I read with great disappointment Premier Abdullah Ahmad's Badawi's scuttling of the Article 11 roadshow and the clamp on debate. Is this a reflection of the regressive Third World mentality that he has often derided? Have we just witnessed the murder of democracy?

Surely Malaysians are mature to handle any topic, controversial, sensitive or not. This notion that the government can merely brush any current issue of public interest and concern under the carpet on the pretext that it is a sensitive issue is preposterous.

It is a cunning way of controlling the political culture of the country and ensuring what or what does not get discussed in the public arena. In this way then it will always hold the upper hand and dictate the political agenda for the country. It is not democracy anymore. It is dictatorship.

Religion will always be a contentious topic but those who approach it with maturity and understanding will have no qualms about debating even its most sacred beliefs without violence.

Abdullah has to decide whether he wants to create a society of responsible people who can think and debate or a nanny state where the government controls everything. By not even allowing public debate on such an important and fundamental issue as Article 11 and in caving in to pressure from extremists, Abdullah has sold out the country's democracy.

I have nothing to do with Article 11 but I believe it is something that needs to be debated. So far the government has failed to provide the leadership in quelling concerns about the supremacy of the Constitutiion.

Dictators like to create a sense of crisis and then impose martial law so that they are in total control. How different are the authorities in Malaysia in this political sense? Instead of allowing the people to intelligently discuss something, they always step in and abort a healthy debate.

By setting the rules and being in the role of player and umpire, the government ensures it always wins by hook or crook. And it has. I know who to vote for in the next election.