So Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's reply to Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on the former's remarks about Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia being marginalised may not sound like an apology (I personally think so too), but I think the head honchos in Umno have no moral ground to make statements about being sensitive and respectful of others when most of them have made numerous insensitive and insulting remarks about other races in Malaysia.

Just read some of these arrogant Umno members' speeches in the Umno general assembly and in Parliament sessions. Yet the government (read Umno) does not reprimand nor demand retractions and apologies from them.

Of late, we have the controversy of Umno deputy youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin's remarks about the Chinese taking advantage of a weakened Umno and the chastising of MCA vice-president Ong Tee Kiat over his remarks about mismanagement of funds allocated for Chinese schools arising from Umno Youth chief Hishammuddin Hussein.

Where is the acknowledgment by Umno of Khairy's mischievous remarks and the demand of an apology by him? Now that Ong's remarks about the mismanagement of funds has been confirmed, there has been total silence on the Umno Youth chief. Instead of bringing Ong up for censure by the government, the Umno Youth chief should actually thank Ong for revealing the problem to him. After all, Hishammuddin is the education minister and it takes somebody from another ministry to alert him of the problem.

The above are just two incidents where I get the image that many of our Malaysian leaders (specially among many, but not all, in Umno) that they can be insensitive in their remarks about others and not have to apologise. There are many more incidents apart from the two above.

Indeed, there was a list of at least six occasions where Malaysian politicians, all from Umno, made uncalled for remarks about the treatment of Malays in Singapore by the Singaporean government. This list was not published by any of the Malaysian newspapers.

It seems to me that many of our government leaders have no moral ground to tell others on how to speak and behave. They are certainly no role models on civilised behaviour. Yet, these are the people where ordinary hardworking and dutiful taxpayers must show respect every time they appear?