Do you know what day is tomorrow? That’s right! Tomorrow on Wednesday (31st August), we will celebrating Malaysia’s 65th Independence Day! One of the main events for the celebration that everyone looks forward to every year is the National Day Parade at Dataran Merdeka! Lots of awesome cultural performances, arrival of the Royals, and of course the floats!
If you’ve passed by Dataran Merdeka recently, then you’d definitely catch a sneak peek of the parade happening tomorrow. Rehearsals are important to make sure everything goes as planned but sometimes things can go wrong during rehearsals and unfortunately, this mistake was caught on camera and is causing a lot of concerns.
Bendera di pasang terbalik ketika rehearsal sambutan Hari Merdeka. pic.twitter.com/nicpBJkaM7
— Zack Rockstarᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ (@zack_rockstar) August 29, 2022
Twitter user @zack_rockstar posted a video of the National Day (Merdeka) Parade rehearsal that happened recently where we can see a military officer in the ceremonial uniform hoisting the Malaysian flag to the top of the flag pole while the National Anthem was playing. What shocked the public was the fact that the flag was upside down.
In the video, we can hear the person filming asking the question, “Is the flag upside down?” Since it was posted, the Twitter post reached 152.6k views, 825 retweets, 271 quote tweets and 112 replies at the time of writing this article. Netizens became concerned and wondered how the people in the army could have made this mistake as this is obviously not the first Merdeka parade.
Some also questioned why they didn’t fix it right away after noticing the flag was upside down while many even came up with theories that the army is sending a signal to the public asking for help. The tweets pointed out that according to US flag code, an upside down flag is a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
The truth of the matter has been revealed by a netizen on Facebook. Mohd Shahril Abdul Ghani used to work in the Navy and gave his explanation as to why the army officers didn’t immediately fix the upside down flag. According to the former Navy, hoisting the flag cannot be stopped halfway especially if the national anthem is being played as it is considered unethical.
Shahril claimed that if a mistake such as this has been made, the officers will immediately fix the flag as soon as the national anthem finished playing. He also believed that the incident was just an honest mistake and there was no ill intention as they’ve been rehearsing for the parade for days.
Here’s another video from a different angle showing the officers immediately bringing the flag down to amend the mistake:
Sebab tu kena raptai sampai 5 hari. Practice makes perfect. 🙈 pic.twitter.com/QU13i5iA6D
— GUMIHO🦊 구미호 (@OrangGajiDokter) August 29, 2022
