Should we rewrite our history?
Some says, many changes had taken place in our books right from the Malacca Sultanate onwards. They even further says that many true facts had been amended to create a wrong view of modern history.
Parameswara was a Hindu,Hang Tuah is said to have been Chinese and the Malays cannot stomach this.
In 2006 the member of parliament (MP) for Kelana Jaya, YB Loh Sent Kok complained about "imbalanced" historical textbooks.He says the syllabus of history textbooks ignored the contribution of non-bumiputeras and only emphasized on the Islamic civilisation and this does not encourage critical thinking among students.
He suggest a balance historical syllabus, so that younger generation would able to learn about other faiths and cultures, thus will open minds of younger generation to new ideas.
The theories of Malay historian Syed Naquib al-Attas also heavily influence the country’s history textbooks. Al-Attas’ work claims that Islam introduced rationality to the cultures of the Malay world and insists that Islam “liberated” the people from a kind of “dark ages” of pagan, animistic, Hindu-Buddhist traditions. This celebrated by the Ketuhanan Melayu camp but does not goes well to the liberals.They says
That’s “dangerous,” because it teaches kids “that Malaysia has always been Islamic.”
In 2013, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad gave a keynote address at a Perdana Leadership Foundation Forum. He said that there was a need to rewrite Malaysian history books to include problems faced in the past and the steps taken by the government to solve such issues, so as to offer the younger generation a better understanding of the country’s history.
Mahathir’s call was generally well-received by the public as an exhortation to look at history as a living subject that needs continuous discourse
In 2018,in a Forum " Should we rewrite our history textbook" some young activists like Fadiah Nadwa Fikri and Fahmy Reza organised a forum to call for a review of our history textbooks so as to give more accurate narratives of the story of our nation, including the role played and contributions made by leftist groups such as the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) in the fight for independence.
Also in 2018, Malay language daily Utusan Malaysia recently published a report claiming that Human Resources Minister M Kulasegaran had referred to the Malay community as pendatang, which he denied saying it. This adds another perspective and twist to our history.
Well,as understood, makes the Malay adrenalin goes up.
A never ending polemic and argument, but it's more on Malaya-centic opinion.What about us,who form Malaysia, does we don't have history to mould the nation,of course we have.
It's just we are " malas" to masuk campur , for us MA63 is our fight till death.
To rewrite, must from the starting line, where,we may say from pre-colonnial era, proto history.
Am not suprise,we will offer better floor of oxygen to our Malaysian nation-building using historical lens.
Roslan Masran.
Tiada ulasan:
Catat Ulasan