Decolonizing the History Curriculum in Malaysia and Singapore by Kevin Blackburn and Zonglun Wu (review)

Decolonizing the History Curriculum in Malaysia and Singapore aims to examine the process of decolonization of the school history curriculum in Malaysia and Singapore. It argues that the struggle to 'decolonize' the school history syllabus in Malaysia and Singapore, began, ironically, early in the 1930s when the British colonial authority sought to create a loyal English-educated Malayan elite by employing a 'Europe-centric' history syllabus in its schools that promoted imperial citizenship. The objective, nonetheless, is to strengthen its colonial hold over British Malaya (this included Singapore prior to 1957) and to safeguard its economic enterprises. Yet even then there was dissatisfaction by the elites over the syllabus' over-emphasis on European achievements while remaining silent about the land they were raised on. Although attempts were made by the so-called 'scholar-administrators' from the Malayan Civil Service to shift the syllabus towards a more 'Malayan-centric' viewpoint by inserting elements of local history, the syllabus was still firmly written using what Dutch colonial historian Jacob van Leur described as histories 'observed from the deck of the ship, the ramparts of the fortress, the high gallery of the trading house' (p. 2). Most fascinatingly, the accelerated decolonization of Malaya's education system post-World War II was a result of aggressive nationalist indoctrination by the Japanese occupiers. This resulted in the local population rejecting the return of pre-war colonial education policy and voicing a greater demand for a new syllabus that reoriented the people towards a more 'Malayan outlook' as part of preparations for eventual self-rule. Just as the book's authors suggest, the monumental efforts by C. N. Parkinson and K. G. Tregonning, two outstanding historians who relentlessly championed the 'Malayan outlook' in the history syllabus, made it clear that Malaya's future was to be multiracial and multicultural. Tragically, their efforts have been criticised purely on the fallacious grounds that because they were not Malayans, they were therefore lacking the requisite cultural and social sensibilities when drafting changes in the syllabus. However, the proteges they had trained in the University of Malaya's History Department (Wang Gungwu, Zainal Abidin Abdul Wahid, and Khoo Kay Kim) would carry the torch and continue to push for further 'decolonization' by writing a syllabus that, for the first time, was about Malaya. In Singapore, Hsu Yun Tsiao of Nanyang University prepared a syllabus that was heavy on Chinese historical figures and events, in order to appeal to the overwhelmingly Chinese population of the island colony. Therefore, the 'Asia-centric' history syllabus that came into being placed much emphasis on World History while drastically reducing the British imperial content. The result was that students became overburdened with too much information about the world and too little about their relationship with the land of their birth and the stakes each held over its future.

The contrasting population makeup and diverging political demands in the Federation of Malaya (and later Malaysia) and that of Singapore post-independence meant that the history syllabus had to be co-opted from the original, which lay great stress on the multiracial and multicultural post-colonial nation-building objectives, to one that serves the political needs of the developmental state. The turning point came about in Malaysia following the bloody riots of 13 May 1969 in which a complete revision of how history should be taught occurred with the old multiracial and multicultural dream of the nation's first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, excised and replaced with a history syllabus that was described by Malay nationalists as 'Malaysian-centric'. The old syllabus was seen as a legacy of colonialism despite its purported 'decolonized' nature. The special position of the Malays, in particular an emphasis on their culture and tradition, became a predominant theme in the new 1978 history syllabus while still incorporating elements from the old 1961 syllabus. Gone were the contributions...