People got worked up over the latest twisting of history by the Kedah PAS troll, but they may have missed Anwar Ibrahim raising another hornet’s nest of heritage.
Kedah Menteri Besar Sanusi Nor recently claimed that the “Malays only have this Tanah Melayu. Indians have India, Chinese have China.” This was a twisted view of history.
A week later, The Malay Mail reported the prime minister saying that history must reflect the “sacrifice and devotion” of locals, not be dictated by the narratives of former colonial masters.
He was deflecting criticism on his opening of the renovated Fort Cornwallis in Penang on July 25, saying it “was not a celebration of colonialism” but an opportunity to reclaim and reinterpret the nation’s history from a Malaysian perspective.
However, Anwar’s political spin ignores how our school history textbooks have been distorted to glorify one race and downplay others, as historian Ranjit Singh Malhi has pointed out repeatedly.
In a 2021 article, Ranjit said it was “astonishing” that the vital role of the Chinese in tin mining had been dismissed in only three sentences in the Form Three history textbook.
Similarly, the contributions of Indians in the rubber industry are reduced to just two sentences in the same book.
Indian labourers also literally built roads, railways, bridges, ports, and government buildings all over Malaya.
The Public Works Department (PWD) was once dominated by Indian Malaysians, and that’s why the late MIC president S Samy Vellu served as the works minister.
Don’t forget that many labourers died from malaria while clearing the jungles for mines and rubber estates, and also from malnutrition and exploitation.
Dear Anwar, isn’t that the “sacrifice” that you spoke of at Fort Cornwallis?
Many towns were also built by Chinese and Indian traders. The new textbooks may deny this, but the hard evidence can still be seen in heritage shops.
How do Malay students visiting our old towns reconcile what they see with what they have “learned” in school?
I agree with Ranjit that Malays are the “tunjang” or backbone of this country. Nobody disputes that. But please lah, why resort to rewriting history to downplay the contribution of other races? That doesn’t exactly reflect self-confidence.
Sanusi covers failures with racism
Both Anwar and Sanusi made political speeches which lacked historical truth. The latter has repeatedly waded into racial issues, drawing criticism from his opponents and civil society groups, to divert from his own trainwrecks.
Kedah under PAS has failed to ensure adequate water supply while deforestation starves rivers during the dry season.
In the rainy season, devastating floods can happen, as seen in Yan in 2021.
The RM73 million Sungai Petani racing circuit lies abandoned while the RM1.3 billion race track cum resort project in Langkawi was allegedly given to a bankrupt.
The biggest blow was the withdrawal of Dubai investors from the RM40 billion Widad Langkasuka mixed development project
All these, plus the Kulim International Airport, were part of Sanusi’s “Greater Kedah” blueprint. However, they have all ended up a dud.
But Sanusi is a taichi master in avoiding blame by using racial rhetoric, including his latest Tanah Melayu comments.
It was deemed too racist even by Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who told the Kedah MB not to come and mess up the election campaign in Negeri Sembilan.
He said Sanusi must respect Malaysia’s multiracial society and not touch on race, religion, and royalty during the Negeri Sembilan campaign.
Despite the barrage of criticism from Zahid and other BN leaders, the BN-Perikatan Nasional pact continues in the state.
This proves that even racism, which Umno itself admits has gone too far, will not derail the political cooperation.
Insulting Malay Nusantara heritage
The PAS leader has insulted not only Chinese and Indians but also trampled on the glorious regional heritage of the Malay Nusantara.
He seems to have deliberately ignored the fact that three sultans have Bugis ancestors from South Sulawesi and that the Minangkabau people of Negeri Sembilan came from western Sumatera.
Let’s not forget that the Malays of East Malaysia draw their heritage from the past Brunei empire that once controlled all of Sarawak and Sabah.
Sanusi also conveniently overlooked that many Pattani Malays from southern Thailand have opened tomyam shops all over the country!
If you go to the counter or kitchen, take a peek at the order chits, which are often written in Thai! Yet they speak a Malay dialect similar to Kelantanese.
Many Malays have Javanese roots, including Zahid and former Selangor menteri besar Khir Toyo. Malaysia has at least six places called Kampung Jawa in Selangor, Malacca, Kuantan, and Segamat in Johor.
In fact, there are so many Javanese in Ayer Hitam, Johor and Sekinchan, Selangor that the two Chinese politicians there - MCA president Wee Ka Siong and Selangor exco Ng Suee Lim - can speak some Javanese!
Even Parameswara, the founder of Malacca, was a refugee prince from Palembang, fleeing the ruins of the Srivijaya empire. The empire his successors founded later was on both the Malay Peninsula and Sumatera.
Dubious claims
There were also dubious claims about the “glorious” record of the warrior Mat Kilau in a jingoistic movie, which was also debunked by Ranjit.
He pointed out that the nobles involved were actually more interested in defending their own feudal privileges, as the British wanted to restrict slavery and take over tax collection.
So, why resort to false history to bolster racial pride? Well, fake modern histories about “defending” or “uplifting” Malays are also heard nowadays from the same political party that enabled the neo-feudal plunder of 1MDB, Tabung Haji, and Felda.
There seems to be a pattern here.
And of course, Sanusi had claimed repeatedly that Penang should be returned to Kedah.
Bashing a Chinese-majority DAP-led state is a tried and tested tactic to distract Kedah Malays from the multiple failures of the PAS-led state government.
But he should be careful while playing games with history. What if Thailand reclaims Kedah, Kelantan, and Terengganu?
Can Brunei reclaim Sarawak? Can the Philippines claim Sabah?
Is Anwar better?
Sanusi is a serial rabble-rouser, but is Anwar any better? After all, he is a “great intellectual” who (supposedly) wrote “The Asian Renaissance” book.
Anwar spoke of decolonising the past at Fort Cornwallis but ignores the whitewashing, or rather brown-washing, of history to glorify one race and downplay others.
The system has been pushing a new “ketuanan” (supremacy) version of history, but Anwar seems oblivious.
Sadly, it’s no accident that the blood and sweat of Chinese and Indians in building this nation’s wealth are being erased from school textbooks - 17 of the 18 writers are from one ethnic group, noted Ranjit.
He lamented that our Indian past has also been covered up, even though many Malay words such as “syurga” (heaven), “neraka” (hell), “suka” (like), “duka” (sad), “raja” (king), “menteri” (minister) and even “agama” (religion), “bahasa” (language), and bumiputera all come from Sanskrit or Pali languages.
The words “kedai” (shop), “katil” (bed), “kapal” (ship) come from Tamil.
Heck, even the role of the most bumiputera of bumiputera, the Orang Asli, has been ignored, said Ranjit. Does this psychologically enable powerful elites to grab their land?
A dubious academic
The distortion of history is getting extreme, with an academic declaring that ancient Malays taught shipbuilding to Romans and flying kungfu to people in China.
She even claimed that the Prophet’s wife, Khadija, was Malay.
The rewriting of history seems to say: this country was built by one race, and that’s why we “deserve” to be the masters or “tuan”.
There are many smart Malays around who don’t need this false boost. Artificially inflated bubbles don’t help genuine Malay progress; they just mask failures.
Just look at Sanusi. Yes, build real self-confidence, not fake chest-thumping from half-truths.
Meanwhile, only genuine multiracial history can build real harmony and unity.
So, dear Anwar, please stop the disease of replacing white colonial masters’ history with that of new brown “tuan”. - Mkini
ANDREW SIA is a veteran journalist who likes teh tarik khau kurang manis. You are welcome to give him ideas to brew at tehtarik@gmail.com.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.