NST July 19: Editorial: Truth and reconciliation
Editorial: Truth and reconciliation
19 Jul 2006IN the parliamentary kerfuffle over a Universiti Putra Malaysia textbook on ethnic relations, both Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz and Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed had a point.
Any attempt at exorcising the demons of the nation’s past, according to Nazri, had to contend with the offence of sedition — a law designed to keep those demons in the bottle and which will continue to have its uses for some time to come. Mustapa, on the other hand, is determined to press on with the compulsory education of university students in Malaysian multiculturalism, warts and all, in the aim of having the demons slain by present and future generations.
No one can argue with that, and indeed no one did in the course of the emergency motion tabled by the DAP on Monday. The bone of contention appears to be some sections in the book which are said to have strayed an inference or two too far from a purely objective description of such sensitive subjects as the May 13, Kampung Medan and Suqiu incidents — all of them outbreaks of communal strife that most people hope would just go away. They won’t, and their banishment to the recesses of the collective memory continues to haunt the country in very visible ways. The multiracial panel of academics who took 18 months to outline the ethnic relations course would have been careful of the minefield they were about to tread. But they must also have known that too much walking on eggshells would have defeated the purpose of coming to terms with the sordid episodes in our history.
Given the dons’ highly delicate task, the textbook’s factual errors, and the admission that it was rushed to meet publishing deadlines, come as a surprise. If the job of ethnic relations is to be handed over to non-partisan academia, as it should, then such intellectual laxness is unforgivable. Mistakes must be corrected and the textbook checked again for disinterest and impartiality. There is a lesson here for politicians, too. The country will never get over the traumas of conflict until it works up the courage to have them examined in the cold light of day. No better place exists to take the first step than the lecture theatre, where unvarnished knowledge takes precedence over emotion and the blame game. Our MPs have a duty to question and to see that the laws are upheld. But they should not stand in the way of the young in the pursuit of the truth.
