Ramai orang tak suka mata pelajaran sejarah masa kat sekolah dulu, malah berbangga2 pula bila fail subjek sejarah. I on the other hand have always been fascinated by history. Masa kecik2 dulu, baca buku2 teks sejarah arwah atuk aku (dulunya che'gu besar di kg bapak ku) kat kampung tu akan membuatkan aku berangan berada dalam filem P. Ramlee, pakai baju melayu lama, tanjak dan kris, masuk istana mengadap sultan, dayang2 menari di taman istana, todak melanggar Singapura or kalau sejarah peradaban dunia, berangan kita berada di zaman Rome dengan mitos dewa-dewinya, zaman Cleopatra dengan piramid2 dan firaunnya, zaman kegemilangan Babylon dengan Hanging Gardennya, malah sejarah Islam pun tak kurang menariknya. I like to be immersed in these stories of the past... but now it should have a higher purpose: to look back, learn from mistakes and move forward.

"When in 1957 we became independent the population was only five million. Even after 1963 when Sabah and Sarawak joined the Peninsula to form Malaysia the population was only slightly more than six million. Today Malaysia's population is 27 million. Obviously most Malaysians were born after 1957-1963. Meaning to say they had not known anything but being free, being independent, being ruled by their fellow countrymen.

History is not a compulsory subject in our schools. If at all history is taught it is sketchy, not really giving a clear picture of what it was like to be ruled by foreigners, by the British, the Japanese and in some cases the Thais. I am not trying to say that those who lived under colonial rule are more appreciative of independence, although that is basically true. But what we should all be concerned with is that we appreciate our independence and our freedom more, whatever may be our political leanings.

Is it wrong for us to look back on the past? Some think it is irrelevant. That was before, this is now. Don't tell us all those stories about the struggles of people gone by. We have always been independent. All our life we have been independent. But I think we should know where we came from. Otherwise we would not know which way we should go. We may think we are going forward when in fact we are going backward, back to where we started. We would not be making progress.

I am pleading for the teaching of history. George Santayana, an American philosopher once said; "Those who forget the lessons of history will be condemned to repeat their mistakes over and over again", or words to that effect.

How do we know we are not repeating our mistakes now if we do not know of our mistakes in the past.

We need to know.

We need to know how we came to be colonized.

We need to know how we barely managed to escape from being a Communist state.

We need to know how our Rulers were forced to surrender their states to the British. We need to know how the British were forced to rescind the MacMichael treaties. And so on, and so forth.

Somewhere along we would recognize the mistakes we had made. And knowing them we would be better able to avoid making them again. Our country would continue to grow and prosper.

The independent generations have enjoyed the independent country they inherited. Surely they would want their children and grandchildren to inherit the same. And this they can ensure by knowing the history of this beloved country and the mistakes of the past."

He couldn't have said that better and I couldn't agree more.

Aku tergerak nak buat entry ni sebab as I was about to do the next entry on our trip to Cambodia, I did some reading on Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge (yeah yeah I'm too free at the office). It's good to learn stuffs when we're on a vacation, not just splurge on shopping or lazing around in spas. Jauh perjalanan, luas pemandangan.

Anyway, it was shocking to know that Cambodia have in fact achieved independence 4 years earlier than Malaysia and yet they have plunged into near stone-age era in the 70s with almost 2 million innocent citizens killed. Their communist ideology at that time was "Year Zero", meaning literally starting over from zero::They believed the uneducated peasants working in the countrysides are the real working class men , they would be obedient and could not read or write let alone have revolutionary ideas and they should work hard together to share the Agrarian wealth self-sufficiently (meaning to say nak jadi negara yang 100% komunis asas tani & mengamalkan dasar tutup pintu), no businesses, no tradings etc. As for the others, as their proverb put it, "To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss." So all educated, working class and professional citizens (and their families as well for fear of having the smart genes can you believe that?) were executed brutally. Bullets were to be saved, babies and small children were swung against tree trunks, men and women beaten to death with iron bars and hoes.

How it is that humans are able to do these is beyond my comprehension.

When I look back at Tun's entry, I wonder what would happen if we did not manage to escape fom being a Communist state.

Now that's a scary thought.

Syukur, alhamdulillah.

Selepas 3 hari weols berada di tanah asal kerajaan silam Angkor, it's time to say goodbye to the temples uols... so selepas say goodbye & sesi foto beramai2 bersama crew2 Golden Banana yang mesra alam itiew weols pun bergegas ke stesen bas untuk ke Phnom Penh, ibu negara Cambodia:

Hi uols... sampailah kita di hari yang ketiga pengembaraan weols di Siem Reap. Having had enough of temples and ancient history (rasanya kalau nampak lagi satu temple je lagi muntah darah kot), today weols ventured more into the cultural side of Siem Reap & the locals around the Tonle Sap basin.

Ya anak2, kita sambung pengembaraan kita di kerajaan silam Angkor pada petang hari yang kedua dengan:

Banteay Kdei

Kalau ikut orang Sarawak, bantey ni maksudnya bantai/pukul... tapi kat sini ia adalah sebuah temple katenyer. Nok wiki, komen sikit plisss?:

"Banteay Kdei is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia. It is located southeast of Ta Prohm and east of Angkor Thom. Built in the late 12th to early 13th centuries CE during the reign of Jayavarman VII, it is a Buddhist temple in the Bayon style, similar in plan to Ta Prohm and Preah Khan, but less complex and smaller. Its structures are contained within two successive enclosure walls, and consist of two concentric galleries from which emerge towers, preceded to the east by a cloister. This monastic complex is currently dilapidated due to faulty construction and poor quality sandstone. Banteay Kdei has been occupied by monks at various intervals over the centuries, but the inscription stone has never been discovered so it is unknown to whom the temple is dedicated."

Dah dekat 3 minggu berlalu, aku baru terhegeh-hegeh nak bercerita pasal Earth Hour ni. Kebetulan Bro Zam from KFK ada di KL masa hari Earth Hour tu & aku pun dah janji nak bawak dia "menembak" kat Putrajaya. Since urusan kami masing-masing habis lewat, jadi kitorang gerak ke Putrajaya pun agak lewat and tak banyak tempat yang sempat dilawati. Sempat "menembak" kat jambatan je... tak ingat pulak apa namanya jambatan ni.