We are not afraid of History being made a compulsory subject
but we are afraid that it will be distorted to serve as propaganda by certain political interests...
Kee Thuan Chye's Last refuge of a scoundrel in Malaysiakini on Patriotism, also touched on History:
"Of course, the fact that the CPM provided patriotic resistance against the Japanese is not known by many Malaysians. It has been expunged or distorted in our history books.
The current History syllabus at SPM level is clearly written by the victors, i.e. BN, mostly Umno. Just look at the Malaysian section of the textbook and you will see how the subjective selection of what goes into it serves to manipulate the truth.
Now that it has been decreed that History is to be a must-pass subject at SPM, you can bet the new syllabus will be constructed to further serve the victors’ cause. Malaysians would be naïve to believe that “history is history and we cannot concoct something that is not history”, as said by Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. While they may not concoct, they can nonetheless construct.
History is a construct. It is not objective; it can be manipulated. How it is told depends on who is writing it. If Muhyiddin does not know that – which is unlikely – we at least should be aware."
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/147887
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