Both the Lunar New Year and the 11th general election are coming soon. The newly-minted Kuala Lumpur Chinese Assembly Hall has already had its Chinese New Year dinner, and among its honoured guests was our newly retired prime minister. As reported by Bernama, these were the words of wisdom by Dr Mahathir Mohamad:

"I believe this year is an election year and I plead to Chinese voters to give their full support to the Barisan Nasional in the elections."

"Malaysia was peaceful compared to many other countries in the world because the BN government was tolerant towards all races in the country."

Malaysia has been independent for almost 50 years, isn't it time we had a government which accepts, not just tolerate all Malaysians?

Isn't it time we have a government which is colour-blind, race-blind and religion-blind? I hope the newly retired PM has again been misquoted by the press. To many, tolerance and acceptance are words with vastly different meanings.