Malaysian history is littered with many seemingly obscure dates, but some of these are far more important that we might care to admit.

Being a country whose official national discourse remains a static, monotonous narrative that is under the monopoly of a select coterie of conservative ideologues and academicians, it hardly comes as a surprise that so much of the country's history remains unwritten and not discussed.

While the machinery of the state continues to churn out the same unending catalogue of great achievements by the great and the good among the powers-that-be, we are left in the dark about the other histories and alternative national stories that ought to be part of this heterogeneous discourse known as the Malaysian story.

One story that has never really been written properly is the story of Malaysia seen through the eyes of more than half of its population - namely, Malaysian women. Like the historical narratives of many other countries, Malaysia's history remains blind to the concerns of gender and women in particular.

But should anyone attempt such a timely (some would say long overdue) enterprise, what would be the dates, names and places that come to mind?

There are many dates, names and places that might serve as the landmarks for an alternative national history written by other marginalised constituencies. For a start, there is the year 1959.

Indonesian konfrontasi

This year was a landmark for it was the year that the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) won its monumental victory at the elections and managed to gain control of two states - Kelantan and Terengganu- for the first time. (This itself was a watershed event for PAS, as it became the first Islamic party in Asia to come to power via constitutional means).

But following PAS's victory in 1959, the Umno-dominated Alliance (Perikatan) coalition under the leadership of Tunku Abdul Rahman came to the simple conclusion that it needed to open the way for Malaysian women to actively participate in the arena of national politics.

The Tunku felt that one of the ways that the Alliance could defeat PAS was by mobilising the women who supported Umno and the Perikatan.

To press the point home, women's groups within Umno itself were demanding the right to play a more active and open part in mainstream politics, and they correctly pointed out that it was ordinary Malay women who had made most of the sacrifices when Umno was first established in 1946.

It was this that led to the galvanisation of the Wanita Umno wing, then referred to as the 'Kaum Ibu Umno'. It is ironic to note that the mobilisation of women in Umno took place thanks to the victory of PAS in the north.

Here was a case where the emancipation of Malaysian women came about due to accidental and contingent factors that were not anticipated by anyone.

A few years later, Malaysia found itself caught up in the ill-fated Konfrontasi (Confrontation) campaign launched by Indonesia under Sukarno against Malaysia. During this period, from 1963 to1965, many important social developments in Malaysia occurred.

Women in the army

While the Indonesian army and militias attempted to carry out their raids against Malaysia with mixed results (the pilots of the Indonesian Air Force had the embarrassing tendency of crashing their planes into the Malacca straits for some unknown reason), the Malaysian government began to mobilise the Malaysian public to meet the threat of invasion.

One of the consequences of this confrontation was that the Malaysian government ordered the return of all Malay-Muslim students who were studying at Islamic colleges and madrasahs in Indonesia at the time.

(This would have long-term effects in the future, as these Malay-Muslim students were then sent to Al-Azhar and the more conservative Islamic educational institutions in Pakistan and India instead).

But for Malaysian women, the Konfrontasi also meant new opportunities for work. It was during the clash with Indonesia that the Malaysian government decided to allow Malaysian women to take up arms and join the armed forces as part of the fighting force.

While a small number of women had indeed played a role in the militias that were formed during World War II, it was only then - at the height of the confrontation with Indonesia - that they were allowed to join the men and become regular members of the armed forces of Malaysia.

Once again, Malaysian women were brought into the mainstream of society as equal members - but thanks to variable and contingent factors that were unpredictable.

An accidental history?

What is to be made from all this? Should we come to the conclusion that the struggle for women's rights and women's concerns has been an accidental and arbitrary process all along, devoid of human agency and rational choice?

Did Malaysian women receive their political and economic rights by accident instead? And do we conclude that history itself is merely a jumble of coincidences and unplanned-for variables?

That is certainly not the point that we are trying to make here. While it is true that many of the radical and important changes to women's lives have come about due to contingent socio-political developments that were not predicted long in advance, it would be wrong to conclude that the struggle for women's rights (along with minority rights and other such concerns) has not been there all along.

But the fact remains that the struggle for rights and equality has always been opposed and resisted by the more conservative sections of Malaysian society, and if we enjoy these rights today it is partly due to a set of lucky circumstances that we can only be thankful for.

Otherwise, the struggle for rights has always been a difficult, and at times, an almost impossible, one. This is particularly true for Malaysian women, and an alternative history of women in Malaysia should highlight such a fact.

What such a history should not do is to gloss over painful or difficult political, social and cultural realities of the past or the present.

Yet, this is the tendency we see all around us today. Take, for example, the contemporary accounts of Malay history that have been produced over the past few decades.

Warrior Malay queens

In many of the historical studies that we see today, there are the same staid and over-repeated references to the legendary Queens of the Malay kingdoms of Aceh, Pasai, Patani and Kelantan.

Now the fact that these Malay-Muslim kingdoms produced a number of powerful female rulers is already something that needs to be noted and borne in mind when we hear and read about Islam's treatment of women in general.

They were surely important figures in their time and the role they played in the context of their societies was undeniably a central one. It was also during the Islamic era that we saw the emergence of powerful Malay-Muslim women who took an active part in politics as well.

Aceh in particular is known for the number of influential Muslim women who led various militias and armies against both the Dutch and later Indonesian governments. Aceh also had a woman admiral who was the head of its war fleet - something that even Western countries (with the exception of Greece) cannot boast about.

But to write a history of Malaysian women which takes into account only the lives of great and powerful women would be to write a history that is as poor and distorted as the official narrative we have now.

For it must also be remembered that many of these powerful Malay women also happened to be part of the same ruling elite structure that was founded on decidedly conservative and patriarchal foundations.

The Queens of Aceh, Patani and Kelantan may have been extraordinary women during their time, but they were not role models for others for the simple reason that the class and power structures of these societies did not afford ordinary women with the same rights and opportunities.

Even if other Malay women wanted to follow their lead, they could not have done so because of the social differences and class structures that were operating at the time, and of which these Malay Queens themselves were a part of.

Like it or not, we have to admit that if an alternative history of women (as well as other marginalised constituencies) is going to be written today, much of it will have to be based on the meagre resources and tools at hand that are available to us now.

Yet to be written

Nor should such a historical narrative concentrate on the exploits of queens and princesses alone.

A truly honest and all-encompassing historical account of women's experiences in the archipelago at large may not be one littered with accounts of great deeds performed by great individuals, but it would at least give some recognition and a voice to a vital component of the society that has been rendered mute for so long.

And if we still search in vain for such books in our libraries today, this is simply because such a history has yet to be written.

This is the task that awaits all of us, and until we take the necessary steps to correct these historical imbalances and discrepancies, we cannot really say that we possess a national history that speaks of the nation and to the nation as a whole.

Ours would remain a history written by the few, about the few and for the few.