Once upon a time, we were already united.

In the year 2002, as I was going to retire as a teacher at the age of 56 years, just before an assembly before Malaysia's Independence Day, I was asked to give a talk on the progress of unity among the races.

I immediately refused to speak on the topic. When the organisers tried to persuade me, I told them I did not wish to lie to the students. I told them Malaysians were more united during my primary and secondary school days. Although there is still unity amongst the ordinary folks, the politicians and the extremists had done a lot of harm to unity.

If I am wrong in the information on those days when unity was really good, anyone reading this can put their thoughts in as comments. I remember the days in Wellesley Primary School, Hutchings School and then the Penang Free School where I mixed freely with the Malay and Indian students. The thought that a Malay or a Chinese or an Indian was any different from me never entered my head then. We played, argued, quarrelled and fought, sometimes becoming friends again without ever thinking the guy was of a different race. Some of us got better grades, were awarded scholarships and were given places for further studies based on merit. All of us were treated equal. Because we were equal in every way, there was no suspicion when a Malay teacher punished a Chinese or Indian student. It was the same when Chinese of Indian teachers punished a Malay student. If we ever felt there was injustice in the punishment, we all, be it Malay, Chinese or Indian, stood up as one to show our disapproval, indignation and disgust at the authority concerned. We were one.

In the canteen in the Penang Free School, so many different types of food were sold. We had mamak mee, curry mee, nasi lemak and lots of other favourite hawkwer food in that canteen. Each morning, Mohd. Shariff, Sathasivam, Chow Tatt and I would alight from our bus, put our school bags in our class and head straight for the canteen. We would order our favourite food and sit side by side to enjoy our breakfast with much talk and laughter.

Usually, I would order curry mee which at twenty cents a bowl, filled to the brim with noodles dried tahu hu, cockle-meat and coagulated pig's blood cubes while Mohd. Shariff had his nasi lemak with its crunchy ikan bilis and groundnuts. As for Sathasivam, it was fried Indian mee. That was the beautiful togetherness we enjoyed in school.

Every now anf then, we had our tiffs but the others in the group always got us back together again. Life was the same for almost every Malaysian citizens until the politicians decided to change the situation with a divide and rule policy.

The division came with the May 13th, 1969 incident. The Alliance lost many of their election seats to the oppossition just before that date. In the craze for power, certain politicians created the bloodbath of May 13th and with that excuse, the government declared Emergency. With emergency in place, the political powers drafted laws to safeguard their powers.

It is after the May 13th incident that the country was divided into Bumiputras and non-Bumiputras. Quotas for places in universities and scholarships divided the people further as bright non-Bumiputra students lose out to not so bright Bumiputra students. Recently, in one of the states, Selangor, Bumiputras protested over the appointment of a well-qualified non-Bumiputra in a top post in that state. Well, citizens of the country soon realised that not every citizen is equal under the Malaysian sun. That is the government's great injustice towards its citizens.

Today, most Malays would not enter a Chinese coffee-shop to eat. Today, it would not be comfortable to sit beside a Malay and eat curry mee with the same pig's blood. today, we are ever cautious in any quarrel among different races. Today, there is so much suspicion in mind of the different races. Today, the main topic seems to be unity. After fifty years of independence, we need a 1Malaysia slogan. After fifty years of independence, there are politicians who tell citizens of another race who have been in the country for more than sixty years that they are squatters. Why should Malaysians be so divided?

As the Bumiputra ruling party became more and more arrogant with its 'Better than non-Bumiputra' stance, its supreme race concept, some of the Bumiputra politicians think nothing of drawing the kris, a warrior's weapon, in a demostration of power, the power of supremacy.

These race-supremacy leaders forget what history has taught us about the First World War and the Second World War in which the Japanese and the Germans were trying to prove themselves supreme races. Instead of progressing, these leaders regressed.

Those politicians were so clouded in their power that they did not realise that even the better educated, more broad-minded Malays understand the injustice suffered by the other minority races in Malaysia. They empathised with the other citizens and showed their disgust of such power-madness by voting with the non-Bumiputras to allow the opposition to win five states and deprive the government of its two-third majority in Parliament.

Eventually, with the hope of better politicians who could possibly love the country enough to be sufficiently bold to dismantle the divisive policies, the citizens see a ray of hope for a united Malaysia. Will the hope materialise? Well, it is up to each and every citizen to think correctly each time they vote in a politician or a political party. They must not be influenced by the small insignificant gifts politicians distribute just before or during elction periods. They must think of the greater good of all citizens, the health of the nation, the progress of the country.

The voters must remember that the ruling party forming the government is merely the trustee for a certain period of time, the ruling party is not the country.

We must be patriotic to our country, not the ruling party. If the ruling party is not corrupted and not bringing progress to the country, then it is up to the patriotic people to replace it with a better government to ensure the health of the nation. That is democracy. To show true patrioticism, the people ought to exercise their right to choose the best politicians and the best political party which can bring real progress to the nation to be the government.