Musa Sheikh Fadzir, whose forefathers migrated from India to the Malay world, must be reminded that Malaysia belongs to Malaysians irrespective of race, religion or culture.

On Umno warns Chinese group not to play with fire

Syed Imran: It is sad to note that there are politicians who are yet to grow up. They continue to harp on racial issues to justify their existence. Next year, Malaysia will be celebrating its 50th anniversary and our politicians are still dancing to tune of racially-based music.

Bukit Mertajam Umno chief Musa Sheikh Fadzir is one of them. He told the Chinese, especially the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce, not to stir the hornets' nest and he warned that "this is our land, our rights, our constitution." I do not understand what he meant by "ours". Is he referring to Umno or to the Malays?

Musa, whose forefathers migrated from India to the Malay world, must be reminded that Malaysia belongs to Malaysians irrespective of race, religion or culture. This is their land, their rights as citizens and the Malaysian constitution is their constitution. Malaysia is not the land of the Malays alone, including the Indian Malays or Arab Malays, like myself.

By the way, what has Musa and his Umno peers done to uplift the economic and social status of Penang Malays?

Meng: That's right Umno, ask the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce (PCCC) to apologise for raising the bumiputera quota issue. Go ahead, bring it up at the Umno supreme council and pressure other BN component parties to extract a public apology from PCCC. This is, after all, racial politics, BN style.

It is time we take a serious look and consideration at Parti Keadilan Rakyat's non-racial manifesto and its New National Agenda. The poor are poor irrespective of race. The marginalised and minorities must be given a chance to speak and be defended. We must all consider this before the next general election.

On Pak Lah draws line under row with Lee

Thomas Cranmer: I write to introduce a concept which seems to be alien to our shores, the concept of honesty. Today, if one were to accuse a politician of being dishonest, it might be presumed that one believes that person to have lied. There is another part of honesty, one which has been much neglected in both politics and society of late - that of being clear and precise in statements made without fear or favour.

Singapore's esteemed minister mentor recently mentioned that the Chinese community in Malaysia is marginalised. Let us all be honest and freely state that within Malaysia we have a racist policy of discrimination against one group of races for the benefit of another. This is a stated part of our policies, and there is no reason that it should be denied to anyone at any time.

Whether the policies are right or wrong is not the topic of Lee Kuan Yew's comment and those who see his words as an attack upon Malaysia have great difficulty with the concept of being honest. Our prime minister should not have criticised a statement of fact, and if it is not a fact, he should provide convincing evidence to the contrary.

No progress will be made by responding with accusations and expressions of displeasure. Failure to be open and honest about Malaysia now leaves us further separated from our more developed neighbour Singapore from whom we could undoubtedly learn a great deal.

Another lesson can be learnt from the recent criticism leveled by the reprimand given to Deputy Higher Education Minister Ong Tee Keat for doing nothing other than being honest about misappropriated funds.

The concept that a minister should not criticise another ministry is ludicrous. It is the job of every minister to represent the wishes of those who elected him and as such his first and foremost loyalty is honesty to the rakyat and not to party or leader. It would not be inappropriate for those who criticised Ong to be severely reprimanded by the Anti-Corruption Agency for their public statements against the exposure of mismanaged funds.

In the long term, to refrain from honesty because it might upset someone is not only a display of dubious moral values but inevitably worse than dealing with the consequences of being honest today. Hiding behind the idea that certain issues are sensitive is not a first-world attitude so let us all be brutally honest about what we think, what we want and what's happening around us.

Concerned: It is very important that MCA and Gerakan, as our representatives in the Barisan, fight for our rights in any unjust situation like the unequal distribution of scholarship among high achievers and also the difficulty of an STPM graduate to enter a local university as compared to their counterparts who do matriculation. We all know this It is just that no one dares to say anything about it.

The Chinese are not being apathetic by not involving themselves in Malay-related issues as it will only further complicate things. Acts such as the ISA will ensure these individuals to be held under detention if they are suspected to be a security threat to the nation. If one is not competent or adept at other's cultures, poking your nose will only instigate uneasiness among races.

However, let us be practical and not hide behind our problems. Let's face it. Marginalisation of any race is highly undesirable and should be checked at once to ensure the benefits of all.

On NEP will destroy the Malays

Adha: Instead of 'NEP will destroy the Malays', I think this is more appropriate - 'Malays destroyed by NEP'. I know from many of my close friends that the New Economic Policy had actually destroyed the Malays a long time ago. As a result of this, we see rich Malays getting richer and poor Malays getting poorer.

From my personal observation amongst my non-Malay friends, they are more sore with being treated as second-class citizens than the NEP. All of us are Malaysians with valid documentation, as pointed out by many writers in this forum.

Finally, I for one would really like the NEP to serve the poor Malays better. But then again, aren't there poor Chinese, Indians and others Malaysians too?

Devan: For the bumis to develop in business, joint partnership alone is not good enough. The attitude of the Chinese community in not supporting the businesses of the other communities, for example in the manufacturing or trading sectors where supplying products to the other races at a reasonable cost is vital.

Such an attitude has tremendously affected the progress of bumis in the business sector. What the Chinese Malaysians should do is to learn to give and teach business opportunity to the bumis for the betterment of the nation. This did not happen. Thus, the actual bumi involvement in the business activities fail to reach a satisfactory level.

We must learn to help each other.

On M'sia steps closer to the final frontier

Dumb-founded: There is no different between Badawi and Tun Mahathar as far as wasting money is concerned. Why did Malaysia need to have astronauts and what benefit are they to the country? Even Japan with an economy many, many times that of Malaysia - and a developed nation - does not indulge in such extravagances. Malaysia needs all the funds to improve itself in terms of education, sports, etc.

Sending astronauts to space only makes a mockery of Malaysia. Does any nation in the world think that there will be glory from such feats? Indeed, they will laugh at us...

Tai Kung Ren: I am assuming the government is interested in receiving feedback, so let me say that I fail to see any relevance in using the people's money to send the first Malaysian to space and the construction of a "space centre" which appears to be built for providing remote sensing capabilities only.

I hope we are not going to continue spending money to send Malaysians to outer space to justify building a "mission control centre" to communicate with them.