Breathes there the man with soul so dead ....

When Malaysia's Defense Minister, Zaid Hamidi, made a statement that one of the reasons why the Malaysian army doesn't have many non-Malays was because the non-Malays lack a sense of patriotism. He drew a lot of flax from many quarters of the community especially from those "patriotic " Chinese and Indian communites. They claimed that didn't they contribute effort, money, blood, tears and sweat to make Malaysia what it is today.

Poor Zaid Hamidi he was at his wit's end to make cogent replies.

To me, the answer is simple if Zahid Hamidi wishes to test the patriotic fervour of the non-Malays. What he, or rather us, do is let's organise a football match between China (big China, not Taiwan) and Malaysia to be held at the Bukit Jalil stadium. Let's promote this match as a really important match between the 2 countries to tell the world who's the better footballing nation - China or Malaysia. Or better still, let us suppose that Malaysia are playing against China in an important World Cup qualifying round. You will see that the stadium is filled to capacity with Malays, Chinese and a smattering of Indians and other diehards football fans. Then you wait and see who are cheering whom. You will find, during the course of play, that all the Malays will of course be cheering for Malaysia while most of the "patriotic Malaysian Chinese" will be cheering for China. As for the others, some of them would cheer for good play, whether by the Malaysians or by the Chinese. While this scenario of a football match has not happened since there has never been a football match between China and Malaysia as far as I can remember, many displays of "patriotism" shown by the Malaysian Chinese had been seen whenever Singapore played Malaysia in the Malaysia cup league. I noted with absolute disgust that the so-called "patriotic Malaysian Chinese" were cheering for Singapore merely because, to them, Singapore was considered as an "overseas Chinese" country. If no one believes me, try having an important football match between Malaysia and Singapore.

By writing this, it brings me memories of the day when Malaysia played against India in the Merdeka stadium; most probably, during the annual Merdeka tournament of yesteryears. Droves and droves of the local Indians were cheering so loudly and fanatically for the Indian Team that the Sports Minister then, Hamzah Abu Samah, got so disgusted of the "Malaysian Indian patriotic" fervour that he refused further invitation for India to participate in the Merdeka tournament.

This is just a football match, not a war. If war breaks out between Singapore and Malaysia (the likelihood of it happening is more real than a war breaking out with India or China), I am absolutely sure that most of the Chinese that makes up 30% of the Malaysian population will be fighting or sympathising with the other side while most of the Indians would wait and see who wins.

What high speed train ? ....

The proposal to have high speed train system to Singapore appears again. There has been talks of high speed train system from Malaysia to Singapore even during the days when Mahathir was the PM of Malaysia. There were also many proposals from several contractors, among the the most aggressive was those from the YTL group. YTL had proposed the idea to Mahathir, then to Abdullah Badawi and even now to Najib. So far, nothing came of it.

I presume the high speed train is from KL to Singapore. [It cannot be from Perlis nor from Ipoh nor from the nearby Johore Baru. It has to be from KL since this is the centre of population for the Klang Valley]. But now that Singapore has taken over the railway land from Bukit Timah to Tanjung Pagar, in a series of exchanges with some lands in Singapore, where would the high-speed rail track run through then. I therefore have to assume that the track from KL ends somewhere in north of Singapore - as for example in Bukit Timah or in Woodlands since the railway land to Tanjung Pagar now belongs to Singapore.

If the high-speed track terminates in areas in the north of Singapore, then to me, the Malaysian government might as well have the track terminate in Johor Baru. But then, in its proposal to Malaysia, it was never the intention of the YTL group to have it terminate in Johor Baru; otherwise the government would have acccepted the YTL proposal a long time ago. I remember that YTL bandied about the cost of RM 8 billion for the proposal.

No.

If there is going to be a high-speed train system, then the train will run through the same old KTMB track to Tanjung Pagar. But this time with a difference. Firstly, the railway land now belongs to Singapore as they have got rid of the thorn that was once a KTMB land which belonged to Malaysia. The track won't be dismantled and the land parceled out to developers. On the contrary, Singapore will preserve the land and the track will of course be improved by Singapore into a modern dual track to cater for the high speed trains. And from Tanjung Pagar, an MRT (if it's not built already) would conveniently run through the city's business districts and of course near to where the 2 casinos are located.

If the high-speed train system is realised, I would expect droves and droves of Malaysians, especially from the Klang valley, to queue for the train to take them to the casinos in less than 2 hours. MAS shuttle flight system will then be hard put to get passengers to Singapore.