I could not help but respond to PAS Youth chief Mahfuz Omar's remark that Mara Junior Science colleges MRSM should not open up to accommodate a 10 percent quota to non-bumiputra students. His ethnocentric remark reminds me very much of an Umno Youth chief in the 1970s who often went overboard to portray an image of 'Malay rights protector' as if Malaysia was only made up of a single race.

Unfortunately, Mahfuz Omar's outdated open remark is perplexing as it's made by a young leader in a "democratic reform opposition movement" in the new millennium Malaysia.

It proved right Sin Chew Jit Poh editor's severe criticism a few months earlier that there are "opposition movements" but no true democratic reform movements in Malaysia just yet. When young opposition leaders such as Mahfuz project themselves as the grand protector of the interests of their own race by deliberately ignoring the fact that Malaysia is a multiracial, multireligious country, there seems very little hope for the country to rise above the present predicament.

PAS is helping Umno and Barisan Nasional remain in power by making them seem the more moderate Malay political force. On the other hand, the DAP calls for a fairer education system without racial discrimination and meritocracy which is regarded by the Malays as the other extreme while the Keadilan and PRM remain ambiguously silent.

The opposition parties have consistently fallen into the trap set by the ruling Barisan Nasional. It does not augur well that the powers that be actually set the pace and agenda for the country's reforms, if there is ever going to be any democratic reform at all. No democratic reforms will ever be possible if the ruling party sets the agenda and pace for it. It depends on the mutual dynamism between the opposition parties and the ruling parties.

The opposition parties' passiveness and lack of original ideas as to where they would lead the country except misery is shameful. PAS seems to have very little understanding of what democracy means; it preaches democracy while championing supremacy for its own ideology.

It cannot comprehend that all ideologies must be given equal footing in competing for the populace's support, and all parties must accept the rule of power sharing in modern democracy.

PAS and Umno intend to ignore the rights of the minorities in this country and go on with the tussle to see whose Islamic state is more supreme. Their racial and religious supremacy match will lead the country to foreseeable social unrest and anarchy.

What is the difference between declaring the state socialist, communist, Islamic or Hindu? There can be no democratic state if any ideology is given a supreme position. A democratic state allows all ideologies the freedom of deliberation with the possibility of ruling the country while being subject to the people's power. No single elite class, either theocraticians or technocrats, shall dominate all the privileges of political decision making in a democratic state.

While PAS and Umno are preoccupied with the argument of Islamic supremacy instead of Malay supremacy, the DAP, Keadilan and PRM have very little to offer than short-term electoral gains; they squabble over seats allocation as was evidenced in the last Sarawak state elections.

People, tired of the squabbles among opposition parties, opt for BN as the "lesser evil" as there appears no other better choice for democracy. They see democracy as an unreachable entity because the opposition parties offer no concrete plans for democratic reforms, and it seems to them that the opposition leaders only care for their own electoral gains.

The opposition parties lack creativity in ideas. The DAP leaders have called for the opposition to Umno's Islamic state declaration and PAS'call for an Islamic state by asking the nation to go back to the 1957 Constitution! What is so great about the 1957 Constitution?

The fallacy of 1957 Constitution has actually put us in trouble by not limiting the government's power to curb freedom of speech and gerrymandering of electoral constituencies. The unfair electoral law has virtually legitimised the BN's political hegemony at all time.

A Keadilan brochure deriding the BN's elected representatives for inspecting clogged drainage was something uncalled for it virtually makes Keadilan look arrogant and far from being a mass political movement. In a way it helps Barisan Nasional capitalise on Keadilan's own weaknesses.

One must be reminded that Lech Walesa started out the solidarity movement by organising his co-workers in fighting for heating in winter. During the South Africa apartheid rules, the NGO's fighting for bread-and-butter issues, then the ANC itself, mobilised the masses in rallies. Talking about democracy itself is not sufficient to make people believe.

Nonetheless, the ISA 6 won my wholehearted support by boycotting the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) which acts as a tool to legitimise even the Internal Security Act which allows for indefinite detention without trial. How could a regime set up a human rights commission while at the same time uses ISA to grill political dissidents?

The DAP national chairperson's call for the six reformasi activists to give in to Suhakam shows the conservativeness that would not lead to progress in the call for democracy. A call for boycott of the next general election is the most omnipotent civil disobedience to protest against the BN's political hegemony by demolishing a democratic political process.

It shall be followed by a full-fledged economic sanction against the BN cronies internally and internationally. All these suggestions are however obviously too much for the conservative and recalcitrant opposition parties to take, and they seem to spin around in circles forever.

All Malaysian opposition parties have failed the Malaysian people the duty to bring about democracy and a betterment of our lives, as much as the BN regime itself.