The Consciousness of History in Malaysia: The Ideas on Merdeka Day in Sarawak

Abstract

For decades, the Malaysian national history is in a stable condition and not being challenged by anyone. The enhancement of national history is constantly progress through educational system starting from primary school to university level. The consciousness of national history is the foundation for the unity of the people and country development. Though, from time to time, the status quo starts to face the challenges and disputes which began with small scale and got bigger. This could trigger a national issue. Thus, this study focus on the date of Independence Day amongst Sarawak citizens. As one of the states that form the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, the history of Sarawak as a separate nation with the history of Malaysia has been detected. The consciousness of Merdeka Day for Sarawakian is more to refer to the establishment of the federation rather than the date of August 31, 1957 as the day of independent. To add, this research is to identify the level of consciousness in revising the national history amongst Sarawakian. This study also delves the understanding of “Merdeka” from Sarawakians’ point of view and discuss whether the nation history is proportionate for the Sarawakian. For the methodology, this study applies quantitative and qualitative approaches, a concurrent triangulation mixed method design. The phases of data collection are two including surveys and focus group discussions. Generally, the result shows that the Sarawakian have a new consciousness of the national history. Type of Paper: Empirical

Keywords

• Empirical