Here we go again...Umno Youth exco member Dr Zamri Abdul Kadir warning Dong Jiao Zong that it would face similar action as Suqiu if it persisted in campaigning for the maintenance of Chinese schools in Malaysia.

However, he sounds like just another hackneyed if pathetic attempt to ascend Umno's political ladder at the expense of yet another Chinese lobby group as bogeyman.

Except that this time around, the flashing of the communal card by the member of Umno's Teluk Intan division appears to be slightly out of tandem with the pulse of current developments.

What has Dong Jiao Zong's opposition to vision school got to do with Suqiu's appeal for gradual removal of Malay privileges that Zamri objected to?

What Suqiu appealed for and subsequently retracted under pressure from Umno was a mere protocol to make way for Umno's top leadership to now appeal for the same thing on the same grounds of making Malay Malaysians and the country competitive enough to face globalisation.

Just like Selangor Menteri Besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo, who reportedly at the time of attacking Suqiu said that the Malays were willing to "bathe in blood" to defend their privileges, is now singing a different tune, in line with leadership's, that they should learn to give up their crutches.

Vision school is however a subject that has nothing to do with Malay privileges. It is connected with the issue of Chinese education only to the extent that Dong Jiao Zong perceives it, rightly or wrongly, as an indirect backdoor abrogation of Chinese education.

But Chinese education is a right protected under the Constitution, and Dong Jiao Zong is a lobby for it — so what is the big deal?

If national integration is the issue sincerely raised by Zamri to attack Dong Jiao Zong for its lobby of Chinese education, then on these same ground too he should question why the other lobby, Federation of Peninsula Malay Students should be sceptical of the recent government's policy of opening 10 percent of places in government-sponsored Malay junior colleges (MRSM) to non-bumiputras, which I don't see Zamri doing.

It is politicians' playing of communal issues as a means to prominence and ascendancy within party ranks that is really contrary to national integration— not Chinese education.

Zamri should be aware that many Malay and Indian Malaysians are enrolled in Chinese schools. There are no racial quotas in Chinese schools.

How does Chinese education militate against national integration any more than, for instance, the monoracial, monocultural, taxpayer-funded and quota-based MRSM? Why isn't he arguing for a bigger non-bumiputra quota in the interest of national integration?

Even on the point of meeting the demands of globalisation, Chinese education ought to be a plus point considering that China is opening up and playing a key global role as an engine of economic growth in time to come. This is people of many other races are beginning to see the benefit of Chinese education.

So what is Zamri talking about when he raised national integration and globalisation as a basis to warn Dong Jiao Zong? He is just not logical in his threats.

It makes more sense and certainly more open if he just come out forth and thump his chest on ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) and warn Dong Jiao Zong to be obsequious as Suqiu lest the terror of street demonstrations — to which Umno Youth only has the privilege — and visits by police be re-enacted. That will guarantee him a quicker ticket to rise up in political prominence.