I refer to the news report by Nash Rahman relating Professor Firdaus's concern on the publication of Chin Peng's memoirs which the latter wrote in his weekly column in Utusan Malaysia.

I am no reader of Utusan Malaysia but going by Nash Rahman's report, I am indeed surprise and concern that an academician could not have welcomed the writing of such a book. I am even more surprised that the professor questioned whether the book was part of a strategy to offer the public alternative views on the struggle for independence.

Alternative views are what the public want nowadays. Alternative views on Malaysia's struggle of independence are what students would want to research on. Alternative views are what good lecturers would urge their students to seek when doing their research.

Chin Peng's memoirs will be an excellent and valuable resource and would be welcomed by all students of history worldwide particularly those who do research on communist insurgencies. It would be most welcome also by military officers in military staff colleges locally and overseas.

Such narrow views on the publication as an attempt to "rewrite history" (if ever there is such a thing) or a strategy to provide alternative views should be rejected. I wonder what a professor of history in University Malaya would say to this lecturer of economics.