AUGUST 21 — We lived in a squatter unit. Two rooms, kitchen and living area under zinc roofing. 

Four equal quadrant units, two shared outhouses behind. In the 1970s, six occupants inside the quadrant unit, and outside my dad’s scooter.

There were no Cuti-Cuti Malaysia options for every Merdeka holiday, except to stay home and watch the parade on the telly. 

Dad strung banner flags, which were like 10 feet long streamers. The memory is sketchy but certainly not conventional rectangular flags, or correct in terms of stripes.  

The government driver and his Merdeka Day decoration, seated on his rattan chair watching uniformed units marching in black and white.

I wonder what my old man would make of the ruckus over the flag.

He’d have a hard time understanding the country’s Number One Johnny-come-lately, Akmal Saleh.

I feel too many people are bothered and worried about a medical doctor with a severe case of narcissistic personality disorder and should be annoyed with themselves that they are bothered and worried in our Merdeka month over an impudent politician.

After all, why fret about an outgrown child born in the year the world started to forget about Rick Astley? Think about it, 1988, when Akmal was born, it was two years after Sudirman’s Chow Kit concert and Najib Razak was Umno Youth Chief.

In this and other alternative dimensions, he remains a newbie.

Hanging, fluttering or stuck on you

If how to affix, care and produce the national flag are far more critical than whether people care to have the flag on their person or property, surely the first step is to identify the playing field.

Know what’s 100 per cent correct therefore easier to suss out the suspect. Beat them with spiked clubs if necessary.

There are the obvious traditional horizontal hoists and then the vertical format. Then the rest. There's the pennant, bunting, banners, hand-held, table miniature, patch, badge, ensign, fanion and then Roman vexillum which is the genesis for the term to study flags, vexillology.

Time for the ministries, starting with communications, unity and law, hire external consultants to have the official version for all types of flags. Time for our tax ringgit to be productive.

How about ad hoc fashions with flags by celebrities?  Those need governing too. Perhaps some jeopardy for tailors who stitch them. Just like Sudirman 40 years ago, or Siti Nurhaliza some years ago. Need those regulated? Deffo. Stat.

Imagine people sitting when wearing a Jalur Gemilang suit? The nerve.

At sports events, many opt for flag face paints. How soon before these acts of betrayal upset Umno youths?

So, a full set of specific rules for all types of flags. But wait, wait. Rules without enforcement are crass. A government department to deter flag abuse. Employ psychics to rid images of the wrong flags in the minds of the rakyat too, that’s going the extra mile.

Protect people from their symbols

Imagine at the national day parade, thousands standing on the sides mimicking imaginary flags in hands, since that is the safest choice? A pretend flag can only result in pretend indignation.

Ridiculous? Most people prefer to avoid trouble. If the wrong flag is trouble, then the natural response from regular folks is to eschew the national flag. Avoid the trip to the police station to explain a flag gaffe.

Notice that voter turnout dipped rather than flourished when automatic registration and lowering the eligibility age occurred. It is harder and harder to get more Malaysians to care about their country.

It is not very difficult to persuade them to disassociate themselves further from the country. This new climate literally makes Malaysians not want the flag in their lives.

How much longer before they do not want Malaysia in their lives?

This for the moral crusaders is a win. To have far fewer people with flags, but those who do error free. Probably humour free too, since the uptight and speak through shouting tend to be terminally unfunny.

Enemies at the gate

Akmal and those in his postcode see disrespect because they expect disrespect.

That’s the actual matter at hand. These handling transgressions are part of a more concerted effort by the nameless but definitely a group of people with certain facial orientations. It's Sin Chew, not Utusan. It’s the hardware store, not the tomyam shop. It’s those with visible belly button piercings not those in modest baju kurung.

It is layers and layers of euphemism. It is not Malaysians who blunder their flag displays; it is that certain Malaysian communities are committing these moral crimes with alacrity.

That’s the main argument. Bad faith by a group intent on hurting the country.

No amount of evidence sways the groups, those who accuse. Not dissimilar to the Salem witch-hunt.

Once sections are convinced of their premises, then the conclusions are derived effortlessly. In the case of 17th Century Massachusetts, hangings.

On a hill with monkeys

In my University Kebangsaan Malaysia days, in my second year, our lodgings were single-occupant flatlets. Kom E, Go Kamsis Ibrahim Yaakob! (Incidentally named after a Malayan patriot on the wrong side of Konfrontasi)

My lack of fashion, property and submission have been longstanding. Which meant I did not have much in my unit nor did I care much for it. I did have a national flag, which we years earlier dispossessed from a convent school.

To maintain a thin semblance of privacy, the flag draped the window. Depends on how you look at it. From the inside, a curtain. From the outside, a constant patriotic reminder to the few who passed it.

A flag represents a country. A people are the country. The flag represents ultimately, the people. And countries and their people have individual private love affairs with each other. Don’t judge love or measure it by your standards. It’s private for a reason.

You see the country this way? Fair enough. They see it another way.

Courtesy and good manners facilitate so that our love is not a constant boulder on other people’s skulls.

Not euphemistically speaking, do not go around thinking you are the only one defending the country. You are the only one standing up for the country. You are the only one.

Be careful, the conceit might drown you one day.

To the rest of us, carry on with your own personal love affair with Malaysia, at your pace, for only your heart is at stake. Don’t let the jealous ruin the relationship.

Sudirman, the man who wore the flag and had his love for the country on his sleeve, his words were our Merdeka slogan in 2014. Di sini lahirnya sebuah cinta. The flag you hold up, tie up or colour on paper is your love message. It’s yours to have, it is cruel to let that go.   

Which is how I feel it was for my father. It was his country to have, not others to judge that. His flag, his rented dwelling, his experience. His life in the federation marked by what he hoisted up.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.