Sunday, 9 September 2012

Revising History text - expect worse to come

YOURSAY 'History is not a subject to instil patriotism but should be told as it happened, not to be twisted in one way or the other for political purposes.'

Patriot-producing history syllabus - an act of hubris
 
your sayPemerhati: Some time back, it was reported that the overwhelming proportion of the Form Four history textbook is devoted to Islamic history and civilisation (115 pages; five out of 10 chapters).
The other religions are barely given a passing mention; Hinduism gets half a page in Chapter 3 on the early civilisations of Southeast Asia.

A concerned mother who wrote the letter said that History in Malaysian schools "seek to influence the young minds of our children who come from various faiths, to follow the prophet [Muhammad] ... who is repeatedly praised throughout the chapter."

Knowing Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, the chances are that the future history syllabus and the content of the future history books will be worse than what it is now.

Anonymous_4031: Has the Education Ministry "purified" the History textbook for Form Four so that distorted portions as pointed out by historians are deleted?

The best approach in studying history is to begin with world history, not Malaysian history. After all, we are now living in a globalised world, it's no longer a ‘kampung' world.

A world view helps the student understand the histories of different nations - how they were born and how they achieved independence in India, South Africa, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc. To have a distorted and narrow-minded view of history, and forcing students to study it, is wrong.

Who are the panel members doing the review of History? Are they the same people who allow our distorted history? If so, God bless our children. They, being innocent, need truthful history, not distorted history.

Starr: To use history to instil a spirit of patriotism is a misfit of purpose, an abuse of the subject to suit the political agenda of the ruling party.

History is not a subject to instil patriotism but should be told as it happened, not to be twisted in one way or the other for political purposes.

More importantly, students of history should be taught to analyse and examine critically the historical events, rather than internalise it as the gospel truth.

After all, it's written by the victors and as such there's an element of subjectivity.

AnakBangsaMalaysia: More than 120,000 Hong Kong citizens came out in a massive protest on Friday night to oppose the Chinese government's attempt to force their schools to teach ‘patriotic National Education' lessons.

These National Education classes are a thinly-disguised attempt at peddling revisionist history and brainwashing young students to support the Chinese Communist Party.

Now we see DPM Muhyiddin trying to do exactly the same to Malaysian students with this new proposal to introduce ‘National Education' classes.

Umno, the Malaysian people are not stupid. I foresee yet another new civil resistance movement (after Bersih, ABU, Stop Lynas, etc) being born out of Umno's neo-fascist approach to governance.

Fair&Just: This looks like mind-conditioning of our young ones at an early age.

Will the nation eventually end up with great beloved glorified and pompous leaders where the whole nation, men and women, will unashamedly weep at their demise, similar to the ones in North Korea?

OMG: Re-writing history to suit an agenda should be abhorrent to historians. It renders the History textbook to be nothing more than myth and literature.

Indeed, I told my kid to treat it like pure fiction, sort of like "cerita dongeng". This is another brainless subject to waste our kids' time. Why can't they introduce computer programming or history of world civilisations?

Anonymous #40538199: I will want my children to learn the reasons for the rise of great civilisations and the fall of dynasties.

Onyourtoes: Anonymous #40538199, let me tell you some real reasons: The fall of the Roman Empire was due to their excessive drinking and having too much orgies.

The fall of Malacca to Portuguese was due to the ruling aristocrats having too much of an obsession with Hang Li Po and all the other concubines.

Now, find me a history text that tells you this.

YF: As if the current Umno propaganda in schools is not enough. They now want to paint a darker picture of the opposition and link them to communists, corruption and peeing on the flagpole? Umno has ruined our education system with their numerous desperate follies.

Conmen: Ever wonder why the dying or half-dead Chinese schools made a comeback since Mahathir came to power?

It is because the Umno imposed their ‘Ketuanan Melayu' agenda and other Biro Tatanegara hogwash into the national education system.

You must never tinker or tamper with the syllabus to suit your brand of politics. Much less teach a school pupil to kowtow to another because of his race and religion.

Schools are for the cultivation of fairness, justice, intellectual talent and meritocracy, not mind control and enslavement of one race or religion to submit to another.

Because of these narrow-minded ideals, Chinese schools are flourishing and they are producing world-class graduates, such that Singapore grants them PR (permanent resident) status.

If the next Pakatan Rakyat federal government wishes to further national integration in schools, they must incorporate the Chinese schools into the national school system and throw out the long-embedded Umno propaganda.

Anonymous #84319416: You do not need expert to change the syllabus to instil patriotism.
All we need is to not to have people who in the name of citizen rob the country's wealth which belong to the people. This has nothing to do with race and religion.

Malaysia_Is_Sinking: I suppose the history books of the future students will have a lot of "good" things said about Bolehland and the sacrifices of "heroes" of the land like TDM (Dr Mahathir Mohamad).

No comments:

Post a Comment