The chain of events that led to the Malay survival question being asked started with the economic tumult in 1997. This led to political difficulty for Umno which in turn caused the Malays to feel threatened and look for unity.

Can the [#1] Suqiu appeals [/#] present a real threat? The special position of the Malays is written in the constitution and in 1971, further entrenched such that only the Conference of Rulers can change these provisions. Is there any reason that the rulers will want to change the provisions which will also spell their own end?

The Malays' dominance in politics means that they are in full control of the constitution and have their own fate firmly in their own hands. The demographic trend will further enhance their dominance. If that is not enough, the police and the military are also in their hands. Suqiu can appeal all they want, the reality is that it's not going to matter.

The behaviour of the Federation of Peninsular Malay Students leader in calling the appeal an insult is puzzling. Can an appeal for you to stand on your own two feet be perceived as an insult? While there is no ground for the Malays to feel being threatened, there is a genuine fear among the Chinese and other minorities. Why then are Umno Youth and GPMS so insecure? This insecure feeling is slowing down the progress of not only the Malays but also the country as a whole.

There are other incidents where such insecure feeling has detrimental effect on our country. For example, I always marvel at the diversity of our spoken Malay. Listen to the beautiful Kelantanese of Ibrahim Ali, and also the Langkawi slang. These are the ways that our language has been spoken through the centuries. It is an integral part of the culture of the Malays and, by extension, our country.

The Chinese and other races in those regions also speak the same way. Some years back Bahasa Baku was introduced. This does not seem to ensure the survival of our own language but more like trying to establish identity with the main bulk of the Malay-speaking world. How can we let a part of our national culture to perish? Are we not proud of our own language and secure with our own identity? We have now cast away the Bahasa Baku policy, but if we don't cast away the feeling of insecurity it will someday threaten our existence as a nation.

We are happy when comparing ourselves with the poor of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, feeling proud of our achievements. But when Singapore premier Goh Chok Tong said the Malays in Singapore enjoy a better standard of living than Malaysians, we felt hurt. But that comment is also true when comparing the Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia. In fact, Goh can say that to the rest of Asia and it is still true. Our per capita income is only about 20 percent that of Singapore. The problem is not with Goh, it is ourselves. We need to accept the fact and address our problem.

Let's look further. In a conference in October last year at Cambridge, Noordin Sopiee rightly pointed out that 50 years ago Malaya was the top in Asia in terms of per capita income. Japan was devastated after the war. However, Noordin did not go further. By 1963, we had lost to Japan as the top nation in Asia. That year Aidil Fitri was celebrated concurrently with the Chinese New Year and Singapore was part of Malaysia. On that occasion Lee Kuan Yew spoke that if we worked hard, there was no reason why we would not continue to enjoy prosperity the next time the two festivals came together again.

That happened 20 plus years later in the mid-1990s. This time around, our per capita income had dropped below not only that of Japan, but also South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hongkong and Brunei. Further, these countries, except Brunei, had done better without the benefit of rich natural resources, as we had.

Aidil Fitri and Chinese New Year will coincide again around 2020. When that time comes, will we drop further economically? Look around us, just before the economic tumult, Thailand was fast catching up on us. The southern coastal region of China already has higher per capita income than us. If we don't act soon, Malaysia, and also the Malays, will continue to perish economically in the world.

We can no longer compete in terms of low-cost manufacturing. China, Vietnam and many others will beat us flat. So we built high-tech industries and the MSC. But the game has changed. Knowledge-based economy does not work that way.

Take a look at Silicon Valley: First, you have Stanford, a top-class university. It attracts talents, which in turn draws in investors to tap those brain power. Finally the infrastructure is built to serve the growing high-tech industries in the area.

The same goes for the area around Cambridge: Microsoft is building its largest software centre outside of the US there. Together with other high-tech companies like Marconi, the investments poured into Cambridge are in billions of ringgit.

Closer to home, Bangalore is now the largest software centre in Asia, way ahead of everybody else in this region. Look at the vast amount of foreign investment it has drawn. Here, the drawing power is the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, one of the top technological universities in the Asiaweek survey. In this game, brains attract investors. Are we doing it right to build the infrastructure first and then try to lure the investors to come?

To develop high-tech industries, you need a top-class university. We once had a top-class university. The engineering faculty of Universiti Malaya was first set up in the 1950s. The late Prof Chin Fung Kee was proud to tell his students that the very first batch of graduates was accepted by the British professional institutions, meeting their academic standard. The University of Hongkong, another Commonwealth university, only gained such recognition many years after its founding.

Students of the 1960s and early 70s will recall that applicants rejected by Universiti Malaya were accepted by the University of Singapore. Students from Johor Baru would prefer to come all the way to KL instead of just crossing the causeway. No student with good HSC (Higher School Certificate) results would want to apply to Nanyang University. Few people had heard of the IIT then. In those days employers preferred Universiti Malaya to overseas graduates.

Today, these universities mentioned are ranked within the top 10 of Asian universities while Universiti Malaya, our best, dropped to No. 47. We have lost in economic standing, we have also lost in educational standing. Are we doing the right things to prepare for the knowledge economy, to ensure that we will not perish?

In the high tech game, we are already far behind India. After India, the Philippines have now become the second most important source of software talents in Asia because of their competency in English. China is now the largest exporter of post-graduate students to the West. Forward to the year 2020 when these graduates return to their countries. Imagine that these are the countries we will be competing against.

Look at South Korea and Taiwan after they brought back their talents from the West in the 1970s and 1980s. At this moment expatriate Indians from Silicon Valley are starting to return to their home land, strengthening their position even further.

How can we catch up? The graduates from our universities cannot even speak the language of the high tech game. Nobody can compete in this game without competency in the English language, not even the industrialised countries of western Europe. We threw away our advantage when we stopped using English in our schools.

Even if we start to change immediately, it will take 15-16 years for the students who start school now at age 7 to graduate. But we can't even start the change now as we simply don't have enough teachers competent in English. After graduating you need another five-10 years for the graduates to gain experience and become productive. It will be more than 20 years before we can produce competitive graduates for the high tech game in sufficient numbers. 2020 will have come and gone by then. Can we hope not to perish?

The proportion of Chinese population in Malaysia is dropping, the Malays will soon carry the main thrust of the economic power. Against the formidable global competition, we need all the brain power available. However, the Malay psyche is making this difficult for themselves and for others to play their full roles. They should know that Suqiu, nor anyone else, cannot do them any harm; the greatest harm that can be inflicted on them is by themselves.

We need people with the best brains to lead. Intimidating Suqiu or the Chinese is not going to help. Feeling that they are being intimidated by Suqiu or the Chinese is even worse.

The success of the New Economic Policy is not in having the tallest flag pole or the tallest building; it's not even having more Tajudin Ramlis and Halim Saads.

The success is in creating a generation of Malays who can stand on their own feet.

Lately, letters from more of such Malays are starting to appear in these columns. This is a sign that the Malays are beginning to come to terms with themselves and with others around them. For this to happen the Malays will have to feel secure that their own fate is in their own hands as nobody can do anything to change this fact. The provisions in the constitution will always be there to help those among the Malays that need help.

Then the Malays will have to recognise that there are others around who also need help. The Malays also must accept that individuals have different abilities and some will be more successful than others, because they have worked harder, put in more effort or possibly are more talented in some aspects. They, too, deserve rewards such as places in universities and scholarships. These people are all for the Malays, to help Malaysia regain our position in the world. If Malays don't exploit them for their own benefit, other countries will, and end up using these talents to compete against our own country. The minorities cannot take the lead - as Suqiu has shown, the consequence is disastrous if they try; only the Malays can. If the Malays can accept these realities, only then can we hope that the Malays, and all Malaysians will not perish in this world.

Finally, this should not be taken as a lesson for the Malays as it is out of my own self interest that these views are voiced. For if the Malays perish in their own country, what will happen to the minorities, of which I am one?