Sunday, September 18, 2005
May 13th 1969
Time is running out. We can't let history slip away
This has always been that bone in my throat. Now I'm gonna pick it.
Our understanding of the 513 incident has always been one-dimensional. One race richer than the other, tensions simmered and boiled over. My stay in the BTN(Biro TataNegara) camp for the "training" of students headed overseas even exposed me to one school of thought: Parliaments should always be dominated utterly by one party or a state would lose stability and go 513 on us. {sarcasm} It's no wonder there are great instabilty in the US, with their divided congress and no riots at all in one-party China. {/sarcasm}. BTN facilitators are enlightened. Just check out the halo.
But as we past another D-Day memorial, another Hiroshima and Nagasaki remembrance or entertain another wave of tourists visiting the Death March memorials in Sabah, there are fewer and fewer people who could provide first hand accounts of WWII and be primary sources for historical documentations. Time is running out for the Greatest Generation. 1969 was 25 years after but soon, we may run out of time as well.
So, it's about time we did something more comprehensive. Human sources are most reliable in this case as any archaeolgical evidence of an urban event such as this would be hard to come by. WWII documentaries are abundant, and books dwelling on them are deftly researched. The same standard should be applied to an event whose magnitude shooked and steered the course of a whole nation. Amongst the lovechildren of it are affirmitive action, change of foreign policy, greater suppresion of dissent and weakening of parliamentary opposition. I don't know about you, but the declaration of emergency rule for an event that only happened in the capitol and immmediate suspension of governing instruments after the largest opposition gains in Malaysia's history deserves due attention.
So here I appeal, documentary makers, novelists, historians or maybe just your average citizen, sift through what periodical materials you can lay your hands on, meet every witness of that momentous event you can lay your hands on. Then get your hands off them. Historical documentation of linguistics and tradition (or for that matter any form of history) has not been one of Malaysia's greatest points. We have an innate fear of reality as it happened, warts and all. But it's there, even if it's not in our perception, nothing can change the objectivity of an event. It's better to know truth than to create it.
Cheers.
This has always been that bone in my throat. Now I'm gonna pick it.
Our understanding of the 513 incident has always been one-dimensional. One race richer than the other, tensions simmered and boiled over. My stay in the BTN(Biro TataNegara) camp for the "training" of students headed overseas even exposed me to one school of thought: Parliaments should always be dominated utterly by one party or a state would lose stability and go 513 on us. {sarcasm} It's no wonder there are great instabilty in the US, with their divided congress and no riots at all in one-party China. {/sarcasm}. BTN facilitators are enlightened. Just check out the halo.
But as we past another D-Day memorial, another Hiroshima and Nagasaki remembrance or entertain another wave of tourists visiting the Death March memorials in Sabah, there are fewer and fewer people who could provide first hand accounts of WWII and be primary sources for historical documentations. Time is running out for the Greatest Generation. 1969 was 25 years after but soon, we may run out of time as well.
So, it's about time we did something more comprehensive. Human sources are most reliable in this case as any archaeolgical evidence of an urban event such as this would be hard to come by. WWII documentaries are abundant, and books dwelling on them are deftly researched. The same standard should be applied to an event whose magnitude shooked and steered the course of a whole nation. Amongst the lovechildren of it are affirmitive action, change of foreign policy, greater suppresion of dissent and weakening of parliamentary opposition. I don't know about you, but the declaration of emergency rule for an event that only happened in the capitol and immmediate suspension of governing instruments after the largest opposition gains in Malaysia's history deserves due attention.
So here I appeal, documentary makers, novelists, historians or maybe just your average citizen, sift through what periodical materials you can lay your hands on, meet every witness of that momentous event you can lay your hands on. Then get your hands off them. Historical documentation of linguistics and tradition (or for that matter any form of history) has not been one of Malaysia's greatest points. We have an innate fear of reality as it happened, warts and all. But it's there, even if it's not in our perception, nothing can change the objectivity of an event. It's better to know truth than to create it.
Cheers.
Comments:
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Yeah. That's why I'm hoping to turn to newspapers published as close to the date as possible and firsthand witnesses.
Can't get far maybe but I like history and I like knowing.
Can't get far maybe but I like history and I like knowing.
skin-deep we are all alike but as the world nears to globalization, we are marrying into race and emerging as mixed race.
Looking into the root of the prob of the seditious comment left, there are people who are dissatisfied with the order of the history made moreover with biasness. He/she did it distasteful but it boils down to the level whereby such issue has not been buried.
Shutting ppl up with ISA does not solve the problem. In fact I wouldn't know how we could solve it. Time will tell, I suppose.
Looking into the root of the prob of the seditious comment left, there are people who are dissatisfied with the order of the history made moreover with biasness. He/she did it distasteful but it boils down to the level whereby such issue has not been buried.
Shutting ppl up with ISA does not solve the problem. In fact I wouldn't know how we could solve it. Time will tell, I suppose.
I agree: we should have the facts and let Malaysians know about the event. And then let the chips fall where they may.
As long as we don't know what really happened, we can only refer to the event vaguely. And if that's the case, it is always possible for those in Authority to interpret the event in a way most expedient to them... to our detriment, ultimately.
As long as we don't know what really happened, we can only refer to the event vaguely. And if that's the case, it is always possible for those in Authority to interpret the event in a way most expedient to them... to our detriment, ultimately.
# posted by 
: Mon Sep 19, 12:44:00 AM GMT+8
: Mon Sep 19, 12:44:00 AM GMT+8
heh I was not brainwashed by BTN that screwed up govt-funded BN campaign
But then again if I was I wouldn't know it would I? :p
But then again if I was I wouldn't know it would I? :p
u noe wat.. d Malaysian government wud NEVER allow this... it's a... sweep under the rug situation... look at our history text books in schools.. only ONE sentence mentioned in it... where as in real life.. like u said, it was an event that change d nation! but no... oru government wud nv admit openly that.. "yes.. we haf(had) a problem". n BTW.. i noe d story 1st hand... from my dad who lived it...
Well done!
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# posted by : Thu Jul 20, 02:16:00 AM GMT+8
: Thu Jul 20, 02:16:00 AM GMT+8
Thank you!
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# posted by : Thu Jul 20, 02:16:00 AM GMT+8
: Thu Jul 20, 02:16:00 AM GMT+8 << Home
