The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| History’s never black and white Posted: 14 Sep 2011 05:17 PM PDT SEPT 15 — First and foremost, I hate the term "freedom fighters." In the English language, it's a necessity to point out, as the late comedian George Carlin once did: if fire fighters fight fire, and crime fighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight?! I find his observations valid especially when air stewards and stewardesses insist on me getting "on" the plane instead of "in" it. Subsequently, while people (myself included) continue to claim that Tunku Abdul Rahman was a brilliant leader, let's not forget that no leader is infallible. And no, I'm not talking about his drinking, gambling or joget habits. I'm talking about the fact that he once supported the Malayan Union, which Umno itself protested against. Looking through Malaysian history, you can find all sorts of discrepancies in our leaders or would-be leaders. So I will admit that perhaps Malaysiakini has a point; in truth, if there was a referendum on who would run Malaya after its formation, Tunku may not have been the people's first choice. So we have a PAS leader calling a communist Malay Malaysian leader of the CPM 10th Regiment a freedom fighter. Now, while Mat Sabu is going around preaching this, I want to ask him a few things. First and foremost, what took him so long?! Shamsiah Fakeh is dead, Rashid Maidin is also dead, Mat Indera is also dead. Is it now PAS's policy to praise dead communists in order to get votes from the living? If PAS were to go out and truly praise the communists, why not talk about Abdullah CD, former chairman of the CPM, who is still alive in exile? Why not fight to bring both him and Chin Peng home? For me personally, the timing and angles taken by PAS for all this is very suspect. PAS needs to decide whether or not it wants to truly delve into the Bukit Kepong incident and support the actions of the communists under Mat Indera at the time. This would include, of course, the murder of both the wife and son of Marine Constable Abu Bakar Daud, and the wife and daughter of Constable Abu Mohd Ali. Does PAS support the murder of non-combatants, or does it consider this acceptable collateral damage? While PAS is so adamant about supporting one dead communist leader in an assault on a Johor police station, why not voice its support for other leaders of the communist party? Let's talk a bit about Shamsiah Fakeh, who died in 2008, shall we? Shamsiah was the leader of Angkatan Wanita Sedar (AWAS) who faced a lot of trials and tribulations throughout her life. She was abandoned by her first husband while pregnant. She literally gave birth to a child while in the forests of Malaya, and had her newborn child murdered by her own comrades. She is perhaps the only Malaysian Malay woman who can truly be labelled a nationalist feminist icon. She died in 2008. PAS didn't even acknowledge her by attending her funeral. Tony Pua from the DAP and Syed Husin Ali from PKR were there. And yet, now suddenly PAS wants to fight for the former communist Malay Malaysians? What does Islam say about hypocrisy again? Personally, I view the communist insurgency as what it is; a period of attrition which saw all sides, left and right political wings, conduct acts that were both despicable and revolting. But then again, I read Chin Peng's book, Shamsiah Fakeh's memoir as well as Abdullah CD's, thanks very much to my father's insistence of wanting both sides of history to be seen on his ever glorious bookshelf which I raid every now and then. However, this came later in life. These actions were never mentioned in our history books, or all those reference books published by Pelangi, Longman or Sasbadi. Mat Indera was not a "freedom fighter", if you refer to my first paragraph. He was a left-wing nationalist who believed that independence could come from armed struggle if the masses were to join the revolt. The masses didn't. And thus, since history was written by a blemished, non-independent pro-propaganda government body, the communists and other left-wingers did not get any credit until Fahmi Reza did his indie documentaries, "10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka" and "Revolusi '48". It just goes to show that Churchill had a point when stating that history is written by the victors. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. |
| Posted: 14 Sep 2011 05:07 PM PDT SEPT 15 — There is a reason why most Malaysians zone out in their school history classes, it is hard to follow. So they go for the next best thing, they just memorise enough to ace the exam, work around the system and then perform weird and not necessarily wild rituals after their SPM (O-levels) to forget everything thereafter. Why is it hard to follow? I'll skip my own classes with Puan Maimun and her pearls on why Umno raised me from obscurity, that I should just be grateful and accept Malaysia's race politics. It is hard to follow, more than your general history curriculum, because it is disjointed. The following will look at the politics of history, rather than the truth of history or the politicians espousing "true" history. History's fact depravity History, which most of us would readily admit, is the recording of the past. In true cliché, yesterday is past already. However it is not all factual, and no, this is not a prompter for conspiracy theories. There are incontrovertible facts like an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. In the pursuit of truth earnest students can and even should question what everyone else holds to be correct, but in practical terms, saying that there was no such bomb on that locality on that day will invite ridicule. Unfortunately, the world has been around for a long time. A lot of things have happened. The collection of iron-clad historical facts mankind has is very limited when set in the background of all the other things — those suspected of happening, and were to have happened in a specific way for a specific reason. Therefore then, the larger field of history relies on observations and general evidence. Every day people visit the A Formosa in Malacca. All that remains is a gate and some walls. This used to be a daunting fort protecting Portuguese presence in the region, and later doing the same for the Dutch. The British under William Farquhar is accused of commencing the demolition of the fort in the early 1800s while they temporarily held Malacca for the Dutch East Indies Company, whose home nation was in turmoil following the Napoleonic Wars. They stopped the carnage when a certain Stamford Raffles lobbied for the fortress to stay. That the fort was being blown up and then the endeavour stopped is largely uncontested. However whether Farquhar acted independently, or was instructed by the British East Indies offices in Calcutta, or other hands were in play is contestable. Whether Stamford Raffles lobbied hard, or lobbied harder, cannot be verified as much except for his own account of the situation. Whether the British were worried about the bad relations with the Dutch as an afterthought or just ran out of cannonballs, again cannot be absolutely verified. There would have been at least 100 British personnel, colonies of Dutch-speaking people, a smaller sub-section of largely Portuguese-speaking but less Portuguese-looking people; and the less mentioned local inhabitants, who'd outnumber them all. Everyone had a slice of their own observations, but only a minority of those were recorded. And of that, only a minority of it seen to be reasonable, valuable and verifiable enough to be re-mentioned as "history". What makes Raffles' observations more credible than his servants', or perhaps his scribe Munshi Abdullah's later who would have been a 10-year-old during the demolition? For prevailing history emerges from first the gathering of information, records, observations and evidence as collated; then rigorously debated in academic circles and which then is written to be slammed down or celebrated. Because of the nature of the process, the most credible held historical facts are always going to be challenged by enough people. After listing the clear facts, and then the credible facts, man still finds gaping holes of a vast and rich past. For his life is the result of a past, drives him to seek answers even when the evidence starts to thin. Man needs resolution through an understanding of the past, even the ones no one wrote about it. At this point historians theorise. Especially since the little evidence is scattered and possibly filled with contradictions. Scientific tools are used to reconstruct, gather and generally move forward. Malaya's often theorised and actively debated topic is who does it exactly owe its Islamic civilisation to? Was India responsible, or would it be the more emotive choice of Arabs or the politically dominant Chinese or from more infant Islamic states in the region? The reason why the above, which is a relatively newer period of history, is largely theorised is because documentation for most of Malaya's pre-colonial history is lacking. It is commonly stated that history is written by victors. Perhaps it is more concise to say history is written by those who can write, who then are willing to write, and are fortunate to live in a time these writings are stored. Reverting back to historical facts, largely held facts and rigorously discussed theories, the very character of history invites public discussion. Without getting into the directionless history discourse in Malaysia at the moment, it is considerably conservative to say that those who say that all history in Malaysia is irrefutable are those lacking either intellectual rigour or are just plain stupid. Most of history is up for debate indefinitely. That is the right of all of earth's inhabitants. Some might say it is the contesting of these historical "facts" which actually renders them relevant and known. The history championed, which is taught Even without political considerations, history is voluminous and complex. The whole nine yards is left to the men and women in ivory towers who want to spend their energy on it. History is taught in nations as a way to explain their existence, to shape citizens' appreciation of the world and their country in particular. National history which shapes the majority of history curriculum in most countries is a collection of historical developments selected which the nation champions. Nations champion it by putting it up for reading and study by almost all its people in its education system. Since Malaysia has had only one government, then the selection becomes tricky. There has never been a prolonged period since independence when the history curriculum was not revamped. Most Malaysian students on the day they graduate from university would find noticeable alterations in emphasis, retelling, content and omission if they walked into a school bookshop and checked the latest SPM (O-levels) history textbook. It is a like a story book which is cut and pasted here and there every couple of years for different reasons. Most people won't write a story book in their lives, but they acquire enough to know when a story lacks continuity and is glaringly missing characters, motivations and plot development. This is why history, as taught in Malaysian schools, is sneered by the majority of students like the black plague. There is a reason why the old communist propaganda films from the old Soviet Union are not part of the classic category in video stores. They tend to be one sided, expand outrageously the role of party leaders (Kruschev the liberator of Stalingrad or Stalin frees Eastern Europe from vicious capitalism) and omit anything undermining the party's contribution. It does not make interesting viewing. And sure does not make interesting reading. And in time it has been ignored except as a cautionary tale. But the parallels of the old Soviet Union to a party in Malaysia is stark indeed, enough to be recorded for future readers. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. |
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