Since Malaysians love clinching records, how about this one: The Barisan Nasional government should gain fame for its proposal to build only a third of a Chinese primary school in Subang Jaya.

Subang Jaya State assemblyperson Lee Hwa Beng announced that the BN government is going to fund only RM500,000 of the total cost of RM1.5 million. The rest has to come from parents of the students. Is he joking?

The BN government spent more than RM10 billion of public funds to bail out the failed businesses of its cronies but it cannot afford to build one school for the people?

Thousands of parents have to wake up in the wee hours every morning to get their children to school outside their residential areas on time. This is a waste of time, money and energy. Do they deserve to be punished for the love of their mother tongue?

Is a 33.3 'percenter' school the prize the Chinese community get for showing our support to BN in 1999? We have also been subject to unfair name-calling like 'communists' and 'terrorists', closure of Chinese schools, etc., while the press is shamelessly gagged even more tightly on all these issues.

It is time we opened our eyes to see clearly what lies we are being fed. I think many people will not fall into the same trap again and are waiting anxiously for 2004. Many of us are just plain fed-up with the shabby treatment.