I read with some empathy the distress of people like Dr Loo Voon San and Manora , when faced with the racist attitudes of government officers.

By now, more than a million Malaysians must have moved on to the US, Australia or New Zealand. I am one of them.

The great thing about globalisation is this: once you have earned the skills or the money, you are able to make a choice. That is, choose to remain in Malaysia or vote with your feet. Here in Australia, the government does not discriminate. On the contrary, there are laws which outlaw discrimination and harassment.

Sure, it is human to be prejudicial, etc. Australia is not perfect, but hey, it sure is a lot preferable to having to put up with some of the stuff that Dr Loo and Manora have had to put up with.

Let's face it, you can have the tallest buildings in the world and you can conquer Mount Everest, but if you cannot even have some civility between the police and the citizens; if you chuck rubbish everywhere you so desire (to quote Royal Professor Ungku Aziz), then you are a Third World country. And if a few Datuks can get away with slapping an airport worker on the face, it just shows that you have not progressed far from the feudal age.

Patriotism, to quote somebody ancient, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. If a government is not providing what the citizens expect, why blame the people when they are less than enthusiastic about flying the flag?

On the other hand, despite the below average performance of the Malaysian government since independence, most of us abroad are wise enough to make a distinction between the government and the country of Malaysia.

The grass is not always greener, but I'd say to Malaysians of all backgrounds: you don't have to put up with it, if and when you have the wherewithal to vote with your feet. Let the suckers hang on to their misplaced patriotism- in a globalised world, you don't have to put up with crappy nationalistic nonsense (whether Malaysian, American, or whatever else!).

And voting with your feet is infinitely more powerful than trying to get some justice via the heavily gerrymandered electoral maps of Malaysia.