Did You Know?
Singapore’s history as we all have been taught, seem to begin when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles set foot on our sunny shores. The other origin that we have been led to read and eventually disbelieve is that Sang Nila Utama (some ancient mythic king) was the one who named Singapore. The authenticity of such claims is never fully examined by most because that story has always been packaged and presented as a myth. I mean, how exactly do you account for raging storms that seem soothed by the throwing of a crown into the sea? Boy, that crown must have been really heavy is it had actually caused a ship (or boat) to sink. Sang Nila Utama must truly have had a very strong neck!
Another point of contention would be the whole storm thing when Sang Nila Utama crossed the seas towards Temasek. I’m sure dozens of other boats and ships must have crossed the seas, why was there no raging storm for them? Why did the Sea King specifically pick on his own descendant’s boat and leave other boats free? Does that mean that he knew that it was his descendant crossing the seas and that being old and rather mean, he just wanted his crown back? The crown was supposedly found among the treasures of King Solomon, after all. Even powerful, mythical Sea Kings can get greedy. Obviously, I’m committing an incredible number of fallacies and making personal judgments against others but so what?
Naturally, given the rather dubious characteristics of our early founding stories, Sir Stamford Raffles can then be clearly and doubtlessly hailed as the founder and Singapore’s history can happily begin in January 1819 and not anytime earlier than that. It saves most of us the dreary task of plowing through even more books in order to discover our past. Most countries do it anyway. History is always revised such that we study the most recent of happenings and neatly keep anything that came before that away or in the case of NLB, in the Repository Used branch of its truly incredible network of books. Or else, you could be more extreme and start burning books which is not uncommon if you were to study Chinese history. How else would you account for the “Dark Ages” that no one seem to be able to explain fully?
With time, almost everything becomes shrouded in myths as people (yes, people like you and me) come up with their own notions of what happened. Most times, facts and fiction become interwoven resulting in myths. From the mighty Hercules(or Heracles) in Greek mythology to the great Hang Tuah of Melaka, stories abound regaling in the glories of great, superhuman heroes and the blackest of villains. In a way, selective amnesia actually makes history all the more interesting, no? The epics that we have read are mostly loaded with incredulous acts that as a rationale and skeptical community of people, we choose to label as myths. However, aren’t these incredulous acts the very reason why we read and enjoy the myths to begin with? Hence, in a weird, warped way, we really got to thank the narrow-minded tyrants of the past. Thank you for shrouding certain parts of the past within a dark veil. To aspiring tyrants, if you ever have to resort to hiding something, leave a couple of clues behind so that future generations can get all excited and at least have some areas to base their speculations on.
Lest you think I’m propagating tyranny, let me say once and for all that I do not! I do not particularly like Hitler or Stalin or even Qin Shih Huang for that matter. Obviously, these folks had addled minds. Come on, one had an obsession with everything Aryan even though he didn’t seem to be one, another had agoraphobia while the last was obsessed with immortality, which interestingly enough led to his eventual demise. But, having said that, it must be noted that they too had their strengths, which would explain why they managed to rise to power. Actually, that is what scares me – the fact that these obviously disturbed people had the talent to and eventually did climb the ladder of power and cause a massive load of destruction in order to fulfill their personal ambitions. Worrying, isn’t it?
Oh well, I’ve digressed, haven’t I?
Singapore’s history as we all have been taught, seem to begin when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles set foot on our sunny shores. The other origin that we have been led to read and eventually disbelieve is that Sang Nila Utama (some ancient mythic king) was the one who named Singapore. The authenticity of such claims is never fully examined by most because that story has always been packaged and presented as a myth. I mean, how exactly do you account for raging storms that seem soothed by the throwing of a crown into the sea? Boy, that crown must have been really heavy is it had actually caused a ship (or boat) to sink. Sang Nila Utama must truly have had a very strong neck!
Another point of contention would be the whole storm thing when Sang Nila Utama crossed the seas towards Temasek. I’m sure dozens of other boats and ships must have crossed the seas, why was there no raging storm for them? Why did the Sea King specifically pick on his own descendant’s boat and leave other boats free? Does that mean that he knew that it was his descendant crossing the seas and that being old and rather mean, he just wanted his crown back? The crown was supposedly found among the treasures of King Solomon, after all. Even powerful, mythical Sea Kings can get greedy. Obviously, I’m committing an incredible number of fallacies and making personal judgments against others but so what?
Naturally, given the rather dubious characteristics of our early founding stories, Sir Stamford Raffles can then be clearly and doubtlessly hailed as the founder and Singapore’s history can happily begin in January 1819 and not anytime earlier than that. It saves most of us the dreary task of plowing through even more books in order to discover our past. Most countries do it anyway. History is always revised such that we study the most recent of happenings and neatly keep anything that came before that away or in the case of NLB, in the Repository Used branch of its truly incredible network of books. Or else, you could be more extreme and start burning books which is not uncommon if you were to study Chinese history. How else would you account for the “Dark Ages” that no one seem to be able to explain fully?
With time, almost everything becomes shrouded in myths as people (yes, people like you and me) come up with their own notions of what happened. Most times, facts and fiction become interwoven resulting in myths. From the mighty Hercules(or Heracles) in Greek mythology to the great Hang Tuah of Melaka, stories abound regaling in the glories of great, superhuman heroes and the blackest of villains. In a way, selective amnesia actually makes history all the more interesting, no? The epics that we have read are mostly loaded with incredulous acts that as a rationale and skeptical community of people, we choose to label as myths. However, aren’t these incredulous acts the very reason why we read and enjoy the myths to begin with? Hence, in a weird, warped way, we really got to thank the narrow-minded tyrants of the past. Thank you for shrouding certain parts of the past within a dark veil. To aspiring tyrants, if you ever have to resort to hiding something, leave a couple of clues behind so that future generations can get all excited and at least have some areas to base their speculations on.
Lest you think I’m propagating tyranny, let me say once and for all that I do not! I do not particularly like Hitler or Stalin or even Qin Shih Huang for that matter. Obviously, these folks had addled minds. Come on, one had an obsession with everything Aryan even though he didn’t seem to be one, another had agoraphobia while the last was obsessed with immortality, which interestingly enough led to his eventual demise. But, having said that, it must be noted that they too had their strengths, which would explain why they managed to rise to power. Actually, that is what scares me – the fact that these obviously disturbed people had the talent to and eventually did climb the ladder of power and cause a massive load of destruction in order to fulfill their personal ambitions. Worrying, isn’t it?
Oh well, I’ve digressed, haven’t I?
2 Responses to "digressing"
Leave a Reply
You must be referring to the Sejarah Melayu. It would have been wonderful had the Singapura mentioned in Sejarah Melayu been conclusively proven to be the Singapore we know today. However, one of the main reasons why these ancient tales are not taken seriously is because of the mythical elements that surround them. It's hard to really say if there were indeed 5 kings etc. Yes, the Malay Annals tell us that but how reliable are the Malay Annals? Perhaps, you could do an indepth study of the Malay regions and their history and thus, provide a better perspective?
Well, it might be interesting for you to note that the compilation of tales for the Malay Annals was commissioned by the British. Anyway, most ancient tales have rather, erm, extraordinary twists to them, be it from Malaya, Greece or Japan. For the latter, you might want to refer to the Kojiki (and I'm not talking about Kitaro's musical composition although it was inspired by the actual tale contained in the Kojiki). I think the essence of history is to extract the undertones that exist within these "legends" and seek the kind of values and systems the people of that particular time had.