Categories: Opinion

Let us be liberated from small things

IT IS a little embarrassing that the national Independence Day is being hijacked by political parties, and I am not just talking about the attempt by the breakaway states under PN (Perikatan Nasional) either. 

Last week, the Opposition youth wing unveiled a set of logos and themes that they proposed to be used in the official observance of Merdeka in PN-controlled states. 

While PN’s attempt at distancing themselves from the Putrajaya-approved Merdeka 2023 theme and logo would be taken as a show of national disunity, I can sort of understand it. 

No self-respecting Perikatan fellow would be overjoyed with the prospect of waving little flags under banners with (Datuk Seri) Anwar Ibrahim’s “Madani” branding. 

However, PN’s proposed theme and artwork also included their own loaded political words like “Muafakat”. 

Thank God this has idea been shelved and we will have to endure only one set of official theme and logo come Aug 31. Both sides could have used a little of the Merdeka spirit and we would have been spared of this nonsense. 

Merdeka belongs to all Malaysians and what it represents for all should be respected by those in power, including the sitting government. 

The government, present or future, should play its part in respecting that Merdeka Day is sacred to all Malaysians. It should not have cheapened the day by including political messages for official national events. 

Only in Malaysia do we have to grapple with these things. Every year we have to have a new logo, and official theme, with an official theme song too. 

Truth be told, nobody remembers these things by the time we wake up when September comes. 

No one has ever been inspired to become the embodiment of any Merdeka Day theme/logo/song. Since like, forever. 

Instead of nitpicking logos or clumsy themes to gain political mileage, we should revel in the freedom that Merdeka symbolises and be thankful that we are not living under occupation. Thank God we are not Palestine! 

Let’s just have our parades, speeches and flags that are nationalistic, transcending all barriers, and, for a moment at least, celebrate it as a nation, like the proverbial bundle of reed (you know — together we are strong, alone we break.) 

Of course, not all Malaysians of the present generation would be able to tap into the colossal euphoria that we experienced in 1957 when we (and this includes Sabah and Sarawak) shrugged off the yoke of occupation. In that year, we shouted Merdeka! and were finally free from the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Japanese and the British. 

We should all be allowed to celebrate Merdeka any way we want, within the norms and restraints of our society of course. 

Shout Merdeka! from the top of (Mount) Kinabalu, parade down your street in fancy dress or have a karaoke competition for all I care. We should all be allowed to feel as gung-ho and patriotic as we like to be. 

In 1978, when I was a schoolboy in a boarding school in the small town of Kuala Kangsar, we actually did just that. Living under an oppressive regime that regulated everything from when we woke up, what to wear and even how to eat, we were ready for some liberation ourselves. 

So, the class of 78, which was leaving school for good in a couple of months, hatched a plan. 

To mark Merdeka of 1978, we would stage the re-enactment of the Independence around the old Japanese World War II cannon at the school padang (field). We would do the full-period costumes, props, the works, and all without the knowledge of the school authorities. 

I remember the “Low Road” gang, one of the infamous sub-groups in our year, got to work assembling all the props and equipment, which involved hijacking the PA system from Hargreaves Hall and even the elephantine fully-reclinable barber chair from the school barber shop. 

Of course, the headmaster (HM) found out and summoned a few of us to the carpet just hours before we were to stage Merdeka. We were, under the pain of being sent to detention class, en masse, to forget all this nonsense and to please return the PA system and barber chair to where they belonged. 

We pleaded with the HM, citing our love for the country and that it was wrong to curb our enthusiasm. A few tears were even shed with great effect and the HM relented, with the caveat that this sort of behaviour would not be repeated ever again. 

So, it was that the Class of 1978 had its pantomime, complete with illegal fireworks at the school padang on the cusp of midnight. Oh, did I mention that in 1978 Merdeka coincided with Ramadan and that the local mosque was adjacent to the field? 

It was inevitable that the BRU (Badan Revolusi Agama) fellows grabbed the microphone while Lord Mountbatten was giving his speech. (Yes, I know that Mount-batten wasn’t actually there at the Declaration, but neither was Frank Swettenham, who was already dead in 1957, but was resplendent that night in a topee and knee-high socks. it’s called poetic licence.) 

The BRU gang made its views known about schoolboys running around in costumes, but eventually went along with it for the sake of unity. A lesson we’d best remember today. 

When the pantomime broke up we broke up into separate groups according to their vices that night. 

The Low Road gang went out to the Rex theatre to have a celebratory koay teow meal and some of us retired to the tennis courts to have a “Saturday Night Fever” dance-off. 

Was it lame?

We didn’t care, it was Merdeka!. 

  • ZB Othman is an editor at The Malaysian Reserve.

  • This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition
Dzul

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