Manjit Bhatia's open letter to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is a very selective and vitriolic response to Mahathir's criticism of the travel ban and Australian treatment of Muslims. Mahathir is not out of step with the overall perceptions of the sentiments felt by Muslims at large in Australia and elsewhere.

The statement by the federation of Islamic societies in Victoria where I live was not necessarily reflective of the feelings of the Australian Muslims; let alone Victoria. Billal Clelland, a convert, made those statements on their behalf and without the full consultation of all societies.

But for the sake of not further inflaming an already tinder box dry situation, it has been decided to leave it at that. Further any attack on the statement would create the divisions that the present government would like to see which would further weaken the position of Muslims here.

For that fear to exist, we have to look at the history of successive governments in Australia, their treatment of aborigines and other minorities. Let me remind Bhatia that Australia only considered him and I human beings worthy of our democratic rights without qualification in 1972 when Whitlam threw out the White Australia policy.

Let's then look more recently to the revelations (not rumours or suspicion) that 350 innocent people mainly Muslims from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan were sent to a watery grave in the Sieve X courtesy of the Australian federal police and their operatives. Further we must bear in mind the revelations on the same Sunday (Channel 9) programme that for the record, the same practices were used with deadly effect on Vietnamese boat people.

Take it a step further to examine the mentality of the white Australian when you read the works of one Blance D'Alpuget, now wife of Robert James Lee Hawke (Bob Hawke) who claims that Muslims in Trengganu killed hundreds of Vietnamese boat people trying to land in Malaysia with parang (which she called bamboo spears).

The history of the US and Australia to dispense with human lives, even their own, in pursuit of a greater political objective, however misguided or obscure, is not new.

The Vietnam war in which 58,000 Americans and more than two million Vietnamese lives were lost was also sparked by a fictitious incident called the 'Gulf of Tonking' incident. Had people questioned that incident for what it really was rather than crawling to the tune of the Americans, like Howard does, the situation may have been different.

Mahathir serves the interests of his own people and his party's objective. There are bound to be detractors and dissenters. But for the record, neither Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, Abdul Razak Hussein or Hussein Onn provided Malaysians the prosperity it has since enjoyed.

Anwar under siege by men in balaclavas? Yes. The Irish too can tell you of such incidents by the British. The aboriginals too can tell you of the same.

But where is the offence? Anwar has at least been offered a trial. Had Mahathir taken the forced world bank line, the country would have been like Indonesia has turned out to be.

I have dealt with the world bank and their officers in Papua New Guinea where I was advisor to a former treasurer and deputy prime minister. I know what they require and how impossible it is to achieve what you desire unless you are content with being a coolie.

Think. For all his faults, Mahathir has provided his people with a degree of prosperity that no others have been able to while Australia finds it difficult to absorb this. In their feeble minds we should continue to carry their baggage and remain content with that position. You may find that appropriate. But many like me don't.