Whose History is it Anyway?

The recent outcry over the destruction of an ancient temple in the Bujang Valley, and revelations in The Star newspaper of illegal sales of national heritage puts a spotlight on how we as a society view history. And controversy sparks a long-standing polemic about state-sponsored history in Malaysia, what it celebrates as central and what it marginalizes. Much of the on-going polemic feeds into anxieties about the erasure of non-Muslim – including pre-Islamic – histories. But what do these contests of the ownership of history miss?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.