I am compelled to respond to the letter Orang Asli, Malays one and the same by M Sahaja. It is writers like M Sahaja and the language and views they spew that makes me want to migrate.

In his letter, he hopes that 'other Chinese and Indians will come forward and offer their views to see if they are happy to be where they are now living in Malaysia or if they'd rather emigrate elsewhere.' and writes, 'It is ironic to me to see how that the working-class and lesser educated Chinese and Indians are perfectly happy being where they are while those who have some education and can write in English are the ones who grumble a lot more.'

Well, how do you know they are happy? Just because you do not hear from them? Did it ever occur to you the luxury of having choices and emigrating belongs least to the marginalised and working class? Perhaps M Sahaja also does not realise the avenues or the lack of action the average Malaysian can take for social change, what with all the fear and laws in place to prevent that.

So we speak out! To M Sahaja, it is called 'grumbling'! Some who can migrate, migrate. The braver ones tend to end up in jail. So I suppose in M Sahaja's world of non-Malays, you can only be either an educated grumbler, a happy non-educated or working class person, an extremist in jail, or you just get out of 'his' country. How bigoted.

M Sahaja brought up a good point about writing and speaking in Malay. However, this is nothing about being brave enough to grumble in Malay, as M Sahaja implied, but rather of taking the extra effort to build bridges across communities. Heaven knows if anything that can make a difference will be published, but it is better than not trying.

This may be necessary to form more positive engagements between communities. Hopefully, in turn, there would be more effort on the part of Malays who do have the same sense about just speaking out.

To all Malays out there who believe in equality and a shared and just Malaysia, I'm sorry but you have to work harder to make your sane voice heard above and over those bigoted ones like M Sahaja's, which I hope to be only a loud minority and not that of a silent majority.

Otherwise, all these negative vibes going around aren't going to make things any easier for building bridges. So please come forward to offer your views on this. There is too much doom and gloom. Please step forward, wherever you are, and speak out against bigoted expressions.