I read Jared Lee's letter on perceived discrimination. At the end of his letter, Jared Lee concluded that "racism has been institutionalised" in Malaysia, and all this is based on Dr Loo Voon San's letter recounting his bad experience with a policeman!

I just wished that Jared would just read the facts in the correct context. A racial slur is just a racial slur, and it is not institutionalised discrimination. If it is legislated as apartheid or Nazism, then it is institutionalised. If it is just a racial slur, then it is just a racial slur. It does not create a conducive environment for civil society to make it out as something bigger when it is not.

There are many undercurrents of tension in our Malaysian society. Among them are factors of race, socio-economic envy, class struggle within the each race, religious views, political opportunism, commercial interests, etc. In analysing any incident, we must consider also these other factors, not generalise and jump to conclusions based on our own prejudices.

It seems for people like Dr Loo and Manora , they already have prejudiced thinking of Malaysian government's racism, and carry on this baggage into other areas of their life, for example in the flying of the flag. The decision to fly the flag is our own choice, but to link the decision not to fly it as protest against the government will only feed charges of unpatriotism.