I refer to the malaysiakini report Cabinet rejects apology from rapper . In retrospect, it should not surprise anyone that the cabinet has refused to accept the apology: they have extremely little experience with them.

Over several decades of debacles big and small, we have never heard anything which sounds remotely apologetic from cabinet members. These range from natural and man-made disasters, spanning the entire spectrum from flash floods in downtown KL to landslides in Genting Highlands and yet the works minister - who has presided over all of this - has never taken responsibility for anything, let alone apologise.

Or take the upper-echelon leaders of the ruling party, who regularly broadcast blood-curdling racist comments without ever needing to show any remorse or regret.

In democratic countries such as South Korea, Taiwan or Japan (let us leave out all those immoral Western countries which our leaders claim have nothing to teach us), any incompetence on the part of a government minister is quickly followed by the public apology and resignation of the minister in question.

Take, for example, Taiwan's Health Minister Twu Shing-jer, who tried to resign following the SARS crisis in 2004. Indeed, there have been even greater examples of remorse such as Japanese Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka, who committed suicide following his involvement in a financial scandal.

Malaysian ministers, on the other hand, can cheerfully go about their business even after blatantly flouting the law, as in a certain state menteri besar who was convicted of trying to smuggle money out of a foreign country, yet has managed to regain political ascendance at a dizzying speed.

We must thus excuse the cabinet for not accepting Wee Meng Chee's apology - such a concept is utterly alien to them.