachers -- like the ITM V C-- who seems to speak Hitory thro the barrel of a gun, this Zapata, gives pride to the pantomime souls who will never reached shore -- to add insult to injury we have a bastion of hard core History, fully funded by the OOzing grey stinks from Putrajaya. The Malaysian Idi Amin version of Banana Historicity . So we are quite rudderless . They are so sure , a banana plant has seedlings --------we are the suckers anyway! report abuse disagree 1 agree 11 ... written by Motherchell, September 28, 2008 22:20:07 apologies -- typo and ommision ...............who will never reach report abuse disagree 0 agree 7 ... written by peace brother, September 28, 2008 22:36:09 Where got History,only sad news. report abuse disagree 0 agree 8 ... written by The dragonheart, September 28, 2008 22:55:51 The blind teaching the blind the right thing... report abuse disagree 0 agree 7 ... written by hakuna, September 29, 2008 03:55:37 How did Alexander the Great become Iskandar Zulkarnain is mind boggling. He was in the time of B.C. report abuse disagree 1 agree 17 ... written by slash n burn, September 29, 2008 09:27:14 To the orang asli/asal in Peninsula, they were slaved, raped and killed by invading Indon royalties but never mentioned in History books. report abuse disagree 1 agree 15 ... written by asguard, September 29, 2008 09:55:16 Spin doctor's style of twisting facts... report abuse disagree 0 agree 3 ... written by BobSam, September 29, 2008 11:00:57 IndianPutra - u r out of topic. But for clarity, it does not make sense for Gerakan to join PR or PKR. Gerakan was a founding member of BN. (Again, selective history, people have forgotten this FACT). Secondly, Gerakan & DAP compete for the same "seats". So it does not make sense for Gerakan to join PR, as DAP is the senior member. What Gerakan should do is to form a new coalition, draft in PPP, IPF, PBS, PRS, and perhaps the original UMNO, say under the banner of PEKEMAS (kindly read up the story of PEKEMAS). I agree with Prof Azly. Lets show the real history of Malaya/Malaysia. Before 25-50BC, there was an Indian kingdom, probably Pallava's in Kedah. They were making garments dyed in purple and EXPORTING them to India. Much later, other kingdoms of Indian origin came to Kedah, the Cholas had both Indian & Sri Lankan origins. When the Pallava's were defeated in India, they were chased to the East into China. They eventually settled down in Yunan. Their offspring, made their way via land & sea back to South East Asia. We call those Sino-Indian mixture from Yunan, who settled in Philippines, Borneo, Kalimantan, most of the other Indonesian islands, Thailand, and in what's called Malaya today. BY the way, these people were of HINDU & Buddhist faith. But the main migration of "residents" to this land as detailed by RPK came from Indonesia, they were the Orang Aceh, Orang Minangkabau, Orang Jawa, Orang Bugis. So the Orang Melayu was a campuran of all these people. One can find the similar clothing style in Yunan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia & Malaysia. Likewise there is a similarity in customs too. Some Indian traders from Kerala (Tun Mahathir's father's homeland) known as the Malabar Traders came to the West coast of Malaya, and brought a new religion from the Arablands. Perhaps a little earlier, Chinese traders brought to Kelantan & Trengganu the same religion. Islam was brought to Malaya by both the Chinese & Indians. Not the Arabs, who came much later. As a matter of fact, Christianity in South East Asia, originated from Melaka. Christchurch in Melaka was the 1st Christian church in South East Asia (1511 or so). When the English came, missionaries from England also came to this land. They had the Bible (King James Version) translated into Bahasa Melayu, not sure of the exact title (my memory fails me), but one can find one of the original copies in the UK. The Christian God or Yahweh is translated as Allah in that Al-Kitab. History is very useful. I used to hate studying it, becoz the examinations required us to memorize dates. But I still remember some of it till now. report abuse disagree 0 agree 14 ... written by ssathia, September 29, 2008 12:33:31 "The Hindu kingdoms from antiquity had their Valmiki to write about the story of Prince Rama, and the blind poet Vyasa to narrate the history of the great war of Mahabharatha" With due respect Dr Azly, the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata were not written by Hindu Kingdoms nor were they the works of the ruling class. There were folklores that existed long long ago and many had been written in bits and pieces over the millinnea by several authors in many languages but eventually came to get complete versions written down by Valmiki and Vyasa in Sanskrit. These poets were sages and not tools of the government. In those days, it was the Kings who listened to the sages. The works of these great men came to be accepted by people not through war and conquest and forcefeeding but through countless intellectual debates and discourses throughout the millennia. These works were not historical records either but educational tools on morals and proper living. Mahatma Gandhi, an ardent student of these works took and used many ideas from the Ramayana and Mahabharata as well as Jainism, an ancient form of Hinduism, in his quest for independence of India. the Mahatma had declared that Mahabharata is a depiction of the inner struggles of human beings. By equating Ramayana and Mahabharata to cheap political creations of history, you have done no less crime than what the Dutch cartoons did to Prophet Muhammand. report abuse disagree 6 agree 10 ... written by educationist, September 29, 2008 20:07:35 I remember not much of the history taught by my teachers. If there were inaccuracies and ommissions, I am sure it is not their fault. They are just using the prescribed text of our Ministry of Education. So, as Dr Azly has aptly pointed out -"The curriculum in textbooks and teaching manuals are not neutral artifacts; they are political tools for psycho-social reproduction" -it is the government of the day who has been lying. report abuse disagree 0 agree 3 ... written by DontPlayGod, September 29, 2008 22:17:21 It is a fact that history is written by the victors, by those in power, by those who won and conquered and enslaved the losers, by the warlords and towkays who ruled the serfs and servants. If you read British history, they look on their "proud" history as a source of pride, even though they subjected other countries with their superior weapons at that time. Where the Europeans had guns and cannons, we only had the swords, bows and arrows, and spears, which are of course no match for the guns and cannons. The colonialists subjected us to untold humiliation and made us lick their every step they stepped on. They made the Chinese cede Hongkong and Kowloon over to them after they won the war against China, and after forcing the Chinese Government to allow them to sell opium to the Chinese, thus enslaving and humiliating mighty China which was on the decline and decaying. The colonialists came in droves to China and acted as they liked as the Chinese had not the weapons to fight against them. They looted the country of precious historical relics which now lie in their museums which proudly display their spoils of their loot. Yet their history, particularly the British, talk of their proud historical past. We don't see the colonialists talk of returning those precious historial relics which they looted from a helpless China then. I suppose it's a case of looters and conquerers are keepers of the loot. Yet, the colonialists talk of their historical past with pride. Yes, history is written by the victors. So, please read history with a pinch of salt. report abuse disagree 1 agree 10 ... written by jonestation, September 30, 2008 13:46:39 History Teacher? what history teacher? oo you mean the text book reading guy who read every sentences from a book called "Buku Teks Sejarah".. Our history class has become a memorizing tornement, those with big capasity of "harddisk" in their brain win. There is no room for thinking or evaluation or an open mind discussion over a historical event. "Sumbat" as much as you can in the class room, sleeping room, rest room, then "muntah" out as much as you can in the exam hall, is what our education is all about. History should not be a subject in the exam, since the schema of the answer is so fixed, and everyone is force to accept one answer only. report abuse disagree 0 agree 5 ... written by renoir, September 30, 2008 17:09:25 jonestation wrote: >History should not be a subject in the exam, since the schema of the answer is so fixed, and everyone is force to accept one answer only.]] Interesting - the idea of a "schema" of answers, which in the field of perceptual motor learning is actually more flexible than the Closed Loop Theory. Based on stimulus-response (S-R) theory which proposes that external stimuli and reinforcement of movement determine what is learned, the Closed Loop Theory takes into consideration a person's perception towards movements. It's this perception that, from the experience of movements and their feedback, results in our brain's "memory trace." The "memory trace" then becomes a referent in which subsequent movements could be compared and adjusted in the mastery of a skill. Now the Schema Theory suggests that we don't really store in our memory elements of a particular skill (that would take a lot of storing, as there're an infinite number of skills to be learned in both sports and non-sports situations). Instead, it proposes that what is stored are understandings or mental "schemas" of relationships - the kind that could be applied to a number of different movements that nevertheless contain some similar characteristics. A shared principle that underlines the badminton serve, the straight punch of a boxer, or the backhand smash of a table tennis player, is the "follow through" movement. The schema theory is applicable to areas outside of motor learning as well. When Arnold Toynbee - and others like Kennedy - talks about the rise and fall of civilizations, he's positing a certain perceptual base from which we could evaluate the stage of national development. This perceptual base may be understood as a form of universal laws. The problem with history is that many authors would either 1) bend events to suit such laws, and/or 2) insist that their country is unique - that it operates outside those laws because of "divine" favors or "the natural result of a superior culture/race." Fortunately, as in other communicative acts, history not only involves writers and their texts, but also the audience or readers. And here's where many propagandists have their problems: the texts could often be deconstructed by perceptive and knowledgeable persons, and the readers themselves might come from cultures that evaluate events from totally different criteria.* Thus, people might not be convinced that wealth and power equals national superiority - how a nation gets to that status has to be taken into consideration as well. Conversely, being poor and destitute isn't necessarily a sign of national or racial inferiority, as in the cycle of history, nations come and go, empires rise and fall. The present status of nations, strong and weak, rich and poor, need not be perpetual phenomena. LChuah * Example: some years ago, in an experiment, Australian aborigines watching a cowboy-and-Indian movie clapped not for the charging US Cavalry, but for the retreating Indians. This was a different reaction from what Malaysians were used to during the early 1950s, when we watched pro-Western propaganda films in makeshift open-air cinemas consisting of a canvas screen and a projector. Usually held in the evenings, the free movies would include some Tom and Jerry or Mickey Mouse cartoons and "news" against the communists, glorified snippets of English life, etc. Most of us would skip the news part and wait for the cowboy movies. We would scream "chung care lay ler!" (Cantonese: good guys - American pony soldiers - are coming!) and "kan care chow ler!" (the bad guys - or Native Americans - are fleeing!). Took decades for some of us to know the truth and be ashamed of ourselves: some never grew up and still stick to childhood perceptions). report abuse disagree 2 agree 5 ... written by Avanza1, October 04, 2008 12:05:08 Well if you follow Arab historian, you will find even more mind boggling 'facts'. Copies of identical holy scriptures written 600 before them are claimed to be fakes. But their copy of history written during their active 'tour of duty' into Europe is the absolute truth at the turn of the 1st century. It's a wonder the word 'membuka bandar' can be used to soften the word 'menakluk bandar Constinopole'. History belongs to the victors. report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 Write comment This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment. You must be logged in to a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet. |
oh!! our history teachers ??? they sure did !!!!-- after all they were only answerable to the Neanderthals in Power. The promulgations of what we had to know was blatant --- it needed no directions. It was embedded by idiots !
Even knowledge was linked to the ISA, it was a sieve for power , the architecture to what Corridor pillars are made of !!