At a time when Muslims all across the planet look forward to marking their month long fasting and sacrifice with prayer, goodwill and festivity, we Malaysians are embroiled in a sheer divisiveness – going by the accounts of the patronizing media that never failed to prop political figures in this Holy month of Ramadan. As thousands of vehicles pour out on to our expressways with people starting to leave the cities on an exodus to the smaller towns and kampongs to celebrate Hari Raya Aidil Fitri with loved ones, families and friends, the sensations drummed up on divisiveness of race and religion makes people wonder why.

As the last minute shoppers walk the malls the nostalgic and evergreen “Balik Kampong” song belted out from many shops inspires all Malaysians to reach out and wish each other pleasantries – irrespective of creed and culture.  But amidst all this festive cheer and sense of belonging that bonds all Malaysians ever more especially when we near a great celebration like Hari Raya, what are we witnessing from the lips of politicians?

For the sake of drumming up support from a mere 145,000 members, UMNO politicians are seizing every race and religion card to score points in anticipation of the annual meeting. How very sad. This year, 2013, the Holy month of Ramadan has witnessed incidents that never happened in all the leaves of Malaysia’s history pages. We have been caught in a web of publicity, high-drama and sensationalizing on issues that are spun out to be highly seditious and fired with religious intolerance.

The case of the “Bak Kut Teh” and that of the "Shiite verses Sunni" and of course the episode of “anjing” and not forgetting the “Vatican” – all these have been capitalized and made to mar the beauty of religion. No sensible Malaysian will agree or support any form of insult against any fellow Malaysian using religion or race as the dart of vengeance or as the glue for political structuring. This is fact. 

The spirit of sharing, well wishes, greetings as witnessed within hallways of workplaces, in the social encounters and even at the markets and malls as we near the Hari Raya festivity is the assurance. But as Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim pointed out wisely, the government has fiddled the issues the wrong way.

The mystery of mercy, the sanguinity of sacrifice, the spirit of solidarity – all these were dumped in this Holy Month and instead waging war against opponents and attempting to harness support along political margins using the blinkered and blundered misdeeds of some (Alvivi case) or sensationalizing malevolently the deeds of others (Dog case), disrespecting the office of other religions (Vatican Ambassador) have clouded our 2013 season of humility, prayer, sacrifice, honor and grace.

That is very sad and downright painful.

The political masters could have handled all these issues with grace – using the incidents as a launch pad to further raise Malaysians to greater heights of respect, forgiveness and understanding amongst each other and their respective religions. In fact, without exaggeration, these episodes – as in the case of the ‘toilet-canteen’, the ‘balik cina, balik india’,  the ‘bak kut teh’ and the ‘dog’, as well as the ‘Sunni verses Shiite’ allegations and suspicions and the ‘get out Vatican’ drama could and should have been used instead to raise even higher the non-muslims awareness of the beauty of Islam and the ability of a moderate government. 

These incidents could have been the very opportunity to showcase to all non-believers the greatness of Islam and its followers. But no. Rage and raving madness was the magic wand that the politicians wielded. Scoring points was the preferred chip of risk-taking politicians and the followers. Fortunately, for the ordinary citizens, common sense, purity of thought and grace of feelings remain anchored though rattled by these divide and rule mantras of the Mahathir legacy that has found new fuel through the main stream media especially the UMNO mouth pieces.

But for how long more can the fabric of goodwill, collaboration and co-existence shared by Malaysians remain intact given all these madness and attacks we witness on the political turf? Indeed, let us pray that these politicians will not spoil the very first day of Hari Raya with more divide and rule speeches. Let us pray that the conclusion of the Holy Month will be crowned instead with the glory of Islam. Let us hope that Muslims and non-muslims will partake in the Adil Fitri celebrations as one big family of Malaysians irrespective of race and religion as they have always done in the pre-Mahathir periods.

After all even if we accept all the many episodes that took place during the Holy Month as ‘wrongs’, the very essence of exchanging greetings “Ma’af Zahir dan Batin” on Hari Raya should silence and neuter the Mahathir legacy of his race-and-creed pawns for political mileage and supremacy.

Let the 2013 Hari Raya celebrations bring us all together socially and through prayer even though the Holy month was scarred with so much of raging madness by opportunistic power gamblers.