This letter was written months earlier but I am updating it with reference to the current haze. It has always been my sincere belief that a great many indigenous Indonesians have never respected Malaysia from the day their republic was created by President Ahmad Sukarno on Aug 17, 1945.

I cannot help but believe that a great many Indonesians think they own our country. This 'disease' affects not just Indonesian politicians, but also the masses, especially those who enter the country illegally and create trouble for Malaysians.

The mind of an Indonesian 'jantan' (hot-blooded, macho man) seems to think: 'Since Malaysia speaks Malay and its native people are all Malay, thus, my country should own Malaysia'.

It sounds very much like Adolf Hitler saying: 'Since Czechoslovakia has Germans, and so does Russia, thus Germany should own them both'.

Malaysia should be firm with Indonesians who bully us into submission. I would suggest that Indonesian criminals in our country be branded as 'invaders and terrorists'. They should be cast in the same mould as George W Bush, Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, the invaders of Iraq.

Indonesia is a perceived security threat to Malaysia in the same way as the US is a security threat to Cuba. Indonesia must compensate Malaysia for all the years it gave us the haze and with it, the damage to our health and economy.

And this is something we Malaysians should tell Indonesia, now. For after all, without Malaysia, Indonesia would not have come into being. Indonesia and Malaysia were together part of that Malaysian Malay empire called Melaka, and later the Pahang-Johor-Riau empire, which succeeded it.

True, the empire which existed before Melaka, Srivijaya, had the Indonesian city of Palembang as one of its capitals, but Srivijaya was a Malaysian empire through and through. This is because it was also centred in the Klang Valley and the Johor River Valley (Kota Gelanggi).

And the whole concept of Indonesia only emerged after the Dutch East Indies were established in 1824, when London and Amsterdam divided the Pahang-Johor-Riau empire between themselves.

Modern Malaysia (from which Singapore and Brunei left) was the British East Indies, established in 1824, too.

Before the establishment of the British and Dutch East Indies, the whole Southeast Asian, Malay-speaking region, was the Malay Empire, Malay Continent, or Nusantara (The Middle Kingdom, another name given to Srivijaya, and its successors Melaka and Pahang-Johor-Riau).

And the term 'Malaysia' was coined by the British to describe the whole Malay Empire. Malaysia and Indonesia are twins. Why I describe them as such is because both share the same language, people and culture. Both countries speak Malay, the language of the Temuan people, the ancestors of the modern Malays of Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra.

Indonesia's embryo and modern Malaysia's embryo were both created by the London Treaty (British-Dutch Treaty) of 1824, which divided the Pahang-Johor-Riau Empire into the British and Dutch East Indies respectively.

As a Malaysian, I now give Indonesia an ultimatum.

If another major haze hits us, I will not recognise the sovereignty of the Republic of Indonesia and I will consider Indonesia a joint Malaysian-British-Dutch colony!

Happy Last Merdeka, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and all subjects!