Commemorating Malaysia Day · Global Voices
Jerrenn Lam

September 16 is the day that Malaya, along with Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined together to form Malaysia. However, it was only in this year that Malaysia Day became a public holiday; previously only the Independence Day of Malaya was a public holiday.
Twitter has been abuzz with the #harimalaysia hashtag. TsirAhXuan tweeted:
1Malaysia  shouldn't be abt Malay eat Chinese or Indian food & vise versa. If  one can speak others’ tongues, then that's unity.
Politicians contributed to the tweets as well.
Liow Tiong Lai, the Health Minister of Malaysia, tweeted:
Recognising Malaysia Day is an important step in creating a truly 1 Malaysia.
He then followed it up with:
I  hope this celebration will remind us that we all have the  responsibility to safeguard the unique ideas this nation was created on.
Hannah Yeoh, the State Assemblyman for Subang Jaya had nice things to say as well:
Msia  Day – Im grateful for my friends from Sabah & Sarawak. Sorry the  govt took so long to recognise today. Better late than never.
Some even used the opportunity to profess their pride in Malaysia, like radio DJ Hunny Madu:
Extra warmth in my heart tweeting this. If i had to do it again, i would still choose to be Malaysian.
The blogosphere was busy as well. May? offered a different point of view:
Some West Malaysians still fear the idea that the people of Sarawak and  Sabah live on trees and that headhunting is still rampant. Some East  Malaysians always get pissed off when reading those stereotypes, but yet  fail to improve their own knowledge of West Malaysia.  It's been 47  years… But do we acknowledge this on only Malaysia Day/National Day?  What about the other 364 days of the year?