Throughout former colonial states in Southeast Asia, the representation of the path to decolonization features prominently in national histories. Malaysia is no exception. The contents of national history textbooks have drawn the attention of the public, who have shared their opinions on the changes made to the history curriculum.1 The previous colonial-influenced syllabi, which were mainly focused on world history, were replaced by syllabi that focused on Malaysian history (a notable example of which was the syllabus published in 1978). These new syllabi brought with them drastic shifts in focus in terms of the amount of space given to Malaysian or local history as opposed to world history along with conceptions of what constituted Malaysian history. The year 1978 saw the introduction of a history syllabus that conceived of Malaysian history as having a “Malay base” while paying homage to the multiethnic nature of Malaysian society. The 1988 syllabus reflected a sharper focus on the Malay community, which intensified further in the 2000s before morphing into a more multicultural syllabus (which still maintained the Malay community's dominant status in terms of portrayal) in 2017.
Yet what sort of history is being written into these textbooks, and what sort of ideologies permeate these narratives? I have chosen to look at the narrative of the Japanese occupation in Malaysian history textbooks, because in the curriculum the occupation is framed as an event that contributed to the strengthening of political awareness, which eventually led to the movement for independence from colonial rule in Malaysian history. The occupation has been consistently featured in history textbooks published in post-independence Malaysia since 1957 and used as a starting point to segue into the process of decolonization from the United Kingdom. From 1978 to 2020, the narratives of the Japanese occupation changed subtly in their representation of the everyday experiences of the people, most notably their involvement in different nationalist and independence movements during that period. This focus on the fragmented political movements among each of the major ethnic groups in Malaysia (the Malays, Chinese, and Indians) is a microcosm via which we can understand how each of these ethnic groups are perceived to have played certain roles in the nation-building process that led to the creation of Malaysia in 1963.
In order to understand how these perceptions of each ethnic group came to be included in the narratives of the Japanese occupation, it is necessary to understand the forces that shaped the narratives (namely, the identities of their authors and the context in which they were written). This article draws upon Michael Apple's approach in setting out “the larger social context in which the current politics of official knowledge operates.”2 In the Malaysian context, contestations of the contents of national history textbooks did not arise because of economic factors, as Apple has argued was the case in the United States and the United Kingdom. Nor were the changes made to the narratives of the Japanese occupation the result of a change in international relations between Malaysia and Japan. Rather, the politics of knowledge (and by extension, the knowledge found in the history curriculum in Malaysia) has increasingly brought to the fore questions concerning the ideology of Malay dominance (specifically, the ways in which issues concerning the Malay community, Malaysian national identity, and the historical place of the Malay community in the Malaysian nation have been received by Malaysian historians and academics who led discussions on the national history curriculum in Malaysia).
The phrase “Malay dominance” (ketuanan Melayu) came into significant use in 1986, when Abdullah Ahmad, a member of parliament, used it to reassert a political system in which ethnic Malay Muslims exercised dominance and lordship in multicultural Malaysia.3 It is worth acknowledging that the ideology of Malay dominance is not monolithic. While it denotes the preeminence of Malay culture, rights, language, and customs, and is bound up with Islam, it has usually been juxtaposed against the concerns of non-Malays. This focus on Malay primacy over the non-Malay ethnic groups of Malaysia is known as Malay ethnonationalism. Tangentially, Malay ethnonationalism has been tied to the anxiety that the Malay would disappear from the world and has been viewed as rooted in civilizational bonds that make the Malay ethnicity (bangsa Melayu) a strong community and identity.4 The notion of Malay ethnicity has also been linked to the status of indigeneity. The historiographical idea is that the Malay indigenous ethnic group constituted a preexisting base society and that the other immigrant groups, such as the Chinese and Indian ethnic groups, came later and interacted with the existing Malay population. However, perhaps what is most pertinent to the study of Malaysian textbooks is the idea that the “Malay base” is the foundation upon which Malaysian society rests.
What is indisputable is the gradual entrenchment of the idea of writing Malaysian history over the decades as if the Malay society had been considered the base society, especially since the appearance of the 1978 syllabus. But actual textbook-writing practices in Malaysia still left some latitude to the individual writers’ creativity and propensity to articulate historical narratives when interpreting historical development (as can be seen from the differences found in different textbooks from the same period). Hence, the way in which historical interpretation and narratives are articulated depends on the respective textbook writers, decisions made in relation to curriculum design, and the choice of writers by the curriculum development officials. The latter aspect became particularly relevant from 1988 onward, when only one common textbook series was produced and used at a time.
Portrayals of wars in history textbooks are often intertwined with ideology and the fostering of nationalism.5 These portrayals lend themselves easily to the crafting of a narrative that can be used as part of nation-building efforts in the classroom. For Keith Crawford and Stuart Foster, the impact of war upon society is fundamental, as it destroys established structures of identity and community, and invites societies affected by war to reconstruct “national, ethnic, social, and individual senses of belonging that meet new conditions” and “reflect long-standing cultural attachments.”6 Considering this characterization of war as a disruptor in many textbook narratives, it is no wonder that Japanese imperialism figures prominently in East Asian and Southeast Asian national history textbooks.
Multinational studies of the portrayal of wars in history textbooks assume a link between these war narratives and national identity, whereby the history textbooks have the power to shape national identity and are in turn shaped by the sociopolitical contexts in which they are written.7 In the case of Malaysia, the war narrative is used to set the stage for a heightened political consciousness that would eventually lead to the fall of British colonialism in Malaya, later Malaysia. Sandra Khor Manickam argues that the national history textbooks used in Malaysian secondary schools are wielded explicitly as nation-building tools in order to emphasize the position of each ethnic group relative to the dominant majority ethnic group, the Malays.8
Kevin Blackburn and ZongLun Wu point out how this approach was part of a general trend of moving away from the multicultural syllabus instituted during the 1950s to one prioritizing Malay-centric history by 1990.9 These changes are attributed to the increasing Malay dominance in academic historiography, as reflected in the ideas of Malay teachers, historians, and politicians.10 Manickam also points out that this trend took place against a backdrop of government policies that solidified the hold of Malay dominance in national culture and identity, paving the way for a nationalistic narrative along Malay-centric lines.11 In the case of Malaysian history textbooks, a Malay-centric perspective would constitute a narrative that features issues and concerns important to the Malay community at the expense of other ethnic groups.
In the Malaysian context, the Japanese occupation has become increasingly prominent in citizen education, whereby it is viewed as having intensified some form of Malayan (later, Malaysian) nationalism along the road to independence from British colonial rule. This approach is characterized by a move away from world history (in which the historical event is depicted as unfolding in the wake of government orders in the 1960s) toward a localized historical approach that focuses on the everyday experiences of the people of Malaya, an approach that has remained in force since 1978.
Over the years, the narrative of the Japanese occupation has become increasingly intertwined with the growth of nationalism and increased political participation. While the representation of ethnic groups and their activities changed over time, the presentation of the effects of the Japanese occupation on Malayan society has been stratified according to ethnicity in a way that emphasizes the different experiences of each of the major ethnic groups.
This trend began with the textbooks published in 1990. Cheah Boon Kheng's commentary on the representation of the Japanese occupation in Malaysian history textbooks also reveals that from 1990 references to the Malay guerrilla forces in Force 136, which was multiethnic in terms of membership, were increased at the expense of references to the Chinese-dominated Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA).12 According to Cheah's characterization, Malaysian history textbooks feature a narrative of the Japanese occupation that prioritizes the exploits of the Malay ethnic group by expanding stories of their roles in the resistance movement at the expense of non-Malay ethnic groups (in this case, the Chinese ethnic group).
Helen Ting's comparative work on the Japanese occupation narratives in government-sanctioned textbooks and textbooks used in independent Chinese secondary schools (which follow a separate curriculum not used in government schools) from the early 2000s also reveals the existence of Malay bias in the textbook that succeeded the one analyzed by Cheah.13 She concludes that the effect of the narrative is to make the Malay war memory the dominant national war memory in Malaysian history textbooks.14 Hence, between the two of them, Ting and Cheah paint a pattern of increasing Malay bias in the narrative of the Japanese occupation in Malaysian history textbooks from 1990 to 2004.
Yet the narrative of the Japanese occupation published in the 2020 history textbook reveals that some elements of multiculturalism have recently started to reappear. While this textbook was published after the first regime change in Malaysian history in 2018, even more surprising is the fact that the syllabus for this textbook was prepared before 2017 under the old regime.15 Hence, it is unlikely that the narrative of the Japanese occupation had changed because of the change in regime and the corresponding shift in ideology. This change invites us to consider how national policies regarding the portrayal of various ethnic groups in Malaysia have evolved since the appearance of Malay-centric history textbook narratives in the classrooms.
In this article, the timeline collectively traced by Cheah and Ting will be extended to include the narrative of the Japanese occupation in the 2020 textbook, which replaced the narrative found in the 2004 textbook. This article will also compare two textbooks used in 1978 (the textbook by Muniandy Thambirajah and the one by Zainal Abidin Abdul Wahid, Khoo Kay Kim, and Muhd Yusof Ibrahim), as opposed to the approach taken by Cheah in which only the former was analyzed. While other textbooks containing narratives of the Japanese occupation existed during this period, I have chosen these two textbooks because of the relative popularity of Thambirajah's textbook in classrooms across Malaysia and Zainal Abidin's and Khoo's status as esteemed Malaysian historians. This article will trace the changes in the narratives of the Japanese occupation in Malaysian history textbooks that were made between 1978 and 2020, paying particular attention to the influence of Malay ethnonationalism on the narratives found therein (in particular, their contents) and the textbook-writing process.
The Making of Historical Knowledge in Malaysian Government Schools
Since 1988, the history textbooks used in Malaysian government schools have been published by the state via the Institute of Languages and Literature (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, DBP). This approach to publishing textbooks has meant that the government has maintained tight control over historical knowledge production and dissemination in the Malaysian education system, in contrast to the period prior to 1988, when the DBP was not the sole publisher of history textbooks. It might be beneficial to consider how the power to determine what counts as historical knowledge in the Malaysian public education system is concentrated in the hands of the Malaysian government, which as a result has almost free rein to decide what narratives are absorbed by schoolchildren across the country.
As Apple discusses in Ideology and Curriculum, ideology functions as the conceptualization of ideal types in the context of the curriculum. One of these types is legitimation, which includes the rationalization of vested interests of political, economic, or other groups, or attempts to maintain specific social roles.16 By tracing the narratives of the Japanese occupation, we can obtain a platform from which to consider how the narratives contained in a country's history curriculum are necessarily ideological in nature. In this case, the narratives are dictated by vested interests of political groups and members of the Malaysian government who strive to maintain Malay dominance within depictions of Malaysian society and history.
In Malaysia, the history curriculum has been used to legitimize the position of the dominant Malay ethnic group, an approach that was cemented by accompanying government policies outside of the education system that, beginning in the 1970s, aimed to redistribute economic wealth among the Malay ethnic group.17 Yet the changes to the narrative of the Japanese occupation in Malaysian history textbooks reveal that the narratives were sites of competing historical interpretations between different perspectives, which manifested in the language and rhetoric used in these textbooks. The analysis of multiple textbooks from the 1980s reveals the divergence of opinions in terms of a Malay-centric perspective and a multiethnic perspective before the rise of the former to a position of dominance in 1988, a position it still holds to the present day.
In order to make sense of the knowledge represented in Malaysian history textbooks, it is necessary to understand the composition of Malaysia's pluralistic society along with the dynamic of ethnic relations in the country. For administrative purposes, Malaysian society is divided into four broad categories by the government. These comprise the indigenous peoples or bumiputra (a category that includes both the Malays, who form the dominant ethnic group in Malaysia, and the other Indigenous peoples of Malaysia); the Chinese and the Indians (who trace their ancestral roots to China and the Indian subcontinent), and everyone else (a catch-all category referred to as lain-lain that includes all other ethnicities that do not fit into the other categories).
Ethnic relations have been marred at various points in Malaysian history. Moments of tension included the postwar interregnum period between the end of the Japanese occupation and the return of the British (when communist guerillas, mostly of ethnic Chinese descent, murdered village heads and administrative workers, who were mostly from the Malay ethnic group and had worked for the Japanese government); the race riots on 13 May 1969; and the introduction of policies designed to improve the economic situation of the bumiputra while leaving out the poorer members of the other ethnic groups, resulting in a less-than-cohesive society. However, in some ways this reality is not reflected in the Malaysian history curriculum. The Malaysian government has viewed history education as a vehicle for cultivating a sense of belonging to the nation and for preparing its students to face an increasingly globalized world. In discussions about the history curriculum between historians and educationists, there is a noticeable absence of explicit references to the desire to create a Malay-centric history (which is distinct from the emphasis on using the Malay language to teach history, which can be separated from the contents of the textbooks themselves).18
This approach stands in stark contrast to the dissatisfaction with the changes made to the Malaysian history curriculum expressed by members of the Malaysian public.19 This dissatisfaction manifests itself most clearly in opinion pieces written in Malaysian newspapers. Thus, it is necessary to interrogate the relationship between these broader aims and the narratives found in Malaysian history textbooks. The case of the Japanese occupation enables us to understand how history curricula can be an expression of what Apple terms “ideology as ideal types,” where historical knowledge is used to portray a desirable understanding of Malaysian society as conceptualized by the Malay-dominated state.
The Japanese Occupation: Divergent Interpretations in the 1978 Syllabus
In 1978, there was a marked shift from the previous use of a world history perspective toward the use of a local history perspective, a trend that could be seen in two of the main textbooks published that year.20 These two textbooks were written by historians who held considerable clout in Malaysian historiography. One was written by M. Thambirajah, who had trained generations of history teachers at the University of Malaya, and the other was jointly written by Zainal Abidin Abdul Wahid, Khoo Kay Kim, and Muhd Yusof Ibrahim. Thambirajah's history textbooks have been hailed as multicultural and as representing the experiences of different ethnic groups throughout the history of Malaya and Malaysia, while Zainal Abidin is known for holding Malay nationalist views. This difference is evident in the way they chose to portray the Japanese occupation.
Nevertheless, these two textbooks shared overarching similarities in terms of their narrative structure. For instance, they both provided the global context of the Second World War and the Malayan context of the Japanese occupation in separate chapters or sections. Thambirajah presented the global context in Europe and Asia in several sections before covering the events in Malaya.21 The authors of the second textbook presented the Japanese occupation of Malaya and its origins in the conflict in Europe and Asia in separate chapters.22
Both textbooks largely frame the narrative using the same broad categories, namely, the start of Japanese imperialism, the fall of Malaya and Singapore, living conditions under Japanese rule, anti-Japanese resistance, political activities of the major ethnic groups in Malaya, and how the Japanese occupation contributed toward the making of the Malayan nation.23 While the narratives contain many structural similarities (largely due to the fact that both textbooks followed the stipulations in the syllabus), they differ subtly in their presentation of the causes of the Japanese occupation. While Thambirajah frames these causes in neutral terms in his choice of headings, Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof are more explicit in naming the British as responsible for the fall of Malaya because of their tactical incompetency and in emphasizing the relative efficiency of the Japanese military.24
The result was that Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof blamed the British for the Japanese occupation in a manner similar to postcolonial writings that challenge the notion of European supremacy. In doing so, they do not present the Japanese as an enemy. Rather, they set the stage to show how local actors in Malaya took matters into their own hands and participated in political movements that would determine the future of Malaya when the British colonial power, with its attendant military might, had failed them. This approach can be most clearly seen in the emphasis given to nationalist movements during the Japanese occupation. It is necessary to realize that multiple nationalist movements, which are represented in the textbooks as having been divided along ethnic lines, were simultaneously active during this period.25
Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof acknowledge that the Indian and Chinese diasporas in Malaya were more concerned with the political matters occurring on the Indian subcontinent and in China, respectively. These concerns can be seen in the emphasis given to these groups’ engagement in political matters, which had less to do with the future of Malaya than with the future of their respective homelands. For instance, the resistance of the Chinese toward the Japanese was described as being “an extension of the political situation in China and not [an expression] of feelings of loyalty towards Malaya.”26
In the case of the Indian community, the political situation was described as follows:
The activities of the Indian Independence League, Indian National Army and the Azad Hind government in pursuit of India's independence had directed the interest of many Indians in Malaya towards the political situation in India. Their understanding of Indian independence increased and hindered later efforts by the Malayan government to unify the inhabitants of Malaya.27
The textbook frames the nationalist movements of the Indian and Chinese diasporas as the result of political apathy in relation to the future of Malaya, explicitly stating that “the Chinese and Indians at the time did not feel that Malaya was their homeland and their political activities were directed at their countries of origin.”28 This perspective is accompanied by an extensive focus on the political activities of the Malay ethnic group via the Malay Youth Association (Kesatuan Melayu Muda, KMM). These activities included their involvement in the activities of Defenders of the Homeland (Pembela Tanahair, PETA) and the Union of Peninsular Indonesians (Kesatuan Rakyat Indonesia Semenanjung, KRIS), whose goal was to plan for the independence of Malaya and a political union with Indonesia.29
The main effect of this emphasis and framing is that the Malay ethnic group is portrayed as having filled the gap of power created by the absence of British colonial power. The authors legitimize the Malays’ position of power by emphasizing that they were the main ethnic group that fought for Malayan political concerns. According to this textbook, one of the lasting results of the Japanese occupation was the tension between the Malay and Chinese ethnic groups arising from the clashes between the police force and the MPAJA. This situation occurred because “when the Japanese wanted to destroy the MPAJA, many of the Malays were working on behalf of the Japanese [in the police force].”30
In contrast, Thambirajah emphasizes the participation of the non-Malay communities in resistance efforts against the Japanese Army, such as the guerrilla activities by the MPAJA.31 This emphasis can be found in the concluding statements of the sections on each ethnic community's experiences (“It was Japanese policies like these that finally led the Chinese to form organizations to fight the Japanese”; “The Indians too finally joined anti-Japanese groups and fought the Japanese”; “Many Malays also joined movements to fight against the Japanese”).32
Thambirajah favors a representation that shows how political participation was not always bounded by ethnicity and that members of the non-Malay communities actively invested in the future of Malaya by participating in resistance activities against the Japanese. Moreover, according to his narrative, all ethnic groups in Malaya played a significant role in driving out a common enemy. By choosing to frame political participation in this manner, he implies that members of the non-Malay communities fought for the future of Malaya and challenges the notion that they were apathetic toward the future of the polity, as suggested by Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof.
In the textbooks used from 1978 to 1990, a competition emerged between the multiethnic representation of the resistance against the Japanese occupation in Thambirajah's textbook and the Malay-centric perspective seen in Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof's textbook. The presence of competing narratives reveals a conflict between the perspective that legitimizes the dominant Malay ethnic group's position of power and the multiethnic perspective representing the histories of the various ethnic groups that make up Malaysia's pluralistic society. This dynamic encapsulates what Manickam has termed “an inherent contradiction” between the wish to maintain both the reality that Malaysia contains a pluralistic society and the right of the dominant Malay ethnic group to form a Malay base in state affairs.33 It also reveals how the ideological legitimization that Apple has pointed out can manifest itself in history textbooks. However, this dynamic was altered in 1990, when the choice of textbooks on offer in 1978 was replaced by a common history textbook published by the DBP.
The Making of a Malay Nation: The Increasing Importance of Malay Nationalism in 1990
As Cheah has identified in his writings on the representation of the Japanese occupation, the narrative of the Japanese occupation in the 1990 textbook places a significantly greater emphasis on the story of the Malay guerrillas in Force 136.34 While the two narratives from 1978 featured somewhat balanced narratives (with one featuring a slight emphasis on the Malay nationalists’ experiences), the narrative in the 1990 textbook reflects a different approach. This difference in approach is particularly evident when the 1990 textbook is compared with Thambirajah's 1978 textbook, but less so when compared with the 1978 textbook by Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof.
In the 1990 textbook, a description of the activities of the KMM dominates the section on nationalist movements against the Japanese occupation, leaving only three paragraphs on the activities of the Indian National Army (INA) and the MPAJA.35 This approach highlights the relevance of the Malay nationalists to the nation-building project; as far as the narrative of the Japanese occupation was concerned, the nationalist movement that mattered during that period was the one developing within the Malay community.
This shift in focus becomes more prominent when one considers how the Japanese occupation is described in the 1990 textbook as having “planted a seed of self-confidence amongst people who had formerly been colonized.”36 Moreover, the emphasis placed on the role of Malay guerrillas under Force 136 in the 1990 textbook also serves to reinforce the prominence of the Malay community's role in resisting the Japanese occupation. Missing from this narrative is any mention of other, non-Malay members of Force 136, such as Lim Bo Seng (a Chinese-born resistance fighter based in Malaya and Singapore during the Second World War), though British officials and soldiers are mentioned earlier in the narrative.37
The anti-Japanese resistance is now presented as a narrative in which the Malay guerrillas of Force 136 were instrumental in anti-Japanese resistance efforts, with the Malay sultan of Pahang having given his approval of and support for other parts of the Malay community that aided Force 136.38 Together, both changes to the narrative point to the growing importance ascribed to the Malay community, which signaled a move away from the relatively multiethnic approach taken by Thambirajah and Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof in 1978.
Not only did the authors of the 1990 textbook emphasize the experience of the Malay community, but they also erased the distinction between ethnic groups when it came to representing the everyday experiences of the people who lived in Malaya during the Japanese occupation. Thambirajah's 1978 textbook had featured the everyday experiences of the people according to their ethnicity – most notably by distinguishing between the brutal treatment meted out to the Chinese community and the more restrained treatment of the Malay and Indian communities.39
However, such distinctions between the everyday experiences of the different ethnic groups were removed in the 1990 textbook. Instead, a short section entitled “Miserable Life under the Japanese Occupation” (Kesengsaraan Hidup Semasa Pendudukan Jepun) focused on the population's overall economic suffering from “controls over business and transport,” “inflation,” disease, and subsistence on tapioca.40 By omitting any mention of the reign of terror that the Kempeitai (the Japanese military police force notorious for their cruelty in suppressing dissent) exercised over society and other life experiences specific to each ethnic group (an omission also made by Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof in 1978), the authors remove any chance of examining the experiences of the different ethnic groups. The result is the increased prominence of the Malay community, whose experiences in nationalist movements are demarcated from the generalizable experiences that everyone, regardless of ethnic group, experienced under the Japanese occupation.
2004 to 2020: The Attenuation of Malay-centric Narratives?
In her study of Malaysian national history textbooks introduced in 2002, Ting observes that the narratives found in those textbooks reflect a Malay ethnonationalist perspective.41 It comes as no surprise that in the narrative of the Japanese occupation found in this set of textbooks, the authors place an almost laser-like focus on the role of the Malay community and its concerns, most notably in the pages that deal with the anti-Japanese struggle.
In the 2020 textbook, however, there is a subtle shift away from the Malay-centric bias, as evidenced by the inclusion of notable individuals from different ethnicities. It is necessary to note that even their Malay ethnonationalist perspective did not stop the authors of the 2004 textbook from mentioning non-Malay individuals who participated in anti-Japanese efforts across Malaya. For instance, the 1990 and the 2004 history textbooks both refer to Albert Kwok, who led an anti-Japanese guerrilla movement in present-day Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.42
Such observations make it difficult to argue that the textbook authors were deliberately exclusionary on the basis of ethnicity. However, the 2020 textbook is significant in that it features individuals from other ethnicities who had not been featured before in previous history textbooks, such as Lim Bo Seng, Gurchan Singh (a police officer who disseminated anti-Japanese propaganda and masterminded acts of sabotage against the Japanese Army), and Sybil Kathigasu (a wartime nurse who treated resistance fighters and refused to betray them when she was imprisoned and tortured by the Japanese Army).43 The MPAJA's connections to the Chinese community are also mentioned, after having been omitted from the 2004 textbooks.44 Yet it would be dangerous to assume that, by featuring this multiethnic cast and paying homage to the contributions of members of the non-Malay community in the resistance movement, the authors were adopting a more multicultural portrayal of the Japanese occupation narrative. The narrative in the 2020 textbook was accompanied by expanded sections on the state of Malay nationalism before the Second World War and the effects of the Japanese occupation specifically on Malay nationalist movements.45
Public Knowledge and the Political Economy: The Case of the Look East Policy
In his analysis of the relationship between the state and the production of public knowledge, Apple emphasizes the need to understand the internal and external contexts of official knowledge.46 These contexts range from complex issues arising from political economy and cultural politics to the relationship between cultural legitimacy and state regulation.47 Anthony Milner has made the case for the importance of context in studying Malaysian national history writing, given the existence of competing constructions of national narratives.48 In her approach to analyzing the Japanese occupation in the 2004 textbook, Ting also emphasizes the importance of context, in that she analyzes the narrative in relation to the rise of Malay primacy in Malaysian politics.49
The narratives of the Japanese occupation in Malaysian history textbooks allow us to interrogate the relationship between public knowledge found in state-sanctioned textbooks and political economy, specifically regarding Japan–Malaysia relations. However, in this case the link between public knowledge and political economy is weaker than the relationship between official knowledge and cultural politics in the Malaysian context.
In 1982, Mahathir Mohammad, then Prime Minister of Malaysia, implemented the Look East Policy (LEP), which encompassed methods of economic restructuring that would bring “high productivity and profits [to] the nation” while emulating Japanese and South Korean business practices and technical and scientific approaches.50 In a speech reflecting on the LEP, Mahathir framed the policy in terms of a strong desire to emulate the “patriotism, discipline, good work ethics, competent management system and above all the close cooperation between the government and the private sector” found in Japan, traits that he designated as “entirely Japanese.”51
However, the narratives of the Japanese occupation from 1978 and 1990 do not demonstrate a significant shift toward the emulation of Japanese exceptionalism, as might have been expected. For instance, Hong Kong textbooks demonstrated a shift in the representation of Japan after the return of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1997, whereby Japan was presented as a military aggressor rather than as a model of modernization as it had been previously.52 In the case of Malaysian textbooks from 1978 and 1990, there is no sign that Japan was presented in a more positive light than before. In fact, sections detailing the Meiji Restoration (usually regarded as the defining period of Japan's rise as an imperial power via industrialization and militarization) were shortened in the 1990 textbook.53
In the Malaysian context, official knowledge in the form of history textbooks does not necessarily reflect changes in direction espoused by the state in relation to political economy. Rather, as the next section will demonstrate, changes to the narratives in Malaysian history textbooks coincided with cultural politics specific to the Malaysian context. To what degree these fluctuations in politics influenced the narratives of the Japanese occupation, however, is up for debate.
The Politics of Culture and Economics
In 1971, a decade before Mahathir's heyday and the introduction of the LEP, Malaysia saw two policies that would alter the course of its society. Scarred by the racial riots of 13 May 1969, the government was quick to devise an antidote to the ethnic tensions simmering in Malaysian society. Its answer was the implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) and the National Culture Policy (NCP), two simultaneous policies that have been analyzed as part of an acceleration of ethnonationalist discourse along Malay lines.
According to Cheah, with each year that went by, departments at the University of Malaya saw “qualified bumiputras [Indigenous peoples] not only filling places left by departing expatriates but taking up newly created posts,” including the History and Malay Studies departments under the affirmative action policies of the NEP.54 The NCP was a belated effort to create a national identity via the arts, which encompassed language and cultural symbols.55 At the National Culture Congress of 1971, it was determined that there was a need for a national culture, whose core should be Indigenous-based while leaving space for the acceptance of other cultural elements constructive to nation-building.56
Transcriptions and papers presented at seminars on Malaysian history education reveal that references to the writing of history textbooks and history education were inextricably linked to the task of nation-building. At a seminar in 1974 held at the National University of Malaysia, Muzaffar Tate, one of the authors of the 1990 textbook, stated that “the smell of colonialism must be eliminated and replaced with the scent of nationalism (kebangsaan)” and recommended that Malaysian history textbooks be rewritten from scratch.57
Tate was far from being the only academic preoccupied with the question of nationalism. In her presentation on the Malaysian history syllabus for primary and secondary schools in 1978, Asiah Abu Samah argued that the syllabus ought to contribute toward fostering “a generation that loves the country and feels a sense of responsibility and a willingness to sacrifice for the nation, race and religion.”58 Later, in 1991, Zainal Abidin, an author of one of the 1978 textbooks, wrote that history was meant to evoke “a sense of pride in the country,” that “the spirit of nationalism is often nurtured through history,” and that “history is an important tool to create national interest.”59
One commonality found in these recommendations to use history education and textbooks to inculcate nationalism is that the exact form of nationalism is left ambiguous. This ambiguity stands in stark contrast to one of the guiding principles of the 1978 history syllabus, the NCP. Granted, it is possible that these academics already had a preconceived notion of what form their proposed nationalism should take, which they simply did not mention in their presentations. But the ambiguity of these references to nationalism (in terms of whether they were referring to Malaysian or Malay nationalism in the 1970s and the 1990s) indicates that despite the increasingly prevalent political discourses about Malayness and Malay culture, there was still a space in which some form of multiethnic narratives could coexist.
Indeed, there was still space for a multiethnic representation of experiences of the Japanese occupation in the 1978 textbooks. Although it accounted for the slightly skewed narrative in Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof's textbook, the subtle bias in favor of Malay representation (in the form of expanded descriptions of the KMM's activities) did not mean the erasure of multiethnic representation, especially given that content relating to the political activities of the Indian community had been significantly expanded in comparison to Thambirajah's textbook.60 Nevertheless, the idea expressed by Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof that the Chinese and Indian communities engaged in self-isolationism because they fought for political causes outside of Malaya still stands, reflecting the sense in which non-Malay communities were increasingly sidelined after the implementation of the NEP and NCP.
All the history textbooks analyzed here conclude their respective narratives of the Japanese occupation by attributing the birth or growth of nationalism and political awakening to that historical event. In doing so, they provide us with an opportunity to understand the relationship between representations of burgeoning nationalisms in this narrative and the discussions about the use of history textbooks as nation-building tools.
Of the five textbooks, only Thambirajah's textbook explicitly refers to its aims of “nation-building and national identity” as the “core of the syllabus.”61 Yet the authors disagree on the form of nationalism or the effects of political awakening that arose from the Japanese occupation. While in Thambirajah's textbook, it was “Malaysian nationalism” that “became stronger after the Japanese occupation,” in Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof's textbook it was “the spread of political awareness amongst the Malay community” that led to the opposition to the British attempt to reinstate colonialism in Malaya.62
The authors of the 1990 textbook are far more elaborate in their description of the political awakening and anticolonialism that arose, but despite their evident Malay bias in other parts of the chapter, they remain ambiguous on the question of whether it was the result of the stirring up of nationalism amongst Malaysians or Malays.63 The fact that neither of these textbooks portrayed the same type of nationalism or political awakening reflects how debates about Malay and Malaysian nationalism persisted over the twelve-year period. The portrayal of the ethnic groups to which people who participated in political awakening or nationalism after the Japanese occupation belonged was contested.
In the case of the 2004 textbook, the short summary given at the end of the textbook retains a sense of ambiguity regarding the type of nationalism it advocates, even as it acknowledges the existence of different nationalisms and emphasizes the importance of the Japanese occupation in kickstarting the decolonization process.64 It is especially noteworthy that the 2004 textbook is unapologetic in its focus on Malay nationalism and its importance in the making of the Malayan nation. In comparison, the 2020 textbook, which adopts a more multiethnic approach to representing the experiences of the locals during the Japanese occupation, begins by providing an expanded description of the presence of Malay nationalism before the Second World War and focuses on the effects of the Japanese occupation on Malay nationalism.65
Between them, the 2004 and 2020 textbooks present a complicated picture of the growth of nationalism in Malaya, whereby both narratives acknowledge the place of multiethnic nationalism while at the same time paying homage to Malay nationalism above all. The latter is particularly evident in the 2004 textbook. Either way, the contested nature of nationalism in the narrative of the Japanese occupation functions as a microcosm for what Cheah has described as a form of ethnic politics in which “each community tries zealously to advance and protect its place within the nation's history.”66
Of the academics of the 1970s, Zainal Abidin deserves special mention. His 1978 textbook, jointly written with Khoo and Muhd Yusof, was by all accounts second only to the 1990 textbook in terms of its Malay bias. In Cheah's assessment of the state of Malaysian historiography, he is described as one of the Malay historians who argued that the “core of Malaysian nationalism is Malay nationalism,” a description that makes it easy to consider him as what Ting termed a “Malay ethnonationalist.”67
However, there is evidence that Zainal Abidin's views were more complicated than what a simple classification such as “Malay ethnonationalist” would suggest. Although in his chapter “Japanese Occupation and National Spirit,” which was published in the volume Glimpses of Malaysian History in 1979, he dedicates a significant portion of his analysis to the activities of the KMM, he also argues that nationalism in Malaya during the Japanese occupation grew along multiethnic lines.68 Unlike in his 1978 textbook, in which he explicitly states that the Indian and Chinese political activists were primarily concerned with affairs outside of Malaya, here his assessment of the state of nationalism is ambiguous enough to render the exact form of ethnic nationalism indeterminable.
However, while in later descriptions Zainal Abidin frames the nationalisms growing in the Indian and Chinese communities during the Japanese occupation as distinct from Malayan nationalisms, in the same breath he expresses regret toward the negative impact it had on Malayan and Malaysian nationalism. Although it is possible that Zainal Abidin was considering a conception of the narrative of the Japanese occupation that made it difficult for non-Malay communities to integrate into Malay society at large, he was nevertheless prompted to include representations of their political activities in his textbook.
As a matter of fact, Zainal Abidin's representation of ethnic groups according to their roles in the anti-Japanese resistance movements in Glimpses of Malaysian History matches the representations unique to Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof's textbook. These representations include the Azad Hind (the Japanese-supported Provisional Government of Free India established in Singapore in 1943); larger representation of the KMM and its activities with PETA and KRIS; acknowledgment of the existence of Chinese and Indian nationalisms; and representation of the MPAJA.69
Based on these comparisons between the narrative of the 1978 textbook by Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof and Zainal Abidin's own writings, we see that the textbook narratives generally followed the trajectory of their authors’ thoughts during the 1970s. Further, in the case of Zainal Abidin, even Malay ethnonationalist historians had far more nuanced views on nationalism than the simplistic rejection of non-Malayness in the 1980s, which persevered even in a climate characterized by increasingly polarizing views about Malayness and Malaysian identity. However, historians with Malay ethnonationalist views do not necessarily suppress the non-Malay presence in their historical narratives. The important question is how they position the Malays in the story they tell.
Another one of Zainal Abidin's writings allows us to analyze another dimension of the representation of the Japanese occupation in Malaysian history textbooks, namely, the tendency to rely on a long list of facts in order to structure the narratives. This reliance on facts lies in the desire of textbook authors in Malaysia to write history based on truth. In 1992, Zainal Abidin wrote that, in the context of writing history,
the truth must be respected. Unwelcome facts or events cannot be ignored. If you want to form a reed, let it be from the shoots. Pupils in schools need to be nurtured and educated with history founded on truth.70
Zainal Abidin was not alone in prioritizing the writing of truthful history. His fellow coauthor, Khoo, was also worried about the possibility of objectivity and accuracy being compromised. As Khoo wrote in an article published in 1991: “History can be used for propaganda. The danger in that situation is that history may not be able to be presented in a truly objective and accurate way.”71
While all three textbooks rely on facts to convey their narrative of the Japanese occupation, this approach does not mean that they were free of interpretation on the part of their authors. For instance, the fall of Malaya to the Japanese is explained differently by Thambirajah and Zainal Abidin, Khoo, and Muhd Yusof, even though all of these authors worked with the same facts (for example, regarding the sinking of the British battleships Repulse and the Prince of Wales during the Japanese invasion and the lack of readiness of the British when it came to jungle warfare). The British are explicitly blamed in the latter textbook, while the former textbook describes the reasons for the defeat (such as weak defense) in relatively neutral terms. Yet the fact that these sections still contain a wealth of historical facts points to the authors’ attempt to preserve some semblance of objectivity and truth.
Conclusion
Studying the Japanese occupation in Malaysian history textbooks has revealed that the ideologies expressed in nation-building narratives are always in flux. The forms of these ideologies usually change over the decades, giving rise to the existence of contesting narratives. The changing narratives reveal the malleability of war memory and its constant reshaping to suit the agendas of the state at any given point in time. A brief examination of the role of historian-ideologues (to borrow Milner's term) who have participated in the textbook-writing process, such as Zainal Abidin, has revealed a link between discourses on Malaysian historiography and the contents of Malaysian history textbooks. This link indicates a persistent relationship between ethnicity, politics, and history textbook writing, in which Malay ethnonationalism predominates. This finding is similar to those of Cheah who, in his article examining the origins of controversies relating to Malaysian historiography, has pointed out that the specter of Malay dominance produces conflicting views on what the writing of history should be in Malaysia.
An examination of these links reveals that in the Malaysian context, history textbook narratives are constantly being reshaped by forces outside the text itself, including ethnicity, and in particular by changing notions of Malay ethnonationalism. These textbook ideologies reflect the development of Malay ethnonationalism from its emergence in the 1970s, its rise in the 1990s, and its apex in the early 2000s (as Malay dominance, or ketuanan Melayu) to its coexistence with the idea of a Malay-dominated Malaysian multiculturalism encapsulated in the narrative of the Japanese occupation in textbooks from the 2010s.
Acknowledgement
This study was conducted under the auspices of a NTU Research Scholarship awarded by the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Notes
See, for instance, the coverage of the petition to include Sybil Kathigasu, a wartime nurse who lived through the Japanese occupation, in the 2017 Malaysian history textbooks in Hazlina Aziz, “History's Different Narratives,” New Straits Times, 13 September 2017, https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnists/2017/09/279149/historys-different-narratives. The blowback against the ideologies supposedly espoused in the 2017 textbooks is explained in “Umno Youth Accuses Pakatan of Revising History Syllabus to Implant ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ Ideology Promoting Socialism, Communism,” Malay Mail Online, 24 February 2021, https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2021/02/24/umno-youth-accuse-pakatan-of-revising-history-syllabus-to-implant-malaysian/1952501.
Michael W. Apple, “The Politics of Official Knowledge: Does a National Curriculum Make Sense?,” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 14, no. 1 (1993): 1–16, here 4, https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630930140101.
Abdullah Ahmad, “Issues in Malaysian Politics,” in Malay Dominance? The Abdullah Rubric (Selangor: K Das Ink, 1987), 1–10, here 3–4; Joseph Chinyong Liow, “Malaysia: Religion, Ethno-Nationalism, and Turf Guarding,” in Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 135–174, here 135, 143–144.
Anthony Milner, “Ethnicity, Civilization and ‘Disappearing from this World’,” in The Malays (Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2008), 229–242, here 237–238.
See Eugenia Roldan Vera and Eckhardt Fuchs, “Introduction,” in Textbooks and War: Historical and Multinational Perspectives, ed. Eugenia Roldan Vera and Eckhardt Fuchs (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 1–24; and Stuart Foster, “Teaching Controversial Issues in the Classroom: The Exciting Potential of Disciplinary History,” in Controversial History Education in Asian Contexts, ed. Mark Baildon et al. (London: Routledge, 2014), 19–38, here 29–30.
Keith Crawford and Stuart Foster, “On War, Nation, and Memory,” in War, Nation, Memory: International Perspectives on World War II in School History Textbooks (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2007), 1–20, here 3.
See Crawford and Foster, “On War”; and Vera and Fuchs, “Introduction.”
Sandra Khor Manickam, “Textbooks and Nation Construction in Malaysia,” in Asia-Pacific Forum 28 (Taipei: CAPAS, 2005), 78-89, here 81.
Kevin Blackburn and ZongLun Wu, “The Formation of a ‘Malaysian Centric’ History Syllabus,” in Decolonizing the History Curriculum in Malaysia and Singapore (London: Routledge, 2019), 110–135, here 110.
Ibid.
Manickam, “Textbooks,” 79–80.
Cheah Boon Kheng, “Memory as History and Moral Judgement: Oral and Written Accounts of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya,” in War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore, ed. P. Lim Pui Huen and Diana Wong (Singapore: ISEAS, 2000), 23–41, here 30; Cheah Boon Kheng, “Ethnicity, Politics, and History Textbook Controversies in Malaysia,” American Asian Review 21, no. 4 (2003): 229–252, here 250–251, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/ethnicity-politics-history-textbook-controversies/docview/211389855/se-2.
Helen Ting, “The Japanese Occupation in Malaysian History Textbooks,” in Imagining Japan in Post-War East Asia: Identity Politics, Schooling and Popular Culture, ed. Paul Morris, Naoko Shimazu, and Edward Vickers (London: Routledge, 2013), 190–209, here 207.
Ibid., 208.
Radzi Razak, “Pakatan Govt Manipulated History Textbooks? Curriculum Revision Started in 2014 when BN Was in Power, Maszlee Tells Umno Youth Chief,” Malay Mail Online, 24 February 2021, https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2021/02/24/pakatan-govt-manipulated-history-textbooks-curriculum-revision-started-in-2/1952511.
Michael W. Apple, “On Analysing Hegemony, Ideology and Curriculum,” in Ideology and Curriculum, 4th ed. (London: Routledge, 2018), 1–24, here 19.
Helen Ting, “The Battle over the Memory of the Nation: Whose National History?” in Controversial History Education in Asian contexts, ed. Mark Baildon et al. (London: Routledge, 2014), 41–57.
See, for instance, Muzaffar Tate, “Penulisan Buku-Buku Teks Sejarah Malaysia” [Writing Malaysian history textbooks],” (lecture, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 6 August 1974); and Asiah Abu Samah, “Perkembangan Sukatan Pelajaran Sejarah di Sekolah-Sekolah di Malaysia” [History of the history syllabus in Malaysian schools],” in Persatuan Sejarah Malaysia, Kongres Sejarah Malaysia: Jubli Perak (1953–1978) [Malaysian historical society, Malaysian history congress: silver jubilee (1953–1978)] (Bangi: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1978), 73–78, here 78.
Chok Suat Ling, Sheridan Mahavera, Nurbaiyah Nadzmi Siti, and Yong Huey, “Whose Story Is Our History?” New Straits Times, 11 April 2009; and Chok Suat Ling, Sheridan Mahavera, Nurbaiyah Nadzmi Siti, and Yong Huey, “Don't Euthanise the National History Curriculum Dudes,” Malay Mail, 9 August 2018, https://www.malaymail.com/news/opinion/2018/08/09/dont-euthanise-the-national-history-curriculum-dudes/1660557.
For a comparison to the preceding textbook, see the section “Perang Dan Damai” [War and peace], in Sejarah Menengah Malaysia [Secondary history Malaysia] (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1970), 231–250.
Muniandy Thambirajah, “Japanese Occupation in Malaysia,” in Sejarah Dalam Malaysia [Malaysia in history] (Selangor: Federal Publications, 1978), 151–174.
Zainal Abidin Abdul Wahid, Khoo Kay Kim, and Muhd Yusof Ibrahim, “Penglibatan Jepun Dalam Perang Dunia Kedua” [Japan's involvement in the Second World War], in Kursus Sejarah Untuk Tingkatan 2 [History courses for form 2] (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann, 1978), 205–213; Zainal Abidin Abdul Wahid, Khoo Kay Kim, and Muhd Yusof Ibrahim, “Pendudukan Jepun di Malaya” [Japanese occupation in Malaya], in Kursus Sejarah Untuk Tingkatan 2 (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann, 1978), 214–219; Zainal Abidin Abdul Wahid, Khoo Kay Kim, and Muhd Yusof Ibrahim, “Dasar Pentadbiran Jepun dan Kesan Pendudukan Jepun” [Japanese administrative policies and effects of the Japanese occupation], in Kursus Sejarah Untuk Tingkatan 2 (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann, 1978), 220–234.
Thambirajah, “Japanese Occupation,” 151; Zainal Abidin et al., “Pendudukan Jepun,” 214.
Zainal Abidin et al., “Pendudukan Jepun,” 215.
Thambirajah, “Japanese Occupation,” 171.
Zainal Abidin et al., “Dasar Pentadbiran,” 231.
Ibid.
Ibid., 217.
Ibid., 227–229.
Ibid., 232.
Thambirajah, “Japanese Occupation,” 172.
Ibid., 167, 169.
Manickam, “Textbooks,” 88.
Cheah, “Memory as History,” 30.
Sabihah Osman, Muzaffar Tate, and Ishak Ibrahim, “Zaman Pendudukan Jepun di Negara Kita” [The period of the Japanese occupation in our country], in Sejarah Tingkatan 3 [Form 3 history] (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1990), 1-20, here 15.
Ibid., 17.
Ibid., 14–15.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 11.
Ting, “Japanese Occupation,” 193.
Sabihah et al., “Zaman Pendudukan Jepun,” 14; Ramlah Adam, Abdul Hakim Samuri, and Muslimin Fadzil, “Pendudukan Jepun Di Negara Kita” [The Japanese occupation in our country], in Sejarah Tingkatan 3 (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2004), 1–42, here 25.
Ridzuan Hasan, Sharifah Afidah Syed Hamid, Muslimin Fadzil, and Subramaniam Raman, “Konflik Dunia dan Pendudukan Jepun di Negara Kita” [World conflict and the Japanese occupation in our country], in Sejarah Tingkatan 4 (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2019), 75–78.
Ibid., 75.
Ibid., 75–78.
Michael W. Apple, The State and the Politics of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2003), 7.
Ibid., 7–8.
Anthony Milner, “Historians Writing Nations: Malaysian Contests,” in Nation-Building: Five Southeast Asian Histories, ed. Wang Gungwu (Singapore: ISEAS, 2005), 117–161, here 155–156.
Ting, “Japanese Occupation,” 193.
Wong Chun Wai, “Mahathir Explains ‘Look East’ Policy,” Straits Times, 25 March 1982, 11, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/mahathirs-look-east-policy-the-star-columnist.
Mahathir Mohammad, “Look East Policy—The Challenges for Japan in a Globalized World” (speech, Japan, 12 December 2002).
Paul Morris and Edward Vickers, “Unifying the Nation: The Changing Role of Sino-Japanese History in Hong Kong's History Textbooks,” in Imagining Japan in Post-war East Asia: Identity Politics, Schooling and Popular Culture, ed. Paul Morris, Naoko Shimazu and Edward Vickers (London: Routledge, 2013), 149–169, here 166.
Zainal Abidin Abdul Wahid, Khoo Kay Kim, and Muhd Yusof Ibrahim, “Jepun: Sejarah Pemulihan Maharaja Meiji [Japan: The history of the Meiji emperor's restoration],” in Kursus Sejarah Untuk Tingkatan 2 [History courses for form 2] (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann, 1978), 172–182; Muniandy Thambirajah, “Asia: India, China, and Japan,” in Malaysia Dalam Sejarah 2 [Malaysia in history 2] (Selangor: Federal Publications, 1978), 206–226; Sabihah et al., “Zaman Pendudukan Jepun,” 1.
Cheah Boon Kheng, “Writing Indigenous History in Malaysia: A Survey on Approaches and Problems,” Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 10, no. 2 (1997): 33–81, here 61, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40860577.
Sumit K. Mandal, “The National Culture Policy and Contestation over Malaysian Identity,” in Globalization and National Autonomy: The Experience of Malaysia, ed. Joan M. Nelson, Jacob Meerman, and Abdul Rahman Embong (Singapore: ISEAS, 2008), 273–300, here 274.
Ibrahim Saad, “National Culture and Social Transformation in Contemporary Malaysia,” Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 11, no. 2 (1983): 59–69, here 64, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24490798.
Tate, “Penulisan Buku-Buku Teks,” 3.
Asiah, “Sukatan Pelajaran Sejarah,” 78.
Zainal Abidin Abdul Wahid, Sejarah Malaysia: Pentafsiran dan Penulisan [Malaysian history: interpretation and writing] (Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1991), 13–14.
Zainal Abidin et al., “Kesan Pendudukan,” 227–229.
M. Thambirajah, “Preface,” in Malaysia Dalam Sejarah 2 [Malaysia in history 2] (Selangor: Federal Publications, 1978), iii.
Thambirajah, “Japanese Occupation,” 172; Zainal Abidin et al., “Kesan Pendudukan,” 232.
Sabihah et al., “Zaman Pendudukan,” 17.
Ramlah et al., “Pendudukan Jepun,” 38.
Ridzuan et al., “Konflik Dunia,” 80.
Cheah, “Indigenous History,” 62.
Ibid., 34–35.
Zainal Abidin Abdul Wahid, “Pendudokan Jepun dan Semangat Kebangsaan” [Japanese occupation and national spirit],” in Sejarah Malaysia Sepintas Lalu [Glimpses of Malaysian history] (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1979), 112–117, here 114.
Zainal Abidin, “Pendudokan Jepun,” 113–117.
Zainal Abidin, “Pentafsiran dan Penulisan,” 31.
Khoo Kay Kim, “Perkembangan Pendidikan Sejarah Di Malaysia,” in Sejarah Dalam Pendidikan, Seminar Sejarah Dalam Pendidikan Peringkat Nasional [History in education, history seminar at the national level of education] (Kuala Lumpur: Persatuan Sejarah Malaysia, 1991), 14–20, here 20.