ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the commemoration of World War Two (1942–45) in the Malaysian state of Perak since the nation's independence in 1957. Drawing on his analysis of local public museums, and on interviews conducted with state officials and ordinary Perakians, Muzaini analyzes official efforts to, as he puts it, “postcolonialize” Malaysia's wartime past, in an effort to make it resonate with the post-independence agenda of constructing a coherent and independent Malaysian identity. He highlights how these official representations of the war have been criticized by local Perakians as partial or biased. The chapter more broadly demonstrates how the task of “postcolonializing” history is necessarily an incomplete one, but especially so where there remains a clear impulse to privilege certain groups in memory-making at the expense of others.
