COMMENT | Three weeks ago, many non-Malays and liberals were circulating an article by Prof Tajuddin Rasdi about “seven harsh realities facing non-Malays and non-Muslims” or responses to it.

As Malaysia celebrates her 62nd birthday, it is worth revisiting this recurrent theme.

As the Malay-Muslims are often terrified by the local version of “Great Replacement Theory” that the minorities are taking over the country, what is actually common among middle-class non-Malays and liberals is discussions of the opposite - “self-displacement” - whether they have a future in Malaysia, and they or their children should leave Malaysia?

That sense of unbelonging annually peaks when public universities announce their intakes.

How do we explain the rejection by UM and UTM of a student with 4.0 STPM results, who was then offered enrolment with a scholarship by the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, which respectively rank eighth and 12th in the latest QS?

Since the courses he applied for at the Malaysian and Singapore universities were different, does it imply that he was simply not competitive enough for Universiti Malaya and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia?