Sejarah Awam, Pemikiran dan Aktivisme Omar Mohd Hashim (Public History, Thought and Activism of Omar Mohd Hashim)

Abstract

Sejarah Awam (Public History) sebuah konsep baharu di Malaysia. Namun secara praktisnya, fenomena yang dirujuk sebagai ‘Sejarah Awam’ bukan hal asing di negara ini. Ia telah lama berkembang semenjak era penulisan hikayat lagi. Dalam hal ini, fenomena tersebut boleh dikatakan sekadar ‘baharu’ menemukan landasan heuristik. Artikel ini cuba menghujah serta mempertahankan usulan di atas secara konseptual dan empirikal melalui gandingan konsep Sejarah Awam dengan keprihatinan Allahyarham Tan Sri (Dr.) Omar Mohd Hashim ke atas fenomenanya sebelum ia ditakrif sebagai ‘Sejarah Awam.’ Analisis memfokuskan dua perkara. Pertama, pemikiran sejarah Omar dan kedua, aktivisme beliau bersama organisasi pimpinannya, Persatuan Sejarah Malaysia. Fokus perbincangan ini bukan sahaja untuk memprofilkan pemikiran dan aktivisme Omar, tetapi juga memperlihatkan Sejarah Awam dalam bentuk fenomena telah muncul lebih awal sebelum ia dikonseptualisasikan. Hal ini penting bagi mengimbangi beberapa penulisan terdahulu, yang seolah-olah melihat fenomena ‘Sejarah Awam’ hanya muncul setelah konsepnya diartikulasikan secara formal. Artikel ini bersifat argumentatif dengan menggunakan kaedah analisis kandungan ke atas data primer, temubual dan juga bahan sekunder. Penemuan artikel ini adalah, dalam kes Malaysia, meskipun konsep ‘Sejarah Awam’ muncul lebih terkemudian, namun keprihatinan ke atas fenomenanya telah wujud semenjak sekian lama.

ABSTRACT

‘Public History’ is a new concept in Malaysia. Practically, the phenomenon referred  as 'Public History' is not novel in this country. It has been developing for a long time since the era of traditional historical writing. In this case, the phenomenon can be simply said as a 'new' finding on a heuristic basis. This article tries to argue and defend the above proposal, conceptually and empirically through the coupling of the concept of Public History and the concern of the late Tan Sri (Dr.) Omar Mohd Hashim on the phenomenon before it was defined as 'Public History.' The analysis focuses on two things. First, Omar’s historical thought and second, his activism with Persatuan Sejarah Malaysia (PSM). The focus of this discussion is not only to profile Omar's thoughts and activism, but also to show Public History in the form of a phenomenon that has appeared earlier before it was conceptualized. This is important to neutralize some previous writings, which seemed to see the phenomenon of 'Public History' only appearing after the concept has been formally articulated. This article is argumentative by using content analysis methods on primary data, interviews and also secondary materials. The finding of this article is that in the case of Malaysia, although the concept of 'Public History' appeared later, the concern over the phenomenon has existed for a long time.