(New users only) It's tax relief season! Get up to RM300 when you save with Versa! Plus, enjoy an additional FREE RM10 when you sign up using code VERSAMM10 with a min. cash-in of RM100 today. T&Cs apply. MAY 14 — We are shaped by our past.Anyone walking past a university’s history department would half expect to come across a poster like that. Nothing gaudy like dinosaurs or Roman slaves rowing a galleon as backdrop pictures but it is not hard to imagine. The poster, not T-Rex or abused collaterals.However, hardly anyone has a carbon copy recollection of “what occurred before” exactly like another person in the same room, even in a very large room, say the population size of a metropolis. In its very nature, history is divisive. What is less mentioned, it is deeply personal.Ask 10 persons in a family about a commotion 10 years ago and various accounts are produced. That’s one family. Multiply that by the millions living and dead over an average of a 150 years across two parts of Malaysia which is equal to the size of Germany, then imagine the infinite number of accounts to reconcile when historians try to figure out our federation. Historically, speaking.Easy answers are a mirage. Easy answers when compiled is historical absolutism because it is lazy. Yet easy answers are what Malaysian governments tend to rely on and dish out to us.Being a history aficionado it thrills to know there’s a massive interest uptick, recently. However, the enthusiasm seems less “want to learn” and instead morphs into “See, we are right” vacillations. Suffice to say, humility is constantly absent.They are history rebels rather than history buffs, because the historical absolutism nauseates. They go off the state approved grid by going to the Internet.Time to enter the vault to open the imaginary time capsule.The controlling presentHow fiction is treated provides an insight to how facts are filtered constantly.Spectacularly, our fiction is obsessively contained. Made-up stuff inside novels require approval, to protect the people from threats. If even fantasy is policed, consider the paranoia about details of the past.This leads to what are state sanctioned history facts.Malaysians are constantly asked to respect the official account, which the government releases, and alters occasionally. Remember the time we were informed the country was never colonised to fit an ongoing separate political narrative?Official account is truth — those in power insist — because it is official and from the officially appointed departments. Our officials can go all day and night repeating the mantra about how official “data” is true “data”.So, to belatedly expect academia to have a spine is disingenuous. The only historians allowed to have a successful academic career are those willing to dispense with their spines.The cynical view, those who contradict the “official” version reach their glass ceiling far quicker.Inside the confines of academic forums, symposiums and exchanges, a degree of latitude exists, but when it is presented in our syllabus it better be close if not a printout of the official version. How history is taught in schools affects the tone Malaysians hold. — Picture by Yusof Mat Isa The masses roam the InternetThis context is necessary when examining the chaotic study of the past among Malaysians.Indoctrinated in their school years, restrained in their university years, conditioned by a dominant state media, now that they can ask their best bud Anthropic or ChatGPT, they behave like children let loose in a toy store.Can they be blamed?In the information age, our government is adamant to tell the people rather than to discuss with the people.History is sanitised to a painful conclusion. Those in power have always been right. Those who are not in power receive less adulation. This is a country without any regrets, just ups and more ups, according to our leaders.Resulting in two types of Malaysians. Those who swallow whole the state’s interpretation. And the others, the growing segment, are disillusioned and search for their own absolute version. And no, while the dissenting group grows by the news cycle, it is also at odds with itself. Disagreements are rife. All absolutely fixed on their version and aghast at alternative takes.Remember this…How history is taught in schools affects the tone Malaysians hold.Ironically, my best history teacher back in school was the most openly racist. Mr Thiru was the most colourful for the life lessons he imparted. Mrs Foo for witnessing Ah Pit punch the living daylights out of Shamsula — which was history in its own way. On that same token Mr Baharuddin for smashing Shamsula’s face the year before. Learning history was easiest with Mrs Maimun. Knowing institutionalised racism is also easy through Mrs Maimun.The temptation is to ask students to memorise. To her credit, Mrs Maimun made us live history in our classroom, even if it was primarily from her point of view.History is about talking about it. I recoil reading comments that being reminded of the past only opens unnecessary wounds. Where is the fine print that learning should not hurt?I cringe when people claim the past is so definitive that the only sane thing to do is to accept it verbatim. If the Americans never got their act together in the second half of World War II, this is our 80th anniversary as Indonesia Raya. Malaya and Kalimantan as vassal states attend the annual festivities in Jakarta. The population from Aceh to Irian Jaya, adept with Indonesian and Japanese. Anyways, back to the classroom.History teachers in developing countries act primarily as propagandists, it is inevitable. But if they did not, in my utopia, they’d facilitate our young to know the material through discussions.In fact, examinations should rely equally on regurgitation of facts and the interpretation of those very facts by the students. The test is part memory but also a test of reasoning.Success is rated by the extent the average student wants to acquaint with history after graduation.Greying linesMultimedia can blur lines. The current global hit film Michael is pilloried by critics and embraced by fans. The slur is that it is a whitewashing exercise of pop star Michael Jackson by omitting the avalanche of sexual allegations against him. The fans are enamoured with the entertainment and dance moves.As a movie it works, ticket purchasers are not complaining. As a biopic it crashes.So much of the analogy applies to Malaysia.The state supported historical absolutism is held up by many Malaysians. It still fills seats. It gives the thrills necessary for fans even if it avoids the inconvenient bits. But that is not sustainable.Not when the Internet lurks in the shadows.* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.