Nation-Building through Historical Narration (Papers in Autonomous Knowledge)

Nation-Building through Historical Narration in the Papers in Autonomous Knowledge, was originally presented at the First International Malaysian Studies Conference in 1997, organized by University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. In this paper, the author examines the provisional, relative and plural perspectives in historical writings and calls for pondering over the nation’s collective memory in a critical and comparative way. History, like nation-building, is a construct. It can be used as part of the national agenda to build a nation. History textbooks then become an important and effective apparatus for creating a shared narrative for citizens. As a result, one cannot divorce history as a subject in the national curriculum from the national political agenda.