One Big Fat Freaking Conspiracy

Thoughts & Musings 154 Comments

Happy (belated) National Day, my fellow Malaysians!

You know, sometimes people question me about my loyalty towards my country.
It’s no secret that I often poke fun at the way things are being run in our country, what with RM400,000 spent on public toilets and all. True, there are a lot of funny things in the country happening right before our eyes.
But make no mistake about it, despite the presence of some idiots managing this country, I still do love Malaysia.

Malaysia is my home, and it is the only place in the whole world that I can identify with.
I would say that I am patriotic.

I am so patriotic, I have a Malaysian flag on my car.

Fine. Maybe not as patriotic as this guy, because he has TWO flags on this car.
If patriotism is defined by how many flags you put on your car, it means this guy is TWICE as patriotic as I am.

Or this guy. He is SEVEN times more patriotic than me.

Or…
Ok fine. I accept defeat.
I may only have one flag on my car, BUT I’m still considered patriotic, alright?

I am patriotic. I love my country. Some may say that because I am a blogger, and bloggers are traditionally left-wing social activists who like to voice out against the might of the government, that I might actually be “anti-government”.
That is not true.
It’s true that many socio-political bloggers in Malaysia are activists, but it doesn’t mean that I always agree with them.

The problem with us bloggers is that we often have the habit of stretching the truth and jumping to conclusions. It can cause problems if people felt they were being defamed.
I should know. I myself have been wrongfully accused by other bloggers before. Once for alleged plagiarism, and the other time for supposedly not offering my help during a car accident I witnessed.
It felt like crap when you were accused for doing something you didn’t do, so I can totally understand why some people get their panties up in a twist and started suing bloggers.

Two years ago there was this big hoo-haa leading up to national day.
Apparently, some antique collector found out he has this song on vinyl record called “Mamula Moon”. It was a 1940s Hawaiian love song, but the chorus sounded eerily similar to the tune of our national anthem “Negaraku”.
Negaraku = Mamula Moon!
Immediately, a lot of Malaysian bloggers jump on the bandwagon and accused the government for plagiarising the Hawaiian song Mamula Moon and made it into our national anthem. Everyone was angry. Many questions were asked. But sadly none of those questions is the question I want to ask.
And the question I want to ask is… Can someone tell me what the hell is a MAMULA?!?

Click to play “Mamula Moon”

Personally, I think to say Negaraku is plagiarised is a bit too harsh. Perhaps the correct word to use here is “adapted”.
You see, the whole concept of copyright probably never existed back in the 1940s. They didn’t even have stuff like “blogs”, or “Youtube”, or “Limewire” to pirate MP3s around back then.
Whoever it was who wrote Mamula Moon probably never would’ve thought that some Malaysian could took his creation and made it into a Malaysian national anthem. And whoever it was who made Negaraku our national anthem probably also thought that no one would ever find out.

And if Mamula Moon is never copyrighted, it’s fair game for anyone to copy it and adapt it into their own.
So Malaysia’s national anthem Negaraku is adapted from the Hawaiian song Mamula Moon. Not plagiarised.
If you consider THAT plagiarising, why not state the immediately obvious?

Why not say that the Malaysian flag is plagiarised from the American flag?
One more thing.
Malaysia’s national flower is the hibiscus.

Hawaii‘s official state flower is also the hibiscus. Why not say that our national flower is also plagiarised from Hawaii?
…
Hang on.
Wait a minute.
I think I see a pattern here.
Malaysia national anthem Negaraku = Hawaiian song Mamula Moon.
Malaysian flag Jalur Gemilang = American flag. Hawaii is a state of America.
Malaysian national flower = Hawaiian state flower = the hibiscus.
COINCIDENCE?! I think not!

Call the X-files. Something looks wrong here. The truth is out there!
It’s all one Big Fat Hawaiian Conspiracy!
Behind the scenes, our country is secretly controlled by an evil Hawaiian dictator! There’s no prime minister or federal parliament. All those are fake. We are all plugged into some kinda Matrix world and all those things you read in the newspapers is just some propaganda bullshit designed to cover up THE TRUTH!
I did some investigation. Behold, this is the rare image of the Hawaiian dictator!
His name is… CAPTAIN MAMULA.
And this is how he looks like.


Yeah, that explains why the country is so screwed up sometimes.


I celebrated 12 midnight on Merdeka Day pumping petrol into my car at Petronas.
I had wanted to have a typical night out, but the overwhelming presence of so many hooligans at the pubs was a bit scary. True enough, I heard fights had broken out and a man was stabbed to his near death at the Kuching Waterfront. All these on the 31st August.

154 Replies to “One Big Fat Freaking Conspiracy”

  16. Hmm, I’ve always thought that Negaraku was taken from Perak’s state anthem “Terang Bulan”. Which itself (from what I can remember lah) was taken from a song in Seychelles…
    But the lyrics make no mention of a moon, or how bright it is.

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  19. You seriously need to get your fact right. Anyone who read history books or is from Perak know that Negaraku is using the same melody as Perak’s anthem – Terang Bulan

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  20. lmao-claps-
    most malaysians that have lived outside the country before will know how wonderful it is:)
    God bless Malaysia!

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  22. Thought what history have said otherwise, the similarity there is too much to ignore. It should be properly investigated on the origins of all those songs.
    Oh yeah, there is a blurred line between adapted and copyright, and copyright has existed then.

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  27. Hi Kenny
    Funny lar you.
    Back to Negaraku.. I was told it was ‘adapted’ from the Perak State song.
    I’m from Perak and the beginning part of the song is same as Negaraku till the last 2 lines that sound different. So err… was it Perak that first ‘adapted’ it from Mamula??

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  32. Hey there, i am not exactly always patriotic either. But somehow probably due to the hype.. i was so patriotic, despite the silly things our country does.

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  33. refering to ChoongKeat’s # comment, i went and check out tat wikipedia site for tat image …and wooooo….almost hit it there! de tugu negara lookalike….more x files ?

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  37. LOL~enjoyable read
    I liked this line a lot:
    “Malaysia is my home, and it is the only place in the whole world that I can identify with.”
    That is so well put =)

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  38. Most of the M’sian don’t know that Negaraku music was adapted from Perak’s state anthem, which was based on Terang Bulan, some lagu rakyat during that time.
    “Tuan Haji Mubin Sheppard who was at one time the Director of the National Archives had done a research on the origin of Negaraku. His sources were two sisters, Raja Aminah and Raja Halijah, the daughters of Sultan Abdullah and also Raja Kamarulzaman. According to these sisters, the first time they heard the tune, now known as that of Negaraku, was in Mahe, one of the Seychelles islands, where their father, the former Sultan of Perak, lived in exile. They said the song was very popular there and very often played by a French band which usually played a variety of songs and held concerts for the people of that island. It was believed that the melody of the song was composed by a French musician named Pierre Jean de Beranger who was born in France in 1780 and died in 1857.”
    p/s: mamula moon was composed in 1940s

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  46. Heard from my Pa that a Sultan (Perak, maybe) really loved the song and get someone translated/’malayed’ it to Terang Bulan.. can someone confirm this? Can we get Terang Bulan’s lyric and compare it to Mamula Moon’s?

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  48. AIYO…………AIYO………….WHY U ALL LIDAT ONE…………. NEGARAKU IS TAKEN FROM THE PERAK SONG TERANG BULAN, TERANG BULAN IS ADAPTED FROM……………………… MAMULA MOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PEOPLE WITH NO FACTS JUST AN EMPTY BRAIN TEND TO END UP LIKE DAN BROWN.

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  50. “Terang Bulan” is banned in Malaysia. Can’t have somebody not respect the adopted National Anthem. You can google it and download though.

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  57. I thought it was an old Indonesian tune, adapted to Perak’s Terang Bulan and later adapted as Negaraku. Anyway, one thing that i’m confused, what is the tempo of our anthem now? Slow or fast? Someone help please?

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  59. Eh, you know what, I have this vague memory of reading in the newspaper that the original state(I cant remember which state now, paiseh!) anthem, from which Negaraku got its tune from, actually derived the tune from a foreign song. So why the big hoo-hah then when it was already known from the start?
    Lol, Im confused!

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  74. have u seen the flags in putrajaya??? i mean malaysia flag being “altered” to suit the long shaped banner… is that correct???

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  76. namewee done nothing wrong, cos he altered mamula moon, not negarakuku.. no wait, he altered terang bulan, eh… hold on, maybe felix mendellson came to perak and stole this melody… maybe Felix composed this song and sold to a local… no.. maybe…

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  83. I thought Negaraku was an adaptation of the song Terang Bulan from Perak I believe. That’s what we were told in Sejarah back in school.

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  85. Ooh…Captain Mamula Moon is so cute! Hee hee ha ha ho ho…
    Well, officially (I think) Negaraku was adapted (or just taken?) from Perak’s Terang Bulan, so maybe Terang Bulan is Mamula Moon, which makes…Mamula=Terang! lol
    As for the flags…one is definitely enough. Too many is just, well, too much. *rolls eyes*

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  86. I see it now… Terang bulan….bulan=moon….Maybe this Saiful Bahari guy went online fifty years ago and googled for “Bright Moon” and found Mamula Moon… Altho’ it’s not bright moon… it’s still a moon… so he took it….hahaaha…

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  88. How came “NegaraKu” copy “Terang Bulan” no Way.. who come first!! But what really get me is “NegaraKU” really sound similiar to “mamula Moon” when say it in hi-speed. What ever.. Just Thank To Malaysia Negara Ku… not negara of others

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  91. Happy Independence day .
    Would US recognise us as their good friend?
    so would he help us to boost our country economic growth?
    hahah
    interesting post.

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  92. No surprise we’re No. 1 prirated CD/VCD/DVD country as we’ve already pirated ideas from the State for the national song, flower and flag. Let’s sing Mamula Moon next time instead of Negaraku. Shameful.

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  95. Malaysia national anthem Negaraku = Hawaiian song Mamula Moon.
    Malaysian flag Jalur Gemilang = American flag. Hawaii is a state of America.
    Malaysian national flower = Hawaiian state flower = the hibiscus.
    2 add on top of tat, Hawaii celebrate their Independence Day separately frm America n Swk is gonna celebrate its own Independence Day separately nxt year…
    I begin 2 wonder whthr tis is jst a pattern, plagarism o adaptation hhmmm…

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  98. I’m not Msian so maybe you can also post the Malaysian anthem up?
    Anyway, be glad the leader who chose the Mamamu song liked Hawaii. Hibiscus, coconuts, American flag and all… Tropical enough for Msia so okay lah.
    Imagine if the fella liked Elvis and jailhouse rock. Mayhem sia.

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  100. Yo, Kenny. We don’t need to justify to anyone our patriotic spirit or stand. The problem with we humans is when one tries to justify, others tend to compare. Wasting time lah… Unless someone tells me if I’m scored or evaluated as the most patriotic, I can be ‘King’ or ‘PM’, then there’s a purpose lah…hehehe…

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  103. copyright is owned as long as u are the original writer or creator of a piece of writing, song, ur idea in whatever creative, intellectual, or artistic form. doesnt mean u need to send the creation to be registered then only it will be copyrighted. it is only formalities.
    as long as u can prove it is ur creation,it is urs by right. copyright existed once u laid ur ideas on paper.
    and i think copyright has been ard far longer than u think. maybe ard the time when press printing started in the 1800s. or earlier even. it’s not a new concept, my dear.

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  104. Hey Kenny,
    Just one thought, “What does it mean to be patriotic?” To blindly follow our leaders without questions even though they are human and make mistakes? I am proud to have been born and raised in Malaysia and what the country had achieved. However, there is always room for improvement and so lets hang out the “Work in Progress” sign and not take another 50 years to finish it like the road sign that you blogged previously. Merdeka!

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  105. indeed.. i hv one more to add:
    both countries have (or used to hv) twin-sky-scrapers! and our leaders look, meh..
    my bet is the Tugu Negara is also “pirated” work.. XD
    no wonder our country is so famous for pirated DVDs!!

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  107. oh..now i get to hear this mamula moon
    My dad was telling me this since long ago..that..our national anthem copy other song..i was like “HUH…R U KIDDING…” ..but the version that he heard was a chinese version..hehe
    anyway,great entry..

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  108. lol, me got learn physics lah… those stuck on ur car, isn’t it gonna create a backward drag that results an even more fuel consumption? some told me those with big big one can make ur car not as responsive when u throttle it

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  109. not being un-patriotic but my paint’s gonna fade when i remove it… not rich ppl cannot afford too good paints, so dun blame ah

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  110. LOL…VERY good one!!!
    i’m sure Stitch…er…no…i mean Captain Mamula o.o is real happy he’s …er..no…it’s finally getting true recognition 🙂

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  114. Oi choongkeat. Do some research lah, before you start screaming conspiracy theories.
    The sculptor for the USMC memorial (a.k.a. the Iwo Jima memorial) and Tugu Negara is one and the same person: Felix de Weldon.
    Can a person plagiarise his own work? I DON’T THINK SO!!
    Details here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tugu_Negara

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  115. Actually.. Hawaii’s state flower (Hibiscus) is yellow in colour one..(if I’m not mistaken) our Hibiscus is.. red in colour~ so u see~ it’s ‘adapted’~ not COPIED 😛

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  118. In our history textbook, Negaraku was in fact Perak’s state anthem called “Terang Rembulan” (or something like that) which was modified to become the present national anthem. Now it’s “adapted” from Mamula Moon? Geez…

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  122. FYI kenny, negaraku adapted from the song mamula moon but mamula moon adapt from an indonesian song “terang bulan”. So back to back, they’re jsut adapting from the malays.

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  127. err…..Y accuse the government when our national anthem has been around waaaayyyy before the current ppl in the government? Kinda dumb right? And if I’m not mistaken…Negaraku was composed by a French man. -_- Correct me if I’m wrong.

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  130. “Negaraku” (English: “My Country”) is the national anthem of Malaysia. “Negaraku” was selected as a national anthem at the time of the Federation of Malaya’s independence from Britain in 1957. The tune was originally used as the state anthem of Perak[1]. The tune was also used for a popular song of that time, Terang Bulan[2], which was in turn borrowed from the song Mamula Moon, sang by Felix Mendelssohn and his Hawaiian Serenaders.”
    -taken from wikipedia.org-
    now you know….

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  133. ya la . kenny tat day u say u gng to de beach party. hw come no post abt it ? and ur macau trip oso no detailed updates leh? nt fair liaw…wanna read some more lor.

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  136. Well i’m somewhat not suprised that the song was ripped off from,
    we shouldn’t give a hoo haa about us ripping off national songs for we have ourselves to blame for supporting rip offs
    (just take your next leisure stroll to the closest pasar malam)
    back in high school i remember doing an english comprehension test about our national flag
    the story to the origin of the song was that it some sultan or royal fella came across it while he was in france and he heard the tune of a french band playing
    he found the music so pleasing to the ear that he adopted it,
    i think it was originally a perak anthem song, but it got so popular that it became our national song,
    i could be wrong though its been like 5 years i reckon
    neways great post!
    be looking forward to more of this sort!

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  137. The fact that Negaraku was taken from the song Terang Bulan which was an adaptation of Mamula Moon is no big surprise… i’ve know about this all my life… so did my dad and his dad before him……. just shows us malaysians are so ignorant on our heritage… as usual.

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  138. Silly lor.
    We’ve known for years that Negaraku’s tune is based on another song. You can still catch my father strolling about singing “Mamula mooon…” or “terang bulan…”
    It doesn’t change the fact that I can still sing the anthem with pride and mean every word of it.

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  139. negaraku is an edited version of Terang Bulan…so..translation of “terang bulan” is “mamula moon”? bulan = moon..lol..
    which means terang bulan copied mamula moon and negaraku copied terang bulan? means negaraku is 3rd hand song? LOL

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  142. negaraku is adapted from terang bulan (Perak state anthem) and terang bulan has existed since 1901…while mamula moon was created back in 1947…so the real situation is that mamula moon copied the terang bulan song…not the other way around.
    hibiscus is national flower of malaysia and south korea as far as i concern…

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  144. I enjoyed your sleight and sleuth-like handiwork with un-Kenny conclusion. If there’s some similarity in Samy Vellu’s nose and Kit Siang’s it doesn’t mean that their honourable parents copied from each other.

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  145. do we really have somethin that called our own………….
    p.s
    captain mamula looks confused.havin coconut rum or what!!!!!!!!!!

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  146. Did You Know; Your National Independence Celebrations was observed by an International Debate on BBC for over two weeks, entitled: MALAYSIA – What Challenges Ahead.
    Debate is now closed, but those interested can still read the Pros & Cons on BBC Intl, Have Your Say, Read Only. Very Interesting & Encouraging that Rest of the World is Genuinely Interested.
    To Whom is the Statue of Soldiers Raising a Flag Dedicated, Please?

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  148. ahah there’s nothing to be surprised.. we malaysians, we never invented new things with new ideas… we’ve always learned to copy… and copy we shall!!…

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  149. @@@@
    Please follow the link below to sign the petition to the Agong of Malaysia.
    http://malaysia-today.net/blog2006/Announcements.php?itemid=8281
    Malaysia Today is going to send a Peoples’ Petition (Petisyen Rakyat) to His Majesty The Yang di-Pertuan Agong. I really do not need to go into the host of reasons for the dire need of this Peoples’ Petition. Amongst some of the issues which are of concern to the Malaysian people are:
    1) The recent shooting of two people in Kuala Terengganu.
    2) The reported gang clashes in Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johore over the 50th Merdeka celebration holiday that resulted in a few deaths.
    3) The Auditor-General’s report that revealed gross and blatant abuses and transgressions in the management of the peoples’ money involving billions of Ringgit.
    4) The state of affairs in the Royal Malaysian Police where even the former IGP Tun Hanif Omar admitted that corruption is a serious problem.
    5) The state of affairs in the judiciary where senior judges have been bypassed in many promotion exercises in favour of candidates with blemished records.
    6) The breakdown of law and order and allegations by serving police officers, who have signed Statutory Declarations or Affidavits, that the organised crime syndicate is running the police force.
    7) The dangerous and alarming racial and religious divide.
    8) Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s implication in the Oil-for Food scandal.
    9) The need for electoral reforms as proven by the incidences of gerrymandering and phantom voters in the many general elections before this and which will continue and prevail in the next general election.
    10) The manner in how the Altantuya Shaaribuu murder trial is being conducted and the police investigation leading to the murder trial.
    Our concern is not confined to just these ten issues above but suffice that these ten demonstrate the urgent need for this petition. The actual text of the petition will be properly worded to meet the protocol requirements of a letter that is addressed to The Agong but the spirit of the petition will encompass the above.
    If you support this Peoples’ Petition, please sign it in the blog below. You need not add any comments. In fact, we do not need your comments. Just add your name to it. If you do not support it then no need to do anything.
    (Those not registered in Malaysia Today but would like to sign the petition just send an e-mail to mohrin_rhsm@hotmail.com with the message “Signed” and your name.)

    Reply

  151. MALAYSIA IS SOMEWHERE ON THE WORLD MAP
    (a comment by Citizen of the Snakehead Peninsula, edited by the author for grammar and usage (see square brackets))
    In my opinion, [the] Malaysian flag’s similarity to the U.S. flag is perfectly acceptable, if not laudable. After all, it has been written that the U.S. flag is similar to the flag of the British East India Company. Liberia, Cuba and Puerto Rico also have official flags very similar to the Stars and Stripes. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._flag)
    A cursory glance through relevant articles on Wikipedia will reveal the flag of Bikini Atoll to also resemble the [U.S.] flag, even though Bikini is a part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
    The American flag has long been a symbol of progress and liberty. It could have been historical ties, identification with American principles, desire for close cooperation with America, and a combination of these and other factors, that prompted leaders and/or communities to adopt American-ish flags.
    Food for thought: are state symbols protected by copyright laws?
    Do our designs always have to be so dissimilar to other cultural motifs?
    The Malaysian flag expresses the glory of an independent Malay state that refuses to be isolationist and seeks to integrate herself into a global fabric that the United Nations is apparently trying to weave. That this flag identifies us with the American nation is no bad thing: America is both a migrant society AND a land of indigenous races, and so is the case with Malaysia (Arab, Bugis, Chinese, Indian, Iban, Bidayuh, Melanau, Dusun, etc.)!
    NO ONE in his right mind will fly the Jalur Gemilang next to the Stars-and-Stripes and revel in egoistic pride that “Malaysia is as technologically-advanced and blah-blah-blah on par with the U.S.” No, we are NOT like the U.S. in many ways, though we are trying to be. I’d rather see our Jalur Gemilang design as an aspiration to adopt as practice the many fine ideals of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Jalur Gemilang is also an ongoing act of humility: its similarity with the U.S. flag shows that Malaysia understands it is subject to (though not subdued by) the leadership of the United States, whether economically, politically or culturally (indeed!); hence, our flag shows a very mature understanding of how the world really works and how our Malaysian people really live. As Malaysians we ought to know our place in the world, and — as much as some people, for political or religious reasons, would rather see the U.S. destroyed or decimated — we are looking forward to that day when the U.S. will once again be a glorious example for the whole world to follow, like in the days immediately after World War II. Today, we can read our Jalur Gemilang as saying, “America, we are willing to learn from you. Shall we work together?”
    We flood our living rooms day-after-day with American T.V. programmes; we listen to American pop music; we use American webhosting services; we blog on Blogspot; we write in English on…….! And we run our government according to British-American influence. Is it so wrong to acknowledge another culture for what we are learning from it? Is it wrong for Vietnam to have a flag like China’s, or the Chinese Communist Party to have a flag like that of the former Soviet Union? And for the post-1980 flag of Sarawak to assume colours that can be found on pre-independence Brooke Dynasty flags? And let’s go deeper: Japanese, Korean and Chinese cultures contain features so similar, we would have a hard time trying to attribute original authorship! (The famous qipao/cheongsam is not even Han Chinese, but Manchu in origin. But it is now a part of Chinese culture.) Many cultural motifs just aren’t protected by copyright!
    As a sidenote, it appears Somalia’s flag was adopted as a thank-you to the United Nations’ effort at peace in the territory.
    Speaking of our anthem, the BM Wikipedia has a writeup on Negaraku that you may want to read: http://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagu_negaraku Whether it [was] Terang Bulan or Mamula Moon that inspired our leaders (in Perak and in Kuala Lumpur) to raise flags to the tune, I say it does not matter. Yes, no one can say that our National Anthem tune is ‘original”; it isn’t, and so what? We just have to come right out and be honest about it. Haven’t you thought about the similarity between the song “Dayung Sampan” and “Tian Mi Mi”, the latter performed by the late Teresa Teng?
    In the built environment, in science and technology, and in medicine, we use loads of foreign and Western stuff. Who came up with the structural steel-frame buildng? Paved roads using bitumen? Telephone wires? Fighter jets? Electricity? And yet, we say “Malaysiaku Gemilang” (and in their Los Angeles-like cosmopolitan city, Singaporeans sing “Majulah Singapura”) in praises of progresses that sometimes have little to do with our own innovations.
    In the final analysis, is it such a bad thing that Malaysia’s flag looks like the American one? Nope, unless someone-high-up starts saying that the Americans copied our flag! â– 

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  153. Ok. I’m trying very hard not to imagine those Orang Asli folks swaying to NegaraKu in their traditional grass skirts.

    Reply

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