Malaysians may remember an incident about a decade ago, where some young men were arrested for flying a flag said to be a pre-independence Malayan flag. Flags tell us something about the states, parties and organisations that flew them. In this article I would like to share the interesting rationale for the flags that we have in Malaysia today and its history.
The long shadow of Majapahit
Take a look at the Umno flag. Take away the centre circle with the keris and what do you get? You get the Indonesian flag. Actually the Umno flag did not originate from the Indonesian flag but rather both derived from a common heritage. The Indonesian flag is known as Sang Saka Merah Putih (Lofty Bicolour Red and White) and was the old flag of Majapahit, which
Indonesia claims to be the successor state. Among Malays of 1946, the legacy of Majapahit loomed large
in their thinking, with many harking back to the days when a single strong Malay empire ruled over the entire region. Malays of that time dreamt of a pan-Malay union with Indonesia, as in the failed KMM independence attempt at Malaya Raya union with Indonesia. It is only natural therefore that Malays in Umno look towards Majapahit for inspiration for their flag, and inserted the keris to symbolise their specifically Malay struggle.
It was the same with Pas but here I have to go back to the official party flag of Pas, not the more well-known green and white electoral flag. For this, I have taken the flag from a banner at the Pas website, so apologies for the small size of it. Again take away the green Islamic symbols and you get the Majapahit flag. Pas was originally the ulama council of Umno that broke away in 1951 and so it is no surprise that they carried over the
Majapahit legacy infused with Islamic symbology. By the way, if you are wondering how Parti Islam Malaysia got abbreviated to become PAS, the original name of Pas was Persatuan Ulama Sa-Malaya (All-Malaya Ulama Association). OK, it doesn’t explain the middle initial but hey, that is what the Pas website said.
You gets a similar story with the flags of Singapore and Melaka: take away the upper left canton in both cases and you get the flag of Majapahit.
Flags of independence
The next flag is the Sang Saka Malaya, the flag of Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya ('PKMM'), unfurled in 1947. It features the Majapahit flag with twelve stars on the upper left canton, reflecting its Malaya Raya origins. The twelve stars, stars being a nod to the American flag, represents the twelve states of an independent Malaya that they intended to establish: all three Straits Settlements, including Singapore; and the nine Malay sultanates. Note that there is no crescent moon on this flag as PKMM championed independent Malaya as a secular republic. The flag flown by those young men on New Year’s Eve 2012 that got them arrested was a variation of this PKMM flag, with the twelve stars replaced by the yellow Malaysian crescent moon and 14 pointed star. The previous KMM flag was the Sang Saka, the plain Majapahit flag.
Federation of Malaya
The eventual Federation of Malaya flag resulted from a public contest, from which three options were shortlisted for public polling by the Malay Mail newspaper. The winning flag was designed by a Johorean civil servant and a few modifications were made before it was approved for use in 1950. One modification involve the change of the five pointed Islamic star on the red canton background to avoid resemblance to the communist flag that we were fighting at that time. Switching the red canton to blue required switching the blue stripes to red, which worked out fine as red and white stripes were the Majapahit naval ensign flown on Majapahit ships. While the idea of the stripes was said to be inspired by the American flag, the American stripes were likely a design inherited from the old British East India Company flag, bringing it all to a full circle in the flag of a former colony of the Company. I do not think the Majapahit naval flag was knowingly incorporated into the Malayan flag but funny how things turn out in a country that both admired America while looking longingly at the old Majapahit empire.
When Malaya became Malaysia in 1963, three more stripes were added to represent the three new regions which formed Malaysia with Malaya. When Singapore left in 1965, no change was made and eventually when Kuala Lumpur became a federal territory, the 14th stripe vacated by Singapore is said to represent the federal territory. It was only in 1997 that prime minister Mahatir Mohamed named the country’s flag as the Jalur Gemilang (Glorious Stripes), now replete with its own flag anthem.
I hope you can see the past forgotten aspirations which inspired the evolution of our flag designs. While flags of the Peninsula states have been rather stable, flags of Sabah and Sarawak have undergone interesting changes in their history but that’s another article.
In the next article, we enter War and the bloody interregnum and the reverberating effects we still feel today.
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