Nothing, with perhaps the exception of the seasonal haze, could scare foreign tourists more (from visiting our country) than Tourism Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir's recent vulgar outburst against alleged cheating taxi drivers (that they should be shot dead).

While we should condemn the cheating of tourists by anyone for that matter, we should also censure the misbehaviour of a trigger-happy minister who would easily catch the attention of the world's media and potential tourists in other parts of the globe.

Malaysia certainly doesn't need this kind of (bad) publicity. As it is, we are already quite known in the world for our Internal Security Act that is used against political opposition and dissidents.

This is of course not to say that the right and wrong of our ministers — and for that matter, us Malaysians — should be determined by the tourist ringgit. Such expression is simply uncultured.