Having left my home country of Malaysia for a faraway foreign land to pursue my studies, I sorely missed the subtle comfort of home, specifically, the company of Malaysians.

Fortunately for me, I did discover a good number of Malaysians at the University of Texas, Arlington (UTA) in the United States. Some are students while a couple of them work for the university after having completed their studies.

To my surprise, there was no representation of Malaysian students in any of the university's student organisations. There is a Singaporean Students Society and similar organisations for our Filipino, Thai and Indonesian neighbours.

At first, I assumed the current Malaysian students were a complacent bunch who had no intention of forming a Malaysian Student Organisation. The truth, as it turned out, was far from that and a completely rude shock.

Part of the requirement for international students to set up their own organisation at the university is that we get some kind of approval from our respective country's embassy.

My friends, who are seniors at UTA, as well as some of the graduates here, told me that a couple of years back, they approached the Malaysian embassy in the US for approval to start a student organisation here but were refused.

And for the most absurd reason. It seems that since there were no Bumiputra students at the university, it was therefore not proper to have a Malaysian Student Organisation!

The minimum requirement is at least one Bumiputra student to be currently studying at the university. So where does that leave us non-Malay Malaysian students over here? Are we not considered citizens of Malaysia?

The irony of it all, is that once people like us graduate, especially in technical fields, the Malaysian government comes up slobbering to us offering all kinds of lucrative jobs just to bring our skills back to Malaysia, a country that chooses to ignore us while we were studying abroad.

Then you also get the occasional brain-dead Malaysian academician or politician lamenting about the brain-drain and how we lose so much to money-hiring foreigners.

The Malaysian embassy is the representative of the very government that gloats about the Multimedia Super Corridor, Cyberjaya and Vision 2020. This same government stresses IT knowledge and encourages our students to pursue their studies in technical and scientific fields.

But unfortunately, these people choose to adopt a racially-biased mentality when dealing with their own students in a foreign country.

Most of my friends are resigned to the fact that there will not be a Malaysian Student Organisation in our university unless we get a Bumiputra student enrolled here.

However, I am not one to stand for such nonsense. I am going to kick up a fuss and take to task the Malaysian Embassy in the US.

If there are any Malaysian students studying abroad, regardless of race, who have or are encountering similar problems with their Malaysian embassies, please contact me at the e-mail address provided below.

It is about time we stand up and bring about some changes so that when we return to our country, If we do, there will be something to look forward to in terms of good governance and equal rights.

[#1]Brian R Theodore[/#]
University of Texas, Arlington