Let’s fly the Jalur Gemilang, not our party flags

 Let not politics come in the way of our love for Malaysia.

For the past year, I’ve had a Jalur Gemilang flying on either side of my gate every day, National Day or not, rain or shine.

I don’t do it because of a campaign. I do it to show my children and my neighbours that loving this country cannot be seasonal.

It has to be daily and unconditional. It must not depend on who is sitting in Putrajaya.

I wish I could say that spirit is visible on every street in Malaysia. It isn’t.

Every August, the same story repeats itself. A Bernama survey conducted just weeks before National Day 2025 revealed that only a

handful of business premises along Kuala Lumpur’s Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman flew the Jalur Gemilang.

The other flags were those installed on lamp posts by the local authorities. In Kampung Baru, only a small number of homes flew the flag.

In Kedah’s districts of Kota Setar, Pendang and Yan, there were no flags at many premises and residences. One resident quoted in the report put it plainly: “Maybe it’s not compulsory so they don’t care much, but they should at least fly one flag as a sign of love for the country.”

This is not a one-off observation.

An earlier Bernama survey across six states uncovered the same pattern: government buildings and schools emblazoned in red and white, but homes and vehicles were conspicuously bare.

A civil servant offered a telling explanation: people now express patriotism through social media rather than by hoisting a piece of cloth on a pole.

A 2018 National Day survey by Kajidata Research captured the decline in patriotic sentiment: pride in being Malaysian fell from 98.3% in 2017 to 75.5% in 2018, while the proportion celebrating National Day dropped from 80.2% to 67% over the same period.

Academics at Universiti Putra Malaysia have pointed out that, for a segment of society, the flag is no longer understood as a symbol of Malaysian identity. When there is neither compulsion nor personal benefit attached to it, flying the flag is dismissed as a “seasonal activity” rather than a lasting expression of belonging.

More recently, researchers from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s nationhood and social wellbeing research group observed that declining patriotic sentiment, especially among younger Malaysians, stems from a lack of historical awareness and a perception that National Day celebrations feel disconnected from everyday struggles, with some viewing flag-flying campaigns as superficial or purely government-driven exercises.

That last point troubles me most. If Malaysians are choosing not to fly the flag because they distrust the government of the day, or because they resent a particular political party, then we have profoundly misplaced our target.

The Jalur Gemilang does not belong to any minister, any coalition, or any prime minister. It belongs to the fisherman in Kuala Terengganu, the rubber tapper’s grandchild in Segamat, the trader in Kota Kinabalu, and the retiree in Rawang tending his garden. It belongs to all of us, regardless of who we voted for, or whether we voted at all.

I still remember how different things felt when Mohamed Rahmat, “Tok Mat” as we fondly called him, was minister of information.

Through his “Setia Bersama Rakyat” programme, he did something remarkably simple yet powerful: he made patriotism feel personal and joyful rather than official and obligatory.

Back then, you saw the Jalur Gemilang on office towers and low-cost flats alike, on the bonnets of Mercedes and on the handlebars of trishaws and motorcycles.

Nobody asked which party you supported before you tied a flag to your bicycle. We flew it because we were proud, full stop.

Why didn’t that spirit continue? I don’t think Malaysians stopped loving their country. I think, somewhere along the way, love of country got tangled up with approval or disapproval of whoever was governing it.

We began confusing the flag with the government, and so when we grew disillusioned with politicians, we quietly withdrew our flags instead of separating the two.

That confusion is the real finding worth dwelling on — it isn’t apathy that’s driving this decline so much as misdirected political frustration.

This year, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim launched the 2026 National Month and Fly the Jalur Gemilang Campaign, urging young Malaysians not to forget the blood, sweat and tears behind our independence.

Campaigns like this matter, but they cannot do the work alone. They need ordinary Malaysians, you and me, to decide that our loyalty to this land is bigger than our disappointment in any leader, party, or policy.

So here is what I am asking of you, reader to reader, Malaysian to Malaysian: put up a flag. Not just in August, not just for a photograph, but for good.

Put it at your gate, your balcony, your car, your motorcycle basket.

If you disagree with the government, criticise it; that is your democratic right. But let your criticism live in your words, your vote, and your civic action, not on an empty flagpole.

My two flags have flown through monsoons and through political storms far bigger than any monsoon, through every National Day since I put them up.

They have never once asked me who I voted for. Let’s put our political differences where they belong, in the ballot box, and let the Jalur Gemilang fly where it belongs too: over every Malaysian home, without fail.

Let’s raise it high. Together. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT.