Ada Apa Dengan Merdeka?

It's 4:17pm on a Tuesday and I'm in Starbucks.

How does one perform this miracle feat, you may wonder. Isn't it a working day? Shouldn't he be bitching about work?

Well, yes, but more than that it's the eve of Malaysia's Independence Day. The roads of KL city will soon be closed off for street parties and festivities.

So why do I feel so indifferent about it all?

In 1945, when W.W.II ended, the British resumed control of "Malaya" once again after the Japanese left. "Malaya's" independence movement had matured and organized itself in an alliance under Tunku Abdul Rahman. When the British flag was finally lowered in Kuala Lumpur's Merdeka Square in 1957, Tunku became the first prime minister of "Malaya".

Somewhere along the way in 1961 "Malaya" became "Malaysia" after Tunku Abdul Rahman convinced Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore to join together to become one country. Singapore dropped out of the union. Perhaps they knew something we didn't.

Interestingly enough, Malaysia's flag is based on that of the United States, a country whose democratic ideals our young nation sought to emulate upon gaining independence from Great Britain in 1957. The 14 stripes represent Malaysia's states, while the square in the upper left contains the moon and sun of Islam.

Since then, under the leadership of the same government since our independence and democracy (makes one curious about the whole 'democracy' thing when we've always had the same government) we've advanced in ways other nations could only dream of.

But all this can only elicit a shrug and a mumbled "okay" on my side.

Am I unpatriotic for not feeling some sense of national pride that for 48 years we've had independence? Does it really mean that little to me? Doubtful. I'm glad we're not under the thumb of the British Empire. I'm glad my country's my own. I'm glad we're not communists queuing up for toilet paper and bread (in the Stalin/Mao sense of communism, of course. Marx's ideas weren't that bad).

But to me it's just another day off.

Here's another interesting fact: Sudirman, a local singer, sang theMalaysian Independence song. Without that song, I wouldn't even remember when our independence day was. When it was discovered Sudirman had AIDS, he was shunned by the community at large and sadly passed away without many of his old friends present. Many people used him as an example of how evil AIDS was and associated it with his pop star lifestyle or what have you. I dunno. My memory is sketchy, but I can remember all the shops wouldn't stock his soft drink anymore because kids were afraid they'd get AIDS from it. A lot of the love the nation had for him was destroyed in an instant.

But they still play his song.

...

I was hoping I'd find some point to all this rambling in the end, but it sure as shit doesn't look like it. Happy Merdeka day, people. Altogether now:

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!


And so on and so forth.