Indonesia turned upside-down by Malaysian flag blunder at South-East Asian Games
Malaysia apologised to Indonesia yesterday for its mistake in printing the Indonesian flag upside down in a souvenir guidebook for the South-East Asian Games.
Malaysia’s foreign ministry and the Games organisers apologised profusely for the mistake, but it was not enough to quell a wave of complaints online, with #ShameOnYouMalaysia becoming Indonesia’s top trending topic on Twitter.
The blunder came to light at Saturday’s opening ceremony of the 29th South-East Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur, where the magazine was handed out to dignitaries including Indonesia’s sports minister Imam Nahrawi, who tweeted a picture of the page.
The error made the red-andwhite flag resemble the Polish flag and caused anger in Indonesia.
President Joko Widodo demanded an apology, but also warned against exaggerating the incident with the neighbouring country.
Malaysian youth and sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin met Mr Nahrawi to personally apologise. After the brief private meeting, the ministers shook hands.
Mr Khairy, who quickly issued the first apology late on Saturday on Twitter, said the guidebooks would be corrected and reprinted.
Mr Nahrawi, who described the error as “very painful”, said he accepted the apology.
“We hope these mistakes don’t get repeated because flags are important symbols for each country and should be respected,” he said.