Thursday, September 9, 2010

Who is historically blind?

Recently there are some professor of History telling that young politician and others who are talking about changing of constitution are "historically blind".

I am not an academician, nor a historian, neither a Professor. But an ordinary citizen of a country with 53 years of history after independence from the British. I am trying to understand history in layman's understanding.

What is history? History is the study of the human past. What is the purpose to study history?. To learn form our past mistakes, and avoiding the same mistake in future; leaning from other people's mistakes, preventing the same history or mistake happen again to us. In short, "Do what we did correctly again, Avoid repeating the history of mistake again". To learn from mistakes, to learn from history.

Who are historically blind?. The person who forgot about his ancestry history? The person who forgot about his mother tongue(language history)?, The person forgot about his racial culture(cultural history), The person forgot about the past war crime(military history), The person forgot about the election mood of people(election history), The person who forgot about the founding of the nation(National history), The person who forgot about human right (Social history), The person who forgot about his surname and the clan family(Family history), The person forgot about global changes(Global history); The person forgot about world economy(Economic history); The person forgot about himself(memory lost in his own history).....

Talking about independence, historically a person born in Strait Settlement is citizen of Malaysia by operation of law. The citizenship is automatic under the historical event of independence, operation of law. All people born of the citizen parents, regarding of their racial background, born after the independence are automatically a citizen. Any government officials who demand the citizenship certificate is historically blind. Any person calling them, other than citizen is historically blind, and disrespect to the constitution, which legally grant the citizen right. They are historically blind to Constitution history.

Some history are the past events that will never happen again; some history need to move, and change to make new history. A person blindly abide to an unfair historical Treaty without changes is blind in history. As change in time, the Treaty may no longer apply, as political environment may has changed, historian oppose the change for the sake of history is actually historically blind themselves. Take for an example of historical legal documents on slavery, unfair treaty during Opium War; if these historical contract, agreement or Treaty are to allow to continue today, regardless of its unfairness, against human right, human suffering; what will be the impact to the living people today?. Must we allow it to continue just because it was the historical documents? regardless of its suitability to current environment and fairness to the people. A historical documents that bind the future activities of the people, need to be revise, to change, to adapt to the new current environment. It cannot forever remain as legal document of the past without changes, when it affect living people of today. Unless we are historically blind for changes.

Malaysia was ranked 131st out of 175 countries in the 2009 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom index, because of its tight controls on print and broadcast media. Tomorrow, the data will become history, must we allow this data remain stagnant as historical data? or should we improve on the performance and make new data and new history?.....Just by merely looking at the data as historical document and doing nothing,blindly believe in the history that we cannot change, is historically blind. New history can be created by people, history is make by people. A new record can be created, a new history can be created.....

Legal restriction to changes and history are two different things...

History is about human activities, is living history of yesterday and today.

Law is about compliance, protection....it can be current and historical, which no longer apply anymore, or not practical anymore....

But there are some academician who are blind historically; because they work for the ruling party and only intend to retain history that please the master. That is the pseudo-history. Many history left today are imperial history, history wrote for the King, the ruling party. The actual history is made by the people, the ordinary people; not only the King. Some change the history to consolidate their political agenda; some concealed the history to avoid facing the actual history; some pretend nothing happen in history. These are the historian who are historically blind, they did not write about the actual history, they are false historian or pseudo-historian, and a historically blind historian.

Some history need to be change; some history need to remain unchanged.

A real historian is the one who professionally dare to tell the true, and not blindly based his opinion on some out-dated historical documents, regardless of the human welfare of today. The objective of study history is for the living people today; why study history if it is not beneficial to the living people today?....

New History is made, for the betterment of the welfare of living people....

History, is his story, your story, my story; the living stories....

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