Nationalizing a ‘Malaysian’ conflict : konfrontasi in Singapore’s history textbooks, 1966-2015

• Main Author: Ling, Clement An
• Other Authors: Goh Geok Yian
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Humanities::History
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/137447
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

History education is used to promote a sense of nationalism and patriotism among students. In this paper, I analyze how the state’s socio-political agendas have influenced the treatment of the Indonesian Confrontation (1963-1966) in secondary school history textbooks in Singapore. This research reveals how the state has gradually incorporated the Indonesian Confrontation as part of its nationalistic narrative in the history education curriculum during the late 1990s. Before 1999, there was no emphasis on the Indonesian Confrontation in textbooks about Singapore’s history and it continued to be studied only as part of Malaysian history because the state sought to preserve friendly bilateral relations with Indonesia. After 1999, state anxieties about declining support for National Service and diplomatic tensions with Indonesia and Malaysia prompted the state leaders to modify the history syllabus to include the Indonesian Confrontation in the curriculum. The Indonesian Confrontation was therefore harnessed as part of the state’s survivalist discourse to remind students that Singapore’s security cannot be taken for granted. As such this research is an important contribution to the scholarship as it examines how state hegemony and interstate relations shape the production of historical knowledge and discursive formations in the history education curriculum.