MIRI – Sarawakians must boldly declare during the Sarawak Independence Day anniversary tomorrow that the state was once an independent nation, exhorted senior lawyer and former Miri mayor Datuk Lawrence Lai today.
July 22, 1963 was the day Sarawak gained independence from British rule, before it helped form Malaysia together with Malaya, Sabah and Singapore on September 16 that same year.
As such, July 22 is very special to Sarawak, he said in comments to The Vibes.
Lai said that the people must be allowed to commemorate Sarawak’s independence openly tomorrow.
“We in Sarawak will usher in a very special occasion tomorrow when we celebrate the anniversary of the date we became an independent country,” said the northern head of Parti Sarawak Bersatu.
“For a short while, Sarawak was a nation by itself, until we joined hands with Malaya, Sabah, and Singapore to form the new country Malaysia.
“July 22 is a big historical event in Sarawak. So there is no legal reason why we Sarawakians cannot fly the Sarawak independence flag, which has a crown on it, and also openly declare the fact that we were an independent country before.
“It is not a crime to celebrate an event that is a historical fact. It is legally proper to still fly the Sarawak independence flag that was officially unveiled in Sarawak on July 22, 1963 and used for up to ten years until 1973,” he said.
Lai said the state government leaders must boldly declare the occasion and reflect on their patriotic stance.
“It is important that the younger generation of Sarawakians be educated on the historical facts surrounding July 22.
“Many young and even middle-aged Sarawakians today do not know we, Sarawak, were once an independent country,” he said.
Lai questioned why the current Gabungan Parti Sarawak state government leaders have been so muted in the run-up to July 22, as no government premises are flying the independence flag.
Lai had no hesitation in officially posing with the flag.
“The late chief minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem was brave enough to gazette July 22 as a public holiday when he was in office and he had correctly declared it as Sarawak Independence Day.
“The people in Sarawak must thus fly the Sarawak independence flag prominently, along with the current state flag and our national flag to show our true unique identity,” he said.
Earlier this month, Parti Aspirasi Sarawak had also questioned why the GPS government leaders had replaced the official wording “Sarawak Independence Day” on July 22 with the term “Sarawak Day”.
Party president Lina Soo wanted to know why the state government had officially removed the word independence and diluted the significance of July 22.
“The term Sarawak Independence Day is a gazetted term and has been in the Sarawak government’s calendar since it was gazetted by the then (late) chief minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem in 2016,” she said in a statement.
“The current state government has now removed the word ‘independence’ and declared the day as Sarawak Day.
“The historical significance of that day has been reduced and this is an act of dishonour to the late Adenan.”
Miri MP Dr Michael Teo Yu Keng said Sarawak’s leaders have been obviously pressured to remove the word “independence” from “Sarawak Independence Day”.
Teo, who is also state PKR vice-chairman, claimed that the pressure came from Putrajaya.
Soo had also blasted the state authorities for not listing out in the official calendar the events that led to Sarawak becoming an independent nation before the formation of Malaysia.
The calendar, she said, is full of food-related pictures instead. – The Vibes, July 21, 2022
_STEPHEN_20221108.jpeg)
