I refer to the report Mahathir regrets failure to change complacent Malays (June 17).

I read the interview with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in Mingguan Malaysia on Sunday, and couldn't feel more sorry for my Malay friends. They should not be made the scapegoat for what Mahathir has failed to realise through his vision.

Instead, he should strive more to boost their confidence by offering carrots and sticks — reward those who make the best out of the situation and punish those who abuse the bumiputra 'system'. In a multi-ethnic society, constant and open chastising of a particular community will only bring greater harm both to the community concerned as well as to the other communities.

Such relentless acts by Mahathir only worsens the purportedly 'low self-esteem' of the Malays and strengthens the prejudices of the non-Malays against the bumiputras. At the end of the game, nobody gains anything from Mahathir's public dressing-down as such misunderstanding and suspicion.

I don't dismiss all that Mahathir has done for the country, certainly not what he has been trying to achieve for the Malays. But I tend to believe most of the state help has gone to supporting the privileged few — the Malay entrepreneurs and the high and mighty in Umno, while the majority of the Malay community is left out. So what would be the benefits if the Malays had 50 percent hold on the nation's wealth, but the wealth was controlled by merely 10 percent of the Malay population?

Looking back at our nation's history, there could be times that the Chinese had control of some 40-60 percent of our nation's economy, but it was only exclusive to a few tycoons. The majority of the Chinese population did not have the luck.

Otherwise, we would not have had the 600-odd Kampung Baru Cina (Chinese new villages) that we see across the country today, including many in and around KL like Ampang, Serdang, Jinjang and Puchong. Yes, not all Chinese own grandiose buildings or houses as Mahathir would have the Malays believe, and many of these buildings belong to giant multinationals from the West, invited by our government to invest here. So much for his West-bashing!

Furthermore, the communities that are in the direst straits are neither Malay nor Chinese, but the Indian and the orang asli. No matter how bad the situation is for the Malays, the state help is always there, and it is only a matter of getting it early or late, depending on how soon the authorities come to their senses.

The Chinese, excluded from much of the state assistance, have at least their own vibrant community economy to fall back on. But the Indians and orang asli? Many of them are neither here nor there and caught in between. It is ironic that the orang asli tribes on the Malay Peninsula are not even classified as 'bumiputra' under the Federal Constitution, despite the fact that they are the earliest settlers in this country.

Mahathir cited Kampung Baru in KL as an example how Malays were unwilling to 'progress'. A kampung in the city may be an eyesore to him, and many urban Malaysians too, but what's wrong if the residents there simply enjoy their own way of life, and do not annoy others?

The only irritation is perhaps the 'messy' lanes and the 'wooden houses' compared to the impressive, modern buildings surrounding the kampung. But why must we measure the level of development by counting the number of high-rise buildings we have in KL?

Haven't we seen enough of the twice-or-thrice-yearly flash floods in this capital city that result from land erosions and the failure to upgrade the sewage system over the last ten years? What we should do is to improve the living conditions of Kampung Baru, not to get rid of it in order to make way for more concrete high-rises. Or one day we may miss the kampung houses so much like the old Malay Singaporean folks do by singing Di Tanjung Katong .

This is a very complicated issue indeed. As we all know, the domestic climate is not secure enough for us to have open, frank and rational discussion. This explains why the powers-that-be can continue to exploit the issue from time to time at the expense of the harmonious communal relations. Mahathir has been walking farther and farther away from Wawasan 2020 that he himself so proudly announced ten years back. Can he be stopped before the damage gets beyond control