History and Militarism: My Favourite Subjects.

People! It is undoubtedly true that these 2 are my favourite topics. Why? Haha.. many people especially my friends and my colleagues might wonder why I love these 2 so much, right? Haha.. they maybe consider me as weird person or some sort of freaking people. Haha.. just let them to say whatever they want. Judgment from first impression doesn’t mean anything or the real thing. By then, let me tell my reasons of why I love these 2 subjects so much till to this day.

Hmm… I realize that many people dislike history because they claim history is boring as it just consists of collection of old stories and facts alongside with important dates and years. Because of this many people dislike history. Even during my schooling era, many of my fellow friends had claimed of disliking history subject. Same reason as I mentioned before, history requires memorization in order to master it well. However since they already dislike history and to certain extend that some of them may even hate it, imagine how can they are going to understand and master it well? Remember, in Malay phrase, “ tak kenal maka tak cinta” or in English if we don’t know something how can we are going to love it? What I mean here is that they don’t know what actually history is. In contrast, that is not the case. They know what history is. By then, what is the tiptoeing problem? The real problem here is mindset. They always think that history is a boring thing and they often reinforce their mind with that. They often consider history subject as difficult and they never even try at least to view it positively. That’s the main reason why many people dislike history subject and often failed on it. Another thing to note is many history teachers in school don’t know how to improve their way of teaching the subject. They often teach the subject by the same lame way every time causing the decrease interest of their students on it. They just read the fact from textbook every time causing students to feel bored and sleepy at the end. What is needed here is they need to find interesting way how to teach history interactively so that students will like it. For example, they simply can tell the fact by storytelling method instead of reading it directly from textbook. This, at least can break the linear way of teaching history.

Enough with the discussion. Back to the main topic. I like history because I think history is like a story. Yeah, story of the past. And I like reading story since child because it is interesting. I like to imagine that I’m there in the story. I like to imagine how the world would be in the story. So as history. I like to imagine how the world was in the past. The world of the past is totally different from today. Imagine how was our country would be 100 years ago? Surely 100 percent different from today. Even 10 years ago our country was different from nowadays. That difference is the interested part for me. I don’t know since when I started to like history but I think it is when I was in Primary 4, when I learnt “Kajian Tempatan” subject. I don’t sure what the subject is called in English. (Maybe, it can be called as ‘Local Study’) In this subject, there is a brief element of history. When the first time I read about the history of Malacca Sultanate, I quickly fall in love in history. That moment when I was around 10 years old. Since that moment on, I love history subject. When I was in secondary school, from form 1 to form 5, I never fail in history subject even once. Usually, I got A and sometimes B. While I scored well in the subject, most of my fellow friends were struggling themselves with it. Alhamdulillah, I simply got no problem at all with history subject except that it needs more revision and a little bit of memorization.

Regarding since when I like war and militarism, I simply can’t remember that. What I know, I like history about war. I don’t know why. I like to read encyclopedia especially about history of war. In school, whenever I’ve chance of entering library, I will always seek for encyclopedia and history related books. I’m truly interested about that subject. Even today, when I enters library, I still do the same except that sometimes I also will seek religious books. My interest in history especially in war plus with my interest of playing war related games (Red Alert & Call of Duty for instance) causing me to like militarism as well. Call of Duty & Medal of Honor brought me an interest toward weaponry especially the small arms (Pistol, Rifle, SMG & MG). All these caused me to fall in love with the art of war. However, I ‘m not war monger person as I dislike violence. Hey, I’m not such aggressive minded people though I love the art of war. I just like the art of it but I simply hate its negative consequences (devastation, man-slaughter, war attrition and massacre). Who likes war? Nobody likes war except those who are greed of power, wealth and glory. War brings more bad than good. Alhamdulillah, I born and live in a peaceful country. No conflict, no violence, no discrimination and no injustice.

Even though I like militarism, but in reality I’m not that fanatic. Some people even told me “why don’t you involve in military or police if you like militarism? Hahaha..the answer is I simply not that fit to become a soldier or police. I’m not that sporty person. Plus, I hate military discipline and marching in the open of blazing sun. In addition, in military the religious aspect is somehow not stressed at all. I’ve heard that soldiers in duty (especially in jungle) rarely got chance to perform solat (I’m not that sure about this. But I heard this from other people). Furthermore, I also heard that soldiers sometimes take alcoholic drinks during duty (to relief stress I think) and these drinks are also served in formal military occasion. For your information, our military is influenced by Western military culture. Thus, no wonder the religious aspect is somehow viewed less in the military. (However I don’t know whether this situation already changed or not) Due to these reasons, I’m not interested at all to join the military.

In my point of view, war and history can’t be separated. Why? Without war no peace or justice can be achieved. (You have right to disagree this) In war, there must be 2 factions, the good and the bad. Either the good or the bad will win, that matter relies in God’s hand. Eventually, the good will win at last no matter how strong the bad is because ALLAH always supports the good. People may think what the heck people like to wage war against each other? Why don’t just live in peace together as we humans are just the same one to another? Why? If the Satan and demon still exist, there still will be jealousy, greed (of power, wealth, status, glory) and hatred. These 3 things are the main cause of rivalry and rivalry is the main trigger of all wars (mostly). By then people may ask, “Why must these 3 evil things do exist in the world though they just bring badness and destruction to humankind?” The answer is that is God’s wish. Don’t question that. That’s the work of ALLAH. There must be reason why war exists in humankind. Eh, I think I should discuss this in my another blog! No matter, just a piece of extra knowledge.

Wah, I think I talked too much already for this post. Enough by then. Ok people, in later posts I will include and discuss about history (mainly about war), militarism and weaponry of my favourites. That’s all for now. Until we meet again, I hope everybody will be in good condition. If ALLAH allows me, then more I will include later on. Insya-ALLAH.