History Lessons

It’s 5.58 a.m…figured out that just before i call it a day (in my terms as my day officially begins at 12 p.m) i thought i’d just go throught the headlines of the past few days on the Star website and amidsts the Malay Rulers threatening the rakyat to ‘honour’ the social contract and finding out that HIndraf is now illegal (you must forgive me for my lateness, i have a stupid exam on monday see) i find that the Education Ministry is in the works of bringing the History subject to primary schools.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved history in school, in fact i still like history a lot. i read historical mismash and nonsense just for the heck of it and thanks to Diana I now also have the keen interest in British history although nowhere as near as her fascination for it.

Learning History in Malacca was in a way even more fun, especially if your school sat on what used to be the great a famosa fort and faced the Sultanate Palace wherein your teacher could just ask you to lookout of the window to see the historical sights where these great events took place.

Malaysia, being a very young civilisation does have a lot to be proud of, especially becoming the nation we are today, which we could not have become due to the forsight of our forefathers who knew what was needed to be done when it was done. Learning about things like this had made me a person who was happy to be a Malaysian and to be born on the Malaysian soil as apposed to being born into the wartorn land of Jafna or even some remote part of South India( depending to whom i am born to seeing as my parents would have never had met in the first place).

That was all when we were young and was made to belive that everything that was in our books were the gospel truth and cannot be challanged. It was in the Buku Teks…so it must be true.

Then as we got older and started learning about things like Malayan Union, where people who were non indegeneous were called ‘pendatang’ and was asked to return to the countries from which they came from, people who were born and bred on this soil was still branded a ‘pendatang’ when he belonged to the country as much as the next indegeneous person…that made me sad…i questioned the validity of this…and was told to accept it as a mechanism in which was needed in order to achive the independence we have today…the freedom we all should be glad to have…a freedom that could have only have been achieved through this great sacrifice.

i dleved further into history, the people that were regarded as hero, from dato Maharajalela to Rentap, our country’s celebrated hero’s were celebrated not because they fought some worthy cause against the colonialists…but rather they were DEFENDING THEIR RIGHTS TO GO AROUND CHOPPING OFF PEOPLE’S HEADS AND THEIR ‘GOD GIVEN’ RIGHT TO HAVE SLAVES!!!

Honestly, is this something to be proud of? They say that it is the begginings of rebbelion should be seen as the ‘pemangkin’ for the other nationallists to stand up to the colonialist…really? I somehow beg to disagree.

I suppose I am backtrackking here and running away from the point at hand, which is teaching history to primary school students…the reason for it according to the Education Minister;

“Through History, the pupils will be exposed to the hardships faced in the past and be thankful with what they have now,”

So I wonder, whose story are these children going to be taught?The current history that we have been taught? why is the current generation of adults in their 20s and 30s not thankful enough for what they have? Apparently not…the education of the country has made a fundamental mistake, they failed to wash our brains before we were old enough to think for ourselves and realise that everything we have been taught about concerning the ‘Sejarah Malaysia’ was just one big government propaganda wherein we will be fearful of incidents like May 13th and ‘behave’…further their failure to include what should be landmarks in our history as the judicial crisis in 1988 is further proof of the Government’s plan to show to us that “hey look everything is bright and sunny in Malaysia…” no news of the formation of UMNO Baru, Tungku and Dato Jaafar Onn, the founding father of UMNO was ridiculed when he made mention of making UMNO a party for malaysians and not malays…mistakes made to look as though they were decisions that had to be made in order to maintain the country’s peace and prosperity…

I wonder, is this done for our good, or in favour of the rulling coalition…I can only hope that with the inclusion of historyfor kids in primary school, they have at least more world history instead of the boring crap they make us learn year in and out from the time we touch that F1 text book to the day of our SPM examination…because honestly, most of us could stand to learn about things outside this little ‘tempurung’ we call Malaysia.