‘New history books biased towards one race’

The history syllabus is bent on marginalising the contributions of other races, claims a Gerakan politician.

GEORGE TOWN: The new secondary history books being taught in schools goes again the grain of the 1Malaysia concept, a Gerakan politician said today.

Baljit Singh, who heads the Penang Gerakan’s legal and human rights bureau, said the history books contained propagation of one particular ethnic and religious group.

He wants Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to explain why the syllabus over-emphasised Islamic religion, Arabic civilisation and Malay contributions to the nation.

“The history books definitely contradicted 1Malaysia concept,” he told FMT here.

He said that people wanted to know why contributions by other ethnic groups, religions, civilisations and languages in the country were overlooked and left out from the history books.

He said that previous Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein had once assured that secondary school history textbooks would not be politicised or be racially biased.

“However, the new books seem to be propagating one particular ethnic and religious views. History books should contain only truthful historical facts, not distorted facts and lies. We must not hide the past. Past history is imperative for us all to learn from our mistakes, correct them and move ahead.”

The vocal Gerakan politician is no stranger at locking horns with Umno’s ministers. Lately, he had a “Punjabi Boy-Bugis Boy” public row with Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Aziz over the sex tape allegedly involving a top Pakatan Rakyat leader.

Previously, he took on Muhyiddin for not banning the controversial novel, Interlok, from schools.

“Some critics claim the books contained a strong ethno-centric and political bias, lack objectivity and truthfulness, and contain numerous factual errors.”

Baljit also asked why the history syllabus would only be reviewed in 2017.

“Why in six years time? Why not at the end of this year’s school season? Our children should be taught truthful historical facts, not distorted stories,” he said.

He also hit out at Perkasa for suggesting that non-Malays should accept the Malay-Islamic centric nature of history textbooks advocating the concept of Malay supremacy.

“History is not about the supremacy of a race or religion. It’s all about telling the new generation about the truthful events from the past. Racism should be prohibited in our history books,” Baljit said.