It is true that Umno must champion the cause of all Malaysians, as urged by Khoo Kay Peng in his letter

, but our disappointment in the past has made this aspiration corny and people like me view such calls with utter cynicism.

The crowning insult is the simplistic notion of blaming colonial masters for all our shortcomings. Our colonial history has many colourful mavericks, exploiters, nationalists and people of many other shades who were able to manipulate the colonial government in so many different ways.

It was not really as if the rakyat were passively dead. o­n the other hand the colonial government also brought a lot of good which is still apparent today. It is futile to whitewash ills of our own making by foisting the blame o­n others or o­n history. These ills are all too obvious and cannot be explained away by harking to the injustices of the colonial era.

It is high time we spoke of things as they are in direct language rather than camouflage our thoughts in subservient moanings - was this not the deal that Merdeka was meant to bring to us?

We became independent in the last century and I do not need to cook up a whole narrative of apologetic rationalisations to have my say. Surely Malaysia can allow me that much?