Zafer Hashim typifies many bumiputras who think they understand affirmative action and their so-called 'special rights'. However, more robust thinking reveals that they do not.

Hashim charges that no country practises genuine equal rights but here again he misses the point. The fact is that it is impossible to design any system to ensure absolute equality. This is what communism and other socialist systems tried to do.

When the Manchus conquered China, for example, they constituted a minority that was less developed than the Hans. However, they set up a system to favour themselves and succeeded in perpetuating their rule for centuries. Ultimately, however, the Manchus were assimilated into the Han culture as has happened elsewhere throughout history in Europe, Japan and elsewhere.

There is no system that will ensure equality in reality for the races. There are too many variables for such a system to be administratively possible. The fundamental reason to advocate equality of rights is the belief that it's the best way to ensure that all groups have a chance at equality. This does not imply equality in result.

The use of statistics to show which group earns less or has fewer jobs is political rather than scientific. This merely identifies the symptoms but not the disease.

Zafer Hashim is also wrong about immigrants in developed countries being unable to move beyond their own communities. Think of Andre Jung of Avon, Ajit Jain of Berkshire Hathaway, Stan O' Neal of Merrill Lynch, etc. My own friends and family in the US, England, Australia and even Japan are more upwardly mobile than many of my friends and family in Malaysia.

TA Loh is generous but not enlightened in viewing the issue as abuse of special rights. Inevitably, special rights will be abused because this is a blunt tool that can never be efficient. The more people benefit from it, the more it will be abused.

The real issue about special rights is how long we can afford for it to be abused before we have to remove it. This was the main point of argument by our founders.

Hashim is also incorrect if he thinks that there must be equal footing before equality of rights. There can never be equal footing - not even among people of the same race. The point of affirmative action is not equal footing but rather more to create a reasonable safeguard against not being excluded, i.e., marginalised.

Diversity is a strength and benefit to society and this must be the goal rather than equality. That is why the target of New Economic Policy (NEP) has always been 30 percent and not 50 percent or more. This is also why quotas are illegal as affirmative action in other countries.

Lastly, I wish to comment on historical inaccuracies about Malay rights.

The truth is that the Malays of this country partly owe their independence to the non-Malays. It is a historical fact that Tunku Abdul Rahman contacted Tan Cheng Lock soon after approaching the British about independence. The reason was that the British refused to give independence without an agreement from the non-Malays.

Given the leverage of the non-Malays, there was no reason to give up equal rights. Tunku himself was also known to have advised privately against 'special rights'. It was part of the reason that he threw out Dr Mahathir Mohamad from Umno and for his constant battle with the likes of Syed Hamid.

It is a shame that our history has been constantly twisted so that our younger generation has no understanding of Malaysia's foundation and its true aspirations. Zafer Hashim's comments testify that we have fallen away from our founders' goals.