IN the infamy of the May 13, 1969, riots, some historical narratives have blamed an economically muscular minority group as the flint igniting the already inflammable pool of grievances.
However, the precious acts of courage shown by affected races may have faded into obscurity.
Did history officially record how a minority group's family invited a neighbour of a different race and religion into their home to shelter from the rampaging mob? And how the same gesture was reciprocated in reversed domains? Another minority group had been systematically walled in old colonists' estates for a long time, and their progenies had struggled slavishly to flee indigence.
Their indomitable stoicism has vastly contributed to the development of not only their own kind, but the nation and its people as a whole. Another marginalised group is the courageous Orang Asli.
Theirs is a simmering tragedy of native land pilferage, desecration of sacred burial sites and, appallingly, living a life that is heavily dependent on handouts. But they have emerged from penury with their younger generation joining the ranks of top scorers in the academic world, besides making the nation proud, most recently in the prestigious University College London in the United Kingdom.
Will our history place them forthrightly or consign them as a footnote? Putting context in historical storytelling have been exemplary, but unfortunately, little provisions for prime time acceptance.
However, negligently obscuring their participation and effect in national development, or even in acts of gallantry and patriotism, is an intellectual sacrilege at best. Take a look at the Native Americans for context.
Mainstream history has been docile, even hostile, in transcribing the plight of the marginalised. But we wreak our lull of this enigma by, in startling frequency, the persistent egging of our scholar monarch, Sultan of Perak Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah. Lately, he implored historians to research and write a truthful sequence of events, covering views of marginalised communities and push back unscrupulous manipulation. His golden nugget: "...they often exclude topics and events that the writer feels might cause contemporary and local historical unease... questioning existing perspectives, robustly use all sources of evidence, is essential..." Touché! His pivotal idea: in a war, militarily or otherwise, do not allow victors to monopolise future historical inscriptions.
However, even in his optimism, Sultan Nazrin will understand that according history its powerful accountability is remorselessly hard. But this one takes the cake: reimagining black slavery centuries before the American Civil War, instructed benignly as the "critical race theory", or simply put, telling history as it really is. This profound rethink of American colonialism's systemic annihilation of natives and peoples of colour has sparked a biased backlash prohibiting its teaching.
Alas, space in this leader is inflexible. We love to annotate the predicaments of vulnerable groups, which are usually left unheard in the background. Their day will come.