Before you quote history

History is a subject which many look upon as an arts subject in the secondary and tertiary education systems. Those in the primary school level learned about historical background of certain place or personalities in the local studies subject. Many always made the mistake of saying 'history repeats itself".

Does history "repeats" itself? The incidence might be similiar but the characters and location would have changed. Furthermore, the most important fact about history which will never repeats itself is time. No matter how similiar the incident, time of occurence will never be the same. While I am keying in these words, the previous sentences already history. Time passes while we take every breath.

When we try to quote a part of history to justifies our arguments or actions, we need to take cognisance that others will quote many other historical facts to counter our points. History itself has been challenged with history. How far back we want to trace the historical background of certain matter? Yesterday, last year, one decade, one century, ten centuries or to the Bronze Age?

The Ahmad Ismail saga on his racial statement which is considered demeaning the Chinese in Malaysia as immigrants will not see any early ending soon. By justifying his racial statement with historical background based on the colonial period will surely attracts rebuttal from others who will also quote historical facts. The question is which period of time one refers to when claiming a certain race or community is an immigrant or original inhabitants?

Can we based on a scientific guideline or proofs that can safely anointed any individual as the original inhabitants of a land? Basing on a timeline, how long does it take to declare a person as original inhabitants if the person migrates from other places? Ten years, 100 years, 1,000 years, 10,000 years or more?

Can we consider the Perak Man, an 11,000 years old human skeletal remains which was discovered in 1991 in Lenggong, Perak as an original inhabitant. If that is so, how many Malaysians are actually the descendant of Perak Man?- Loka