As a rejoinder to AAA's observations on tradition, religion and culture and how children are socialised into stereotypes of 'race', I'd like to share a true story with your readers.

It happened at a primary school during the first day of class when the teacher took the roll call of each student. As part of the roll call, the teacher had to tally up all the members of the class by their so-called 'race'. So she would ask all the Chinese students to stand up for the headcount. Followed by the Malays, Indians and so on.

For some reason, there was one extra student unaccounted for. So she did the 'race' headcount tally again. Again one extra student unaccounted for. Exasperated, she did a third count and still there was one student in the 'race' count more than the number of names she had on the class roll.

Then an observant classmate pointed out that 'Inchi' stood up twice - once during the headcount for Chinese students and once during the Indian headcount. The teacher called up Inchi to her desk and asked why he had stood up twice. Without blinking, he replied "Ma'am, my father is Indian and my mum Chinese".

The teacher gently explained to Inchi that he 'should have' stood up only once when the Indian students were asked to stand up. According to her (and by extension government policy), Inchi had to follow his father's 'race'. Puzzled but resigned, he went back to his desk.

That Inchi was me. Till today, I look back to that incident as a defining moment in my life.

Up to that point, I never considered myself either exclusively Indian or Chinese. I was just another boy going to school. I celebrated Chinese New Year and Deepavali as though they were continuous and inclusive (as opposed to discrete and exclusive) part of my cultural and traditional background.

I went with my parents to Hari Raya celebrations of their colleagues from the civil service. Christmas was celebrated with our Eurasian relatives. To me, they were an excellent excuse to play with friends and have a good feast, without all the heavy religious and cultural baggage that is being laboured to death today (my, how we have regressed with time). They were all "my" and "our" (as opposed to "my" vs "your") celebrations.

This happened over 25 year ago. If given a chance to repeat that day again, I will stand up twice all over - once for 'Indian' and once for 'Chinese'. Because that was my most instinctual and primal response to an illogical choice forced upon me by an outdated government policy. We were closer to the notion of a Malaysian identity then than we are today.

Your attuned readers would have also picked up an obvious solution to creating a Malaysian identity (or dare I say, 'Bangsa Malaysia' as awkward and clumsy as it sounds). This, of course, is intermarriage.

You see, intermarriage will make Umno, PAS, MIC, MCA, Gerakan, DAP, etc, politically irrelevant at the stroke of a pen. And it is all available at your local Registrar of Marriages. Political parties and their policies will have to cater to a new constituency - the so-called 'Bangsa Malaysia'. Who says you (the ordinary rakyat) do not have any power? This is why our so-called 'leaders' have put up all sorts of artificial religious and policy barriers against intermarriage amongst the various races and religious groups.

By intermarrying, you put one more nail in the coffin of our race and religion-based politics - which I believe was called 'apartheid', 'national socialism (Nazi)' and 'facism' in different countries at different times.

Your marriage certificate is more powerful than your ballot vote as tool for societal change.

It doesn't stop there.

Once you have mixed children, every time a government department asks for their race, just reply 'Malaysian'. If there isn't such a category on the form, just create one. See how easy it gets? With a stroke of your pen, you change a failed state policy that has kept us in chains and beholden to our political and religious 'masters'. When people do this in sufficient numbers, the bureaucracy and raced-based parties than run these abhorrent policies will break down and be forced to confront Onn Jaafar's far-sighted vision for a Malaysia run by truly Malaysian political parties.

I know many of my Chinese and Indians friend who would have married Malays if it weren't for the religious conversion forced upon them. Even if they conceded to conversion, would you want such persons to be called 'Muslims' knowing that the only reason they converted was marriage and if the marriage failed they would turn apostate? Don't you think God can see through that kind of hypocrisy?

Children are our purest selves. They do not know adult-made distinctions of 'race', 'religion', 'culture' and 'tradition'. It is no coincidence that all the great religious teachers extol the virtues of being 'child-like' in our outlook and concern for others (as opposed to being 'childish' which seems to be the modus operandi of our political and religious figures and our society today).

Note: I am not advocating inter-marriage purely for political motives but more importantly for societal change. Only couples who truly love each other and are committed to a lifelong relationship should consider the noble institution of marriage. And if the couple happen to comprise of different races and cultural and religious backgrounds, it wouldn't hurt the cause either.