Light’s out on Penang founder

To me Captain Francis Light is the founder of Penang. In all my years in primary school, poring over the history text books, this was the fact that was drilled into my head - that Brit Captain Francis Light founded Penang in 1786.

Now, we have local academics throwing in other names as well as the real founder of the island. Names that I have not heard about before this - names like Datuk Keramat who is to have founded the Pearl of the Orient in 1705 and Datuk Jannaton who had founded the island in 1749.

Local academics are now fighting as to who should get the honour of finding the island. However the consensus is that it was not Captain Light.

Now the Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministry is willing to conduct a study to get to the bottom of this. It is to held a special conference to discuss and investigate the latest claims.

Meanwhile, the cake must go to another prominent local academic Kassim Ahmad who said that:

"Only those who do not know history will argue that Francis Light is the founder of the island."

He says our history books are littered by "with lies, prejudice and twisted facts". I guess all these while we were taught pure lies in school.

Who was it that said that history is written by the victors. Thus far we have been inoculated with the British version. Now looks like the academics want us to believe in the history written by the present rulers.

I don’t see any difference in either - only that the latest chapters will have the current victors versions.