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Reviewed by:
  • Museums, History and Culture in Malaysia by Abu Talib Ahmad
  • Cynthia Chou
Museums, History and Culture in Malaysia Abu Talib Ahmad Singapore: NUS Press, 2015. xiii, 328 pp. ISBN 978-9971-69819-5 (paperback)

Museums and the museumizing imagination are both well-known and powerful instruments that have been used for purposes of nation building. Cultural memory and understanding of heritage have been shaped by carefully crafted museum exhibits to articulate messages about national identity.

Abu Talib Ahmad’s book, Museums, History and Culture in Malaysia provides an analysis of the way museums in Malaysia narrate history within the context of a defined nationalist agenda that accords primacy to Malay Muslim values. The book opens with an introduction that situates the analysis within the wider discussion and debates revolving around the role of museums. There are altogether five chapters plus an Introduction cum Conclusion that make up the book. Maps and photographs of museum exhibits evoke relevant visual images for readers not only to follow but also to see the issues under discussion.

Malaysia’s National Museum provides the focal point for the inquiry into the tensions in the state’s national narratives as expressed in museum displays and designs. A close scrutiny of the National Museum shows the trajectories of change that it has undertaken or been subjected to in order for it to represent the nation’s official history and culture. With its origins as a general museum, the National Museum once served as a repository for displays of natural history specimens and a place that narrated the colonial experience. Following Malaysian independence, the Museum has undergone extensive transformation as it is now tasked with an obligation to promulgate a particular story of national history and culture.

Using the case studies of other museums and memorials in Malaysia, comparisons are made to examine how these museums narrate stories of alternative histories that are not necessarily always in acquiescence with the national history as portrayed by the National Museum. Selected museums throughout the country—in Penang, Kedah, Perak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Sabah, Kelantan and Terengganu—as well as three memorials dedicated to national heroes (such as former Prime Ministers Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and film and recording artist P. Ramlee) are brought to the fore in this discussion.

Based on diverse data obtained from visits to museums, interviews with museum bureaucrats past and present, archival research and textual analysis of museum publications that include annual reports and issues of the Federation Museums Journal, the dynamics of changing museological approaches are examined [End Page 119] together with the tensions they express or engender concerning Malaysia’s history and culture.

This is a meticulously detailed historiography. It is a bold and thought-provoking work that shows the extent to which numerous other museums in Malaysia contest the National Museum’s account of the country’s historical experience. Cogent arguments are made concerning how the politics of knowledge comes into play in the way different museums have contesting stories to tell in regard to a swathe of subjects that are highly sensitive, if not controversial, in Malaysia. These include the country’s pre-Islamic past, the history and heritage of the Melaka Sultanate, memories of the Japanese occupation, the country’s national cultural policy, and the cultural variances between the Federation’s constituent states. This study unveils how exclusions and silences cover aspects that are deemed politically and religiously incorrect. Concluding with a caution that glossing over aspects of Malaysia’s history and culture would only serve to exclude segments of the nation’s pluralistic population and hence impact negatively upon visitor interests, a challenge is posed to museums to change the way they organize their displays to address the kind of nation building that is needed in Malaysia today.

This absorbing read is the direct result of Abu Talib Ahmad’s rigorous scholarship and ability to present his work in a clearly written and thus easily comprehensible style. This book is highly recommended not only to specialists in museum studies, but to anyone interested in understanding the dynamics that shape the history and culture of Malaysia.

Cynthia Chou
University of Copenhagen

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