I refer to the Malaysiakini report 'Issue show-cause letter to Zaid'.

There has been much negative comment and anger raised from within the ranks of Umno following the excellent speech given by Zaid Ibrahim recently.

I read the entire transcript of his speech and was really impressed with the common sense and honesty in what the Datuk was saying.

Try as I may, I cannot understand how a government in a multi-racial and multi-religious country like Malaysia can support any concept that promotes supremacy of one race over another.

To Europeans and Americans, the concept of supremacy of one race over another has connotations of the ideology of the whites in the southern states of the US in the last century who were determined that the African Americans were only good as slaves and third-rate citizens of their country.

It also raises the same thoughts about a plan for a supreme Aryan (white) race in pre-Second World War Germany. For the main component of the Barisan Nasional to espouse the same idea and maintain that Malays should be supreme over all other races is a total anathema in the 21st century.

Maybe something has been lost in the translation of ketuanan into English, but since all English- language media in Malaysia use both ketuanan and ‘supremacy’ inter-changeably, I suspect not.

The following is the definition of ‘supreme’ as taken from the internationally-recognised Webster’s English dictionary:

‘Supreme: greatest, utmost, paramount, preeminent, foremost, crowning; first-rate; (important), (excellent); unrivaled peerless, matchless; none such, second to none, sans pareil; unparagoned, unparalleled, unequalled, unapproached, unsurpassed; superlative, inimitable facile princeps, incomparable, sovereign, without parallel, nulli secundus, ne plus ultra; beyond compare, beyond comparison; culminating; (topmost); transcendent.’

As a foreigner in your country for a number of years, it is obvious to me that many in the higher echelons of Umno are living on a different planet if they think that racial harmony and national pride in Malaysia by all races here will be attained by espousing such repugnant views.

Does no one up there realise this?