If we take a look at the history of China, the Mongolians led by Genghis Khan had conquered a substantial part of China and subsequently Kublai Khan was the Mongolian emperor that established the Yuan dynasty and ruled China for almost 100 years. While the Mongolians were then defeated by the original Han people and the new dynasty of Ming was ruling the country for another 276 years before Manchurian Qing dynasty came into existence for another 270 years.The Mongolians and Manchurians were non-Han Chinese and they actually have their own languages and writings which exist even until today. They however had adopted the rich culture of the Chinese and its language as a medium to rule and administer the country. Inter-marriages and integration over the many hundred of years had blurred the identities of these people of different races and ethnic origins. So much so that now it is hard to tell whether there is any Monglian or Manchurian blood in me or any other Chinese!
Many had travelled to Beijing of China and witnessed Great Wall as an awesone and one of the greatest wonders of the world. One could even see the wall structure dotting the earth surface from the moon or from photos sent back via satellites. The Great Wall was built with the purpose to defend its territory especially in the northern region from the constant attacks and invasion from the tribes that lived along its wide boundaries of its border. It is almost unthinkable if not hard to imagine how these Mongolians and Manchurians, who were just nomadic tribes on horses living in the arid, half desert infertile pasture lands of the north could break through this gigantic, tall and strong wall barrier and conquer a land of that size inhabited with more advanced civilization. It is equally puzzling for me trying to understand how Israel as an isolated little country surrounded by the Arab nations could ever win the 1948 Independent war and the 6 days war in 1967. People said history repeats itself and it did in all other parts of the world but just in different forms and ways! History seems to be governed by a hidden hand at work! We could only witness, and wonder why it happened that way which very often we found it beyond our human understanding!
The rise and fall of a nation or empire is always the norm in the course of time. We used to have the Great Britain empire that colonized the Commonwealth countries and now we are living in an era where America continues to lead in this new world order after the Cold War. We would not know when the turn of events will take place that a nation would be toppled or weakened and makes way for new upcoming stronger nation or nations block that would eventually take over the helm.
If you are historian, it would not surprise you that Japan as a super-power in 1940s started its expansive ambition to conquer this part of the world, the event unfold itself seems to conform to the pattern of historical norm. It is just part and parcel of the phenomenon of "rise and fall of empires" in the process of forming part of our world history. But in this case, we called that aggression instead! Think of it from a different perspective if that could make you feel better; imagine if Japanese were ever able to successfully conquer China and rule them for 100 years or so, by adopting the Chinese culture and language and be wholesomely integrated as one nation as what the Mongolians and Manchurians had done, then we would have a "Jap" dynasty in China instead. If history ever repeated itself in this manner, then perhaps we could not even differentiate ourselves whether we are the Chinese or Japanese in our blood! So what is the difference between aggression and integration?
It seems to me that it could only be one side of the coin, either it is an aggression or an integration and there is no in between. When it is regarded as an aggression, hatred follows and conflicts, massacres, rapes or comfort women etc. would always be the topics that we read in the newspaper over and over again even many years after the war was over.
Taking the world history as a valuable lesson perhaps we Malaysians could learn to adopt the more intergrative approach of nation building. Using one common language, encouraging inter-marriages without imposing constraints or restriction of religions etc. In this way, could we build a better and more integrative 1Malaysia?
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