I hope my comments might serve as a counterpoint to some of the recent letters on assimilation and culture.

The present reality is that we have a plural society that does not often interact socially.

I have observed the three major groups in Malaysia to be parallel groups which form incipient whole societies, each with their own upper, middle and lower socio-economic classes.

The incentive to be assimilated is therefore not particularly great as each group separately represents fully functioning self-sufficient societies.

They are quite happy being the minority groups, in particular unassimilated.

True assimilation, a natural process, is necessarily based on the individual freedom to choose.

We should as far as possible refrain from legislating for whether people want to eat this type of food or wear that type of clothing, in the same way perhaps that we should refrain from limiting individual choices for those who want to educate their children in English, Chinese, Tamil or Bahasa Malaysia.

If anything, we should be doing everything to ensure that our citizens are multilingual.

I believe that with time as our society catches up with more enlightened as opposed to more parochial modes of thinking, the unfettered personal freedom to choose will eventually form the basis for a truly world-class national Malaysian culture.

As Malaysians we have been observed to be truly muhibbah (living in harmony) in one particularly vibrant area of innovation and excellence — that is, food production and culinary expertise.

I personally love nasi lemak, roti canai and char koay teow. Imagine if there was an official policy on national food culture. Labelling one type of food as patriotic and truly Malaysian, and excluding another type of food for whatever official grounds would probably be viewed by many sensible tolerant Malaysians as just plain ridiculous.

Fortunately our propensity for ethnic nationalism has not spilled over into what we choose to eat in either the private or public realms.

I do not think it is a mere coincidence that our local food culture is noted for its excellence by visiting tourists and even professional chefs from foreign climes.

Personal freedoms make our unofficial lived cultures meaningful, vibrant, and alive, and this is what makes our local food culture rich and excellent in its uninhibited innovations and globally competitive.

Culture is necessarily freely created.

As regards freedom of choice in education, I believe that if we were really committed to raising the standard of English proficiency, we need merely provide English language medium schools at the secondary level as an option as in the old days.

I personally predict a massive rush by all Malaysian parents from all ethnic backgrounds to enroll their children in these schools if ever they were reinstated into our public education school system.

I truly believe there is a huge number of Malaysian parents patiently hoping for the day for when such a choice might become a reality.