As Normala (Letter to PM from a private citizen) rightly pointed out, the real enemies of the state are those with closed minds (not o­nly Malay Malaysians but the other races as well) who are intolerant and chose to ignore the real issues facing the respective communities of this country.

While we are busy arguing over the rights and privileges, Malaysia is fast deteriorating in its industrial and commercial competitiveness, plagued by a host of malaise ranging from corruption, to poor or no planning, wrong priorities, and plain social sabotage.

Some of the affirmative policies no doubt had the best of intentions but without effective or proper execution at grassroots level, they are easily manipulated by "unscrupulous enemies of the state (of all races)" for their own selfish interests. These real enemies from within are more dangerous and ultimately would cost the nation dearly.

We have become a nation divided by race and creed.

However, the widespread cross-racial support seen in recent issues - incinerator at Kg Bohol (Puchong) and Broga (Semenyih), raid o­n malaysiakini, the Penang Outer Ring Road - has given hope that all is not yet lost. Let us highlight or expose more of such issues or "enemies of the state" to galvanise more cross-racial support rather than argue over issues emphasising our differences.

There are several major projects o­n the pipeline (eg. Raw Water Transfer tunnel project, Bakun, Penang Second link) which will seriously affect our future.

Given the poor accountability, lack of transparency and proper control over these privatised (or shall I say piratised) projects, it is our duty to ensure that the relevant issues (environmental, public liabilities, costing etc.) are thoroughly discussed in public before they are even allowed to proceed. Most of the previous feasibility and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies were carried out in haste to support the government wishes rather than being true assessment exercises.

Let us fight to save what we have rather than to fight over the leftovers.

Given the thoughtless grandiose of things to come there may not be much to fight over with. Don’t get me wrong; I am not against development, o­nly those meaningless, grandiose schemes that were designed to enrich o­nly the designated few.

To quote from Winston Churchill (adapted):

"Never in the history of our nation’s building was so much destroyed in the name of development and greatness, to the benefit of so few and yet burden so many in generations to come."

Never in the history of our nation’s judiciary were so much injustice and so many miseries brought o­nto so many under the Internal Security Act (ISA), in the name of national security, peace and harmony.