I'm not interested in discussing which race is superior and which race is not. The great men from many religions never bothered to. This is not about a racially-exclusive agenda a la Mein Kampf or some silly cry for Malay supremacy. This is not about erasing the linguistic diversity that Malaysia is blessed with. This is about achieving true integration by sharing a language and a culture, and by appreciating what we have in our motherland.

No doubt language is important in shaping the way babies' brains work and providing a mould from which we view the world. For example, even though physicists are pushing the barriers of theoretical calculations, the average man-on-the-street still finds it difficult to grasp the concept of relativity when our language is still Ptolemaic, ie, we speak of the sun rising in the East when, in fact, it is us who are moving relative to the sun.

We speak of things being stationary when in fact every body is subject to acceleration at different levels when considered in different reference frames. These are just two examples from an aspect that does not critically invade our daily lives.

Now imagine the influence language brings to how we digest information, how we view the world and how we relate to everyone and everything around us. There are many articles and journals on the influence of language on the brain and its workings.

The impact of language was further impressed upon me during my last overseas assignment. There was an Indo-Chinese girl working at the overseas facility where I was stationed. Upon learning that I am Malaysian, she excitedly came to me and proclaimed, ‘Eh, you Malaysian kah? Wah, I can talk Malay with you! I miss talking in my mother tongue, man.’ Such is the power of language!

Now, many Malaysians proclaim that they do not use BM because they are more comfortable talking in their mother tongue. How curious it is that Bahasa Melayu, as a national language, is still not the mother tongue of many Malaysians 51 years after Merdeka.

You will not hear this in Indonesia. You will also not hear this is America, that ultra-liberal nation that many of us in Malaysia suddenly wish to emulate. Do you know that there was a movement that demanded Spanish signboards in America last year? ‘Not going to happen,’ said my wise, reasonable and definitely non-racist American friend.

They do not want to encourage pockets of Spanish-speaking Americans to stay within their group and not have the drive to learn American English. Even my Democrat boss found the idea preposterous, and he is an immigrant himself (but the proudest American ever).

This is also not about enforcing a Malay identity on non-Malays. I have my own identity, as does one of my dearest friends who happens to be Malayalee girl (with whom I use Malay, English and Cantonese to relate to). I would not want that Malayalee friend to dump her beautiful and interesting culture just to be exactly like me. That would make either of us redundant, and our conversations boring. What I do want is for both of us to be able to relate.

I also have no wish to discuss which race got here first. Our peoples were all kept under imperialist shackles once, and we all fought together to break them, and we are working together still 51 years down the road. That is what counts right now. My grandfather migrated to Malaysia many years ago, so that makes my siblings and I third-generation Malaysians. Does that mean I have no right to remind my fellow Malaysians that they are not helping towards building a better Malaysia? Nope.

The issue here is that many politicians still want to champion their own race to gather instant support. And many people still want to cling to what they view as their cultural identity, when, in fact, they can still retain their cultural identity while mixing with the rest. I'm tired of listening to various sides complaining about how marginalised they are. All claims are legitimate and yet all are to blame.

Can we not just move on and make an effort to integrate? Will the Malays give up their sekolah pondok and the non-Malays their sekolah Cina/Tamil ? Shouldn't we put all our children in a sekolah kebangsaan and let them learn about the world side by side? Is that so hard to ask for? Asking all Malaysians to use Bahasa Melayu as the main communication tool is not a bigoted, unreasonable request.

And as for asking all Malaysians to appreciate the Malay culture, why are people jumping to conclusions that Malay culture must mean books/films produced by Malays? Ah ha! Who's bigoted now? The movie ‘Puteri Gunung Ledang’ was a good example of what a group of Malaysians can achieve when they combine their creative juices and transcend the racial barriers that our politicians have built.

The brilliant Professor Emeritus Khoo Kay Kim wrote many illuminating articles in Malay. Lim Swee Tin won numerous awards for his contributions to Malay literature. These Malaysians do not cast their eyes to other nations to feed their individual identities. They work hard to present our country as they see it, influenced as they are by their non-Malay background, but in our national language. I'd say that's Malay culture.