Malaysian Student Department UK director, Dr Kamarudin M Nor's response in No bias against 'opposition' students makes refreshing points. In particular, I was impressed with the following statement:

"I want to see only organisations with truly Malaysian students as members regardless of ethnicity, creeds or cultures, after all we have more than 70 percent non-Malay students here (who choose to keep quiet and just concentrate on their studies financed by their parents mostly).

"We are looking seriously at the registration guideline and would like to propose that only multi-racial societies (with non-political inclination) be registered with the MSD."

My only regret is that when I first went to London as a student 25 years ago, the director then was not such an enlightened creature. A relatively impoverished non-Malay student like me and many of my compatriots would have welcomed such a director.

However, until recently (apparently) my experience tells me that all that the MSD, Malaysia Hall and the High Commission in London were interested in were Malays, bumiputra, Muslims and Islam. Everything else was always secondary.

From time to time, I must admit, there were some good people who treated non-Malay students well, but these were usually individual acts of kindness rather than policy. The policy was always firmly fixed and clear — MSD was for Malays, bumiputra, Muslims and Islam, but not necessarily in that order.

Ironically, while Kamarudin's statement above is attractive, it does contradict what actually happens at home. Who can deny that after everything is said and done, real government effort in everything public in Malaysia is not directed to any Malaysian "regardless of ethnicity, creed or culture"?

What a pity!