Khoo Kay Peng in his letter 'DAP keen on exploiting race-based issues', buried one issue, however inadvertently opened another can of worms, the position of the party of his choosing, I suspect Gerakan.

He said, "Hence, the party accepts plurality in definition: Muslims are welcomed to call this country an Islamic country and the non-Muslims can also freely define Malaysia as a secular or multi-religious country."

This seems to be flawed rationale. You cannot call a country many things just so that everyone gets to define the nation in a way that pleases them and their sentiments. We are a founding member of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and have a Muslim majority as indicated by the statisticians in government, although the numbers are always changing even when quoted by ministers. Yet, we are not a religious state and any effort to tie that consideration officially should be opposed by all Malaysians, for it is an intrusion of the federal constitution.

Malaysia is secular; an Islamic country however would place Islamic tenets above all other consideration, circa Saudi Arabia and Pakistan where someone suspected of suggesting ideas that may remotely seem to contradict Islamic edicts are brought to justice. I am sure that Khoo knows that. There are enough cases filed in Amnesty International to confirm the complete intolerance practised by typical Islamic countries.

A nation cannot be flexible about what it is, and what it stands for. Our founding fathers may have included religious recognition in the constitution to reflect the cultural elements, but that does not reduce the immense importance of clarity in definition of a nation, in our case it is secularism.

I do know that Gerakan sits uncomfortably with the prime minister making the constant decrees of Islamic statehood to cut the support base to PAS, yet it has to do more than just say it is committed to plurality of definition.

It can have plurality of interests and governance, but a nation can have only one definition, and if it does not, then people in the wrong quarters of government will use the feeble concession by Gerakan, and in time - as people in this country have extremely short memories - state that a long time ago everyone in Malaysia already agreed to Malaysia being an Islamic country, therefore there is no need for a referendum to decide the matter, just a cabinet meeting. And the Islamisation of the courts, local government, education and everything else would continue at a brisk pace.

And if Khoo has been reading the other letters in malaysiakini, like the one from Wenyah and Sarah Verghis, then he would realise it is the lack of moral fortitude towards increased theocracy in the country that is leading to many abandoning the ship.

If there was any American journalist today that said Christian America, he or she would lose their job before reaching their car in the parking lot. There are more Christians in America in percentage terms than there are Muslims here in Malaysia, yet that nation is staunchly secular, which is exactly how a multicultural nation should operate.

A system that caters more for one group than others is flawed and wrong.

Perhaps in retort, people would cite the great Islamic kingdoms of the past, the Umaiyyahs, Abbasiyahs and the Moghuls. Even add the fact most of Europe was in the dark ages while proper governance was already practised in the Islamic kingdoms, and that the minorities were better taken care of there then in any European city.

Of course there is plenty of truth there, but don't forget it was the dark ages, after all. No Western thinker would present the period before enlightenment as the finest period in Judeo-Christian traditions.

For the non-Muslim, like a Jew, having to live under heavy taxation and cultural limitations in Baghdad was more enticing than living in a ghetto in Paris where every year or so the pogroms happen, a mob ritual where thousands of Jews are butchered because they killed Jesus.

But today, any Western European city is better than Rabat or Teheran, as the migration of even Muslims to these nations show.

The Islamic countries in the world today have failed to meet the global expectation of fair living. Minorities are held in the worst situations in Islamic countries. The West had that problem and Americans used to lynch blacks and foreigners, and every other day race-influenced brutalities are reported in Western media, but these nations have developed and reformed themselves.

They are better for it.

There are no indications of reformation in Islamic governance around the world. Even small experiments in Islamic laws in Muslim states in secular Nigeria have resulted in women held in confinement until a proper date for their stoning is finalised, because they were adulterous. They cannot prove the guilt of the men that slept with them, so the gentlemen are excused, and the women since they tend to be impregnated are guilty by biological proof.

That is why non-Muslims in Malaysia are petrified of Islamic laws in Malaysia, and increasingly worried as the Muslim ministers in cabinet try to beat each other in a cute "Who is holier than thou" competition for the rural votes and grassroots support. They do it unashamedly and the people lap it up as they are convinced that anything done under the guise of religion has to be eminently important.

The truth is the spectre of theocracy can only be beaten by vigilance and zero tolerance to it. Every effort to Islamise matters in Malaysia has to be questioned by all Malaysians, and unless the effort fulfils the goals of improving the lives of all Malaysians then it is unacceptable.

Liberals make up the bulk of the brainpower of any country, and whether they are Muslim or not, they would not put up with a theocratic state, or a state that implicitly persecutes people for their religious beliefs. If Malaysia is to keep its brains it has to devise itself to be more tolerant and not less tolerant. Secularism ensures the former, and that is why Malaysia has to remain secular, and why parties that are shaped by secularist ideologues have to remain faithful to their raison d'tre.