When the bak kut teh dish was announced by the National Heritage Department, Malays from politicians, professors and graduates began to question.

The Perikatan Nasional people, of course, wanted to create a Melayu-Islam issue.

Surprisingly, they were also backed by the leader of Umno Youth, Dr. Akmal.

What were the points of contention raised by these Melayu tempurung people of Malaysia?

The first concern was of course related to Islam, that bak kut teh is a “babi” dish.

I am purposely being vulgar for this is to me the stupidest and most vulgar issue.

Secondly, and this is the more serious issue that the dish cannot be considered “warisan” because it does not have a long root in history.

These critics were implying that since the Chinese were “pendatang” of only two hundred years or so, they cannot claim as “warisan” to this land.

A third criticism is saying that bak kut teh can be pronounced as “warisan kaum Cina” but not of Malaysia.

Such a simple issue shows such depths of mistrust, disunity and selfish ignorance on the concept of history, politics and nation-building by politicians and professors.

Firstly, as a Muslim, all I can say to my fellow Muslims about bak kut teh is: Janganlah makan. Tiada siapa suruh kamu makan.

Why must all things warisan or heritage to Malaysia must tiptoe around Islam?

Tanah Melayu was said to have had Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms thousands of years ago. We had the Langkasuka Kingdom, the Srivijaya Kingdom, the Majapahit Kingdom, the Funan Kingdom, The Chi-Tu Kingdom and so many Indian-sounding names to reel of twenty more.

Where do we get off letting Islam govern our sense of warisan?

The Jawi script is as warisan as the pallava script. The Malay language spoken 1,000 years ago is incomprehensible to most Malay citizens of this country.

Never mind that. I can’t understand a damn thing the Kelantanese people say if they talk in their pekat dialect.

Similarly, my children could not make out what I say when I cakap Utara. 

So, what’s the beef? Is our warisan the age of Islam or our warisan goes further than that?

I hear that there is bak kut teh in Singapore prepared by Chinese Muslims as a halal dish. 

Bak kut teh, for the sake of ignorant professors, simply means a meat bone dish, thus it can be made from any meat product of beef, chicken or others.

There is also one variety that has no meat at all for vegetarians who do not take meat. Apa masalah?

Secondly, the idea that people who are pendatang like the Indians and the Chinese coming with the influx of indentured laborers and the rise of tin-mining negates the presence of Laksamana Cheng Ho and his entourage as well as Princess Hang Li Po.

It was acknowledged by Professor Khairuddin al-Juneid in his book about Malaysia’s history that it was Chen Ho who prevented the whole of Tanah Melayu from being conquered and dominated by the Siamese Kingdom.

Islam would probably have not survived in that environment at all.

Similarly, Chinese new villages saved Malaysia from becoming a slave to Communist China a short time ago.

Thirdly, with the formation of Malaysia, we must all embrace every tribe, ethnic group or religious faith as our own history and warisan.

It is sad to find Malay professors seating comfortably in their positions accepting fat salaries from the taxes of orang kafir dan bukan Islam, and yet these professors are proponents of racial and religious disharmony from their pittance of knowledge on Islam and history as well as their selfish hearts of ” me against the other.”

I have said many times in my writings and speeches that we must train a new group of academics, teachers and graduates that all our history belongs to all of us!

We have to teach the new generation all that we were and all that we once were, as well as all that we are now are us and belong to all of us.

There is no “them” anymore. There is only “us.”

When we discriminate against others not of our tribe, we are tribal thinkers like the old nomads and primitive societies of the past.

According to young Jewish historian-scholar Yuval Noah Harari, Homo sapiens began to dominate the Earth because of some things they possessed which animals could not: the idea of a shared history, a shared vision, and a shared purpose across tribal instincts of survival.

Homo sapiens could have a common idea of good life and a common idea of survival. That is why they could amass together to beat the strongest mammoth, saber tooth tigers and Megalodons of the sea.

A nation is the same. It is an idea of a common destiny wrought from a common and shared warisan or history that will determine the stability and resolve of its people as a single force to a civil or a madani society.

But if Malay professors start dividing the nation into lu, lu punya hal, and gua, gua punya pasal, then let us not blame politicians anymore and train our guns on those teaching our children in schools and universities.

Before this issue, I thought politicians would destroy our country, but now I think the bigger culprits could be selfish teachers in our universities.

(Prof Dr. Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at a local university and his writing reflects his own personal opinion entirely.)