In response to the letter by Jeffrey, 'Meritocracy is the solution to our malaise', I would like to say that meritocracy is not a cure-all either!

Let us first accept that Malaysia is a Muslim country with a sizeable (40 per cent of the population) non-Muslim citizenry. This is as it should be by Articles 3 and 153 of the Federal Constitution.

Then we have to understand that the meaning and implementation of 'meritocracy' may be different for the different ethno-religious groups. What is worthy of merit for one group may not be so for others because of differing value-systems.

In particular, Muslims attach an Islamic dimension to the practice of meritocracy. To make matters more complicated, the distinct ethno-religious groups have different aspirations and they may be heading towards different directions socio-politically.

Thus in both PAS and the Umno-led BN, political supremacy is reserved for the Malay-Muslim majority because they can realise and project the Muslim aspiration and values both locally and internationally.

In other words, a purely materialistic definition of meritocracy ala Singapore's PAP, is not sufficient to capture the Malay-Muslim aspiration in Malaysia. Of course this leads to dissatisfaction among certain quarters - but by and large, Malaysia functions well when compared to other multi-racial and multi-religious Third World nations.

The same can be said of Singapore too - as after all there are those who claim that Singapore's 15 percent Malay-Muslim population have been marginalised because of their materialistic, numbers-only approach with meritocracy.

I think the problem in Malaysia are the inefficiencies in the civil service sector. Should the Malaysian civil service overcome its inefficiencies and make significant improvements, I am sure that people like Jeffrey will be happy to be Malaysian. That is what matters at the bottom-line anyway.