AUG 9 — The Malaysian Cabinet members have another group competing with them for the most stressful job in the country, the Malaysian history syllabus writers.

History professors in the various universities tasked with shaping the syllabus for 2019 — they know the new education minister would request one — have gone literally mental.

Half of Malaysia hates learning history for the SPM (high school certificate) and university Kenegaraan (Citizenship) courses, and the other half is glad they are old enough never to have gone through the madness of learning national history over the last three decades.

(The reapportioning of world and Islamic history is of course another, and separate, set of eggshells.)

And now, those behind the madness have to amend history to suit the new victors with balance and aplomb. Victors here refer to Pakatan Harapan: PKR wants the century long Malay-left’s story readjusted, magnified and reframed to include the Reformasi years; Amanah is worried about the watering down of Islamic politics, mark here PAS in spirit but not in name; DAP is desperate for the demonisation of non-BN Chinese to be lifted away; and finally Bersatu is demanding a fairer account of Umno without undermining their chairman who was a central character, but ultimately positing it as a qualified failure due to its character flaw.

That’s before going into Sarawak and Sabah’s respective requests to magnify their value and localised ethnic development (The Dayaks and KDM-Kadazan Dusun Murut), and the screech-halting Malaysia Agreement.

It’s much, so mind the gap. For now.

Because, force the syllabus committee to present their initial plans now in conjunction with Merdeka/Malaysia Day, and several might just choose to end themselves with loaded pistols than face their impossible task.

So, this column is for a change completely sympathetic to them, open to ideas and asks for as many independent discussions on how to go about this. It makes for great coffee conversations at a café nearby, with prolonged expositions ending friendships just before closing time.

Of course this mess is the result of constant tinkering by an ever schizophrenic ex-government petrified of new voters rejecting them, therefore they chose to relentlessly cut, add, embellish and creatively assemble an obedience subject rather than one to help students figure out their past in order to chart their future.

Umno, yes and no

In brief, there would have been no Malaysia without Umno, and everything good in everyday Malaysian life is due to Umno. That’s the teaching outcome, before.

Umno is out of power, and now seeks to return to power. Should those who are 14 today, who’ll vote in 2023 as they’d be past 18, be taught to be grateful to Umno?

The Bersatu education minister wouldn’t want it, especially as he is expected to defend his Johor Simpang Renggam seat against Umno.

But he can’t have Prime Minister Mahathir’s unyielding participation from 1974 to 2003 sullied. Oh, the predicament!

The Langkawi MP would occupy a massive space. How to retell the Umno split in 1987 followed by Operasi Lalang and the decimation of the judiciary’s independence? Where will the story of Semangat 46 and the crushing of reformasi in the Mahathir chapter be covered?

Is there a bad Mahathir with the good?

Easy on May 13

The thinly-disguised explanation for the unspeakable violence after the 1969 general election has been over the top Chinese chauvinist parties, not the least DAP.

How to dance around this wound?

It is not straightforward this dark episode for a people not used to violence, because compared to Asean nations we had nation-building-lite. But still how to skilfully navigate the matter to condemn the violence without making veiled references to political outcomes today?

The get out of jail card may be to be universally and unequivocally opposed to violence and address the causes of racial discord rather than just leverage it for political edge.

Malay left till today

PKR sees itself as the natural successor of the various left, Malay mainly, from the last century. From Kaum Baru versus Kaum Tua, Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM) to Parti Kesatuan Melayu Malaya (PKMM), the wilderness years of the Emergency, and the modern Reformasi period.

Indeed this is the PKR story, with Anwar Ibrahim having prime position as the man who inadvertently galvanised the Malay left.

The material will leave many scratching, and not the least the majority of the school teachers who’d struggle to relate the subject matter to the students. It reconstitutes a journey long ago wiped out from the academic collective, and now seeks to stitch it to the relatively contemporary history of PKR.

Malaysia Agreement

It would be a series of disagreements.

How to bypass the series of indigenous-led state governments dismantled unceremoniously by the hand of the federal government? The removal of Stephen Kalong Ningkan, the only Iban chief minister, or the aggressive Tun Mustapha Harun’s years, or even Project IC which ended political domination by the KDM communities via wholesale migrant inclusion into the voter roll.

They are all incendiary and mind the abused cliché, will open up old wounds.

Borneo is a history of Malaya managing it through the use of conduits, and exploiting the poverty of the people and the avarice of opportunistic leaders, one who might be in a boxing match soon.

Tricky, tricky and still tricky

There are the others.

Not the least the need to explain political Islam in the qualified space engineered by Amanah for itself.

There’ll be the treatment of the local council elections history in lieu of the pending re-establishment of them in the years to come.

Definitely a large spot for the trials and tribulations, literally, of civil society over the decades to fight for democratic space and social mobilisation.

But still.

Beyond the landmines this challenge provides, it does allow for an outlet to regain the structural resilience of our past. While the reconciliation period will be messy, it will allow for greater debate, and perhaps in the interim examination marking should be less about rote learning and more about the appreciation for the complexities of this multicultural society which had always swayed away from relative persistent violence.

And if the curriculum writers find a balance, not a perfect one but a reasonable one, cognisant of our previous malfeasances, then a pleasant outcome may emerge; history might still suck but for those who suck it up to appreciate it, they learn that history does not need to have a purpose other than to remind us how wrong we can be.

That’s nation-building 101.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.