Dr Syed Alwi Ahmad ("BN under Umno is still our best 'alternative'", Dec 24) has confused himself over what it means to be a secular state. His central thesis is that a country with a majority Muslim population cannot be secular.

This is exactly what the late Kemal Ataturk disproved when he set up a secular regime in Turkey. To this day, Turkey remains resolutely secular and the Turkish armed forces have assumed the responsibility of ensuring that this remains so.

Syed Alwi should analyse the parallels between Malaysia and Turkey and see where a policy of secularism has brought Turkey. I would venture to say that Turkey is no less advanced than Malaysia.

'Meritocracy' is another concept that can be brilliantly simple or meaningfully confusing, depending on who is pushing the agenda. To put it very simply, there is no spiritual dimension to meritocracy.

To believe in a Supreme Being, to do good to others, to love your neighbour as yourself are the basics of all the world's great religions. Meritocracy has nothing to do with this.

But where meritocracy can be applied is precisely the areas which Malaysia finds uncomfortable - scholastic performance, job performance, career progression - all areas which can be measured by well-accepted markers.

And to confuse the issue by bringing in an irrelevant spiritual dimension to the concept of meritocracy is nothing more than a blatant attempt to justify the status quo in Malaysia.