History has been my favourite subject right from my school days and infact till today.I used to wonder how life was during the early civilisations .With what little things they had , they managed to build the pyramids in Egypt ,the hanging garden of Babylon,statue of Zeus (Jupiter) in Olympia, the Angkor Wat of Cambodia,the gigantic steps of the Mayans in South America,the Borobudur in Java,the Taj Mahal in India and many many more wonders of the world .Most recently a historical site was discovered in Johor whose history believed to be dated much earlier than the Angkor's of Cambodia and the Borobudur of Java.This clearly means that there is no end to the study of History unless one has the niche to probe .
However facts of history depends very much on who wrote them . Some has been written with the interests of the person or the persons who instructed them to be written .What is written today might not be rightfully true .It remains so until proven otherwise .
What is taught in school today about how our country gained it's independence is from the version of the government's .All these while students has been taught/told that UMNO and the Alliance party was solely responsible for the country's independence from the British.What transpired earlier that led to the British being pressured to leave were never told or just scantily mentioned in History books. Freedom fighters like Ahmad Boestamam,Prof.Zulkifli Ahmad ,Ishak Hj.Muhammad ( Pak Sako ),Ibrahim Yaakub and many more were advertently left out .All because these personalities were from the opposition .They did not belong to UMNO but to other political parties of the opposition.They were the radicals who refused to co-operate with the British. Through organizations like Kesatuan Melayu Muda ( KMM ) , Angkatan Pemuda Insaf ( API ) etc.they organised pickets ,demonstration and other non-cooperation activities against the colonial government .Since they were also journalists ,through their writings they manage to galvanized support from the people .They were arrested and detained without trial a number of times.They sacrificed their liberties for many years in detention for the love of the country .Instead UMNO and the Alliance leaders who claimed much of the credit for the success of independence did not have to undergo such sacrifices and pains . All because they played to the tune of the British colonizers . The majority of them were from the upper echolon of society including the palace .The poor uneducated Malays then were easily influenced and made to believe and support them .The radicals were called trouble makers short of being a Communist .Other radicals such as Musa Ahmad, Rashid Maidin ,Shamsiah Fakeh and many more were forced to fled to the jungle to escape arrest .To achieve their gaol they alligned themsleves with the Communists to fight for independence by force .Whether they really professed the Communist ideology ,no one one knows.It was between them and God .They could just were using them as a tool to achieve their gaols .The British colonials then painted a black picture of these personalities accusing them as terrorists .( Shamsiah Fakeh educated in a renowned Islamic school in Sumatra was a schoolmate of Senator Tan Sri Aishah Ghani ).However during the Japanese occupation of Malaya it was the British who requested the Communists to fight along side their soldiers under the Malayan People's Anti Japanese Army (MPAJA).When the Japanese were defeated, the British turn their back against their former comarade in arms .The communists demanded independence there and then which the British refused .
In 1957 the British who were too agitated then by the pressures for independence finally decided to leave this country and handed over power peacefully to UMNO and the Alliance whom they had the trust to continue protecting their economic interests .
We will be going to Kangar tomorrow accompanying Farin to her alma mater to get her SPM exams results which would be known the next morning (10th.March 2005) .I hope she would score excellent results.I have a surprise big present for her if she could get straight A1s .