Why Malaysia is Rewriting History
Understanding that past is critical to understand the injustice that has lingered all the way to the present
Skot Thayer, Ozy
For six decades, a single party’s rule denied leftists, Hindus, Buddhists and parts of Malaysia space in the country’s textbooks. Not anymore.
Fifteen minutes before the start of the discussion forum titled “Should We Rewrite Our History Textbooks?” at the Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, an angry attendee waved his fists and accused panelist Fahmi Reza, an activist and artist, of promoting “evil” communism. The disruption continued once the panel’s conversation began. But Reza remained unflustered. Dressed in a beret and punk-pin-bedecked military jacket, he tried to placate the angry man and his friends at the back of the room. The panel, Reza said, was only arguing that multiple perspectives needed to be heard. “This perspective is legitimate too — the students should know it too,” he said.
For decades, hearing multiple perspectives wasn’t an option in Malaysia. Until earlier this year, the country had been under the political yoke of a single party — the right-wing United Malays National Organization (UMNO) — for 61 years, longer than any nation other than communist China and North Korea. That monopoly over power, coupled with Cold War politics, meant students were taught a single, straitjacketed history of the country’s journey. Now that’s changing, after 93-year-old former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s Pakatan Harapan party ousted the UMNO-led government of incumbent leader Najib Razak’s Barisan Nasional coalition.
Scholars and minority ethnic groups are seeking a revision of history books to acknowledge the central role that Hinduism and Buddhism played in early Malay kingdoms but that the country has long ignored in favor of focusing on Islam’s contributions. Seventy years ago this summer, British colonial authorities declared a state of emergency in the colony of Malaya to crush demands for independence from the local communist party and other leftist groups. In postelection Malaysia, leftist groups and activists are seeking a reassessment of that historic role in the country’s modern independence struggle.
AS LONG AS WE DON’T CARE ABOUT OUR HISTORY, WE WILL NEVER GET THINGS RIGHT.
DARELL LEIKING, MALAYSIA’S MINISTER OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND INDUSTRY
And across the South China Sea, far from the glittering glass and steel towers of Kuala Lumpur and the developed infrastructure of peninsular Malaysia, the states of Sabah and Sarawak are demanding a historical reckoning of their own. Under the Sept. 16, 1963, Malaysia Agreement, Sabah and Sarawak joined the peninsula as one nation, becoming founding partners of the country. That agreement granted eastern Malaysia special rights, including freedom of religion and civil autonomy. But school textbooks have downplayed this history, say regional leaders.
“The school history books never really explained it,” says Minister of International Trade and Industry Darell Leiking, a member of Parliament from Penampang in Sabah. “As long as we don’t care about our history, we will never get things right.”
The new Malaysian government is responding to these growing demands. It has promised a revision of the fourth-grade history textbook that critics argue has particularly problematic political, religious and regional biases. Five out of 10 chapters in the current edition, for example, deal with Islamic history. Textbooks for other grades are also under scrutiny, though there has been no decision made yet on changes in them. Critics have argued, for instance, that the second-grade history textbook underplays the role of Yap Ah Loy, the Chinese-origin administrator widely credited with helping turn Kuala Lumpur into a major commercial center.
Adding nuances and layers to a historical narrative that has dominated a country for decades isn’t easy — not even with a government willing to play ball. The panel that Reza spoke on was part of a three-day conference, “A People’s History of the Malayan Emergency,” held in July. Communism wasn’t even mentioned during Reza’s panel. “What the panelists were focusing on was how the history textbooks tell only one version of the story,” says Imran Rasid, who moderated the panel. But that didn’t stop Utusan Malaysia, a conservative newspaper with close right-wing political ties, from running three days of front-page headlines about “communist terrorist cruelty” and the formation of “mighty communist committees.”
