Ever since the new prime minister called for a ‘1Malaysia' national philosophy (or is it a struggle, an ideology or a ‘jihad'?) I am still unsure as to how do we go about achieving it.

Unlike other countries where on achieving independence, the basic prerequisites were already in place such as a single ethnicity, language or even religion, in Malaysia we have no such thing and in fact, things have got even worse.

What we have now is that, rightly or wrongly, as a result of the perceived injustice inflicted by the so-called Malay (Umno) political masters, the non-Malays have clearly strengthened their economic, intellectual and political position, are seeing it fit to fight against all the wrongs of the past.

And they are doing quite successfully by way of the various political parties and NGOs, while the Malays are still trying to figure out what is hitting them. In fact, the Malays are still indulging in

their petty little quarrels which began perhaps during the days of the old Federated and Non-Federated Malay states.

Thus, what we have today is that a non-Malay can easily join the MCA, MIC, DAP, Gerakan, PPP or the PKR or even join the PAS Supporters Club and feel comfortable about it because all these organisations are fighting for their rights and privileges.

Conversely, an Umno Malay will not find it easy to join PAS (too religious for his secular taste and lifestyle) or even PKR (which he feels are betraying Malay rights and privileges). An Umno Malay who is disgusted with his own party would rather give up politics than join PAS or PKR.

Similarly (except for a few), a Pas Malay who is fed-up with his party would not feel comfortable in joining Umno and in fact, in many cases he would not be welcomed.

Coming back to ‘1Malaysia', I am still searching as to how we can bring this about.

The political, economic, cultural and even caste divides (among some non-Malays including the very minority Sikhs) are already a great stumbling block, not to mention our children go to different ethnic-based schools.

As a result, we can all see in every Starbucks, Kopitiam and Nasi Kandar outlet the real 'diversity' of Malaysians ie, a table of Chinese diners, a table of Malays and a table of Indians.

Thus to make ‘1Malaysia' achievable I would suggest we adopt the 'French Legionnaires' culture where young men from different countries who wish to join the elite French regiment must give up their own names and muster the French language, or else they will be chucked out.

So are we ready for this? Over to you all Malaysians.