One man’s dogged campaign to get Malaysia Day noticed
It was once taboo in Sarawak to mark Malaysia Day as National Day. It came close to being an offence to celebrate the day on September 16.
Just ask former PKR state chief and assemblyman Dominique Ng, the man many here credit with starting a campaign to have Malaysia Day recognised as the National Day, instead of August 31, in Sarawak and Sabah.
When in 2005, the maverick politician, accompanied by about a dozen family and friends, re-enacted the raising of the Malaysian flag on September 16, 1963, at the then Central Padang – now renamed Padang Merdeka – they had not so friendly policemen for company.
They were a a contingent of riot policemen from the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU), Ng wrote in his personal diary, in an entry titled “My Reminisces on Malaysia Day” which he showed The Malaysian Insider.
“The police did come and harassed me and my small group – just a dozen – of diehards, on that very first day of the flag-raising itself, on September 16, 2005.”
“It was not difficult for them to know or see my actions for the Central police station is perched right at the top right hand corner of the Central Padang itself, and the SB (Special Branch) would have alerted them earlier.
“The contingent of police, actually the FRU, led by an ASP Morshidi, came to confront me at the flag-raising ceremony, and asked me if I had any police permit, in other words, a police permission to raise the flag, or else it was an illegal assembly!
“I said 'No', and that I don’t think any such permission was granted or needed."
Ng said he remembered telling Morshidi that when the 6,000 Sarawakians who were about to become Malaysians had held the same flag-raising ceremony at that very spot in 1963, he didn't think they needed such a permit.
Ng also told Morshidi, that if not for Malaysia Day, the day the country came into being, where did Malaysian law which the police officer claimed he upheld, come from?
Ng said Morshidi hesitated and then said he would not arrest them as they were only a small group.
“To which I immediately rebutted, ‘I hope one day that there will be 6,000 people raising the Malaysian flag with me on September 16, the same number that had witnessed this event here at this very place on September 16, 1963'.”
“The police then without another word withdrew to the corner, and from then onwards, watched us in silence,” Ng wrote.
After that confrontation, Ng said those assembled felt re-energised and proceeded with the ceremony with the reading of the Malaysia and Sarawak proclamations.
Wan Zainal Wan Sanussi, another former chairman of PKR Sarawak, had the honour of becoming “prime minister” for a day and as Tunku Abdul Rahman, Bapa Malaysia, he read out the Malaysia Proclamation, Ng recalled.
“I assumed the role of the Chief Minister of Sarawak – Datuk Amar Stephen Kalong Ningkan – to read out the Sarawak Proclamation.
“And we all sang the Negaraku with much gusto while the Malaysian and Sarawakian flags were raised.”
It was also on this day in 2005 that Ng and his friends unfurled a banner that read, “16 Sept is our True National Day” in three languages.
Despite being let off at the padang, Ng said the police did not stop there.
They lodged a report against him.
And they would lodge police reports against him every year after that, when he raised the flag on September 16.
“Fancy that!” the lawyer mused.
Despite the police harassment, Ng and his friends continued to raise the Malaysian flag and conduct the same ceremony on September 16 every year at Padang Merdeka until last year.
Malaysia’s Golden Jubilee last year saw the government officially took over the ceremony he started at Padang Merdeka.
“My self-appointed task has been completed and accomplished with the Malaysian government, and therefore the whole of Malaysia, now giving due recognition to this day.”
Ng held his own flag-raising ceremony anyway, but at the Kuching waterfront since Padang Merdeka was used as the official venue of the Jubilee.
At last, his goal of getting the government to recognise Malaysia Day as National Day was achieved.
“I had fulfilled my pledge made at the very first flag-raising ceremony in 2005,” he wrote.
His pledge at the time was that he would continue to raise the Malaysian flag every Malaysia Day until the government should decide to take over the ceremony and that there would be at least 6,000 people witnessing the event.
Around 20,000 people turned up last year, at the very same spot, to witness the same tradition Ng had been observing all these years and now, continued by the government. – September 16, 2014.
