COMMENT | Once again, we find ourselves in an atmosphere where non-Muslims in Malaysia are likely to be feeling persecuted.

Hot on the front pages are The Star controversy that emerged from its front page last Saturday (May 27) and the R Sivarasa controversy, fresh off the Kamarul Zaman Yusoff-Hannah Yeoh fiasco.

Other columnists, notably commander (rtd) S Thayarapan in his column on Wednesday (May 31), can much more eloquently articulate the outrage many are understandably feeling.

The points made are, of course, mostly valid.

I definitely agree that the backlash against The Star is more manufactured for political purposes than it is representative of any actual widespread outrage.

I also agree that way too much hay is being made of Sivarasa being invited to say a few words after giving a donation at a mosque.

Both incidents are reminiscent of the Ahok controversy in Indonesia.

Decades of divide and conquer

The context and backdrop to this unrest are the same as it has been in Malaysia for decades: an atmosphere of divide and conquer.

We have political parties created along racial fault lines, and so every issue is made to be a racial/religious one.

With every year that this system remains in place, those fault lines get deeper and deeper - and the divisions they cause ever more hurtful to our nation....