The nice thing about Malaysiakini is it publishes letters from anyone even if they contain ideas and comments that many of us - as indicated from readers' responses - would find silly and misleading like the recent ‘Open letter to Marina Mahathir'.

While this letter had little public interest value, it nevertheless enables the public to understand that such unreasonable and intolerant people do exist.

That is why the nation is one of many anomalies and the people are filled with angst and willingly take to the streets and risk being beaten and arrested by the police.

The letter is too smug to be taken seriously.

What I find dishonest and utterly shameful is the writer's claim, like another politician's, to speak for ‘the silent majority' and make unfounded statements as if they were told to speak for them.

Those who speak for the silent majority must think they are like God who alone is omniscient and knows the thoughts and searches the minds of the ‘silent majority'.

He alone is qualified to speak for the ‘silent majority' not imposters, even consummate liars.

Nevertheless when people are short on facts they make audacious presumptions and claim to speak for the ‘silent majority.' If the majority is silent how would anyone know what they are thinking?

The Bersih phenomenon while a planned event would not have seen so many ordinary Malaysians take to the streets if it had not touched on the raw nerve of so many people.

There are those who boast that they can muster so many millions of people in an instant but presumptuousness and the ‘proof in the pudding' are different things.

But marches and proud boasts don't change the status quo or guarantee free and fair elections.

If everyone is serious about what the people think instead of making false claims about their thoughts, they should all demand that the nation finds out at the general elections when the playing field is level, the umpire is independent and fair, and every candidate for the people's votes, is given equal chance to be seen and heard.

Free and fair general elections are the next best thing to a referendum on how the people feel about the government of their country. The writer Mr Wong thinks it is doing a good job, others don't. Let free and fair elections decide.

When all that gerrymandering disappears and every vote has equal value, and the phantom voters are laid to rest, and all is fair and square then let the nation tell the world what they think.

In my opinion Marina Mahathir in sharing her thoughts openly about the Bersih event has done the nation proud in making a strong stand for democracy and moral decency and what Bersih is all about - free and fair elections.

Those who turn it into a conspiracy to overturn the government, and read things bad and subversive into a truly civic event, are the real conspirators and obviously paranoid.

I have never heard of a sporting team becoming paranoid because the rules of the game are made fairer and there is a fair umpire. But matches that are fixed are illegal, immoral and indecent.

The letter castigating Marina Mahathir is a classic case of spin, quite unnecessary, insincere, and self-condemning.

The writer's words are dipped in ‘double-speak', typical of those who are afraid of the truth, and who can't accept that the overwhelming public expression of support for Bersih's cause was largely not orchestrated but spontaneous.

The writer claims not to be a subscriber of Malaysiakini but managed to find his letter published while claiming "I would have written to Malaysiakini but I am not a subscriber to the online news portal because of my principled objection to its blatantly one-sided coverage of news and views."

If he were not a subscriber how did he get to read the full article? And you don't need to be a subscriber to write letters to Malaysiakini .

So what's this double-speak that runs like a thread through his other comments all about?

If I had a "principled objection" to any publication I would not even be within a whisker of it let alone pick on one of its articles to refute in such painstaking detail.

Why take to task something you condemn as "one-sided," a foregone conclusion, unless it is to present the views that are really jaundiced and lop-sided.

As readers would have noted the responses from readers to the letter lays to rest any notion that the writer's views represents that of the ‘silent majority.'

Whatever the truth, I know that many Malaysians and I admire Marina Mahathir for not only taking the side with Bersih but putting body and pen behind it and taking the risks.

There was a degree of danger that she could have been hurt by the tear-gassing and acid-laced water cannons or even over-zealous policemen belting her as happened to many others.

Marina Mahathir is a towering Malaysian in standing above the crowd of groveling sycophants and like Tengku Razaleigh, belong to that growing group of Malaysians who deserve to be named after their nation.

They defend the truth, they talk sense, and they offer hope in their ideas to the rakyat. They deserve to lead the nation if only in their ideas for now.

But on July 9 silence may have stood for consent and Marina Mahathir was unequivocal about her passion for democracy, free and fair elections and good governance.

The day it is ‘like daughter, like father,' then the political skies over the country may yet be brighter. Meanwhile I am glad she is a voice for reason and a light in a dark place.