As with the weather, human affairs in Malaysia also go through seasonal cycles. In Kuala Lumpur at least, August is the season for that annual orgy of patriotism.

As usual, our Ministry of Disinformation will saturate our national consciousness with ostentatious display of national symbols again. The myth of our national history will continue to be produced and reproduced through the media, like an old broken record.

The moment when our first prime minister proclaimed "Merdeka" seven times will be shown on our television countless times. For whole new generations of young Malaysians, who have no access to history except that which is imparted in our schools, the history of Malay nationalism is indeed their only legacy.

History taught in schools and the mass media is always the truth produced by political power. As we near Independence Day every year, the crystallisation of the most dramatic snippets of this historical truth is meant to engineer and entrench single-minded love and loyalty for this illusive entity called the Malaysian Nation.

Was it Oscar Wilde who defined patriotism as the "last refuge of the scoundrel"? It does not matter. The scoundrel wins out every time. Prominent historians and scholars keep reminding us that the world is a community of nation states, and the nation shall forever be the inevitable basic unit of our political organisation.