Priorities...

An elderly lady was standing at the railing of the cruise ship holding her hat tight so that it would not blow away in the wind.

A gentleman approached her and said, 'Pardon me, madam. I do not intend to be forward but did you know that your dress is blowing up in this high wind?'

'Yes, I know,' said the lady, 'but I need both hands to hold onto this hat.'

'But madam, you must know that you are not wearing any underwear and everything is exposed!' said the gentleman in earnest.

The woman looked down, then back up at the man and replied, 'Sir, anything you see down there is 85 years old. I just bought this hat yesterday!'

Don't ask me why, but somehow, I cannot help comparing this with some criticisms directed at the four states of Kedah, Penang, Perak, and Selangor, which are newly ruled by the opposition coalition of Pakatan Rakyat.

As an example, Kim Quek highlighted the fact that the total state revenues of Selangor is only 1% of the revenues of the Federal Government! Just imagine the immense power of the federal government vis-a-vis the supposedly richest states of Malaysia which coincidently comprise of the four state governments! Yet, we have our federal leaders who unashamedly restrict federal funds to the opposition-controlled states.

The voters should be aware of this unfair situation and seek to put the federal government in their place. What better time than now, when there is a by-election in Kuala Terengganu, to show them who is the boss!

The other analogy which I cannot help relating to, is the question of Malay supremacy which had been and is still jealousy guarded by certain racists. What upsets most non-Malays are the problems of definition as to who is considered a Malay, especially with the many inter-marriages over the years. Then, we have newcomers who qualified to be Bumiputeras and enjoyed the special privileges.

While they quarrelled over the special rights and privileges of who should get into universities and get contracts and so on, they did not mind having the country run by PMs of mixed bloods! I would be tempted to agree with Raja Petra's suggestion that we should have mixed marriages as a rule, which over time, nobody will be concerned about race.

Today, when I was in KL, following a car round what used to be a roundabout between Public Bank building and the back of Pasar Seni (Central Market) LRT station, I noticed one of his stickers: 'UiTM hak milik orang Melayu, Bumiputera' or something to that effect. I was more disappointed than annoyed.

The irony of it all is the fact that those Malays in the opposition are discriminated against, in the form of arrests and jail sentences, and generally treated with contempt. So is it just race that matters? I bet it is more to do with power than race. Race is just a means to an end. But does the end justify the means?

People get worked up over whether we can have a Chinese PM. Honestly, most of us never even thought of that idea, so what we did not expect, we would not miss it.

We are more concerned about having the right people to run the country and, they are mainly Malays anyway. Only those who have ulterior motives of taking advantage of power for own self interests will get worked up by calls for transparency, accountability and good governance.