COMMENT | When your friends don't know they're racists

COMMENT | It happens all the time. In casual conversation, a good friend reveals their uncle and dad are in Umno, PAS, or some other party that’s based on race or religion.

Or you meet some nice couple selling ketupat (rice cake) - and then realise they are hardcore supporters of a ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) party. Maintaining their smiling and unwitting way to a racist and backward future.

The reality is that what might have started off as a good idea during the early years of independence (and I don’t really believe that) has descended into a sinister farce.

How many other countries do you know of where the main political parties are based on such intrinsically divisive qualities? Where the people are largely segregated in different language school systems?

This is at the heart of why we are in so much trouble - most people get easily distracted and misled by issues of identity politics (or personality politics) and they can’t see the wood for the trees...