With regards to the letter Not emigrating for a cause , kindly allow me my two cents worth of input.

First off, I am a new migrant to Australia. My whole family migrated here a few years back to ensure a better chance for my siblings and me to get good tertiary education. I am now at university doing a professional course, and mind you, the entrance examination was done in a fair and meritocractic manner, without any hidden agenda.

In reply to those critics of migration who quote 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country', I ask this: how can a country ask us to 'do great things' for it when it is so adamant in denying us a chance to do so?

How can one do great things when one's own country won't let one do medical studies even though one has scored straight As in the STPM? Heck, one doesn't even need to talk about getting into a medical course. I know of one senior who scored all As and applied for pharmacy, but still failed to get that.

How do you expect these bright students to feel when they are instead asked to do courses like 'wood technology' or 'agriculture'? Sorry, but such reasoning, no matter what its basis, just doesn't hold any water for me.

The writer of the aforementioned letter went on say that we should stay back and strive for the creation of a civil society. My reply to that is that what more can my parents - being only two people in a nation of 25 million - possibly do apart from voting for a better and fairer tomorrow come election day?

Do you want us to take the streets in protest ala Lebanon? Or maybe you would like us to stage hunger strikes ala Gandhi? And then undoubtedly, we would be rewarded with a stay in a tiny cell for all our efforts. Hooray!

The bitter truth is that the majority of this nation don't see the need to change things yet and until then, we can do little about it.

I've know what I can do for my country in the future, but the more I think about it, the more I begin to wonder: What has the nation really ever done for me? Does it really deserve my help now?