Contrary to Mr Shaukat's pronouncements , the rest of the world is not one big 'Bolehland' with institutionalised discrimination being the order of the day. He has the audacity to suggest that racial problems are not extensively written about in places like Australia or the US to support his justification that racism is an acceptable way of running a country.

Recently in the US, there was a large exhibition on the lynching of blacks at the turn of the 20th century. The key message in the exhibition was that the American public must not allow a recurrence of such wanton violence against a minority. Can one imagine a similar exhibition on the excesses of May 13th in Muzium Negara?

Shaukat likes to say that people are making their remarks from the "sidelines". How can Dr Loo's letter to an internationally-read website be a "sideline" remark? Malaysiakini happens to be one of the few places where Malaysians can express their views both in favour or critical of the government.

Are the views of the rich and the powerful in Malaysia to be the ones to be considered as "mainstream" by Shaukat? Maybe it is because of the elitist pretensions of those such as Shaukat's that doom Malaysia's public discourse to one of suppression by the authorities and meek subservience of the general population.

It is not right for citizens of Malaysia to be subjected to racial verbal abuse by any member of the civil service. The incident that Dr Loo had mentioned is indicative of the rot that has set into the country and that inter-racial distrust is actually growing.

Just think, if you were just abused and threatened about your race by a police officer, would you be confident of then stepping into a police station to make a report against one of their own? There is a climate of fear in our country when one deals with the authorities. In contrast, I have lived as a Malaysian in America for many years and have never once been faced with any racial verbal abuse from anyone, let alone the police.

The big difference in race relations between Malaysia and the countries that Shaukat so disparaged is in the nature of the discrimination. While it is true that one cannot escape racial behaviour among individuals in any part of the world, institutionalised discrimination by race is Malaysia's foremost characteristic.

We have many institutions in the country that are entirely reserved for the advancement of one race and religion over others. The race indicated in our application forms determine our places for universities, civil service promotions, business loans, etc. We have become so adept in race-based discrimination that we can now offer ourselves as a role-model to countries who want to suppress their minorities like Fiji and Zimbabwe!

How sad, when we ought to be benchmarking ourselves to more progressive countries who actually dismantle their racial barriers instead of erecting new ones.