COMMENT | Today’s is not the usual prose I write in my regular columns. It is a shortlist of suggestions for our current leadership. By leadership, I mean all our leaders, of various ethnicities, faiths, and linguistic backgrounds. If you read it, you might either be irritated or pay attention and reflect upon my message. It is my hope that you reflect. It is also the end of the month of Ramadan, the context within which I write this scathing appeal.

Ramadan is a month of abstinence and not just from food, water and sexual relations. During Ramadan, Muslims are supposed to abstain from lying, gossiping, stealing, corruption, engaging in lecherous staring and passing lewd comments to deliberately hurt another.

It is a month to reinforce the fundamentals of ethical human behaviour and decency in social interaction. This behaviour must be adhered to throughout one’s lifetime, not only for one month during the Muslim calendar. Ramadan is a month-long reminder that consistent ethical human behaviour is a lifetime endeavour. Ramadan also reminds us that ethics transcend mechanical religious rituals. The message of Ramadhan is also not religion, culture and race-specific.

Obviously then, the values promoted by Ramadan apply to all of humanity. This is what makes Islam universal. The problem in Malaysia today is that ...