I remember six or seven years ago I used to fly the national flag on the roof of my car during the weeks preceding Merdeka. Many people did that too. We had to buy the flags, nobody asked us to and we did it out of pride and patriotism.

In the last few years, the Barisan Nasional government hijacked the idea and crony companies gave out flags for free. Interestingly, one such crony in precarious financial health did an overkill with its free flags campaign and put people like me off.

This year Minister of Culture, Arts and Tourism Sheikh Abdul Kadir went all out to beseech us to show our patriotism by raising the Jalur Gemilang. Suddenly not many of us did. Certainly much less than before!

What happened to us? I cannot speak for the rest of them but I know why I stopped. It seemed to me that there was a conscious effort to manipulate feelings of national pride to equate that as a sign of approval of the way BN is managing the country, or as a mark of our affection for Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Patriotism, like love, cannot be forced. Don't get me wrong, I am patriotic but how can I admire a government when its contention that those who do not agree with it are anti-national? Those who criticise BN policies are unpatriotic? Those who argue for their community's identity are traitors?

It follows then that those who agree with them are patriotic, loyal and true Malaysians. No, thank you, minister, I would rather be all that you say I am not. I love my country. That is why I am not adhering to your call to raise the flag. Many others share my view that loving my country doesn't mean I have to show it!