While Khairy Jamaluddin had, in a media interview sometime ago, gave a good, credible and intellectual definition of Ketuanan Melayu , non-Malays should also take heed of the contention by Mukhriz Mahathir that alongside Ketuanan Melayu there is also Ketuanan Bukan Melayu over the economy of this country.

Both Khairy and Mukhriz are vying for the post of Ketua Pemuda Umno in the coming March Umno elections and, obviously, have to display some intellectual prowess.

According to Khairy, both the Malays and the non-Malays should understand that Ketuanan Melayu is about the status of the Malay sultans, the Malay traditions, etc and thus the concept was never meant to be about the Malays lording over the non-Malays which in so far as the economy is concerned, is a non-starter.

I would argue that while every sector of the economy is in the hands of the non-Malays,

there are also sectors (departments) in the government service which are also controlled by the non-Malays especially in the scientific service.

In the police department, there have been many non-Malay CPOs right up to the recent times when Christopher Wan was made the CID chief. So also the various non-Malay Malaysian ambassadors to foreign countries.

A non-Malay police chief, armed forces chief or the prime minister? Well, perhaps we should refer to what Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said recently - that for sometime to come, a Chinese will always be the prime minister of that republic.

We here have of course, heard of cases where non-Malay officers were sidelined for promotion in the government sector but surely this is also true in the private sector where the Malays are the victims and sometimes this has nothing to do with race but is simply politics, despotism, etc.

In the non-government sector, banking is said to be controlled by Malays (which is in itself a fallacy) but has anybody ever asked who is that are mostly dealing with these banks and benefitting even from the new Islamic borrowing instruments?

Many of these Malay bankers who are conscious of their responsibility to their shareholders, would often favour non-Malay customers (quite rightly) because of their long dealings with that banks and with their good credit records.

And I could also name the thousands of retail trades which are in the hands of the non-Malays such as the scrap metal business and the newspaper distribution trade both which are monopolised by the Indians. And what about the high-end halal restaurants?

Let’s not even go into the underworld...