30/08/2026

REPORTING THE WEIRD, THE EERIE & THE UNEXPLAINED BOO! BEYOND AND

theSunday Special XII ON SUNDAY AUG 30, 2026

Ghosts of Merdeka

I T’S August again. Bunting goes up. Jalur Gemilang appears on cars, house gates and balconies, and cats, if you try hard enough. And somewhere, faintly, you can hear it: Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Seven times, for those keeping score. Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj declared it at Stadium Merdeka on Aug 31, 1957. The crowd roared. The Union Jack came down. A new nation was born, all 11 states of Malaya wide-eyed and hopeful. Tomorrow, Malaysia turns 69. Not yet “old”. Just old enough to have back pain when it rains, but young enough to still argue about everything on TikTok and in WhatsApp groups at 2am. And like any other nation that’s been around the block, Malaysia has its ghosts. Relax, there’s no pontianak hanging off the KL Tower draped in Jalur Gemilang . These ghosts are figurative ones. Like the Ű BY MIMI SYED YUSOF booandbeyond.thesun@gmail.com

The ghost of the 90s adds: “You wanted rapid growth. Rapid growth comes with rapid problems.” Another adds: “You wanted to become a tiger economy. Tigers shed. A lot.” Yes, young Malaysians are frustrated. Gaji versus cost of living. Politics that feels like a drama with 20 seasons and no ending. It’s not that the complaints are wrong but they forget context. Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam – they’ve had wars, occupations, and resets. We’ve had our crises, but we’ve never had to start from zero. The ghost of Merdeka past reminds us to be thankful. Seven Merdekas wasn’t just a chant. It was a contract. Between leaders and people. Between different communities who decided to try nation-building together. The ghost of the colonial past reminds us what we don’t want to come back. Not the divide-and rule nor the “wait for instructions from London”. We do our own shouting now. The ghost of the future reminds us – you’re not old yet. The US is 250. The UK is... let’s not count. Indonesia is 81. We’re 69 and still figuring out the mortgage, our career and why the WiFi is slow. Leaders should remember the ghosts too. Progress isn’t just GDP charts or mega projects and press photos. It’s whether the child in Dabong (Kuala Krai, Kelantan) and the child in Bario (Miri, Kuching) feel like this country is theirs. It’s whether we can preserve what works – the gotong-royong , tolerance that’s messy but real and food that makes diplomats cry – and fix what doesn’t. So here’s to 69. To the ghosts: thanks for showing up. Keep haunting us, but nicely. Whisper the lessons, not just the regrets. To the young: your disappointment means you care. It is also proof that you expect more. That’s how nations grow. Just maybe also look at how far we’ve come before you cancel the whole country in the comment section. Channel your energies into something besides quoting tweets. Build something. Vote. Complain, but create. To Malaysia: you started as a farmer, became a factory and now you’re trying to be a tech giant who still knows how to make good laksa . That’s a glow-up. To the whiners on Facebook: yes, dulu lagi bagus but dulu no internet. Pick a struggle. The stadium may echo. Dataran may have shadows. But the real Merdeka isn’t in the echoes. It’s in what we do tomorrow. So fly the flag. Eat the cake. Sing the songs. And when you hear a faint Merdeka cry at night, don’t be scared. It’s just the past, checking in to see if we’re paying attention. Merdeka! (x7). And one more for the future.

everything. We put on shoes, moved to the city and learned to do kerja shift. Now we have the IT ghost – digital nomads hovering over Cyberjaya, AI and data centres being built because apparently the internet needs a second home. We have startups that pivot more than a politician during election season and IT parks where our lembu used to graze. Imagine all these ghosts are at the same table for Merdeka dinner. Fighting over the last piece of ayam goreng. Let’s be fair. In 69 years, we’ve done a lot of growing up. We went from a collection of states negotiating independence to a country that builds its own cars, sends people to space and somehow made rendang an international debate. Try naming another country that can do all three. Don’t have kan ? In 1957, most Malaysians worked the land. Today, agriculture is under 8% of GDP. Manufacturing, services and digital economy run the show. We now export software, medical devices and surprisingly good YouTube dramas. Compare us with our neighbours. Singapore shot ahead, yes. But look at Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. We have highways they’re still building, LRT and MRT, universities, hospitals, an airline that used to fly everywhere and a food culture that’s Unesco worthy. We’ve also invented five types of nasi lemak and 10 opinions about which is best, traffic jams that have their own ecosystem and the phrase tunggu sekejap (wait a while), which means anywhere between five minutes and next year. In 1957, news came once a day. Now, news comes once a second and mostly, it’s about why someone didn’t wish someone else happy birthday on Instagram. But the ghosts tap the table and say: “Eh, jangan besar kepala (Don’t get cocky).” The disgruntled choir Every Merdeka, the same chorus starts: “Why can’t we be like Singapore? “Why is the traffic still like this?” “Why is my degree worth less than my Grab rating?” Ok, valid points. But also exhausting. Young Malaysians love to scroll and compare. They see Swiss trains and Korean cafes and wonder why their LRT is having a moment. They see starting salaries and sigh. They see politics and feel tired. The ghost of colonialism leans in and whispers: “You inherited my bureaucracy, my borders, my love of paperwork. What did you expect?”

From rubber estates to data centres, these phantoms carry memories of where we came from, how far we’ve travelled and what we must not lose sight of

rubber and palm oil. They were the backbone of Malayan exports, heavily demanded by Western countries for industrial manufacturing. Our GDP then wore selipar , chewed sirih (betel nut leaf) and ate nasi with tangan . Then came the ghost of the 80s and 90s – the manufacturing boom era, from semiconductors and electronic components to content creators (not the social media kind) and rising national debt. “Made in Malaysia” was on

voices we swear we still hear in Stadium Merdeka after midnight or the shadowy figures at Dataran Merdeka that are probably just security guards. These ghosts don’t haunt houses but they rattle memories. There’s the ghost of the agrarian past: rubber tappers, padi fields, kampung houses on stilts. Malaysia started as a nation that grew things. We were an export-led economy, the primary global hub for raw commodities – tin, natural

Malaysia turns 69 tomorrow, old enough to complain about the WiFi, young enough to still be figuring out the mortgage. – AI GENERATED IMAGE