MALAYSIANS who have viewed the Here in My Home music video by a group of 120 local artistes called Malaysian Artistes for Unity have responded differently to project - I was stupefied.

The project was initiated by singer-songwriter Pete Teo, who on a whim decided to call up his celebrity friends, pull some resources together, record a song, do some "cool" stuff in front of a camera, bask in their 15 mintues of fame, and justify it by slapping a patriotic tag.

The result is a rather pretentious looking music video, with so-called "Malaysian artistes" (as well as AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes, and football pundit Shebby Singh among others) taking turns to make faces or do something funny in front of the camera accompanied by a song with lyrics so ridiculous a nursery rhyme would've made more sense.

The video has received generally positive responses from YouTube users and visitors, while various blogs have posted the video too. That said, who'd be a party pooper and say something bad about such a "noble" effort?

Well, I would.

While the official press release states that the project "seeks to celebrate cultural diversity and the ideal of Bangsa Malaysia", what I find troubling is how this song is starting to be referred as an "anti-racism" song. This notion has cropped up on a few websites/blogs on the Internet (and presumably via word of mouth), but it is possible that the source was the official website for the Malaysian Artistes for Unity collective, located at www.malaysianartistesforunity.info/.

In the website's "About" page, it was explained that Pete had asked his friends, "How about getting together to make an anti-racism song and music video?"

It is that question - more than anything else related to the video - that is most troubling.

First of all, I didn't know racism was such a critical issue in Malaysia that such a collective had to be formed in order to draw attention to it.

Sure, if they had gotten together to work on a project with a direct goal - for example, a fundraising effort similar to USA for Africa's We Are the World, Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas? or even the more recent Artistes United Against AIDS's What's Going On in 2001 - then by all means. There are people going through unimaginable suffering in Myanmar and China right now.

But instead, we have a bunch of Malaysian celebrities laughing, dancing and fooling around in an embarrassing video accompanied by a cheesy song promoting a cause that, well, arguably doesn't exist.

Celebrating multi-racism and unifying Malaysians is one matter, but what in the world possessed them to think that Malaysians are racist?

Surely racial politics and polarisation cannot be translated as racism? Perhaps racism, at its simplest form - discrimination based on race - qualifies but does that require 120 artistes working "pro-bono" on a project such as this? We're hardly talking about violence, massive prejudice or oppression.

I mean, how many of you consciously only befriend people of the same race, or would only share a bus with people of the same skin colour? It is human behaviour to be a little biased sometimes, but I'd like to think that in those instances, we could easily be biased against others from the same race as us.

What is most worrying is that using "racism" as an excuse for such a massive project (the nature of popular culture would lend to the fact that so many well-known personalities coming together is massive) might even draw out issues of racism that may not have been there before.

Already there are comments on the Internet that this video is timely to address the racism problem in our country. One particular post went as far as referring to it as "the epidemic of racism in Malaysia". Epidemic? Really?

In Here In My Home, there is a line that goes, "What we have shadows can't deny." One wonders if this anti-racism rhetoric might create new shadows that may not have previously existed.

Yes, perhaps there is a need to find a contemporary alternative to be able to reach out to a new generation.

While I understand perfectly the need to stay relevant, the artistes looked like they were trying so hard to look cool, hip and funny (with most of them singing in clear, crisp American accents), that it is just a turn off for some.

Which leads me to my next point - is this feeble effort towards racial harmony creating even more discrimination against the rising generation of affluent urbanites? It's easy for affluent, famous, overseas-educated people to harp on about the country's "problems" and make heroes of themselves by "trying" to change them.

I'm sure many of you kind, peace-loving Malaysians would be going, "C'mon, at least they're trying to help the country - They're making an effort ... The song's not that bad ..."

Well, taste is subjective so I'll leave you to gauge for yourself what you think of it - I thought it was really bad, by the way. However, to have a bunch of role-models (it comes with the territory of being a celebrity) addressing an arguably non-existent issue comes across as simply pretentious and condescending.

Do we need a group of celebrities who are no more patriots than you and I to tell us how we should love our country? Seriously, spare me.

Do we need a song to unite us? We already have a one, if not a few. Remember these lyrics?

Puji dan syukur pada Illahi,

AnugerahNya tiada terhingga,

Kedamaian, kemakmuran,

Malaysiaku bahagia.

Setia, sekata, sehati, sejiwa,

Menghadapi cabaran,

Kami rela, kami setia,

berkorban untuk negara!

And that's just half a verse and the chorus. I hope we all remember and appreciate what this song means to each of us Malaysians, lest we lose our way again and forget what it is that truly binds us, and makes us uniquely Malaysian. Sejahtera Malaysia.