In the process, the National Front government, in reality what its main member, UMNO, dictates. The National Front today accepts what the UMNO leaders want. They may not know what that is, but they know which side their bread is buttered. In the process, the Chinese, Indian, native leaders forget why they were elected or supported by their members because they want to remain in the cabinet at all cost, even going against their ground. So, it is rare for frequent changes in their leadership, or democracy in their election, their succession to favoured cronies by making sure the favoured successor is eliminated. This will succeed for a while, but it will work eventually against the community they represent. This has led to the Malaysian Indian Congress having had only four presidents since Tun V.T. Sambandan seized the presidency in 1954, transferring the leadership from the North Indian to the south, and the Indian community has become moribund in the years since. Today, the MIC asks all Indians to make it relevant by asking what it could do.

At the same time, the Malays, constitutionally Muslims, have accepted as untouchable by the non-Muslim any moves to make Malaysia more Islamic, not on legal principles but on what they think it should be. They may decide otherwise in private, but in public they show a different face, that of the mob, to force Islam and its precepts on the non-Malay. This is challenged by Malays and non-Malays alike, but usually in secret. The speakers at yesterday's forum, including Muslims, said the Malay ground had this fixation that Islam was not allowed to be discussed by the non-believers, who must accept what is given them. History is suspended – whatever the struggle for independence, Malaya would not have got it had not the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress joined with the UMNO. Today, officially the non-Malay is a lesser breed, and their leaders accept it.

The National Front believes that its prime minister can say what he likes, and they follow. At least that is the fiction. But at a seminar in Petaling Jaya yesterday (12 March 2006) one speaker said the Malaysian Chinese Associatiion (MCA) and Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) leaders had approached his organisation over UMNO's policies which they do not agree. But they should have expected that because they were more interested in being in the cabinet than for why they had been sent there by their communities. This is not surprising because UMNO members are also angry with their president, and his belief he is invincible and can do as he likes. He appoints the editor of the New Straits Times, and the Star support him because it is owned by the MCA, and pushes the Chinese point of view as vigorously as the NST pushes the UMNO president's point of view. But even UMNO and MCA members do not believe in their leaders' way of making themselves important. The alternate papers and the Internet is the source of news these days. So what is published in the mainstream media is by and large ignored. They are sold not for the news they contain, but for the advertisement in them.

THERE IS A TRITE SAYING that the Indian community in Malaysia must blend with the other races if it is to survive. Trite because the party that represents the Indians here do all it can to separate the Indian community into Tamils, Malayalees, Sikhs, Bengalis, others. The Malaysian Indian Congress, which once represented the Indian community in the governing National Front coalition, has done its job badly in representing the Indian community that the People's Progressive Party – which in its previous life was the opposition and multiracial Perak Progressive Party led by the redoubtable Seenivasagam brothers, both lawyers and with the younger, D.R. Seenivasagam, the more dominant, particularly in the opposition benches in Parliament – to also represent the Indians. His death in the late 1960s lead to his elder brother, known as SP, taking over, and subsequently joined the ruling National Front, After his death, it was the vehicle for a Chinese leader at odds with the Chinese party in the National Front, the Malaysian Chinese Association. But the PPP came back into Indian hands, its president being appointed a senator tough he is elected to parliament now. He, an Indian, is a deputy minister, but the party is a pale shadow of its old self.

The Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia [Gerakan], the Malaysian Indian Congress [MIC], the People's Progressive Party [PPP] are not political parties now in the sense that UMNO or PAS is one. They cannot exist on their own, like many opposition political parties. They divisions in them are based on hate, and suffer the same problems as the opposition parties, and would disappear from the scene if they ever leave the National Front. The Gerakan provides the chief minister in Penang, but the MCA is yapping at its heels, to make the chief minister very uncomfortable. The DAP's attempt to throw out the Gerakan and take over failed because it was not meant to govern. The people of Penang wanted DAP not as the government but as the opposition. The DAP is forever destined to be in the opposition because that is how it is perceived.

In Malaysia, those expelled from Singapore did provide the intellectual framework for much of its policies, although some had occasion to regret what they did. The former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, in his eighties and had a heart attack around Christmas last year, is the grandson of a Malayali policeman from Travancore who became head of security to the sultan of Kedah. Many others though came here to earn a living, fought for Indian independence, and returned to serve the Indian government on independence. Among those were N. Raghavan, a lawyer who became India's ambassador to Argentina. Dr N.K. Nair practiced medicine in Penang, fought for Indian independence, married a German, and remained in Malaysia. His son died as a UN representtive in Thailand. But they are a minority in Singapore and Malaysia. In Singapore, they are looked down upon officially. In Malaysia, they are look down upon by the Tamils, who represent the Indians in power. They cannot join the Malaysian Indian Congress, unless they forget Malayalam and adopt Tamil. But in either territory, they cannot be ignored. Once in a blue moon, someone like C.V. Devan Nair would arise to make their presence felt.

HE IS THE SON-IN-LAW of the Prime Minister but he has brought UMNO, the leading party in the National Front, to its knees. He caused so much damage that it is probably too late for him to withdraw. His actions to show he is a rich man – by buying 3 per cent of ECM Libra for RM9.2 million, for example – has backfired on Pak Lah and UMNO. But Mr Khairy Jamaluddin thinks he can ride through, going after his critics with defamation suits, answering no questions, riding rough shod over UMNO members. Pak Lah cannot reshuffle his cabinet, as he should have by now, because Mr Khairy wants his men in it. The more power Mr Khairy has in Pak Lah's government, the more split UMNO will be. The National Front is no longer as the first prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, had envisaged it: a meeting of equals, in which the Malaysian Chinese Association and Malaysian Indian Congress leaders in cabinet had as much say as he himself. He used to say that the item on hand was not discussed in the cabinet if either disagreed. It was brought later, after negotiations had removed the objection. That was then. Now, the non-UMNO leaders in the National Front want to be known as the first to support an UMNO proposal. After all, it was their vote that made Malaysia an Islamic nation in practice, or that women are made second-class citizens.

In the present scandals, the non-Muslim parties in the National Front, should have been in the forefront, but have said nothing. The leaders of the Malaysian Chinese Association, the Malaysian Indian Congress, Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, People's Progressive Party will talk strongly on peripheral matters, but not on issues that affect the people they represent. It is wrong to assume that Malaysians would remain quiet for all time. It is only the Muslim women and the Hindu who continue to articulate the 'injustices' in a Hindu being buried as a Muslim. Similarly, the Muslim women are het up about their denigrtion in Malaysian society. The newspapers and the internet have registered their anger, but the fact remains that the Hindu. Buddhist or Chritisian spouse of a man who has secretly converted to Islam has no legal rights. The courts have declared that she cannot come to the civil courts for justice, and the Sharia courts have said it would only hear cases brought by Muslims. There has been instances were Chinese have been so treated, but that is forgotten now.

THE NATIONAL FRONT PASSES laws to affect nearly half the population, and no Malaysian is concerned at the time when their kind is affected by it. The Malaysian Chinese Association, the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, the Malaysian Indian Congress and other parties in the Front other that UMNO would rather not talk about it, and look the other way. Two cases in recent weeks show that it is done. A Malaysian, who was born an Indian Hindu and scaled Mount Everest in his time, was buried a Muslim, after the civil court decided it could not interfere in what should have been other court. But because she is not a Muslim, she could not go to the Sharia court for justice. So the Indian is buried a Muslim, with his family not allowed to take part: the religiious affairs department saw to that. The second case involved women, albeit Muslim, and they objected to their denigration at the last minute. But the two cases are seen in water tight compartments, and so the official actions against one is not seen as affecting the other. So, the Muslim women are up in arms, and the Hindus are up in arms, but seperately. If it is this way, the National Front government is not worried: they would be elected by these groups in the next election or byelection. But there is a link between the two: it shows the National Front reduces views of Malaysias by attacking individual components, knowing full well that parties in the National Front would not object, as it has not in the two cases, and Malaysians will vote the National Front in the next time around.

It is therefore in a quandry. It depends on more tourists from China, but its agencies and departments illtreat them at the airport or once they have entered the country. Malaysia depends on tourists from China. It has built the facilites for them, but about two thirds less have come here compared to last year. Earlier this year, Chinese tourist high rollers refused to visit the casino at Genting Highlands for two days because some of them had been illtreated earlier this year. Genting Highlands Berhad, which owns the casino, lost millions of ringgit plus the daily takings from these tourists for two days. It should have been a warning sign. Instead, the present crisis, which started with a MMS videoclip showing a naked Chinese woman doing a ear squat in PJ District police station. It was against the rules. The Seputeh MP produced the videoclip at Parliament House, and she is investigated by the police on how she got the tape. The secretary-general of the DAP went to jail for helping a Malay woman who was being harassed by the government. There has been conficting public statements, similar to the National Front government statements now. The hope is this would be forgotten. But it would not. Malaysians have been illtreated by the police. The Indians who have got the short shrift when they approached the Malaysian Indian Congress or the People's Progressive Party, as the Chinese when they approached the Malaysian Chinese Association or the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia. UMNO would not touch it. So the Malaysians badly treated by the police know they have been, their dignity and self respect had been destroyed in the process and they kept quiet. They have been told they are lying at the police abuses they endured a long time ago, as the Chinese tourists have told Chinese mainland newspapers they have also been manhandled by the police.

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