Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Khoo Kay Kim interview with theSun Weekend

:: theSun Weekend | 12 Feb 2005 :: PROFESSOR EMERITUS Datuk Dr Khoo Kay Kim has two passions in life, history and sports. But it is to Malaysian history and the research into and the writing of it that he has devoted much of his life since he joined the History Department of Universiti Malaya in the 1960s. He continues to insist on neutrality and objectivity when writing about this country. He tells HUSNA YUSOP that he is still researching and writing.

YOU HAVE been teaching Malaysian history for such a long time that your name is now synonymous with the history of the country. What is your reaction when people say this?
Not many people are happy with this. Some complained that it seems as if there is only one historian in the History Department. Anyway that is no longer true these days. There are more people teaching Malaysian history now in this university -- Universiti Malaya, and other universities in the country.

Any problem with regard to the teaching of Malaysian history?
The problem with most history teachers and even university lecturers is that they do not really have a good feel of the subject. So, teaching the subject becomes a mere job. They have no real curiousity. When they see something new, they do not automatically ask what is the background. They do not try to probe or find out more.

Equally important is, they tend to see history in a very linear way. Take for example the rubber industry. They do not ask very simple questions like what caused the demand for rubber to rise. They do not even realise that the different seasons in the United States affect eddemand for the commodity.

It was the automobile industry that brought about the great demand for rubber. During summer, the Americans would drive out to the countryside, so they used their cars more often and the demand for tyres was high. By winter, they did not use their cars that much, so the demand for rubber would go down.

How important it is to understand simple principles of supply and demand. But you do not teach the children that.

Is history as a subject very important?
It is. It is a very important subject. There is no subject which can be meaningfully discussed without the background. Without some element of history being thrown in, be it Mathematics or Physics or tsunami or forests, there is always a history.

But many people find history a boring subject.
It is because history has become a subject which children learn by rote and our whole exam system also tests the children that way. They have to learn by rote, so they grow up hating the subject.

If you ask the average schoolboy or girl, what do you think about history? They say, "That is the subject I hate most." They do not see the link between the past and the present. Without the past the present makes no sense. People say the future is very imoportant. Yes. But what do we know about the future? We do not know anything about the future, we can only speculate.

It is only with the knowledge of the past and awareness of the present that we can make some educated guess about the future.

So how do you approach history?
It must be approached in a very holistic way. Most people would study only one aspect of it. Even if they do a PhD, it would be on one aspect or they would study one ethnic group.

Even western scholars do not write on all the various ethnic groups in Malaysia. They usually take only one or two groups and go deeply into it. Therefore, very often when you ask people like that, the kind of questions they can answer is very limited.

I answer questions on all aspects of Malaysian history, including sports. Some people make the silly mistake of assuming that because I am a historian I cannot possibly know about sports.

You know, Malaysians are like that. "What does he know about sports? He is a historian." I say: "Have you never heard of the history of sports?" And I am the only one in the world who has a knowledge about MalaysiaÕs sports history.

Is the number of people doing research on Malaysian history increasing?
Not really. History is losing out to many other disciplines simply because it does not seem to have that fanciful approach that some of the other disciplines employ. The first question a historian asks is: What happened? So, you have to be very precise.

But do not exclude the necessary details. Some say all details are not important. Instead, you must be able to explain what happened by using theories.

But I am saying theories cannot be used unless they can be tested under controlled conditions like in the sciences. Otherwise, you have a theory which is no more than an assumption. And based on an assumption, what can you really say? You do not know what happened.

Give an example.
You take the ethnic riots in 1945-1946. Most people would tell you -- based on assumptions -- that it is Malays versus the Chinese. I happened to be at one of the places where it occured, lower Perak. I know for certain the clashes were not between Malays and Chinese but between Banjaris and Chinese. It makes a lot of difference.

How about the incidents in Batu Pahat?
Batu Pahat was one of the Banjari strongholds in this country. The others were Sungai Manik, where I am from, and Batu Kikir, Negri Sembilan.

So history is something like journalism, where you also ask what happened?
Yes you have to probe.

Do you think there is much more to be done in terms of research in Malaysian history?
A lot. A lot more. But it is difficult to get more younger people involved. Also, history does not seem to be paying. You cannot get a fat salary if you are a student of history because employers do not seem to think history is important. Actually it is, but they do not realise it.

In the early days, most history books were written by Europeans and they wrote as outsiders. We say they went about it unfairly, writing as if they were "on the decks of ships looking at the Malaysian shores". Now that locals are writing history, what do you think?
The locals have been too influenced by political developments after 1957. They think when you write history, you must write about nationalism and patriotism. They do not ask, for example, what kind of effects did electricity have on this country? The coming of electricity was a very very major development.

But not many people see electricity as part of history.
There, you see? Of course, because electricity first came to this country in the late 19th century. It is used in the tin mines and gradually in the case of Kuala Lumpur, street lights appeared and the country became electrified, the towns and all, only by late 1920s.

And with electricity also came refrigration. You can keep food in your fridge. You can buy food from a distance and your supplier can send food to you over a distance of so many hundred miles, taking several days. The fishing industry for example, depended on refrigeration.

The cinema came in 1920s also because of the electricity. And cinema had a tremendous impact on the people. This was the time when American influence began to spread among the locals because they could watch what was going on in the US. American songs became very popular. Electricity -- something you take for granted.

There have been allegations that the history taught in schools is written by nationalists instead of historians. What do you think?
True. Also I think the syllabus is such that the pupils are forced to focus on, only politics and also, politics interpreted from a particular perspective. I think in history, as in other disciplines, it is very important that we should take a neutral stand.

We must be very objective. To me, if you need to understand a particular phenomenon, you cannot afford to take a partisan stand.

Otherwise, your mind is prejudiced as you will not be able to look at things in clearer perspective. So, even if in the case of politics, you should look at what happened in a more neutral way.

Please explain.
Take for example the history of the British in this country. New history books I have come across speak of the British as colonialists. Did they not realise that legally, the Malay kingdoms, the Malay states were never colonialised? They were not colonies. The Straits Settlements were colonies but not the Malay states. These Malay states were officially known as the protected Malay states.

In other words, legally the sovereignty of each Sultan was intact. So, if you do not explain politics in that way, not just in a very general way but also in a very legalistic way, then the children will not understand.

But a politician will say that is colonialism in another form.
It favours him to say that. Then you are not helping the children to understand law. Our society now is facing very serious problems because people do not understand law. They think at the traffic light, even if it is red, if the policeman is not there, you can cross, whereas if you understand law, that is illegal, you are breaking the law.

Also there are allegations that the Malays are getting a bigger share of Malaysian history and there is proportionately less focus on what the Chinese and Indians did. Should it be like that?
Ours is what we call a plural society where the people are made of different ethnic groups or sub-ethnic groups. Foreigners in the country find it difficult to understand this. It's admittedly difficult. Even Malaysians find it difficult.

For example there are many of us who cannot distinguish between Punjabis and Bengalis. A simple thing like that. To some of us every Sikh is a Bengali. A Sikh is actually a Punjabi. A Bengali comes from Bengal.

History should help us to understand our society. Of course it is very important that a great deal of attention should be given to the Malays because this was basically a Malay society which subsequently was transformed by various developments and events.

And from a society which was inhabited primarily by Malays, it became a plural society. So, of course it is important also to know about the other ethnic groups but most people tend to place this importance in terms of the groups" contribution previously.

But don't you think contribution is a loaded word?
It is. I think it is a loaded word. I think we should not talk about contribution. Otherwise, we would end up saying, as the British did, that the Chinese were more important than Indians because they contributed more to revenue and therefore they gave more privileges to the Chinese. That upset the Indians a lot.

I think what we should do is to look at the society as a whole and try to understand how it has been, in a sense, structured and also to understand the culture of each ethnic or sub-ethnic group.

And there are important differences among even one particular ethnic group. Don't you think so?
Yes. You take the Chinese for instance. They are not a homogenous group. It may be more homogeneous now than before but it is not homogenous. Do you know the Chinese in Malaysia have at least a few thousand associations today? That shows they are not completely homogenos.

Similarly with the Indians and the Malays. Now, how many people know much about the Acehnese? People in Kedah possibly, Yan in particular, that is where you find a lot of these Acehnese.

But if you go to say Sabah, what would they know about the Acehnese? Or even in Johor. Ah, don't go too far to the Acehnese, what about the Kelantanese? The Kelantanese baffle other Malays and also non-Malays. Why are they so different? It has never been explained.

Maybe that is why it is also important to focus on state individually? Now, there is no history of Perlis or Kelantan. Do you think there should be an attempt?
Of course. I tried to impress upon my students this. Having come from one of the former federated Malay states (Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Pahang), I have always been very aware that in these there is very little knowledge of the former unfederated Malay states (Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu and Johor).

And I first started learning about Kelantan and Kedah from my students from these states. Because the school textbooks tell us very little about each state. And most of the books written -- even by well-known historians -- did not talk very much about the former Unfederated Malay states.

Early historians like like Winstedt and Shepherd had written a little on the so-called unfederated Malay states but these states were never featured importantly. So to me, Malaysian history and its syllabus should cover very broad grounds.

And the books that students read should tell us in a very basic way, not just similarities, but also differences between these states. You must be careful about generalisation.

Take for example Sam Poh Tong, the cave temple in Ipoh. It is supposed to be a Buddhist temple but the diety they worship is Cheng Ho, who is a Muslim. Is that not very interesting?

But history never dwells on such things.
Yes. Cheng Ho was, until more recently, hardly ever mentioned by Muslims, and yet the diety this Buddhist temple subscribes to is a Muslim. Cheng Ho is in Mandarin. But the Hokkeins call him Sam Poh. They do not call him by the normal name. They have a different name for him.

Do you think history is still an important subject in these age of cyberspace?
Yes. Science also needs history. What is Newton today but history? Einstein, history. So no scientist can ever do without the knowledge of what preceded the present. They cannot.

To drop history is to have amnesia. No recollection of the past. The only problem of course is that although history is effectively integrated into all other disciplines, people are not made aware of it. When they talk of history they think of their schooldays. What they study in school, that is history.

So they said, "That is useless, I do not need it." But in actual life, how can you not have history? How can people invest in shares without knowing the history of the company? What was the situation like three weeks ago or last week?

But that kind of history is not taught in school.
That is the sad part.

You said Malaysian history needs more research. On what aspect?
Anything. A historian can be interested in anything. And history need not be about something which happened 100 or 50 years ago. What happened this morning is already history.

It seems everything on Malaysian history had already been written. What more is there to write?
So if I ask you about the history of Indian temples, can you give me the information? Why is it there are so many Indian Hindu temples in this country when the population is so small compared to the others?

Why do you think this is the case?
Nobody has really made a study of this thing. Therefore, it is important for historians to take an interest and go into it.

For a simple question like, why are the Kelantanese so unusual? Why is it the majority of the Kelantanese work outside the state? Why is it that if you compile a list of Malay CEOs in Kuala Lumpur you will find the majority of them are Kelantanese? Why? Why is the Kelantanese so different? Unless you make a study you will never be able to answer.

You have an answer for that?
No. I have asked the Kelantanese, they also cannot answer (laughs). So you have to do research to find out. You need to ask questions all the time. And there are so many questions that one still needs to ask.

Probably you suscribe to the idea that history is important for nation-building. In this context, what is your view of the way our nation is being built?
You see, we adopt rather ad hoc measures in terms of nation-building. And so much emphasis is placed on economic development that we forget a nation is basically about people.

When we were about to become a nation state, we formed the Razak committee which came out with a report in 1956, saying the main objective of a national education policy is national unity.

Now, can you tell me which school since has given emphasis on national unity? All the schools are interested in examinations. Pupils are judged by how many A's they score. Teachers are judged by how many A's they can help the students to score. What school talks about national unity?

How do we judge when we have reached a certain level of national unity?
To me national unity means the stage when the people of this country have known and understood one another sufficiently well for them not to feel uncomfortable when the people of one particular group are placed together with those from another group.

What happen for example, if at a Malay party you suddenly play Chinese music? There would be discomfort, right? Of course the situation has become better.

Today, because of the emphasis on Bahasa Melayu, if you play Malay music in a gathering of Chinese, they will not feel so uncomfortable.

Similarly, through Tamil movies and so on, people are becoming a little more used to the Indians.

Therefore, you have to expose people of one culture to another culture to help them understand things. That was how I first learnt about the other ethnic groups. Through mixing with them, through exposure to them. So today, I have no problems, whether you are talking about Indians or Malays.

History should help our children to be exposed to one another's culture. It is not just about heroes, or who win this war and who lost that war.

Do you think race relations are better today than previously?
If I compare the time I was in school and university with the situation now, I say no. In those days people were less conscious of being ethnically different. Not totally unconscious, but less conscious. And I am talking in particular about those who went to English schools and then to the university. Those who did not go to English schools are different.

Why do you think that is so?
Because of politics. Politics often feature sub-ethnicism, especially during political rallies. Our political parties are all ethnic parties. Whenever they campaign, they tend to highlight the interest of one particular ethnic group. So, each ethnic group becomes very conscious of being different from another ethnic group.

Besides history, you also have a passion for sports. And you have said in a number of articles that sports is important for nation bulding.
Yes, sports is important. The British introduced sports in a big way in the country. Why? Because they felt that sports can bring people together. Because they have to rub shoulders when they play games. After World War II many British soldiers participated in local sports together with all the others.

Sports can go a long way towards bringing people closer together, provided we do not keep on making distinctions between one ethnic group and another. In the sports I was introduced to, we were very particular about winning.

So, if you have a team comprising people of various ethnic groups, playing against another team comprising people of various ethnic groups, then both sides will not place emphasis on ethnicity.

Loyalty to the team would be very strong. I have seen situations in those days where a Chinese say, hurt a Malay from the other team, then the Chinese from the other team would go for this Chinese. This is esprit de corps. But we do not seem to understand that sports can play that kind of role.

Today sports is in a bad way, when the interest in sports is not there anymore. I always point out to people, and this is very important, the Malaysian sport reached its peak during the period of the Emergency. Emergency was declared middle of 1948. By early 1949 we became world champions in badminton. And we were champions again in 1952 and 1955.

And our hockey team went to the Olympics in 1956. If you look at the scenario, you just go back to the old newspapers, the amount of sports activities generated during that period.

In every town the police would have one football team. So, despite the fact that our country was really in a state of war, sport activities flourished. The passion that people had in sports was just extraordinary. But not so today.

Today we have video games. Perhaps during the Emergency they had nothing else to do, so they indulged themselves in sports activities?
No. The MCP fellows were throwing grenades here and there, derailing trains, burning buses. That did not prevent people from travelling. It was not that they had nothing to do. They had plenty to do.

Those days in all the major towns we had amusement parks. Everybody was there every night. It was a place of entertainment. That was where you can watch bangsawan, Chinese opera, wrestling, boxing, ronggeng, cabaret. Those were wonderful days. Some of the top sports men were also regular cabaret-goers.

About history textbooks: Is there a need to re-write them?
History textbooks today are written in such a way that pupils are forced to learn information by rote. I think history textbooks should be of two types. One basically a reference book where the information you want is found there. You do not need to learn by rote.

But the more interpretative and discussive aspects can be in another book. So that children will learn to understand, to ask questions, to give their opinions. And whenever they are not certain they can refer to the reference book. I do not see why the reference book cannot be brought to the exam hall.

Have you ever suggested this to the ministry?
They do not know what I am talking about.

But have you made the suggestions?
Yes, I have made comments so many times. But they do not understand what I am talking about. I explained. But they do not understand. You see when people's minds have crystalised, it is very difficult to penetrate.

So these things have to begin, in a sense, very slowly and the best way to begin is again, at the primary school level when children should be helped to understand what the past is all about.

Some academicians are talking about a multi-dsicilinary approach towards history. What do you think?
I think this talk about a multi-disciplinary approach has remained mere talk. To me, history is very simple. It is about the past, so the first question you need to answer is what happened? Having acquired the data, how we proceed to analyse the data depends on the individual.

Nobody can say his apporach is the best. If people look at the past differently from different perspectives, then they should compare notes.

Nobody can say he is right and he is wrong. If our simple question is: "When was the Pangkor Treaty signed?" that is different. But the moment the question is about why did the British decide to intervene or what effect did the Pangkor Treaty have on, say Malay or Chinese society, then the answers would be very different. And, strictly speaking, you should listen to all the answers.

You said history should start at primary school. But now they start teaching history at Form One while they have Kajian Tempatan at Year Four.

Yes. Now they do not teach Geography also. How can you not teach the children Geography? This Kajian Tempatan is neither here nor there. It has no beginning ... (laughed). It does not help in the understanding of the subjects. People do not get a proper perspective.

And to say you do not need to teach Geography is really baffling. So you talk to the children today about Panama, they do not know where it is. Madagascar, Maldives, they do not know. Even I am not sure they know where Canada is. How can people in this modern age survive without knowing these basic things?

How far back do you think we should go when revising history textbooks?
When we study history, we should try to go as far back as possible and in our case, it is very important we begin from the Malacca Sultanate, simply because it established both a social and political culture which have survived till this day.

Unless you understand that, you cannot understand the culture today. Ours is not just a monarchy but we have nine kings. There is no country in the world which has nine kings or even two kings.

Unless you know the history from the beginning, you will not be able to understand how come we have nine kings.

What about the recent developments?
Recent events should be included to help them understand where it all fits in. If you are talking about nation-building we must include former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who coined the term Bangsa Malaysia. Now what does the term mean?

People have misunderstood that. I have seen newspapers translating Bangsa Malaysia as Malaysian Race. It is not race, it is nation. The term bangsa is today used differently. It is used as in Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu or United Nations, not Bangsa China, Bangsa Melayu, Bangsa India, not like that anymore. The children should know. But do they? No.

There is so much which requires basic explanation and only knowledge of history can help us provide that basic information. So history should be integrated. I mean, it is integrated already but people should be made aware of the fact that it is there, not that it is a useless subject.