I refer to the letter History book fairy tales . I suppose nothing is wrong with the word keling as long as our dictionaries also include words like belacan to mean Malay and a few others as well just to show that Rais Yatim is not biased and is in fact broad-minded.

There is no place for ego if you are a politician. Ego is for royalty. The word keling is acceptable to the minister as belacan is as acceptable to Chinese and Tamils.

But this does not make it right.

If Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka has blundered and has shown that it is insensitive with employees who are racists, then it should at the very least apologise and correct the situation immediately instead of trying to justify a wrong.

The MIC is also another organisation with double standards. It was the MIC that instigated the government to exclude Malayalees, Punjabis and Sri Lankans from the 'Indian' category and place them in the 'Others' category as far as university places and scholarships were concerned.

Again rules made to suit politics and double standards.

Meanwhile, Sikhs are called Bengalis, mungkali or vangali depending their ethnic background. But they are Punjabis who speak Punjabi and come from Punjab. The Bengalis come from Bengal and speak Bengali as also do the Bangladeshis.

These wrong labels can be put right by education and what better body to this than the Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka. Oops! Did I say Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka? Goodness! How could I have thought of them?

Come on you wise people of Malaysia, wake up and fix your mistakes. It takes a big person to admit his or her mistake and to fix it. If the country is going to continue to live in harmony it has got to clean up its act and stop living in the feudal ages.

Start by becoming politically correct and who better to start this than the politicians? We have a 'clean broom' (Pak Lah) to clean the country now so do not miss the opportunity. It will unite the people and make for a better Malaysia.