Why are we Malaysians like this? We sit down and accept all the rubbish that is being thrown at us.

We are told ridiculous stories, we allow our rights to be trampled upon, we allow the leadership to threaten and abuse us, we are told to toe the line they set and we allow them to get away with murder, yes murder in the literal sense.

We seem to be complacent with our middle-class living standard when we are really living in the lower standards of Third World economies.

Our wages are low by any standards but whenever anyone speaks up for minimum wages the leadership - and here I refer to the Umno-led leadership - will clamp down on the issue.

This when even the US and most of the developed nations have a set of minimum wages.

Even Indonesia is now demanding a minimum wage for their domestic maids in Malaysia. Indian workers who come to Malaysia for employment are now subject to a minimum wage too by the Indian Government but Malaysian workers are supposed to work for whatever that is dished out to them.

The reasoning by our government is to allow the laws of supply and demand to determine wages but on the other hand they flood the country with both legal and illegal foreign labour and drive wages down making Malaysians the ultimate losers in the whole deal.

Nothing seems to be getting better and the more we allow these practices of the current government to continue, the deeper we will sink into economic backwardness.

This may be very difficult to reverse in the future because the rot would have already have set in as is the case in a number of neighboring countries.

Very seriously, we have to ask ourselves, are we prepared to be another Philippines? Remember, at one time, that country was better developed than us.

Or are we prepared to go in the direction of Burma? This government will think nothing of taking us in that direction and that is why they have never ever reprimanded the Burmese junta. On the contrary, they have been defensive of any move to punish the rogue regime of that country.

Or are we going to say enough is enough and come out and be counted in the defence of our beloved nation?