An advertisement, over Astro, promoting Malaysia as an international tourist destination goes like this: Truly Blessed, Truly Harmonious, Truly United and Truly Asia!

A foreign ex-international hockey player, well exposed to Malaysian life and politics, who visited me to observe the recently concluded Champions Trophy, told me it was plain hypocrisy for such an advertisement to be aired despite the well-known subtle goings-on and institutionalised social engineering in Malaysian policy-making circles.

I could not defend nor 'talk my way through' as then, potentially explosive issues continued to surface not only ridiculing government efforts to truly unite the many racial and religious communities but also, threatening and upsetting all fair-minded Malaysians.

Hardly had the recent controversy pertaining to the handling of the destruction of Hindu temples, attacks against churches and racial quotas for house purchases "died down", we have new controversies emerging.

First was the Examination Syndicate's new requirement for SPM and PMR candidates to state whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim in their examination slips.

And then, the alleged streaming of pupils according to their religion/race and not performance.

Replies from both the Examination Syndicate and the Education Ministry were unconvincing.

Instead of handling the issue head-on, with transparency, good governance and accountability, embarrassed officials and policy-makers defensively attacked those who exposed the problem to the media!

The situation was quite hilarious at times with one senior minister's initial reported off-the-cuff remark, "not serious", being later expressed "as very serious" - all within a span of three days!

However, in an immediate reaction, Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has, in no uncertain terms, made it quite clear that it should not have happened and that action would be taken against those behind such actions.

As I have warned in my earlier letters - these 'moves' are the actions of an entrenched, over-zealous, fanatical minority group in policy-making positions, with an unhealthy holier-than-thou outlook and possessing their own interpretations and agenda for the nation.

There is no doubt in my mind that their actions and practices are not government policies as rightly pointed out by both Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his deputy.

However, their actions put the nation and the Barisan Nasional government in extremely bad light and as such, it is in the interest of the government and for future security and stability of the nation that it initiates a public weeding out and purging of these bigots.

What we need are level-headed Malaysians who can bring back the implicit faith we had in all sectors of Malaysian life as it was, in the 1960s and 70s , be they, the education system, business and government employment sectors, promotion activities in the civil service, opportunities for loans and end-financing, etc.

After 44 years of independence, I have only seen one company advertising in our local newspapers that they are an equal opportunity employer, with selection based strictly on merit and therefore, applications from all sections of society are welcome.

Perhaps, to some, this is asking too much!

Never mind, we can start by truly Malaysianising our immigration booths at all entry points throughout the nation and send our senior government policymakers for a stint with the Sarawak government to see how the government and people there have truly united the various communities, despite religious and racial diversities.