History syllabus furthering political interests... by Lim Teck Ghee

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2010

History syllabus furthering political interests

by Lim Teck Ghee
Malaysiakini, Dec 16, 2010, 3:32pm

A few days ago, two senior academicians involved in the writing of history textbooks emerged from the shadows, saying that the history textbooks in the country are biased and littered with errors. 

According to one of them, Dr Ranjit Singh Malhi, "secondary (school) textbooks have been used to promote political interests". 

The other concerned author, Ng How Kuen, expressed the fear that making history a compulsory pass subject in Sijil Perlajaran Malaysia (SPM) would mean that students would have to subscribe to the official version of events or risk failing the entire examination.

It is said that history is written by the victors, but it is also true that we get the history we deserve. The disclosure that the teaching of history in schools has been skewed and has a political agenda - besides suffering from distortions and errors - is not the first time this issue has been brought to public attention.Earlier attempts to highlight the issue of what constitutes the true history of Malaysia and what is being passed off as officially-sanctioned history in the schooling and larger public system, such as the BTN courses, may have begun with a bang - but they have all ended with a whimper.

Forcefeeding the 'four diseases'

If we go by previous experience we can expect the following responses:

• Bureaucratic foot-dragging and feigned ignorance on the issue;

• Justification and cover-up of the existing history textbook and syllabus system and attempts to prevent any public discussion and reform;

• Use of the mask of impartiality and superior knowledge to deflect criticism;

• Attacks on the credibility of whistleblowers; and

• Deafening silence from key stakeholders, including the academic community, political parties and professional organisations.

Why is the great majority of our Malaysian public not concerned about the version of history that is being propagated in the schools?
 

Why do the people close their eyes and their minds to the distorted history that is being taught to their children and grandchildren? 

Do they not realise the consequences of the victory of a history that is radically different from the history that they themselves learnt when they were in school not so long ago? Was the history that they studied so wrong that it needs to be substantially changed in emphasis, content and scope?

Why are they silent on the development of a propagandistic and truncated history that is increasingly infiltrated by the forces of Islamisation and crass nationalism, and where the four major diseases that afflict BN - delusion, amnesia, inertia and arrogance - are prominently evident and force-fed to the young minds of the country?

The answers are complex, but they essentially boil down to apathy and lack of concern, especially among the educated and elite groups of our society on these important issues that are crucial to our future as a rational and thinking society. 

Underscoring this 'tidak apa' attitude is the dominant factor of self-interest and self-preservation.

Those involved with writing history text books and who are in the know about the deplorable and compromised standards of their peer group want to protect their lucrative side-employment.

Others, such as academicians or teachers of the subject in the schools, do not dare to speak out for fear of being labelled as 'anti-national', or as in the case of those in the public universities, for fear of running foul of the Universities and Universities Colleges Act, which will be selectively enforced on them should they write or speak publicly on issues that are out of line with the official position.

Academics BN sycophants

It is no coincidence that academicians and opinion writers who are regularly trotted out in the mainstream media are those who seek to justify or reinforce the current status quo. These sycophants have not only academic or intellectual immunity but they also enjoy perks akin to those enjoyed by the business cronies of the BN.

If there is any reaction from the academic community to the two whistleblowers, we can expect their comments to come from those who will toe and reinforce the official position and circumvent from the main issue of the Islamisation and politicisation of the Malaysian history school syllabus. 

Dissenters, on the other hand, have to face the possibility of lost or delayed promotions and other forms of punishment not easily discernible to the public eye.

"Shut up, mind your own business" and cari makan (even though this may be through rent-seeking, queue-jumping, plagiarism and other unethical practices) have been the credo of the great majority of the professional elite in Malaysia. It is a culture that has served them well personally, but at what cost to the nation?

Malaysian history must be based on facts and the scrupulous depiction of historical reality. The writing of textbooks should not be left to those who regard it as a business or their political agenda and are prepared to bend the truth so that it meets with the vision of an Islamic and Umno-dominant Malaysia.

Unless we are prepared to fight for a scholarly, reliable and representative history, we will end up with a future - as well as a past - that reflects the dominant ethnic and religious culture and community, and marginalises or erases the contributions of other cultures and communities.

Dr Lim Teck Ghee is director of the Centre for Policy Initiatives.

What's TRUTH got to do with it*

Many a time all of us may have been caught in a betwixt and between situation where we are in the middle of two warring factions. Most of the time, we are at a lost as both factions seem to have some justification in the way they behaved and the way the other did what they did!
The truth of the matter must lie somewhere in the middle as I have come to understand that things in life are neither black nor white. It is usually in shades of grey. I was caught in a similar situation not too long ago.
A was happily employed with B for many years with both parties respecting each other, enjoying each other's company and the relationship was more than just a employer-employee one but rather to that of close friends' one. B was single handedly running and taking care of the company as if it were his own. It was during this time I came to know A and B. I got along well with both parties. Over the years, things soured up between A and B. By B's standards, A was becoming laggard and slip shot in his work and taking corners. According to A, on the other hand, B was easily irritable and petty, made worse when as his business hit a rough patch with things generally moving slowly and income was dwindling. From A's point of view, B was becoming a fussy old man with an unpredictable predicament. After many ugly incidences, both decided to go different ways. A quit and another employee took over A's post. Towards the tail end of the employment, I was caught in the middle with each party trying to tell their side of the story and try to get me to see their side of the story in the hope of condoning their respective actions. I managed with occasional non-committed "Oh!"s, "Is it?"s and half hearted "Yeah"s. It managed to have worked as I am still friends with parties, one year down the line.
Misunderstandings are bound to happen in any relationships, to err is human; to forgive but divine! Innocent by-standers should not take sides. We should enjoy the side show but rather just savour the good moments. The last thing that you want is both the warring factions teaming up and pointing their arsenal at your direction! Sometimes it is better to be like the weeds (lallang) in the meadows that sway and play to the tune of the direction of the winds. Do not take sides, just enjoy the good moments and stock up in the huge memory bank and savour it later. What has truth got to do with it at all. That's all!
*What's Love Got To Do With It - Tina Turner

National disintegration?

Let us watch this video. Yet another video with its message which had appeared in many forms.
http://www.malaysiakini.tv/video/20667/shot-4-times-and-dont-know-why.html

Merdeka!!!

The point I want to bring up is why, after 53 years of Independence, 40 years of National Education Policy, probably 2 or 3 generations of living in Malaysia, eating nasi lemak, thosai, burger and all those delicious delicacies that the nation can offer, the victim and his wife still finds it more comfortable to converse in Cantonese (a dialect native to a place thousands of kilometres) for a Malaysian web TV interview for a Malaysian audience. This is happening in a country with supposedly high literacy rate with a robust education system and is aspiring to be an educational hub of sorts. It is just like some who look up to the Middle East for fashion and way of living when there are abundance of cultures and styles to go around in this region. It does not speak much of our success in national integration. And the space in between seems to be getting wider. It goes beyond acquiring wealth and power in the country.

Memories of RRF: Lingering culinary thoughts!

Most nice memories in life are usually laced with food - be it at a wedding or family reunion or smoking the peace pipe between nations! Anyway, which soul can be at peace on a empty stomach. Even, a funeral ceremony to rest the soul of the dead involves eating. Proponents of penance will not agree with this as they feel that in order to appreciate God's greatness, a little bit of suffering will definitely help. Hence, the practice of self inflicted pain during Thaipusam and suffering hunger panks in the holy month of Ramadan. If you ask me (which you would probably not), kavadi bearers like the short lived attention that they get (which they normally do not get on an average day in their life) and the binge and spirit of festivities that the fasting individuals look forward to afterwards.
In response to an ardent follower (self praise, sic) who wanted me to write on foods available around RRF and Penang during my earlier days, I squeezed my grey matter and this is what that churned out.....(Grey, crimson and oily...)
How ironic life can be - when you have the stomach for the food as a child, you do not have the means for it; as an adult if you have the means for it, you do not have the stomach for it (i.e. health wise, if you bother)!
RRF (outside the home) had much to offer to us as growing children in developing our culinary tongues even though it had been grilled upon us from young that we only eat to live and not vice versa.
Let us look at all the mouth-watering hawker's food available outside the home while we were being cooped up and trying to be a book worm to turn our fate around. To be fair, we had our occasional indulgences every now and then, especially around the time Appa draws his salary packet.
RRF was a big source of potential customers due to its obvious number of inhabitants that reside there. Hence, it drew many food vendors.
Some not-so-well-to-do kids (otherwise known as enterprising) used to sell traditional cakes (probably made by their mothers, just like in the old Malay movies) in their baskets yelling out their products during school holidays.

Masala Vadai

• One Indian boy went on screaming.... Masala Vadai kueh!!! He sold uluttam vadai (a deep fried  spicy black lentil paste south Indian doughnut) and masala vadai (a savoury deep fried gram dhall flat fritters). Talking about doughnuts, did you know that vadai is the original doughnut glazed with loads of sugar. That is, if you believe what The Comedy Court duo of Allan Pereira and Indy Nadarajah said in one of their gigs. They said all foods are Indian in origin: crusted masala thosai is pizza; spring hoppers are spaghetti; rasam is soup; fried chicken - where did the spice come from? India, of course! And the list goes on....   
• An old Chinese with his trademark Pagoda brand white T-shirt used to walk with a flat large aluminum tray balanced on his head and a fold-able wooden frame over his shoulder whilst knocking on a metal gizmo producing an irritatingly loud decibel noise of 'tok tok'. Hence, we used to call him 'tok tok man' and his merchandise 'tok tok' . What he was selling in his aluminum tray was hard sweet candy and his loud gizmo is nothing more than a small hammer and a curved metal which he would use to chisel out his hard candy into shreds before filling it up in a tracing paper paper to serve it to his customers.



Tok Tok Hard Candy




• Occasionally we had young boys selling 'Malay traditional cakes' (kueh) in their baskets during school holidays.
• A Chinese lady (Ah Soh) used to do the same almost everyday but she sold only kueh kosui. I think kueh kosui is a Nyonya delicacy enjoyed by all.



Bengkang (my fave)



Uluttam Vadai

• Then there was a boy who used to sell Chinese crispy deep fried phallic shaped fritters and its complimentary round counterpart yelling 'Ham Chim Peng'-'Eu Char Koay'.

If you are sitting at home and you are exposed all of the above glutton's galore, it is not at all mind boggling to imagine the varieties available out there outside the confines of my flats. Only affordability is the limiting factor! All around RRF food stalls could be found. The noteworthy ones include...

• Again worth mentioning is the Block A Char Kway Teow, the ever delightful tasty lard filled succulent fresh prawn and cockled filled, Chinese chives sprinkled individually prepared by Ah Long. (mentioned in previous post).
• The simple bee-hoon (thin rice noodles) or mee (plain noodles) sold by a push cart hawker between Blocks D and E, sold in the mornings and late night after 8pm. Even though it was plain with no addition ingredients (besides soy sauce, chilly paste and small  lard-fried small cracker strips, it did taste heavenly! I realised that some people called them 'mee bodoh' (stupid noodles in Malay) as it contained nothing to talk about except for its taste - something like a dumb blonde!
• The morning market was a fertile playground for food lovers. Cheap noodles were sold at unbelievably dirt cheap prices (25 to 50 sen, believe it or not?). I remember they used to sell curry mee with a brownish curdy stuff covering the noodles.Only much later did I realise that the brownish shiny stuff was actually cooked pork blood! The curry mee sold in Penang is actually different from what is sold as curry mee in the Peninsular Malaysia, which is actually named Hockkein Mee in Penang!
• The Penang Laksa is also is in a different league altogether. One can smell the pungent smell of Penang Laksa miles away. Steamed round rice noodles are mixed with shredded pineapple, cucumber and fish pulp and immersed in a special gravy and a twist of prawn/fish paste (otak-otak) and lime. Even though it may churn the inside of a vegetarian upside, it is sure to clear your sinuses.



Laksa Penang




• Even though Mamak Mee is freely available  in bistros and hotels these days, nothing beats the ones found at the simple no-frills hawkers, probably ran by a single operator whose hygiene is much to be desired. You should probably not look at his mutli-tasking rag that he used for cleaning the chopping board and customers' table! He would probably wrap his cooking in old banana leave and newspaper. It still beats the most hygienically prepared Mamak Mee any day.

If you venture further out into town, you would probably not come back home...

• Penang has a few varieties of food which are only found there. Pasembor, is a Indian Muslim spicy snack, made with combination of a spread of cut tofu, fried batter, fried prawns, turnip, cuttlefish, cucumber and others with a liberal spread of ground nut gravy over it. Taukwa rendang is another variety of the same, using mostly cut flat Chinese tofu. (See how national integration had fell into place)
• In the 1960s all the way to the mid 80s, the corner shop at the Penang Rd-Magazine Rd-Brick Kiln Rd-Macalister Rd- Datuk Keramat Rd- Gladstone Rd (Simpang Enam) was held in high esteem by Penangites for its one of a kind tasty Mamak food. Nobody actually remembers it original name. Based on the 'Craven A' cigarettes that was advertised on the signboard, over time, the restaurant was called 'Craven A Restaurant'. It was famous for its Mee Singapura (probably even Singaporeans would not have tasted such an indulging mee) and its Nasi Kandar. The Mee Singapura was usually prepared at night after 9pm and people used to hang around the place to wait for the cook to start cooking to place their orders! Their nasi kandar used to be such a hit that customer just could not have enough of their food! The urban legend has it that their original cook used to spike the gravy with ganja (hashish) to make customers to make return purchases. The cook was apparently caught for his misdeeds by the Health authorities! Of course the 'kas kas' used its gravy is a kind of poppy seed of low potency! Craven A was also a hit with us USM medical students. Convoys of motorcycles used to frequent this joint past midnight to make mass purchases to feed the souls of the midnight-oil burning future doctors!



Mee Singapura



Pasembor






Kuih Talam. 

Interestingly, the best of this

Nyonya delicacy in Penang are 

prepared by Indian Muslim peddlars!

• After the cooks in Craven changed hands as the Indian cooks became richer, the quality of the food suffered. Apparently now, a stall in Tamil Street hold the crown for the best nasi kandar in town! (According to our local expert that we appointed, Appa)

During hungry ghost festival, besides the noise that one had to endure to scare the ghost away, there was also food, not to feed the hungry visitors of the underworld but those walking of the walking kind from earth! One particular dish which I found extremely satisfying is the cuttlefish-kangkung preparation with spicy gravy...Mmm... 

Nasi kandar

Somehow everyone thinks that foods of yesteryears fare much better in terms of taste and richness. We can put all the blame in the loads of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and the genetic modifications that we have done over the years. The real reason for its superiority is not caused by he above but rather because of its lingering after-tastes that are laced with loads of memorable heart wrenching cooling zephyr-like thoughts of fond childhood memories spiced up and seasoned with its carefree attitude to life. It is nothing to do with wealth and money!

Kuih Kosui



Kuih Lapis

Mee Rebus Mamak Penang

Hum Chin Peng

Eu Char Koay

Spare us the godswallop (Malaysiakini)

Dean Johns

Dec 1, 10 11:24am

Judging by what I've heard of her, PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan   Ismail is as good and godly a human being as Allah ever put breath into. But I wish she'd spare us the kind of codswallop she sincerely but I think unwisely spouted in her speech to the PKR party when she praised her husband Anwar Ibrahim as a “great man who has been awarded by God to all of us to be our leader”.

For a start, it's a bit presumptuous to speak on God's behalf when you couldn't possible have the slightest idea of the Almighty's thoughts, intentions, ideas or ideals.

Like clerics and their flocks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and similar earthly paradises who imagine that God demands the death penalty for those accused of adultery, blasphemy, apostasy or whatever else they deem terminally sinful.

Or potentates like the Pope (right), who claims to be God's earthly mouthpiece in making such preposterous pronouncements as his recent one that the use of condoms is now okay for male prostitutes to use to protect their clients against HIV infection, but still against divine law for the prevention of unwanted conception.

And a second and even more compelling reason for never presuming to invoke the name of God in a political or any other profane context is that so many others do it, often in support or justification of immoral, malicious and vicious activities.

For example, for centuries in Europe, generations of monarchs ruled by so-called “divine right”, claiming with the collusion of “aristocratic” cronies and Christian clerics to be destined, appointed and anointed by God to lord it over their populations of hapless peasants and serfs.

“Nobiscum deus”, Latin for “God with us”, was the claim of both the Byzantine and late Roman empires, neither of them paragons of virtue. And in more recent times, “Gott mit uns”, or in obvious English translation “God with us”, was the motto of both the German Kaiser's army in World War 1, and Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht in World War 2.

Acting 'for the glory of God'

Then there's the contemporary fact that Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and many other murderous organisations of similar ilk claim to be acting for the glory of God, and imagine that if their members die in action they're assured of berths in heaven.

And ranged against them are the massive forces of the US, which confidently considers itself to be 'God's own country', and whose former President, George W Bush (left), is on record as declaring that God advised him to invade Iraq.

God apparently has great faith in the US currency, too, as it bears the legend “In God we trust”, thus explaining perhaps why it's often referred to as 'the almighty dollar'. Though whether God had any hand in the sub-prime mortgage scandals and ensuing financial meltdown is a question that hasn't apparently yet occurred to America's fundamentalist true-believers.

Admittedly the North Korean regime doesn't attempt to pin its paranoid persecution of its own people or its poisonous posturing towards its neighbours on God, but that's only because successive members of the Kim dynasty appear to believe that they are God.

Unlike the supreme rulers of Iran and other theocracies, who apparently realise they're not actually divine, but presume to play God by threatening to finish the job that the “Gott mit uns” Nazis tried but finally failed to do on the Jews.

But we don't have to go global to find examples of the dubious company Wan Azizah puts herself in by publicly politicising God's name.

In Malaysia, as everybody knows, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was moved to swear to God on the Quran that he never met or had any dealings with the Mongolian 'model', Altantuya Shaariibuu, who was gruesomely murdered following her alleged involvement with the Scorpene submarine purchase by the Defence Ministry for which Najib was responsible at the time.

Which has me wondering, how could the self-same God who Wan Azizah assures us “awarded” Malaysians Anwar Ibrahim to be their leader believe a word that Najib tells him, let alone tolerate half a century of corrupt and criminal rule by Umno/Barisan Nasional?

Despite its sanctimonious claims to be the champions of Malays and thus Muslims, this gang of crooks would be a disgrace to any race or religion.

Systematically stealing untold billions in cash, land, timber, shares and whatever else it can get its claws on, and covering up its crimes by corrupting the country's judiciary, co-opting the nation's media and civil services, and condoning the criminalisation of the police to the point that countless killings in custody and fake 'shoot-outs' continue to occur and go unpunished.

Ungodly idols of power and profit

As I've mentioned before, however many times a day Malaysia's Umnoputras claim to pray, they seem to have no qualms whatever about preying on the populace. And whatever lengths they go to in their efforts to make it appear that they respect the Prophet, all they really worship are the ungodly idols of power and profit.

In fact they appear to have interpreted the old saying “God helps those who help themselves,” not as a proverbial encouragement to honest enterprise, but as a sign from above that they should help themselves to whatever they can get away with.

In a situation as profane as this, it seems highly counter-productive for Wan Azizah to drag God into the conversation. Especially in support of her husband right at the very moment that a parade of witnesses are busy perjuring themselves in front of the self-same God to frame him on a second trumped-up sodomy charge.

Of course Wan Azizah has a God-given right to think and say whatever she likes. But with so many people out there taking God's name in vain for their own nefarious purposes, it would be a pity if she risked looking like one of them.

Not that it's very likely, I grant you, that she'd ever be mistaken for those like Perkasa, who are walloping her for calling for an end to ketuanan Melayu, when in truth all the cods they talk about race and religion is just a cover for the fact that they're all about ketuanan money and that, as with their Umno sponsors, their only God is gold.

P.S. Malaysians will remember a certain someone who was the country's Works Minister in the 1980s when he conveniently blamed all the mishaps in the country to 'Act of God'! Er.. for those clueless on the identity of this glorified thug, it is Samy Vello (duh). FG

The blurred margins of real and reel life!

The more and more we look into the mass murder of Dato Susilawati Lawiya and gang, more and more we discover that it has the making of a mini-series that is ever so popular with the public. My liaison with these serials ended long ago with Radaan's production of 'Annamalai' when I discovered that it was one craving that I should give a miss. This series were so popular when it was around that even an academician like Prof Khoo Kay Kim could not resist but gave cold shoulder treatment to his guests when they visited him during its screening time!
If one were to browse the channels on TV (be it terrestrial, cable or satellite), especially during 'non-peak' times when everyone was at work, you would  be lost for choices on the number of tele-dramas to choose from. Tele-dramas, tele-novelas, tele-serials, mini-series, soap operas, the names are varied and have evolved over time but they all refer to the same melodramatic stories filled with romance (sometimes illicit, sometimes with ulterior motives), revenge, anger, jealousy, and all the negative traits that our mothers taught us not to have!
The name soap operas came about when soap companies like Proctor & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive first used to sponsor dramatic sequential suspense-filled radio dramas in the US. This name got stuck on the TV dramas of this similar themes. The initial soaps targeted bored housewives who were cooped in their homes. As its popularity soared, it made its way into the prime time slot and these dramas never looked back since. This winning formula was copied in other countries and by producers in other languages.
I think Peyton Place was one of the earliest soaps that we, Malaysian, were exposed to. Teenagers in the mid 70s (mostly girls) used to get all excited over Ryan O'Neal and stayed up late to catch the show and discussed all about it the next day in school in secrecy as if they have had just tasted the forbidden fruit. Of course, it (the series) raised many eyebrows then and was cursed by the puritans for it dwelled on taboo topics like adultery and extramarital affairs! How times have changed since then? The new serials they produce now make Peyton Place look like an episode from Sesame Street!

DALLAS: One of the earlier soaps in M'sia

The 80s saw blockbuster series like Bold & Beautiful, Dallas, Dynasty and Knots' Landing. Malaysian viewers, by then ecstatically drawn into the trap of make believe world could not ask for more when plethora of shows in various languages (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish) hit our shores in the mid 90s and TV has never been the same. The dangerous overload happened when India liberalized their economy and made it easier for Indians to get a satellite dish than clean drinking water. Being the masala-licking melodramatic society they are, it further dashed open the flood gates of Indian TV serials. Whatever language or part of the world these shows may be produced, the common theme in all them are revenge, lying, fornication, cheating, backstabbing, blackmail, kidnapping, plotting downfall of others and all the satanic virtues deplored by man for generations.

Annamalai: The mother of
all Tamil serials

If one were to observe the general behaviour of  human beings over the years, we will find that we are basically copy cats. Fashion buffs copy latest trends set by pencil thin anorexic model; in the pre-telecommunication era, citizens used their leaders as role model to emulate (like how the Germans condoned what Hitler did in WW2 and how a group of Malaysians agree with PERKASA's ideology); in the golden era of Hollywood, Audrey Hepburn and Twiggy were trend setters; Indian fashion sense is derived from their silver screen demi-gods where latest Diwali wear is based on what the Bollywood or Kollywood stars wore in their latest record smashing blockbuster. If this analogy is followed, are people going to follow what their admired actors in the serials and our world will be all filled with negativity? God forbid...

Sad, but is it true?