I refer to the malaysiakini report State gov't adamant, ignores pig farmers' appeals .

As we march onwards to the next 50 years of our continued independence, rights of the minorities in this country are going to be the major agenda for most of us who still see this blessed country as our only home. The government has again showed its highhandedness in tackling the over population of pigs at pig farms which have mushroomed in certain areas in Malacca.

The main question is why raise the issue only now when all this while, the state government has been closing its eyes to the increase of illegal pig farms? Why allow these pig breeders to start pig farming and husbandry when it could have been curbed in the first place with proper and fair enforcement?

The sad thing is that all this is allowed to fester until someone decides to invoke the political card with racial innuendos in it to get to the bottom of the matter. The state government will not bat an eyelid as long as everything is 'covered' and 'settled'. If the environmental laws were enforced strictly with the local population's and religious sensitivities taken into consideration, this ugly commotion would not have happened.

We cannot now have knee-jerk reactions by bundling the pigs and sending them to other states in the Peninsular where another confrontation in the near future may occur.

We now hear that these illegal farms in Malacca are sponsored by Singaporean businessmen. If this information could be obtained and the identities of these sponsors be known, why didn't the state government react in the beginning? Is this just a 'show' to demonstrate that the state government will immediately react to public grouses or has it been turned into a racial and religious issue? Only the real players behind the scene will be able to tell.

The Chinese have been here for centuries and all these while, being Malaysians, we all know that they breed pigs for pork because it is a meat which is largely consumed by them as it is part and parcel of their culture. Once a upon a time, Mardi had a pig station in Serdang where research on this industry was conducted and funded by the government but this has since been stopped altogether because of the new way of thinking and the new people that have come to helm the seats of power and policy.

What we need is government intervention and the acceptance of the fact that Chinese Malaysians are consumers of pork and there is a large demand for the meat from our neighbours who have large ethnic Chinese populations. As such, the government should look at it from the point of view of animal husbandry and commercial agriculture which the current administration is promoting. The country stands to gain in the long run if it can become an exporter of the meat within this region.

If the Hindu majority Tamil Nadu state government in South India can allow Hyundai Corporation to have its own pig farm for the supply of meat to its Korean officials who work and reside in Tamil Nadu, one is sure that the Malaysian federal government and the Malacca state government can do the same based on the facts that we have a longer known history of Chinese inhabitants in Malaysia than the Koreans in India.

It is all a matter of proper laws and regulations which must be adhered to without even thinking about the easy way out or simply put, corruption. If an area can be allocated with proper planning together with laws and regulations which do not overlap, the Agriculture Ministry can manage the whole matter.

The problem can be easily solved and the government stands to gain from the trust that the Chinese Malaysians will have in them. But if the matter is turned into a religious and racial issue, then we will only see the seeds of mistrust being sown. It is not that we have not done research on this area before, it is just that plain ignorance and blind religious and racial bigotry has overtaken our sincerity to coexist in peace.