Announced by our PM today (19 Oct 2009), beginning next year, Malaysia Day has been declared as a public holiday.
Malaysia Day is held on 16 Sept every year since 1963 to celebrate the formation of Malaya, North Borneo (now renamed to Sabah), Sarawak & Singapore to form as Malaysia. It was not that easy.
The new federation was planned to be held on 1st June 1963, but was postponed to 31st Aug 1963 and due to some issues from Philipine and Indonesia, it was again postponed to 16th Sept 1963.
On the 31st Aug 1963, Singapore and North Borneo declared independance from the United Kingdom. I'm not sure what happened next but maybe you can google more about it.
Later on, a team was formed to determine the people from Sabah and Sawarak whether to participate in the formation of Malaysia and the results showed that they wish to. So, the formation of Malaysia is on its way on 16 Sept 1963, which they declared as Malaysia Day.
However, 31st Aug is still considered as the original celebration of Independance Day (Merdeka) of the Malaya. All the while we, Malaysian are celebrating the Merdeka on 31st Aug.
This is a good news where 16th Sept is declared as a public holiday and it should be that way.
People might confusing why have such two different merdeka days, this makes me think about Google has alot of different date of birthday celebration :-)
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