I must congratulate KJ Khoo for exposing a tendency to self-denigration amongst certain Asians, as well as some Malaysians, who will take the slightest opportunity to criticise and condemn Asian and Malaysian leaders for doing something while remaining silent of similar things being done in the United States like boycotting French wine and death threats against the Dixie Chicks.

Well there's more. For instance, I've heard of rock stars in the United States not voicing their anti-war sentiments o­n stage for fear for their contracts or airplay, and Hollywood actors being dropped from talk shows and other engagements. Most recently the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) cut funding for a security software development project using OpenBSD open-source operating system days after project leader Theo de Raadt was quoted in a Canadian newspaper as opposing the US war in Iraq and expressing his discomfort with taking Defense Department funding.

There was a time, back in the 1980s and early 90s when I took the same attitude of self-denigration even to the extent of saying that local papers, radio and TV told lies, while foreign - mainly Western - news media told the truth.

However, after the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the way most of the Western media condemned Mahathir for his currency controls which went against the prevailing neo-liberal ideology flowing out from Western-imperialist politico-economic institutions, media, and the Internet, that I actually started using my head and saw that not everything the Western media said was true and not everything the Malaysian media said was false. At the end of the day, no solution fits all and Malaysians are best qualified to develop the solutions which best fit our situation and needs.

For instance, neo-liberal thinking behind mainly American business organisation tells us that smaller business units focused o­n their core competencies are good, while conglomerates producing all sorts of things are bad. But as the Asian and European experience shows, conglomerates like Samsung, Alcatel, Daewoo, Siemens, Toshiba, Philips, Matsushita, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and ICICI in India are doing okay, thank you.

At the end of the day, no o­ne size fits all and o­ne has to consider each approach o­n its own merits within its unique context and that is the ultimate test of a person's thinking and planning capabilities, just as engineers know that no two projects are exactly the same and have to come up with different solutions to suit the unique circumstances of each project.

Back to the Economist : I haven't read the magazine for a long time and neither have I read the controversial article in question but instead of banning it, the Malaysian government should publish a rebuttal in the Malaysian media for Malaysians' own sake.