New Sunday Times on July 24 opened with a headline item quoting Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi , 'Non-Malays should not feel threatened or uneasy with the party's push to elevate the economic status of Malays.'

Meanwhile, Sunday Star quotes Rafidah Aziz , 'Malays have broken the Chinese monopoly of importing foreign cars by securing the sole right to import them from the principal companies and this is something to be proud of.'

You pass the transcript of all the speeches, together with video and sound, to someone who does not know anything about Malaysia and ask him who the enemy or the demons are to this group of people and lo and behold, it will not be any external enemy like Singapore, Indonesia, US, UK, Israel, Christians, Jews or Hindus.

The enemies and demons spoken of during this Umno assembly were none other than Chinese Malaysians, and to a lesser extent Indian Malaysians and other non-Malay Malaysians.

So taking all this in, how am I not to feel comforted by the prime minister's attempt at appeasing me with somewhat sounds like very contrived attempt at comforting me? Indeed Rafidah was speaking for and on behalf of all Malay Malaysians when she declared what it was that Malays were supposed to be proud of.

I know that my own Malay friends are apologetically embarrassed at the way their race has amassed its wealth and power. When you go and tell the principal car companies , either you sell the cars through me or don't sell at all, that does not give these companies any choice, does it?

No siree, I am not appeased and I am not comforted by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's assurance that 'non-Malays should not feel threatened or uneasy with the party's push to elevate the economic status of Malays'. I feel threatened and uneasy.

I have been loyal to this country. I am a Malaysian and I know that only too well when I go abroad and to make sure that I am not put together in the same basket as the Indians from India or Fiji or where ever. My wife does the same to make sure she is not regarded as a Chinese from mainland China, Hong Kong or Taiwan or anywhere else.

Sadly Umno leaders are weak, and they know it. That is the only reason they need to have an enemy to bash to keep themselves relevant to their political ambitions. It is sick that Khairy Jamaluddin, who is supposed to be an Oxford graduate and very articulate and clever, also finds it necessary to have an enemy to bash in order to feel confident enough to stand before that hungry and angry mob.

Can there not be a common enemy for all Malaysians? Cannot there be a common enemies like, health, education, economy, poverty, environment, transport, services, jobs, and whatever that affects all Malaysians equally without care for colour or creed?

No. Because these enemies do not give them the standing ovations and the long applause and encores. I suppose they know that they will be voted out. And the same applies to the prime minister himself. Honestly, I would prefer that he confines his remarks to the Malay crowd alone. Stop patronising the rest of us.

We can understand that you guys find pride in what Rafidah said about how Malay Malaysians can achieve pride in themselves. The rest of us operate under a completely different set of standards as to how, and what, gives us pride. Of course, any Malay Malaysian who also finds Rafidah's remark tasteless may join me in censuring her for that statement.