From the entire tone of FN's letter ( Chinese M'sians must accept their lot ), I wonder whether the writer was being serious or sarcastic. I write the following on the assumption that he was serious.

There are many points in the letter which I wish to discuss, but I will focus my opinion on his assertion that Chinese Malaysians 'are only immigrants'. My opinion would apply equally to Indian Malaysians, as my letter will show.

During the time of the Malay sultanate of Melaka, the Malays were a very successful people as a whole. Their leaders navigated the seas of Southeast Asia, were great warriors, adopted effective administrative and legal systems, were adept at international trade and were good at managing diplomatic relations.

One of the sultans of Melaka, Sultan Mansur Shah, did not risk his people's lives unnecessarily in warding off regional threats, mostly from neighbouring Siam. Nor did he think that giving away the sultanate's money for nothing more than a little 'protection' from these threats was the best arrangement.

Being the leader that he was, the sultan decided that the best way to ward off these threats was to seek friendly ties with the Ming emperor, the greatest power in the region at the time. In return for the recognition of the sovereignty of his sultanate, the sultan offered lower tariffs for Ming merchants who traded at his internationally renowned port.

His port flourished, the threats ceased, and his people prospered further. It was a feudal system, but the people had leaders who set good examples and were fair to them. They had leaders that they could be proud of. Their quality was such that the Portuguese and Dutch failed to dampen their drive to succeed and defend their sovereignty as evidenced from the attempts to recover Melaka and the limited inroads the Portuguese and Dutch made in the post-Melaka sultanates.

Fast forward to the era of the expert diplomats and colonisers the British. With all due respect to the Malay rulers, I quote our former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, 'Datang orang putih, janji pencen, you don't have to work, we work. Seronoklah. Dapat payung kuning satu, satu kereta Rolls Royce, dapat istana dengan pencen, apa lagi nak? Tak payah buat kerja.'

While that over simplifies the process in which the Malay states fell into the hands of the British, it is to a certain extent the way the Malays lost their great leaders one by one.

As a spillover effect of the Industrial Revolution, the British now needed people to toil the plantations, build roads and railways and work at the mines and ports in Malaya. The natural choice of candidates for these jobs were the people at their doorstep the local Malays, but the British failed to persuade them to take up the jobs.

Either there were not enough Malays to fill the positions, or simply the sultans, after being reduced to leaders in matters pertaining to adat and Islam only, found it difficult to lead by example as enterprising leaders that could persuade the Malays to participate in this new venture. And so the British encouraged the Indians and the Chinese to take up these jobs and this set the stage for their mass immigration. The rest is history.

It is unfair to say that descendants of immigrants "are only immigrants" when they have been born and bred in a country which they will call home for the rest of their lives. But it is even more unfair when this is applied to Chinese (or Indian I make it clear though that FN mentioned only the Chinese) Malaysians. This is because the Chinese and Indians in Malaysia had a major part to play in the negotiations for independence and also the development of the economy and the shaping of our unique way of life which our Tourism Board rightly and effectively promotes to the rest of the world.

Very few "minorities of immigrant descent" in other countries can say that they have had as profound an effect on the shaping of their country's identity as the Chinese and Indian Malaysians have had on the identity of Malaysia. This is definitely not to say that they can then be labelled as "only immigrants", but it certainly is one good reason why Chinese and Indian Malaysians cannot be called "only immigrants".

The reason for the long prelude above is that it was a chain of events that brought the three major ethnic groups of Malaysia together. Perhaps it was fate for those who believe in this concept. Regardless, we as Malaysians will sink or swim together depending on how well we manage our country. It is time we realised this, and we certainly could do without the kaum pendatang mindset.