your say ‘With more and more young people voting for Pakatan and ignoring the racist posturing of Umno, it augurs well for a better tomorrow. It is not the end of BN yet, certainly its end is near.’

TP Wan: Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah is the PM that we nearly had. Since then, Malaysia has been going downhill. The breaking down of our public institutions - the police, MACC, judiciary, parliament, etc, will have a lasting and damaging effect on Malaysia. God has blessed Malaysia inspite of our inequities.

March 8, 2008 is a watershed year for Malaysia. Whether the Pakatan Rakyat parties can reconcile their polar differences especially on the issue of Islam is left to be seen. With the advent of technology, the complete monopoly of the BN-controlled propaganda machines has been somewhat thwarted. With more and more young people voting for Pakatan and ignoring the racist posturing of Umno, it augurs well for a better tomorrow. It is not the end of BN yet, certainly its end is near.

Amin Iskandar: Ku Li, a new beginning should be a new politics without the race and religion. With the current situation that happened in our country, I do believe that Malaysian are ready for politics without involving race and religion. Of course, the fanatics from BN and PR are still there. But if the majority want to move forward, nobody can stop them.

Ku Li, you still have time to do something for the country. Please lead the movement to abolish race and religion-based party in the country as the first step for a new dawn...

Lee Guan Tong: Dear Tengku, you may not have ever held the reins to rule this country but you are the indeed leading us now with a view to the deserved destiny of this beloved country. The least and dearest that you have provided to the people of this country is a vivid picture of the future we all long to have.

It is a shame that no one from BN or even PR has ever spoken with such clarity and it is a pity that your raw political power within BN is seemingly insufficient to generate a reform from the within. Let's take this educational piece and share it with the people. The key to the future as you painted lies in changing the slumbering minds.

Evan Ngow: I must apologise Tengku for I have passed judgement on you before knowing the man that you truly are. Since 1987, I thought of you as a power-crazed politician bent on becoming the Umno president and PM. When you formed Semangat 46, I chided and scorned at you and your party because I thought 'this was a man not contented with losing a political battle and formed his own party for his selfish gains'. I was wrong.

I have never been more wrong when I think back to 1987 that we could have had a different PM and things 'could' have been so different for us when it mattered most. When we were going through a constitutional crisis, judicial crisis, economic crisis... I never knew that you were in fact the 'right' man for the job!

Reading your article, you are truly the man that should have been PM. We need you on the 'right' side of history, now more than ever. Don't make the same mistake you did in 1987. You can still reform this country but not in Umno. This is the real time for change!

Cheap Talk: Ku Li, this is a wonderful expressions of desired ideal human co-existence with regards to racial tolerance and acceptability. The next step would be to do as Zaid Ibrahim and Chua Jui Meng had done - join the two who are trying to bring us back to the days from Independence to 1969, where you believed in the power-sharing arrangement for the progress and peace of the country.

I was in Sabah just last week and this taxi driver told me a story of how an old Malay makcik commented that she did not mind the taxi driver and his three male friends share the table and eat whatever they want. It is clear that in Sabah, the races can mix together - it's a wonderful and happy sight but BN is trying to create racial polarisation now for their divide-and-rule system. Ku Li, you can help to eradicate the fearful feelings in our country.

Michael Martin: Tengku, this is the most interesting and well thought-out speech that I have read from anyone in Malaysia since I arrived here seven years ago. As a foreigner, I take a keen interest in local politics although feel frustrated that my status does not allow me to participate in them. Your views must surely resonate with the majority of right-thinking Malaysians.

As others have said, it is clear that the BN model of government is now truly dead and should be buried. You will not be able to mend Umno from within, so you would do your country even more good by joining Pakatan and helping to shape the future, which surely must include many of the ideas that you spelled out in this most excellent speech.

Hanim Hassan: I am a 49-year-old self-funding student at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia, doing a four-year social work degree. Growing up in poverty in rural Johor, where just like many (and multi-racial) neighbours, the one uniting aim was to eat (if possible, daily).

For over a week during the '69 riots, the Chinese family across the road helped my family by providing us with rice and allowed us to pluck ‘pucuk ubi’ from his small plot next to his house. I have never forgotten their act of kindness. If anything, it has made me the woman I am today - truly colour blind where people are concerned.

I contend that the "ability to root ourselves in our humanity" can only begin when the environment we live in is conducive for us to act. As long as the country's main political party is entrenched in myopia and vested interests along the lines of race and corruption, this will not happen. 50 years of explicit power has taught Malaysians to be very afraid and apathetic.

Vinod Khanijow: Dear Tengku, brilliant piece. I completely agree that it is vital for race to be abolished in the political make-up of the country and that progress be determined by the individuals who have the necessary qualifications rather than birth rights.

It is sad that much of the unity of which our forefathers have developed has crumbled somewhat in recent decades and it is our duty as forward-thinking Malaysians to help unite this God-given land of ours. I hope that my generation will do the nation proud and leave a more harmonious nation for the coming generations.