S Thayaparan
Published: Nov 17, 2025 8:00 AM
Updated: 11:06 AM
“This victory is because we were able to demonstrate the wisdom, strength, and nobility of Islam - not arrogance.”
COMMENT | The history of this country is being assailed by two forces, which either seek to obliterate history - personalities, structures or legacies - in the name of religious and racial supremacy or reimagine history, elevating race and religion to the imagined historical significance of other cultures and nations.
The first is best signified by the recent demolition of a 100-year-old temple, to be rebuilt as a house of worship for the religion of the state.
Proponents of these kinds of victories, here and abroad, seek to establish a narrative of religious supremacy over historical fact, and structures are like red flags, a constant reminder of how things were and not what they hoped for them to be.
The destruction of legacies is also important. These days Utusan Malaysia has the reputation it has, but back in the day, as Johan Jaaffar reminded us in 2019, it was a completely different history.
Published: Nov 17, 2025 8:00 AM
Updated: 11:06 AM
“This victory is because we were able to demonstrate the wisdom, strength, and nobility of Islam - not arrogance.”
– Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim
COMMENT | The history of this country is being assailed by two forces, which either seek to obliterate history - personalities, structures or legacies - in the name of religious and racial supremacy or reimagine history, elevating race and religion to the imagined historical significance of other cultures and nations.
The first is best signified by the recent demolition of a 100-year-old temple, to be rebuilt as a house of worship for the religion of the state.
Proponents of these kinds of victories, here and abroad, seek to establish a narrative of religious supremacy over historical fact, and structures are like red flags, a constant reminder of how things were and not what they hoped for them to be.
The destruction of legacies is also important. These days Utusan Malaysia has the reputation it has, but back in the day, as Johan Jaaffar reminded us in 2019, it was a completely different history.
Even after Merdeka, what was initially called Utusan Melayu was a thorn in the side of the Malay ruling elite, who believed that Utusan Melayu was influenced by the “leftists”.
That was a good enough excuse for Umno to wrestle editorial control of the newspaper in 1961.
The journalists were up in arms. Equipped with only determination and commitment, they fought back. They launched a strike that lasted 90 days. They lost.
Said Zahari, the editor at the time, was taken under the Internal Security Act and was incarcerated for 17 long years.
Utusan Melayu may have lost its freedom in 1961. But that did not stop generations of editors and journalists thereafter from carrying their brand of audacity.
The Utusan Melayu brand was a trademark. They could be fiercely loyal to the “Malay cause”, but they were never racists. They fought injustices, religious extremism and backwardness among the Malays.
Sailing far from facts
The second reimagining of history is comical if not for the desperation of those behind it.
Last year, two academics from UPM’s Malay Language Department wrote a misleading article about “Malay junks”, which was promptly debunked.
In a comment piece, historian Ranjit Sigh Malhi wrote - “Let us also not forget that the main issue at hand is factual accuracy and not interpretation, which are distinctly different. Factual accuracy is factually accurate information.
“Facts are indisputable; they can be objectively verified and proven through evidence. For example, the image used in the controversial article is that of a Foochow pole junk and not a Malay jong.”
Now, another language academic, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Arabic language lecturer Solehah Yaacob, claimed that ancient Romans learnt shipbuilding from the Malays, a claim that IIUM has said was misleading but not enough to get her fired or reprimanded.
Lecturer Solehah Yaacob
Solehah has made other frankly ridiculous claims, but what is fascinating about these claims by her and other academics is that they willfully ignore the polychromatic nature of Malay and Malaysian history.
They reimagine a historical past where the dominant community contributed to great historical narratives and was a fully formed community devoid of its multicultural baggage.
If you did some research, you would discover that Malaysians of every ethnicity in the fields of science and research are part of an international community looking forward instead of reimagining the past.
You have to ask yourself why these academics are desperate to demonstrate that the community was greater than the sum of its parts. These types of claims comfort those who believe that Malay history and culture are divorced from everything else in this country.
It enables certain people to take comfort in a fictional history of a land that never was, but which is claimed to be the sole province of the Malays.
Solehah has made other frankly ridiculous claims, but what is fascinating about these claims by her and other academics is that they willfully ignore the polychromatic nature of Malay and Malaysian history.
They reimagine a historical past where the dominant community contributed to great historical narratives and was a fully formed community devoid of its multicultural baggage.
If you did some research, you would discover that Malaysians of every ethnicity in the fields of science and research are part of an international community looking forward instead of reimagining the past.
You have to ask yourself why these academics are desperate to demonstrate that the community was greater than the sum of its parts. These types of claims comfort those who believe that Malay history and culture are divorced from everything else in this country.
It enables certain people to take comfort in a fictional history of a land that never was, but which is claimed to be the sole province of the Malays.
Malays are constantly told that they owe everything to the non-Malays, but what narratives like these hope to achieve is a foundation of independence beyond the messy communal relationships, both economic and cultural, that the “pendatang” (migrants) bring to the table.
What “ketuananism” (supremacy) has done, especially when it comes to the arts and history, is to destroy anything that references a diverse Malay culture from the political landscape and replace art and history with mythological narratives of a people who never were.
A Perikatan Nasional politician said that some Malaysians have an inferiority complex and referenced Sungai Batu, which is making a false equivalency between the historical site and the fantastical meanderings of Solehah.
Rejected history
Furthermore, if this PN operative was really interested in “our” history, there would be more discussion, especially in our history textbooks, about the role of Hindu and Buddhist civilisations in early Malay culture.
Ranjit makes this point here - “Another major shortcoming of our history textbooks is the grossly inadequate coverage of the impact of the Hindu-Buddhist civilisation on the early Malay kingdoms and society.
“They fail to elaborate on how Hindu-Buddhist civilisation impacted Malay culture, language, literature and the form of government. It should be noted that the early Malay kings were considered as the incarnation of Hindu gods (Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma) based upon the concept of devaraja (god-king).”
But this is the kind of history which is rejected by official state narratives, politicians and race hustlers who make up mainstream politics in this country.
There is this almost obsessive desire by some academics and political operatives to rewrite history because of nationalistic and religious agendas.
Bukit Bendera MP Syerleena Abdul Rashid
Bukit Bendera MP Syerleena Abdul Rashid has the right of it when she said that history should be evidence-based.
“(When) history is used as a propaganda tool, it not only contributes to the dumbing down of society but also disunites it,” she added.
Lopsided and self-serving
The kind of history advocated by these academics and their political enablers never teaches anyone to question the feudalistic nature of politics, which continues unabated to this day.
Hence, people taught this type of history never understand the history of Islam and how other religions predate the arrival of Islam in this country, which is why there are frantic attempts to expel all forms of pendatang influences from the Malay cultural landscape, which often takes the form of demolishing a century-old temple and building a mosque on the ruins.
So what we are left with are charlatans and scoundrels cooking up historical narratives to compensate for incompetent leadership and decades-long political malfeasances, which Malaysians tolerated for their own selfish reasons.
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history,” George Orwell wrote, but he did not mean this as a political blueprint, which is what Malaysia is doing.
What really frightens the political elites is that there is no Malay history. There is no Indian history, no Chinese history, no Orang Asli or Orang Asal history.
There is only Malaysian history.
Bukit Bendera MP Syerleena Abdul Rashid has the right of it when she said that history should be evidence-based.
“(When) history is used as a propaganda tool, it not only contributes to the dumbing down of society but also disunites it,” she added.
Lopsided and self-serving
The kind of history advocated by these academics and their political enablers never teaches anyone to question the feudalistic nature of politics, which continues unabated to this day.
Hence, people taught this type of history never understand the history of Islam and how other religions predate the arrival of Islam in this country, which is why there are frantic attempts to expel all forms of pendatang influences from the Malay cultural landscape, which often takes the form of demolishing a century-old temple and building a mosque on the ruins.
So what we are left with are charlatans and scoundrels cooking up historical narratives to compensate for incompetent leadership and decades-long political malfeasances, which Malaysians tolerated for their own selfish reasons.
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history,” George Orwell wrote, but he did not mean this as a political blueprint, which is what Malaysia is doing.
What really frightens the political elites is that there is no Malay history. There is no Indian history, no Chinese history, no Orang Asli or Orang Asal history.
There is only Malaysian history.
S THAYAPARAN is commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
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