A decade ago, during my schooling years, I can memorized the whole history book from cover to cover. Learning about the Greeks, about the Revolutionary Era and anything related to world history, will be able to draw my attention. Ten years later, looking at the history book for the upper secondary students now, it makes my brain thumps loudly. Now, I'm wondering out loud, is that our Malaysian history or am I teaching about religion? Why is there a big chunk of Islamic studies? What the heck are the students doing learning about the history of Islam which started in Mecca, so far away from our country. Why are they burning their brain cells trying to memorize the names of the khalifa and their contributions even to the details of their characteristics. Repeatedly, the History book wrote that Prophet Muhammad SAW never forced anyone into the religion, instead the people were attracted to the religion because of how he carried himself, different from those in the Dark Ages who conformed to all sorts of disgusting activities. Inhuman.
Fancy writing about how Acheh and the Javanese encouraged jihad as to wedge the Holy War is an act of holiness. How holy is that act when a man straps himself with explosives and kills the many innocent lives? My eyes almost popped out when I read that jihad was encouraged to block Christianity brought in by Portuguese and Holland. There was also books written about the benefits of carrying out jihad. No one fought against Buddhism and Hinduism, but Christianity was fought against and it was written in such subtle way one will not put much thought into it.
If I were to stand up in front of a class filled with students and share about the gospel of Christ, I will not be surprised if three-quarter of the class walked out and then followed by angry remarks by parents who will accuse me for trying to 'convert' their children. How absurd can that be? I bet none of the students can understand why they're forced to read 5 lengthy chapters coming to about 175 pages of all the different government bodies in Arab which took place in dinosaur ages. We're just particles.
Now, if you focus on the start of Malacca. It was started by Parameswara and heck, he's not even a true Malaysian. He was from Indonesia. If he opened up Malacca and his successors fought to conquer more land in Malaya, simply put does this place belong to Indonesia? The only true people of this land are the aborigines and they're nowhere near leading this country. Now, I'm starting to scratch my head. I'm confuse.
At one point, we're deemed ungrateful if we leave the country and refuse to fight for our own country. On the other hand, so many people always feel that they don't belong in this country. They don't feel accepted. The Chinese and Indians can't even be a prime minister. 1Malaysia.
Has the ISA been abolished? I don't need to be whisked off in the middle of the nite to Timbuktu. Nah... I'm not into criticizing the country. I'm just wondering out loud. I'm Made in Malaysia not China, so I'm not going anywhere.
In conclusion, don't take everything to heart. Study to get your A's. That's all. It's just another subject. If you need to excel in your life then by all means memorise everything and on the day when you sit for the History Paper, the last fullstop on the last History essay, you can delete everything from your memory box and leave it in the rubbish dump. Clear your rubbish bin as well. The History books have been re-written. There's no mention of the warriors who fought during the Sultan's era. Where have Hang Tuah, Hang Jebat, Hang Lekir and Hang Lekiu disappeared to? I heard from rumours that they were Chinese, related to the Princess Hang Li Po who married one of the Malacca's sultan, and they were more like the kung fu fighters, thus, their names and contributions have been erased completely from the knowledge of the younger generation. They were not even mentioned in the Malay literature anymore. Not even in drama.
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