Roman-Malay boat-building controversy: A disservice to education

RECENTLY, an academic faced backlash for claiming that the ancient Romans learned shipbuilding from the Malays. More troubling than the evident lack of historical evidence or the issues of authority, credibility, and institutional harm that this claim engenders is an underlying educational and social problem. It is possibly a far more dangerous problem, one that if left unaddressed may trigger the emergence of an uncritical society in Malaysia.

The claim in question, which is by all accounts a fake history that hinges on ideological assertion, is directly at odds with the country's educational policy of fostering critical thinking skills among the younger generation. We must ask what happens if students begin to find pseudohistory more sensational and, in some contexts, more compelling than actual history itself?