'There is no history, only fictions of varying degrees of plausibility,' so said Voltaire

I don't understand why there is an issue with the Japanese and how they teach history. After all, we do the same to some extent with our own history. I am not a large fan of our history as a subject but I'd just like to bring up one small part of it: the assassination of JWW Birch .

Instead of being labelled his murderer, Dato' Maharaja Lela was hailed as a hero. He, after all disagreed with the way Perak was run by the British. It was an atrocious an act, but he being hailed as a hero is also a form of rewriting history.

Some might argue it is nothing compared to what Japan is doing, but it's still a case of the pot calling the kettle black - to me. Maybe the pot isn't as black, I don't really know.

I am sure there are many other examples where we wrote our own history but unfortunately all those years 'memorising' history in secondary school has amounted to nothing.

Maybe a student who is capable of looking past what was force fed to him might be able to share some examples. What I learnt, of course, is invaluable, but exams aren't about what you've learnt in 'Sejarah'.