Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said "that he tried everything from pleading to praying, in trying to jolt the Malay Muslim community from what he called a 'culture' of extravagance and taking the easy way out.

Human life holds the following truisms. It is natural (human nature) to take an easy way out when one can rely on others. Why work when you can collect rent from those who do?

One works only when others cannot be counted upon to do so for him. Why do people work very hard? It is also to accumulate wealth and assets so that one day he too could be a rentier and does not need to work, and others work for him. Work is a curse, and labour a misfortune.

The Malays are fortunate because the privileges accorded exempt them from working too hard to get the good things in life.

The nation is fortunate so far in that in spite of the complacency of the majority community, it still develops because of the industry and capability of the minority non-Malay community. The affirmative policies discriminate against them but hone their survival skills and sharpen their capabilities.

Is there justice then to discriminate against minorities? It depends from which angle one looks at it.

PM asked "If we were to take from Kuala Lumpur, all that belongs to the Chinese including their homes and buildings, what is there left (that belongs to the Malays)?"

This is true. This is however as it should be. It is fair that those who work harder and become more capable due to discrimination should own more wealth.

That the Malays do not own as much is also fair because what they own, at least they don't have to work for it when others do so for them.

So in the end our social contract still reverts to our traditional political culture of feudalism. Bumiputras as "sons of the soil" will own the land and licences as landlords. Non-bumiputras are allowed to work on the land as "serf" (this is just a tag term for discussion, and not meant to be derogatory to my non-Malay brethen).

Out of all harvests of the land, bumiputras collect rent based on 30 percent of takings, non-bumiputras take 70 percent because they do the work and control other factors of production (other than licence and land) and become wealthier.

There is a lot of 'justice' in such a feudal arrangement based on privileges and discrimination.

The landowner should not complain about getting less as he merely relies on his inalienable privileges to make the serfs work for him.

There is justice too for the serfs discriminated against because they could prosper by making use of the licences and the land of the landowner and taking more of the harvest. Most importantly, serfs learn survival skills that protect them wherever they are.

Our feudal discriminatory arrangement is unfair and oppressive only if, as in medieval times, the landlord squeezes all rewards of the serfs' toil and take home 90 percent of the wealth leaving only 10 percent to the serfs to keep body and soul intact.

It is not the case here. The landowner cannot oppress the serf on whose skills and resources he absolutely relies to have a good living without having to work.

Malay privileges may have made non-Malay hewers of wood and carriers of water at the lower economic level. However at middle and upper levels, even right at the top of most corporate companies (excluding government-linked corporations), non-Malays are doing well too.

It is often the Malay who is the top chairman and non-Malay the lesser ranking executive director of smaller shareholdings because his controlling shares are held on his behalf by the Malay chairman. Who really controls the business and calls the shots? It is obvious, isn't it?

Everyone is happy and have found a way to work around and exploit this discriminatory Malay privileges, so why do some letter writers and our PM complain about their effects?

Why question the privileges and spoil this happy racket already built around them? Why question a discriminatory system that has its own set ways?

It is not so much the non-bumiputras who are being discriminated against that I worry about in the long run. Having learnt self reliance by reason of discriminatory policies, they can survive harsh conditions here or elsewhere.

I am more worried for the bumiputras and the country like the way I worry for the abandoned non-working wife whose husband runs away and cannot be depended on for housekeeping money. Does the wife have skills to fend for herself and start working without the husband?

There will come a time when 65 percent of landowners become just too heavy for 35 percent of serfs to support. This is simply an inefficient allocation of the nation's resources, and this whole Malaysian feudal enterprise will not hold, with Afta, globalisation etc and may even collapse. This is probably what Malay leaders are worried about.