http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/world/asia/in-new-textbook-the-story-of-singapore-begins-500-years-earlier.html?hpw&rref=education&_r=0
Singapore has rewritten the history taught in secondary school to expand the story of the island state’s birth.
While earlier generations learned a narrative that essentially started in 1819 with the British colonial administrator, Sir Stamford Raffles, stumbling upon a sleepy Malay fishing village, 13-year-olds now learn of a golden age that started 500 years earlier.
The new story, introduced in January, brings into focus a 300-year period, from 1300 to 1600, when Singapore was a thriving multinational trading hub, with an estimated population of 10,000.
An education ministry official who declined to be named, in line with government policy, called the change a “shift” rather than a rewrite, saying it allowed students to “explore Singapore’s origin as a port of call and her connections to the region and the world.”
Behind the revision is the work of John N. Miksic, an American archaeology professor at the National University of Singapore, or N.U.S., who advised the government on the new school text, “Singapore: The Making of a Nation-State, 1300-1975.”
Professor Miksic has led major archaeological excavations across Southeast Asia, including a dozen in Singapore over the past 30 years that have yielded eight tons of artifacts — evidence of a precolonial history that was largely neglected until now.
One find cited in the book is a large cache of artifacts found at Empress Place, in the central business district near the mouth of the Singapore River, proof that the site was an ancient dock used by merchant traders from China, India and Java, beginning in the 14th century.
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The Javanese style of these gold ornaments is
a reminder that in the
14th century, Singapore
was under the political and cultural influence
of the kingdom of Majapahit.
The armlet bears the motif of the Javanese Kala
which can be found over the entrances of ancient
temples in Indonesia. It represents the Hindu
God of time and destruction.
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Nearby, Professor Miksic’s team found evidence of the ancient city center framed by an earthen rampart and defenses that Raffles mentioned in letters. Among 30,000 artifacts from the 14th century were Chinese coins and pottery, Indian glass bangles, and gold jewelry.
Why did it take 30 years to change the story? “It takes overwhelming evidence to shift the mind-set of a people from one image of its past to another,” Professor Miksic said in an interview at his campus laboratory.
He said Singapore still tended to consider archaeology an “unaffordable luxury. It’s a field that is still not that appealing to enough Singaporean students. There’s no money in it.”
Derek Heng, a former student who is now a history professor at the recently created Yale-N.U.S. College, called the artifacts “tactile, visual ways to look at the past and reposition Singapore in history.”
Professor Heng surmised that one reason it had taken so long to change the narrative may have been the government’s fears of communal conflict in the 1960s and ’70s.
“There was a deliberate attempt not to talk about links to the ethnicity of the past. Now we are more confident to say we were once a Malay polity cutting straight down through Asia,” Professor Heng said.
Prof. Brian Farrell, who heads the history department at N.U.S., takes Mr. Heng’s idea a step further.
“If Singapore before 1800 was a sleepy backwater, the Chinese majority could say, ‘We built Singapore; before it was a blank slate,”’ he said.
Another factor that delayed a rewriting was a 200-year period of decline, a sort of historical “black hole,” between the formerly thriving emporium and the establishment of the 19th-century British trading port, according to Kwa Chong Guan, an adjunct associate professor at N.U.S. who also advised on the textbook revisions.
“Until a connection could be made, the tons of archaeological shards Miksic excavated remained of antiquarian interest,” he said.
In 2009, the professors Kwa, Heng and Tan Tai Yong published evidence from written Malay sources that bridged the gap and put Professor Miksic’s artifacts into a larger maritime trade framework.
Their book, “Singapore: A 700-Year History — From Early Emporium To World City,” linked the port to the larger sultanate of Johor-Riau in the Strait of Malacca.
Concurrently, Peter Borschberg, also a professor at N.U.S., published another important link: Dutch and Portuguese maritime accounts and maps showed that Singapore was on European radars well before Raffles arrived.
Other factors also may help explain the timing of the rewrite. “Now is a good time,” Professor Heng said. “There’s a need to develop a collective social memory. It’s become a political issue.”
Singaporeans, he thinks, will feel more rooted if they see their early predecessors as part of a longer regional legacy, rather than a British colonial transplant.
A government white paper recently reaffirmed proposals to expand the population from 5.3 million to 6.9 million, raising hackles among those who blame inward migration for rising inflation, high home prices, crowded roads and public transport systems and a perceived lack of a level playing field in competition for top jobs.
While the government has slowed its migration plans, further inflows appear inevitable if Singapore is to remain competitive and position itself as a leading global city. Mr. Kwa argues that the rewriting of the island’s history will help citizens accept the population explosion and become more inclusive.
Professor Miksic goes a step further. “A short history puts a nation on shaky ground; a shallowly rooted place could be overturned quickly,” he said. “If you can show a long cohabitation between the Malays and the Chinese, it proves you have a pretty stable arrangement.”
this helped me in my social studies
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