I refer to recent news reports that quoted Defence Forces chief, General Mohamed Zahidi Zainuddin as saying that he wants to see more non-Malay personnel in the defence forces. On this note, he says that defence of the country is a matter for all Malaysians, and promotion will be transparent and the "nons" will not be marginalised and there are sufficient number of non-Malay generals.

Maybe Zahidi could tell us how many Malay and non-Malay generals there are?

I am a former soldier who served King and country for over 20 years, having joined in the 1960s and left after becoming very frustrated with promotion skulduggery. Money or housing wasn't much of a problem.

My fellow non-Malay officers and I found we were frequently overlooked for promotion while not-so-competent or poorly-qualified Malay junior officers were moved upward irrespective of whether they passed any courses. A number of times, when I had the opportunity to send junior officers abroad for courses, I was informed that only Malay officers could be sent abroad. If I refused to budge, then they tell me there is no budget for it.

Frequently the phrase negara kita is chanted when a more favourable outcome is denied to the Malay officers in mess discussions. The non-Malays are always made to feel that we are immigrants and our loyalty is suspect. Malay leaders must understand a country built purely on favouritism, race and religion is only deluding itself.

All Malaysians want an equal stake in the country and are ready to defend it. However, 40 years of government policies only created first-class and second-class citizens based purely on race and religion.

Zahidi, whom I have met a number of times during our younger days during military exercises is aware of the problems but the institutional bias against "anything non-Malay" is the problem.

An army recruited from one particular race and its officers promoted not-on-merit will never have the necessary motivation and qualities to defend the country against outside aggressors. They are only useful to oppress the country's own unarmed and civilian countrymen.

Just look at Halim Sa'ad, Tajudin and their cohorts. They ran multi-billion businesses but their businesses dissolved into thin air at the first puff of turbulence. Forget the storm. Forget international competition. They screamed and yelled loudest only at home. They were even held out to be beacons for others to follow.

What was even more interesting was, just before I retired, I was offered the position of brigadier, if only I changed my religion. My principles, standards, values and ideals were more important to me — something that people who practise favouritism (and confuse that with patriotism) will never understand. Of course, there were those who changed their name and religion to get promoted.