Mordred Pendragon's letter ([#1] Sacrifice for the greater good [/#], Feb 24) would have been amusing, if not for his penchant in garbling up facts. The writer talks about the need to put country before race, but forgets that it is Umno that often puts race before country, as exemplified by the call for 'Malay Unity' talks instead of national unity talks, the threats by Umno Youth to burn down the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in retaliation against the Suqiu appeals, the threats of more May 13s occurring just before every general elections, and so on.

The writer contradicts himself in saying that "the police action may be unjustified" but it was for "the greater good of unifying our society towards the vision of One Malaysia." If it was really for the 'greater good' of the country, how can the police action not be justified?

But was it? The participants in the Damansara walkathon were walking in pairs, doing nobody any harm, and for that they were marched to the police station and told to hand over their T-shirts. How could the police action be for the 'greater good' of the country when it clearly infringed on the people's right of free assembly? Or is the writer trying to say that, in the name of national unity, any Gestapo-like action by the police is justified?

The national language issue is irrelevant and immaterial here - Chinese schools do teach students the Malay language. What is important is that their constitutionally-protected right of learning their mother tongue be protected from all kinds of racially-tainted sabotage.

The excuse about the need for economic expansion is equally lame and not even the government dares to vomit out that suggestion. All over the world, city planners are beginning to place people above so-called 'development'. Thus, if development is the reason, then the government's actions are doubly heinous.

Further, the idea that mother-tongue schools are responsible for the 'race first, country second' mentality is laughable - such schools are common in, for example, Switzerland, and few peoples are more patriotic than the Swiss.

A single language is no guarantee of national unity. Throughout history, some of the worst wars were fought between peoples sharing the same language. Millions of Germans were killed or wounded by their own people during the Thirty Years War. The greatest casualties suffered by the Americans were inflicted during their Civil War. The French, Russians, and Chinese killed millions of their own same-language people during their respective revolutions.

As for "the country's greater right to see that good is obtained" in the selection of schools, the writer does not say who or what 'the country' is. Is the BN government 'the country' or is it the people? The answer to this question will show whether the mindset of the writer is democratic or totalitarian.

The writer gives examples of racist epithets in urban areas and blame them all on ethnic-based schools. Yet some of the worst racists have come from government-funded public schools, including those who would wipe out other people's languages, who believe in racial supremacy and on and off threaten violence against other communities.