This is to clarify my 'scepticism' about the use of civil public discourse, and its limits, alluded to by Dr Farish A Noor. ('Why we need an ethics of difference' July14).

The country stares, in my view, at an abyss when the failure of the politics of secular development presages the advent of the politics of orthodox fundamentalism.

Under the milieu of the latter, gays will not be the only ones relegated without compassion to the outer margins, but all significant others differentiated in accordance to sex, moral values, social habits and dress codes.

That will be the death knell of the diversity and pluralism that the country has been so enriched thus far.

In its place, we will supposedly have a squeaky clean and morally sanitised political and cultural milieu, though I doubt there will be a diminution of homosexuality, violent crimes and other social problems.

There will certainly be an obliteration of the space between public and private realms.

All public discourses hitherto flowering in multiple platforms will thenceforth be subsumed under a single axis by which reasoning will be overridden by a priori assumptions of absolute truths!

The discursive spaces into which the writer has forayed to infuse intelligence, balance, humanity and compassion and unmask hypocrisy are areas that most others in silent appreciation either dare not tread or are disqualified by lack of locus standi .

If the writer succeeds in such darkening times, the signs are already there. It will be a debt to which all rational, compassionate and freedom-loving Malaysians forever owe him and others like him.

But judging from the deluge of hate mail by which he said he had been rewarded for his travails, he will fail dismally.

What are his chances when someone else as astute, more famous, Machiavellian and forceful and controlling all levers of power, can, so far, do no better to reverse intemperance, bigotry and marginalisation of 'the Other'?

For the tide of bigotry and unreason, fuelled by emotions, frustrations and alienation, is rising and will sweep away all in its path that stand as reactionaries against it. It is a swelling tide not only made up of ordinary folks but intellectuals.

History is replete with examples of how under certain set of conditions, radical extremism always triumphs over rationality.

May I add further that the opening up of discourse on certain issues between contributors of malaysiakini is no indication (as the writer appeared to suggest) of progression towards a more open society when other recent developments making news (of which there is no necessity for me to specify here) show that we are fast moving to a close one.