Rais Yatim has said it right. Our eldest brothers and sisters of Bangsa Malaysia, the Malays, are much more than what PAS and certain people in Umno are turning them into. If we continue to define Malay in narrow, Bedouin Arab terms, like what King Fahd and his ministers and priests want, the Malay race will not be around by 2020.

The success or failure of a race depends on its cultural resilience and inner diversity. The Chinese culture is diverse and multi-faceted. That is why it is strong. Likewise with the Indian culture. When they set out to conquer the world and 'subdue the uncivilised natives', the British defined 'civilisation' as themselves, China and India.

As earlier writers have said, redefine what is Malay, or perish with globalisation. At present, the definition of Malay is confined to a mere tribe called Orang Selat/Orang Laut of the Malay Peninsula.

There are too few Orang Selats/Orang Lauts to give strength, resilience and global impact to the creation of a great Malay race, which Hang Tuah, Tun Perak and Parameswara wanted. And which the late great P Ramlee wanted.

The only place where Orang Selats reign supreme is in the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, across the Straits of Melayu (Melaka). What is Malay today, in Malaysia, is Orang Selat. That won't do because Orang Selat is just a puak , not a bangsa .

Look at the Chinese. There are the Cantonese, the Hokkiens and the Hakkas/Northerners. Within them there are many sub-groups. Look at the Indians. They are a multi-racial global community. Indian contains Aryans, Dravidians (Negroids), Tibetans, and Semites (Arab-Jewish). So very diverse.

Look at the Europeans. They are the Celtics and the Germanics. Within the Celtics are the Welsh, French, Scottish and Irish. Within the Germanics are the English, Germans, Norwegians, Swedish, Danish, and Dutch. So very diverse.

We should start looking at Malay from a global point of view if Malay is to survive globalisation.

We should make Malay include Iban, Bidayuh, Bruneian, Kedayan, Melanau, Kayan-Kenyah, Kelabit, Penan, Kadazan-Dusun-Murut, Bajau-Sulu, Bugis, Batak, Minangkabau, Jawa, Madagascar, Indochina, Taiwanese natives, American natives, Polynesian natives and Micronesia natives.

These people are all from the same stock as the Orang Selat, namely the Mongoloid stock called the Austronesian or Austric or Australasian. Some of these tribes/communities have a far richer heritage than the Orang Selat, for example, the Siamese, Vietnamese, Cambodians and Burmese to our north, and the Javanese to our south.

The Orang Selat ruled Southeast Asia as the Selangor Empire (Sri Vijaya Empire) which was based in Klang and Palembang. The strength of this great Hindu-Buddhist empire was its ability to absorb the cultures of all people of the Malay stock. It did not suppress non-Orang Selat culture to create a pure culture.

When Islam came to Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and modern-day Indonesia, the Kelantanese princes-cum- ulama , called the Wali Songo, did not suppress Hinduism and Buddhism in Java to spread Islam.

They used Hinduism to explain Islam and thus retained the richness of Java's Hindu-Buddhist culture. They equated Brahman with Allah, and Muhammad with Lord Shiva or Vishnu.

Brunei is based on the Hindu-Buddhist word Varunai meaning children of Varuna the Sea God. The Islamic sultanate is not suppressing its name for a more Bedouin Arab one. Even its state crest features the Garuda's wings. This is a relic of its Hindu-Buddhist past.

Pak Lah's late grandfather Abdullah Fahim, arguably one of the mahagurus of Islamic reformism introduced to the world by Jamaluddin al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Iqbal and Rashid Rida in the Malay region, was never a smasher of Hindu-Buddhist things in Malay culture.

True, this Santri (puritan, a Javanese term) Muslim ulama fought hard to rid Malay Islam of the worshipping of tombs of ulamas and the worshipping amulets besides banning intoxicating and trance-inducing Sufism as found in Turkey's whirling dervishes.

But he at no time outlawed Hindu-Buddhist cultures that were not in conflict with Islam. He was also very open to Western cultures, even though he was against sex before marriage, mini-skirted lifestyles, and smoking dope (ganja).

Arab culture by itself is not evil or inferior, as Rais Yatim said. Who gave us the brick, the papyrus paper (later refined by the Chinese), and the wheel? The Arabs. Arabs are not confined to Bedouins but refer to all Semites of the world except the Jews.

But it was people like the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia who have destroyed the Arab culture and reduced it to Bedouin culture. Desert culture. Destructive culture. Some progressive Muslims such as Asghar Ali Engineer, the greatest Indian Muslim reformer of today, even describes Wahhabism as a satanic influence.

Indeed, Wahhabism has been the single most important factor that has destroyed the greatness and goodness of Islam. It has turned Islamdom from a loving, compassionate, progressive and exemplary civilisation into Satan's trojan horse on planet Earth.

Wahhabism is today holding the holiest cities on Earth, Mecca and Medina (every holy city of the founders of a religion should be deemed holy).

Islamdom is dying, and I believe Pak Lah and Rais know that. Thank God for people such as them. Progressive Muslims want to bring the Islamic world along the middle path, like what P Ramlee did.

But in our zeal to wage a jihad against the anti-Christ of Wahhabism led by King Fahd and his subject Osama bin Laden, we should do everything that is only within the boundaries of Islam's teachings. Not by using the ISA against the alleged terrorists. This only makes things worse because it kicks the enemy below the belt.

And not worshipping the West too much. The short mini-skirt is the ultimate West-worshipping monument. Asian women should wear the pants and let the men wear the short skirts. Look at our Iban beauties. Their men wear the short skirts, not the women.

P Ramlee was not fanatical about the West and even criticised Budaya Skirt Pendek and Budaya Hipi in a paper at Universiti Malaya.

The best is for Muslim culture is to be in the footsteps of John Wesley, the great Christian reformer who took into account social progress especially science and women's liberation. The great reformers, including Pak Lah's family, took a cue from Wesley. So. too, did Ahmad Dahalan, the disciple of Rashid Rida and founder of Java's legendary Muhammadiyah NGO.

It was the same with Hamka, Pak Lah's late family friend, and the religious guru of Tun Abdul Rahman Yaakub and Tan Sri Taib Mahmud, Sarawak's missionary-inclined Melanau leaders.

As for Malay culture, it can be as strong as the Chinese and Indian cultures if all the Austronesian cultures are combined. Orang Selat Malays can learn a zillion things from other members of the Rumpun Melayu/Austronesia peoples.

Perhaps we could send the katak di bawah tempurung people of our country to Machu Picchu in South America, to the Red Indian regions, to Tonga, to the Miao regions of China, to Okinawa in Japan, to the Alishan regions of Taiwan and even to New Zealand's Maori kampungs.

It will do them a lot of good to visit these places and learn. After all, all these are Malay/ Austronesian lands.