By IANS
Kuala Lumpur : Thursday is a day of tradition in the government offices across Malaysia.
Malaysian civil servants wear colourful batik attires Thursday and have made it a weekly habit so that they acquire a national identity and promote traditional fabric.
The new sartorial rule to wear Batik every Thursday was prompted by the fact that the earlier rule of wearing Batik twice a month was not followed diligently.
The government’s chief secretary Ismail Adam issued a circular, signed by Public Services Department Director General Mohamad Sidek Hasan, mandating Thursday Batik for civil servants, The Star newspaper said Wednesday.
Adam said apart from wanting to give Malaysian batik a boost by getting civil servants to wear it more often, the decision to have civil servants wear batik garments on Thursdays was “to make it easy for them to remember when they should put on their batik shirts”.
“We will see more civil servants wear batik from now on and it will have to be Malaysian batik, of course,” he told the media.
The idea of promoting Malaysian batik was first mooted by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s late wife Endon Mahmood, who died 2005.
True to Endon’s call, Abdullah has not only worn Malaysian batik frequently but has also promoted the identity of Malaysian batik at international forums and conventions.