The recent controversy over the Ethnic Relations textbook was entirely expected. We cannot expect Higher Education Minister Mustapa Mohamed to back any line other than the party line - that is, the bumiputeras were entirely innocent, and the non-bumiputeras entirely to blame for racial violence.

Every individual seeks a positive identity, and every ethnic group seeks a positive group identity. It occurs by process of comparison, and every social group tends to be very positive about one's own group whilst denigrating others.

'I and mine are better than you and yours'.

'We are right, and you are wrong'.

As a member of an ethnic party within an ethnic political system, I doubt if Mustapa has any room to manoeuver whatsoever in terms of taking any other line than what he did. It would certainly not be career-enhancing if he was to be accused by his own of letting the side down. I do not think it fair to ask him to step down as you and I would have done exactly the same thing too if we were in his shoes.

History is forever subject to dispute what more the May 13 and Kampung Medan incidents. Facts are subject to omission, deletion, distortion and misinterpretation. We are all players in this ethnic competition for positive group identity, and so the first lesson we must teach in Ethnic Relations is that we are, all of us, biased and prejudiced.

I hope, then, the course will go on to teach every Malaysian student to value good ethnic relations. The truth is important. We should further teach critical thinking as we evaluate the facts. We should teach excellent debating skills. We should teach every university student about managing emotions and differences of opinions under pressure.

As for intelligent, truthful, insightful textbooks on ethnic relations, we need not re-invent the wheel as the classic texts used in top-tier Ivy League universities in US, UK and Europe are known to all.

Ethnic Groups in Conflict by Donald Horowitz (University California Press) is the acknowledged masterpiece on politics and ethnicity at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. On a less weighty level, Thomas Sowell's The Economics and Politics of Race is both informative and lively.

Both books may be found at Borders Bookstore in Berjaya Time Square, Kuala Lumpur but stocks are extremely limited.

Looking at the boorish, bullying, obscene, gutter-type behaviour of our MPs debating in Parliament, we should perhaps be thinking of sending them back to university for the Ethnic Relations course before trying it out on our unsuspecting undergraduate students.