“If we have no heretics we must invent them, for heresy is essential to health and growth.”

- Yevgeny Zamyatin

Unity is overrated. Unity, like patriotism, is the lexicon of the pusillanimous. As Malaysians we should always question the use of the word, especially in the context of 1Malaysia or Bangsa Malaysia propaganda that craven political operatives use to shore up support for agendas which have very little to do with the average Malaysian but is merely part of the long con that unfortunately is the democratic process.

When it comes to racial politics in Malaysia, the word becomes even more dangerous, a barbiturate that anesthetises an already partisan electorate obscuring the very real divisions in the country that fuels the political apparatus of the establishment and the opposition.

Global Movement of Moderates (GMM) chief executive officer Nasharudin Mat Isa’s warning of a compromised Muslim unity weakening Islam is exactly the kind of wrongheaded rhetoric that enables the kind of extremism that Muslim communities are prone to. Furthermore, it is evidence of the hegemonic agenda that Umno has on the Malay polity.