COMMENT | Reject politicising religion, avoid politicians' trap

COMMENT | One of the most realistic scenes of a couple fighting I’ve ever watched was in the movie The Break-Up - in my humble opinion, one of the best relationship movies of all time. The fight starts off as being about doing the dishes.

It becomes obvious pretty soon though, that the fight isn’t really about doing the dishes. One might hazard to say that the fight was really about, say, deep-seated issues in the relationship.

That’s how I tend to think about many of the things Malaysian leaders like to fight about, including the most recent return to the issue of the use of the word “Allah”.

I’ve followed this issue and issues very much like it over very many years now, and if I had to hazard an opinion, I’d say it has little to do with religion, and even less to do with linguistics.

I’d say it has to do with how we treat religious - and racial - issues in this country. I’d say it’s connected to how our political system ‘rewards’ bickering and hatemongering...