Imagine this. We have hit the 30 percent bumiputera corporate equity ownership target. All ethnic quotas are abolished. Political parties are no longer racially-based. We see ourselves as Malaysians first and everything else, second.

Indeed, the impact of a Malaysia minus the New Economic Policy will be nothing short of revolutionary. To remain relevant, racial parties will need to open their membership to all Malaysians. Racial discrimination will be outlawed. We can, at long last, become a normal country.

Perhaps for the NEP generation, this is truly unthinkable. Having known nothing else, all they can imagine is more of the same. But do try to imagine a Malaysia without the NEP. As John Lennon said, ‘... it isn’t hard to do’.