In the letter Malays need rights as much as Dr M needs ISA , the writer's comments are a mixture of truth and fallacy.

If the Malays 'invited' the Chinese and Indians in to open up the plantations and mines, did the Malays similarly 'invite' the British in, to add Malaya to the British Empire? Did the Malays 'invite' the Japanese army to land at Kota Baru in 1941 to add Malaya to their Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere?

When six Indian Malaysians were killed in Kampung Medan in March last year, mainly, it seems, by Malays 'imported' from other states, were the Malays then being 'kind and generous and considerate'?

Let's be honest. In any developed country and many developing ones, once immigrants acquire citizenship, they are conferred all the rights, protections and welfare benefits that all citizens are granted — equally. They are not made to feel forever beholden to a majority race for being able to continue living and breathing the same air that everyone shares, to continue drinking the same water that everyone shares.

The Malays are nice, well-mannered and gentle people. They have endearing qualities, no doubt. But the deliberate policies of state-organised racialism that they have created is the ugly side.

I do not question their special privileges. I accept them. It is the deepest reflection of their weakness as a race. Because to mandate economic support on race and not economic need , means that there is a genetic and not a social-cultural deficit. It is a disservice to the Malay race and Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad knows it.

But I would never ask a psychologically-impaired man or woman to throw away their mental crutches.

The Malay masses are easily aroused to defend their privileges. Politicians are adept at pushing the right buttons.

The letter writer and his like-minded friends must surely realise that the money to pay for all the special privileges, must come from somewhere? To pay Peter $10, you must take it from Paul? As demographic patterns show, the Malay majority is growing. It may in due course even reach more than 90 percent.

Will there be enough to pay the 90 percent of Peters when the Pauls have shrunk to 10 percent or less? I do not know when the equation will unbalance.

I don't expect to stay around to find out. It may not happen in my generation, or even my children's or grandchildren's.

But the bluffing must end eventually.

Remember Jakarta in 1998 when the Indonesian economy was in a shamble? Suharto's forces staged race riots aimed at the Indonesian Chinese to divert attention from his mismanagement and blatant corruption.

Let's avert such a disaster.