History

Winston Churchill once said, "History is written by the victors".

And no, Winston Churchill did not create the cigarette brand Winston.

The said quote is somewhat suitable for today, because it is related to History subjects taught in high schools in Malaysia, but only restricted to students in Form 4. Today's post is not intended to badger the Government (that's the Opposition's job) nor badger any religion (that's an atheist's job). I just want to put forward my opinion on Islamic teaching in History subjects and how biased it is to said religion.

First off, I would like to include numbers because it's just hard to imagine something without the help of digits to put into perspective how bias the History books are, quoted for truth from a letter written by 'A Concerned Mum' which i picked off from Malaysia Today website:

"The first fact to note is the overwhelming proportion of the Form 4 text book being devoted to Islamic civilizations (100 pages)....other religious civilization (460 words)".

I think from the statement above, you don't need to be dentist to know that the Sejarah text book is biased to one civilization and that being the Islamic civilization. First of all let me state my stand; I do not have any problems or dissatisfaction of putting Islamic civilization because it's a very prestigious civilization and it was some what influential at that point of time. However, there also has to be a balance for other civilization as well, I mean look at the 100 pages, I'm sure they are very factual but some of them are unnecessary. Unnecessary in the sense that some of the facts doesn't concern history. We have Islamic Studies for that, I feel like anything that doesn't contribute to history doesn't belong in it. My basis of argument here is that religion and history must not mix, yes you can state how that particular religion was founded but once you add unncessary information about the religion like you know the principles of religion and some other hocus pocus, that's where I draw the line because it doesn't concern history

That is also besides the point, there were so many historic events that were left out in great proportion, I felt that the world history has been neglected that we do not know the basic knowledge of said historic events. Yeah sure the World Wars were stated in our History book, but there was more to it besides the reason why the World War occur ed and what had caused it. I mean there are other basic questions that needs to be addressed. You know it's like you give a person a full tank of gas and a car but he doesn't know how to drive the car.

I propose (which of course no one would listen too, but it's an idea no less) that history regarding Malaysia and all the civilization of different race/religion should be thought during form 1, 2 and 3. Than in Form 4 and Form 5, student's should be exposed to world history in addition to any left-overs from Form 1, 2 and 3. That way, students would be exposed more towards the different histories in the world and would be more poised to continue learning history in a higher education establishment. One of the fundemental reasons why our sejarah book contain so much about islamic civilization is because of the writers themselves. The writers are all Malay, indicating that their knowledge are limited mostly to islamic civilzations, you don't have to be an indian or chinese to be exposed to it's respective civilization, all you need is the interest. That's the beauty of education, if that is your interest than study it. If our students now are exposed to other civilizations or any other concept of History and make it interesting at the same, im sure there would be those who are interested in pursuing it.

That's just my 2 cents really. Thank you and good night.