In response to the letter Ask the right question , while it is true that we had a social contract made years ago, but it must be realised that the rights of second and third generation Chinese and Indians need to be considered too.

As a Malay, sometimes I feel bad about what my Chinese and Indian friends have to endure. Not only do we use our special rights in many essential areas, we also now continuously put them in the middle of our religious dilemmas.

Many Malays would argue that non-Malays, especially the Chinese have prospered economically and if we do not protect our Malay rights, we would back at square one.

This type of opinion is demeaning not only to the Chinese and Indians, but it is even more demeaning to the Malays. The new Malay generations are different. The protected rights have in many ways delivered their objective.

Malays currently compete better than their forefathers who mostly worked in the kampungs and did not have the opportunity of basic and higher education. How many Malays can say that they do not have ample education opportunities now?

As to the issue that most poor people in the country are Malays, we should ask ourselves whether these are equivalent in relative terms to other races in the country other endogenous people, the Indians or even the Chinese?

Poor people are poor people, rich people are rich people - no matter which race they come from. Justice and compassion prevails when rich people recognise their responsibility to the poor and the poor use the benefits given to them to better their lives.

As Muslims who are familiar with the concept of zakat , this should be a simple enough fact to understand. In the past, it used to be that the economically marginalised were the endogenous people, including the Malays but can we honestly say that this is the case now?

Sometimes, I feel we Malays are scared to meet meritocracy up-front because we are scared of the unknown. Things become much worse when we have a political environment that perpetuates all sorts of negative myths on the 'what if the gates are opened?'scenario.

Our population has evolved, and they have grown as Malaysians rather than as Chinese from China, Indians from India, Malays from Tanah Melayu. This also goes for the other races in the country as well.

The younger generations, even though they seem to know the theoretical rationale of the social contract and try hard to live by it, do not have the same understanding of it as the older generations do.

The young Malays who fight for its preservation are mostly those who want to keep the benefits, Not because they want economic equality in Malaysia (which was the original reason for the social contract in the first place). But can you blame them when all their current successes would not have been possible without these benefits?

However, I am worried that if this continues, the confidence and capability of brilliant young Malays who could actually have done better if they were given the opportunity to stand on their own two feet (like the ones in Pemuda and Puteru Umno) would forever be eclipsed by their dependence on the social contract.

If the non-Malays talk about second-class treatment in terms of social rights, the Malays can also talk about second-class treatment in terms of recognition of their real potential.

The thing is, Malaysia has grown as much as it can under the environment of this social contract, and now its needs a new skin. I can totally understand the concern of Frederick Tan about surviving the global jungle .

We need a 'united front' to compete in the global economy and our people already posses the tradition and philosophy of some of history's most respected civilisations, be it the Malay civilisation, the Indian civilisation, the Chinese civilisation, the Islamic civilisation and even a good grasp of the western civilisation, thanks to the British.

Probably, in comparison with other countries, Malaysia is closest to understanding the world we live in. If we are sincere enough, there are so many ways in which we can learn from and enhance each other.

Pray my fellow citizens, why are we putting all this to waste?