Thursday, September 01, 2005

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

HAPPY 48th INDEPENDENCE DAY to Malaysia.
Selamat Hari Kemerdekaan yang ke-48.

Malaysian flag (courtesy of the CIA Factbook)

Malaysian map (courtesy of the CIA Factbook)

People who know me--and my political beliefs--know that I'm probably the least patriotic of all; I simply cannot bring myself into placing unquestioned faith and blind loyalty in the supremacy of nation-state sovereignty. Being an internationalist and a multiculturalist, this notion of deifying a narrow and exclusionary concept like nation-state at the expense of tolerance, universalism and inclusiveness runs against the grain of my tenets. Anyway, I still love Malaysia with all my heart and soul for what it really means to me personally: my family, friends, and ancestral and cultural roots (though this one does get pretty iffy.) And I'm listening to Sudirman's evergreen Hari Merdeka song, 31 Ogos 1957, as a clear testament to my "patriotism."

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