From personal experience of people around me, I agree with InChi to Mal-In-Chi's letter Intermarriages and societal change in that many Chinese and Indians would have married Malays if it weren't for the religious conversion forced upon them. Inter-racial marriages is one of the most natural and effective ways of forging genuine racial and national integration but our government has chosen to ignore this.

Radicals in this country have campaigned hard to deny the right of Muslims to choose their religion on the grounds that Islam does not give its believers the freedom of religion, and the Umno elite seems to have allowed themselves to be led by such opinions.

However, the ruling parties have no guts to do it the proper way by amending the Constitution or laws to explicitly deny freedom of religion to Muslims, or even to say simply, that the syariah courts have exclusive jurisdiction when it comes to apostasy.

If the radicals get their way, soon the Federal Constitution will turn into a non-Muslim (dhimmi?) constitution, applicable only for less than 40% (and declining) of the population of the federation. Meanwhile, the freedom and rights of Muslims would be completely at the mercy of their state religious authorities populated by the radicals, eager to roll back western, liberal, and pluralistic influences inherited from the colonial masters.

This is not scare-mongering. If the freedom enshrined in one article of the Federal Constitution could be overridden by state laws in the absence of express provisions to that effect, then no other article is safe. Soon, we might witness the courts taking away the right to freedom of speech, association or even life from over 60 percent of the population, perhaps at the rate of one freedom per general election. Many Muslims themselves would be surprised to wake up one day and to find that Islam, a modern and fair religion, has turned into a road of no return.

The mandatory marital conversion, another main pillar of the Islamisation regime, has profoundly discouraged inter-racial marriages, because it disproportionately raises the stakes of marriages and turned it into a completely different ball game.

Under the current regime, marrying a Malay or Muslim is no longer an affair between two individuals who truly love each other and are committed to a lifelong relationship (well, some would say you have to love the in-laws too). Rather, it is a decision which goes far, far beyond two lovers and into the realms of fundamental freedoms, laws, politics, God, lifestyles, as well as one's future genetic heirs in perpetuity.

For those of us who already hesitate about marrying into the family, marrying a Muslim has now become something which requires you to think more than 20 times.

Transcending racial divides is already difficult, but to require a person to also radically change his or her beliefs about life and death is almost insurmountable for decent, honest people, if not for everybody. However, rather than making it easier for inter-racial marriages so as to foster genuine national and racial unity, our Malay elite have made it that much more harder.

Having chosen to reject the easiest and most healthy route to strong national and racial integration on one hand, while choosing to add religious chauvinism on top of racial supremacy on the other, can our fellow Malay and Muslim countrymen (well, assuming that the Federal Constitution is not just for the dhimmis) now fault the non-Muslim citizen for not being enthusiastic about integration and unity as defined by the Malay and Muslim elite?

As the National Day approaches and before Malaysia celebrates half-a-decade of existence next year, national unity, sadly, is in a great flux. Maybe it's time for all of us to reflect on the state of national unity, and to review the direction it is taking. We need wise, far-sighted and courageous national leaders for that, and I wonder where is our Martin Luther King.

One friend estimated that if religion (as we currently impose it in Malaysia) is out of the way, at least one in four Chinese and Indian would marry a Malay. I don't think that estimate is exaggerated, and I would imagine that it would be a beautiful picture. But alas, we'll never know, will we?