Suspend teaching of Malaysian history

January 17, 2012, From R Kengadharan,

The real objective of learning history to prepare students to function effectively. Students need to know a collection of old facts, for history in general helps them know how the world works and how human beings behave. Arnold Toyubee said, “history is a search for light on the nature and destiny of man”. Whereas RG Collingwood wrote, “history is for human self knowledge… the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is”.

There is no doubt that self knowledge is the most important role of education. History has the capacity to carve out the future of humanity from its past experience. Almost the world over, history has become an integral part of teaching and education, and for students who possess an historical turn of mind, it supplies an endless source of fascination more useful and beneficial when coordinated with other subjects.

Little doubt that history endures us with “the in-valuable mental power which we call judgment”. The fundamental objective of teaching and learning history today is to help us answer questions so that we might make better decisions in the future.

However, when historical textbooks are laced with myths and legends, do they really represent historical facts? How did they make their way into our textbooks and was there a genuine oversight or it was a deliberate and intentional act to plant them there?

The revelations made by Prof Emeritus Khoo Kay Kim (Jan 17, 2012, Malaysiakini) is very disturbing and troubling. In light of the above exposure, we urge the government of Malaysia to create a special task force or committee to re-visit and re-evaluate all historical textbooks currently implemented and introduced into mainstream national education, and with immediate effect temporarily suspend the teaching of history in schools.

The teaching and learning of history will appraise students of the past, but why teach them myths and legends that possess no historical bearings?

We must never act blindly out of passion and ignorance and neither we should not act irrationally, and such fictions, myths and legends referred to in our textbooks are not worthy of emulation.

The writer is a lawyer and a former ISA detainee