You have recently published three letters detailing examples of racial discrimination in Malaysia, including a rather heartrending one from a Nigerian who desperately wants to leave the country ([#1] We are people, not animals [/#], Feb 17). (To the latter, I say send me an e-mail and I'd be glad to recommend some inexpensive ways to study at the tertiary level in the United States, for we welcome foreign students of all races and creeds).

It is refreshing to see some honest dialogue coming out of Malaysia, a country whose media, except for malaysiakini , consists only of Pravda -like anti-American propaganda and whose citizens until recently seemed to know little of the concept of exploring truth or at least perspectives that differ from the spoon-fed yammering of a leader past his prime.

It is your leader who is at the root cause of the lack of intercultural awareness detailed by these letters. Truth falls by the wayside, truth being an obvious obstacle to unlimited power. They say whatever makes them feel better about themselves and sweep truth under the carpet - and the penalty for uncovering any truths is severe. They lecture, with that arrogant look on their faces: "Just look at America - racial riots everywhere." They collaborate with discredited extreme-right Japanese nationalists and write books that are political diatribes: "White Americans are stupid racists, while we Asians are essentially smarter and more welcoming and tolerant."

Welcoming and tolerant?

Why I can't put my arm around my Chinese Malaysian wife in public in Malaysia? Because locals, seeing her with a gwailo (literally, 'red devil' in Cantonese) touching her, will assume she's a bar girl or prostitute, that's why. Very broadminded.

"Westerners want to recolonise our country, or at least they have a history of enjoying imperial colonisation." The Europeans certainly have that history, although the US itself was not really a major imperialist player, having colonised only one major country, the Philippines, and that was as a result of the Spanish-American war. Over one hundred years later, Dr Mahathir Mohamad begs for Intel to invest more in Malaysia and in the same breath complains of economic imperialism.

I'm confused.

(And where was your leader's lament and concern for the downtrodden victims of foreign economic oppression when Japan was buying up Rockefeller Center and half of Hollywood? Oh, I get it - Look East.)

Look East for we are superior and seldom racist. We are Good and they are Bad. We may malign other nationalities, but never dare criticise ourselves.

No wonder such stories as those three letters depict are just coming out now, thanks only to malaysiakini . The discussions are long overdue.