I would like to respond to Ummu Ainuls letter 'No bikini please, we're Muslims' (April 26)

Time moves forward. It does not stagnate, and it never flows backward, no matter how much some of us wish that it would. Where would we be now without the changes that have occured, good and bad, over all the years past? And yet it is saddening to know that there are still those out there who would resist the tide of change.

I fully agree that religion is something sacred to people, and if they wish to follow it, fine, that is their choice. However, to expect others around them to conform to their precious, and at time precocious ideals of what is 'right' is not right.

If tourists, and even Muslims who find that the codes of old are too restrictive wish to simply dress in a simple bikini, what is the big deal? It is their conscious choice to do so.

I do not find the idea of building 'special' public pools for people who wish to relax and swim fully clothed to be repulsive, but the idea of asking people not to wear a bikini, and to gender segregate people in hotel pools is shallow and close-minded.

How is our country to embrace globalisation when there still exist such simple minded and shallow thoughts? In this statement, I am not accusing merely PAS and the Muslim extremists, but rather addressing the country as a whole, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and all.

The one hope is that among the youth there is an increasing number of more open-minded, less religionistic, people.

And despite the scorn that they are oft shown for their 'lack of discipline', and 'rude, corrosive mannerisms', they are the youth who'll bring us forward, assuming that foolish rulings do not dull their potential.