By Sulok Tawie | 11 September 2011
The Sun Daily
KUCHING (Sept 11, 2011): Sarawak Teachers’ Union president William Ghani Bina said today that any revision of the school’s history textbook must be to correct the one-sided history on the formation of Malaysia.
“It is important that the new history textbook highlight the correct version of the formation of Malaysia,” he said when commenting on a statement by Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin that the history syllabus for schools was to be revised following a disclosure of new findings.
Ghani noted that the formation of Malaysia had not been put into the right perspective as it did not indicate clearly how Malaysia was formed.
“We agree on the history syllabus to be revised, and this must include how the country was formed in 1963,” he said.
“The present history about Malaysia is one-sided. It is only about Tanah Melayu, but Sarawak and Sabah are omitted and how Malaysia came into being was not properly explained,” he said.
Ghani insisted that without Sarawak and Sabah and also Singapore, Malaysia would never have existed, although Singapore pulled out in 1965.
“Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore helped to form Malaysia at that time, not just the Malay states as suggested in the history syllabus,” he said.
“It is important to highlight that Sarawak and Sabah never joined the Federation of Malaysia as claimed in the history textbook, and we want this to be highlighted in the new syllabus,” he added.
He said the country’s history cannot be one-sided.
He also said there is a need to explain Malaysia Day which falls on Sept 16.
“It is on this day that the Federation of Malaysia was officially formed by Malaya, Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore,” he added.
He noted that they formed the federation as equal partners.
“Sarawak and Sabah did not join as states, but as equal partners to Malaya and Singapore,” he said.