by Dyana Sofya
Last week the Memali Incident was brought up to the attention of Malaysians, almost 30 years since it happened. The bloody major incident dated 19 Nov 1985 claimed 18 casualties including four policemen, took place in a remote village called Memali in Baling, Kedah.
The Memali Incident is alien to most in my generation. I am assured that most of us never heard of the incident, we don’t know why and how it happened, who was involved and why it was important whether or not Tun Mahathir was in the country at the time of event.
The incident can never be found in any of our standard history textbooks.
Many would say, we did not read enough. Which was true. In primary school, we had kempen membaca buku and the students were required to record the books they have read. It never really took off.
I cheated by copying my friends’ findings, summaries, identified moral values, or sometimes, by copying the synopsis written at the back cover of the books. I was simply not interested with the books made available in our school library.
What interests me was stories from my mother and her friends. If it wasn’t for my family’s involvement with politics, I would never be informed of many political yet historical occurrences at a very young age. This includes Operasi Lalang, de-registration of UMNO, Tunku Abdul Rahman who never re-join UMNO helped Tengku Razaleigh to establish Semangat 46. When I spoke to my friends about these stories, I was greeted with awkward looks and an invitation to go play outside instead.
To most, they were not bothered, it did not matter coz it was not in the syllabus, ‘We do not need to know this. Not important.’
When I was in Form 2, we were asked to write a project paper on a historical figure of our choice. Of course many of my friends chose to write about the then premier of Malaysia. However, being the daughter of an ex-S46 member, I chose to write on Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. Mine was special because I actually went to see KuLi and took a photo with him and attached it to my paper.
Upon submission, my friends asked about my paper. At that time, none of my classmates knew who he was. I was even laughed at for choosing someone who they thought was not ‘prominent enough’.
Yes, please roll your eyes.
Nobody wrote on Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Yap Ah Loy, Za’ba, not even Tun Dr Ismail. What about the female ones? None that I could recall. Don’t bother with Operasi Lalang and the Memali incident, even names of our historical figures aforementioned were scarcely remarked!
In my days, our textbooks were inadequate. It was deemed obligatory for one to get extra books for reference. If the textbooks are dull at the first place and could not even invoke one’s interest in history, what makes one would invest in more books on that particular subject? This is where teachers play a big role; to make lessons exciting by inspiring students’ curiosity, encouraging participation and hope they will no longer yawn when the word ’Sejarah’ is mentioned.
My mother made me curious enough with politics, hence here I am!
When we inquired about certain part of Malaysian history because sometimes the textbooks do not tally with what we were told or read somewhere else, we were asked just to accept whatever that was written in the textbooks, because that is where the A-grade is. For some, that’s all there are for Malaysian history. Hence the birth of many of those misled and not bothered.
If we are so clueless about our own history, how do we learn, understand and appreciate it? How do we avoid from history repeating itself? How do we cinta our own country, our tanah tumpah darah if we don’t even know her story!
To question an authority is a patriotic act, some might say. Questioning the government or higher power’s conducts should not be regarded as an act of treason or betrayal. We are curious enough to try to understand, we are devoted enough to want the best for our country, we are loyal enough to stay and contribute to make her a better nation. We love our nation enough to care, learn and wanting to know her colourful history.
To be ignorant of our own history will bring us to a vicious cycle; when one does not know his country, he cannot love her, he will not be loyal to her and he will end up leaving, or worse, be the cause of her destruction.
Tak kenal maka tak cinta.
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.”
― Mark Twain
