I am so 'happy' that Ray and his sorts lectured malaysiakini for publishing opinions which he finds 'irritating to the Malays and the Muslims'. I, too, find the issues raised in this Letters section 'irritating'.

I am irritated to discover how my Muslim brothers acted without any shred of compassion for M Moorthy's family. I am irritated that the Syariah Court has the finesse of a playground bully when dealing with such a sensitive matter as the very reputation of Islam. I am even more irritated by our very own High Court judge who bowed down to the Syariah Court as if the lives of non-Muslims do not matter.

As for the Squatgate incident, the presence of a policewoman in tudung, forcing a detainee to strip naked, while the call to prayer is still audible, well, I am so irritated by her shamelessness. If she is good enough to don the tudung, then she should be good enough to observe the azan (call to prayer) and to contemplate on her actions.

Ray and his like are living underneath the coconut shell of 'Malay and Islamic Malaysia' where Malay-Muslims reign benevolently and the Syariah Court is infallible. Step out of this shell and he might yet discover how his own Malay people being subjected to abuses by other Malays in power.

He may yet learn that the Syariah Court has attacked the very essence of Islam - compassion - in ignoring the convert in life but snatching his body in death. He may yet learn that the rights of women, which our own Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) championed more than a millennium ago, are being discarded in favour of irresponsible husbands and fathers.

The amended Islamic Family Bill has diminished the rights of women and children in the Islamic family unit and now subjects them to the whims of men's hormones with near impunity.

Beyond that, other Malaysians, of all ethnicity, are also at the receiving end of this all-powerful but neither learned nor benevolent establishment. A child can be accosted by plainclothes policewomen because they disapprove the attire of the mother , a church was demolished just before Christmas, detainees dying in suspicious circumstances and countless other incidents all because the constitution which was worked out diligently by our forefathers (again, of all ethnicity) no longer protects them.

The close-mindedness of Ray and his like has no place in pluralist Malaysia. He should be thankful that there are Malaysians who can lift his coconut shell and present a mirror for him to see that alternative thinking is ever present.

The belligerence demonstrated by Ray tear into the very fabric of Malaysian life. In his quest for Malay and Islam's supremacy, he has bred mutual suspicion amongst Malaysians, he has put the reputation of Islam in jeopardy (as if the current Islamo-phobia in the Western world is not enough) and he has increased the brain-drain push factors for all Malaysians regardless of ethnicity.

In the end, he may yet have a world just like the one he created underneath his coconut shell - but only after he destroys Malaysia's pluralism, integrity and racial harmony. He may yet be the classic case of 'ayam menang, kampong tergadai'.