If my answers frighten you, Vincent, then you should cease asking scary questions.

- Jules Winnfield in the movie Pulp Fiction

COMMENT | Lee Hwok Aun of the Iseas–Yusof Ishak Institute asks, “Will bumiputeras ever relinquish the privileges they enjoy?”, believing, like a majority of non-Malays and 'liberal'-minded Malays, that this question, although provocative, is one that needs to be asked.

Mind you, this piece is not directed specifically at Lee, because this question and certain themes involving this question have been around for some time now.

In a charitable reading of the question, it is a red herring, but more often, it is a deflection from the mainstream politics of this country that enables the bumiputera system and which forms the basis of political compromises which over the years has had diminishing returns.

First of all, non-Malays and the politicians they vote for enable the system of privileges – as defined by the former deputy governor of the central bank that is the starting point of Lee’s piece – and other Malay uber alles policies that everyone seems to think are...