‘Prime Minister Najib Razak yesterday called on Malaysians to move from 'tolerance' to 'total acceptance' of the country's diversity in order to build a truly united country.

'We started off with one basic paradigm and that is tolerance. We say we tolerate or we live in a society that is tolerant of one another. But in the concept of 1Malaysia, being tolerant is just the beginning,' he said at a Chinese New Year open house here.’

Our PM has pronounced another high-sounding ideal and that is ‘total acceptance’ of our diversity, this after the ‘1Malaysia’ slogan shouting.

I will not prejudge his effort to realise this ideal since it has just been pronounced. But let me speak my mind on some areas that I believe he can work on.

‘Total acceptance’ should mean thatb qualified government servants of all racial origins should be eligible to hold the highest post eligible. We can start with the education sector - the state education directors, the teacher training institutes directors and the vice-chancellors of public universities.

‘Total acceptance’ should mean that more Chinese primary schools should be allowed to be built where required to alleviate the over-crowding in so many urban schools.

‘Total acceptance’ should mean that all qualified candidates can vie for any course in public universities on a level playing field. This will mean doing away with the dual entrance level system now.

Yes, ‘total acceptance’ should also mean that the ‘rakyat’ accept that there are fellow citizens who may need a helping hand from the government of the day. But it should be on a need-to basis and not based on racial criteria.

Where is the fairness when the bumiputra buyer of a million-ringgit property is given a 7% discount while an urban non-bumiputra buyer of a medium cost flat of - say RM250k - has to pay the full cost?

‘Total acceptance’ should mean the government of the day accept the right of the voters to change the government in a fair and free elections.

‘Total acceptance’ should mean that the federal government should not ‘squeeze’ the state governments under opposition control of their due allocations.

And there should be no unscrupulous power grabs engineered by methods abhorred by a civil and just society.’