Why is it that some Malaysians here have a nasty habit of personalising their attacks o­n foreigners or Malaysians overseas who write in?

What is so frightening about their ideas? Are Malaysians here afraid that their own inadequacies and prejudices will be stunningly revealed? That perhaps they are not as clever as they think they are?

I am a Malaysian and I am embarrassed by people like Maidin Bacha, with his letter who tried to do to Australian-based writer Manjit Bhatia what others earlier had also tried to do.

What Maidin exhibits is a scurrilously deliberate attempt to shut Manjit up, as can be gleaned from the structure of his letter.

Maidin starts off with platitudes but it soon becomes clear that this is a just a ruse, softening Manjit up often before trying to land the knockout punch, except the knockout punch never comes.

His letter is a minefield of fraudulent claims, based o­n deliberate distortion of Manjit's arguments and position.

An example is where Maidin calls Manjit's writing style boastful, without substance, and offers a bankrupt argument after the first paragraph of platitudes.

It seems to me that Maidin's sole purpose is to put up a strawman from Manjit's very sound and eloquent article and arguments therein, and then, using his jingoism o­n the o­ne hand, and pro-US war mongering o­n the other hand, Maidin proceeds to produce what can o­nly be described as his self-serving attempt at polemics and falsification.

I sometimes worry if Manjit is not being set up by some people here.

And I think the editor of malaysiakini would do a great service if he were to vet all letters, which personalise attacks o­n others.

It would be a great shame if Manjit Bhatia stopped contributing to malaysiakini .

I can tell you that among my many friends and many in the finance, banking and investment community where I work, and even in government, Manjit (and Dr Farish A Noor) are major drawcards to this news website, plus the stories that malaysiakini carries that the mainstream media do not dare to.

Also, I wonder if such detractors know how to read a critical and analytical piece? Or do they expect to be spoon-fed information in the way the Malaysian government does?

After almost 46 years of independence, we have not really matured politically as a nation. Many cannot accept foreigners criticising us or others whom they like, but are happy to criticise foreigners or people they don't like.