I’m publishing this essay that I’ve written for an ethnicity module to add on to the race debate ignited by Shrey Bhargava’s audition for a Singapore movie ‘Ah Boys To Men 4’, where he was told to play a caricature version of himself as an Indian Singaporean during an audition. Supporters of Shrey cited this as yet another instance of casual racism faced by ethnic minorities in a country where ‘Chinese privilege’ exists but is under-acknowledged. Others have accused Shrey of stirring up racial tensions and over-reacting because aren’t Chinese actors also told to play stereotypes like Ah bengs / Ah liens? (*sigh*). This essay is not interested in judging who’s right or wrong but in giving a historical context to race in Singapore.
Whenever I introduce Singapore to foreigners, I always start with how we are multicultural with four categorisation of race — Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others (CMIO). The categorisation is something that has been inculcated to Singaporeans since young, a social fact that we have taken for granted. However when you peer into the schools, homes and even offices of Singapore, you might see a ‘medley of people’ (Furnivall, 1956) who may co-exist in the same space, but do not really intermix with one another. The central question that prompted this essay was therefore an investigation into why racial interaction in Singapore feels sanitised despite the various governmental intervention in encouraging inter-racial mixing. In borrowing ideas about ethnicities from the various scholars — especially Brubaker — this essay argues that race feels sanitised in Singapore because not only were the various ethnic groups never ‘possessors’ (Brubaker, 2004) of their own ethnic discourse, multiculturalism becomes a blanket term that gives the illusion that racial harmony has been achieved while simultaneously emphasising the importance of race by basing socio-political policies by race. The result of this internal contradiction of race being downplayed and elevated at the same time is an ambivalence by the citizens towards their role in racial relations. The first part of the essay will provide the context of how the four racial categories came to being during British colonialisation of Singapore from 1946–1963, and subsequently elevated as a form of unique Singapore make-up by Singapore’s ruling party, the People’s Action Party (PAP) since its independence in 1965. Subsequently it will delve into the myth of multiculturalism designed by PAP in response to racial tensions when Singapore was under the Federation of Malaysia prior from 1963–1965, and how this myth has been sustained through the evocation of Singapore’s nostalgic past where different races had interacted organically with one another. Lastly I will talk about how this myth of multiculturalism is weakened by PAP’s own socio-political policies, which are structured along racial lines for management and control of the different racial groups.
The Changing Hands of Race — From British Colonial to People’s Action Party (PAP)
When Sir Stamford Raffles returned to Singapore in 1822, he saw a chaotic, but successful port managed by William Farquhar. To rectify the ethnically scattered colony, the Jackson Plan of 1822 was devised. Singapore was consequently spatially divided into four areas in the grid pattern: the European Town (Europeans and Malay royals), Chinese Kampong (Chinese), Little India (Indians) and Kampong Glam (Malays). This exercise of European racial theory was not restricted to geographical clusters, but informed a subsequent racialised socio-economic framework. For instance, vocations were assigned based on the ‘inherent’ biological traits of each race. Malays worked primarily as fisherman and policemen in the rural economy, the Chinese were primarily in trade and entrepreneurship, while the Indians clustered in physical labour as plantation and infrastructure labourers (Goh 2008a; 238, Kong and Yeoh 2003; 195–196 in Rocha, 2011). The consequence of geographical segregation and institutionalisation of jobs based on race formalised the differences among the races. While there was already somewhat of a division along ethnic lines in the cacophonous mixture of migrants (from China, India, Malacca, Malaya, and Thailand) and settlers in Singapore (Liu et al. 2002, Tremewan 1994; 7, Wang1989; 553, in Rocha, 2011), the colonial legacy by the British institutionalised intergroup boundaries and laid the ground for protracted economic inequality amongst races, where the Malays and Indians were resigned to more menial positions as compared to the Chinese. This normalisation of Singapore’s ethnic pluralism continued as they formed the basis of policies during the People Action Party’s reign under the ideals of multiculturalism.
Singapore under the Federation of Malaysia 1963–1965
To understand why multiculturalism has such an entrenched and revered position in Singapore, one has to look at the formative period of 1963–1965, where she had merged — and subsequently seceded — from the Federation of Malaysia after British had granted Singapore self-rule. Fresh out of Britain’s rule, Singapore inherited a system of governance that recognised and institutionalised (through census) the four races — Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others (CMIO). This plurality made the transition to the Federation of Malaysia tricky as Malays held an esteemed position in Malaysia, with its federal government comprising of Malays, such as the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) as the political party in power, and Prime Minister (PM) Tungku Abdul Rahman. Under Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia, Malays were given preferential treatment through affirmative actions that included priority in public service employment, scholarships, and reservation of seats in legislations and universities (Harding, 2012). The tumultuous relationship between Malaysia and Singapore with regards to Malay’s predominance in the federation played out in both political and civilian fronts. During the 1963 Singapore Generation Elections held in Malaysia, UMNO’s leader and Malaysia’s PM Tungku Abdul Rahman tried to undermine prior agreements with Singapore of non interference with her domestic affairs by rallying the Malays in Singapore and backing a rival political party called the Singapore Alliance Party in bid to oust PAP from its leadership (Milne, 1966). Subsequently in 1964 race riots broke out between the Malays and Chinese in the form of July riots and September riots. The blood-soaked July riots erupted when the Chinese disrupted the Muslim procession held to celebrate Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, and escalated when the police came to restore order but were attacked by the Malays in retaliation. The September riots saw once again volatile racial relations between the Chinese and Malays. While there were no concrete evidence that the Chinese stabbed a Malay trishaw-rider in Geylang Serai, the death of a Malay so soon after the incendiary July riots was enough to spark a communal clash that concluded with 13 deaths and 106 injured (Lau, 1998). However it was only during the Malaysian Solidarity Convention in May 1965 set up by PAP that revealed the irreconcilable differences between UMNO and PAP’s leadership. PAP proposed that a way to bridge the animosity between UMNO and PAP would be to work towards a “Malaysian Malaysia”, where racial equality should be the basis of the new hybrid national culture. However this was interpreted as a power takeover of PAP by UMNO, which favoured “Malay Malaysia” and feared that “Malaysian Malaysia” would dilute the primacy of Malays in the Federation. This brings us to 9 August 1965, when there was a unanimous vote on the Constitution of Malaysia (Singapore Amendment) Bill 1965 to approve of Singapore’s secession from the Malaysian federation (The Straits Times, 2015). After 138 years of being under external control (first by Britain from 1819–1942 and 1946–1959, and later by Malaysia from 1963–1965), Singapore finally became a sovereign nation in August 9th 1965. However this newly minted Singapore was a disoriented mess fraught with racial tensions between the Chinese and Malay, with no common cause for unity and had little sense of its own history. The solution then was to construct a new branding for Singapore that can placate racial tensions and pave ground for a novel ‘Singapore’ identity. This solution was multiculturalism.
The enduring myth of multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is arguably a form of ‘fictive ethnicity’ (Balibar, 1996 in Hutchinson & Smith, 1996). Fictive ethnicity is the creation of a master narrative by the state that represents different ethnic groups in the nation’s past, present and future, as if they are a natural and continuous community. It is essentially situating ethnic groups into a larger tapestry of history to achieve a historic mission that transcends the interests of individuals
and social conditions. Fictive ethnicity is indispensable to the realisation of a nationhood because without it, the nation would appear precisely only as an idea or an arbitrary abstraction. The idea that a nation can be constructed is not particularly revelatory. Brubaker, in highlighting the importance of studying categories as a unit of analysis distinct from groups, said that categories can “become institutionalised in administrative routines…be embedded in culturally powerful and symbolically resonant myths, memories and narratives.” (Brubaker, 2002 ; 13). Multiculturalism accomplishes this by making racial diversity sound desirable, rather than a potential divisive force in the fostering of national consciousness. More importantly, multiculturalism sets the stage for the production of more myths. In 1966, a Constitution Commission was appointed to enshrine the multiracial ideal in the constitution to protect the rights of racial, linguistic and religious minorities (Chan, 1991; 159 in Kong & Yeoh, 1997). The four official races — CMIO — were to be treated separately but equally, with acceptance of each race’s religious practices, customs and traditions without any discrimination or favouritism for any particular race. The effect of institutionalising an ideal, and reinforcing this ideal through education, celebration of commemorative events and myths of Singapore’s past, does make multiculturalism seem like an organic, pre-existing mark of Singapore, even though it was state initiated. The following section will delve into two pivotal events in Singapore’s history — SG50 and Lee Kuan Yew’s death, both in 2015 — to illustrate how this illusion of multiculturalism as an assumed trait of Singapore has been sustained by the government.
Singapore celebrated its 50 years of independence in 2015. To commemorate the ‘Golden Jubilee’, or more colloquially SG50, the National Library Board (NLB) Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) created the ‘Singapore Memory Project’. A buzzword throughout SG50 was the gratitude towards Singapore’s ‘Pioneer Generations’. According to its official website, to qualify to be in the ‘Pioneer Generation’, one has to be born on or before 31 December 1949, and has obtained citizenship on or before 31 December 1986 (Pioneer Generation, 2017). The running theme of the ‘Singapore Memory Project’ with regards to these pioneers is that through the sweat, grit and sacrifice of the pioneers, they have built the Singapore of today, and that across generations we are connected by the same aspirations and experiences. This idea that ordinary Singaporeans hailing from different lands could unite and overcome testing times (anti- colonial struggle, battle against Communists and separation from Malaysia) should be understood in the context of the presentist model of memory. According to social memory scholars, the presentist model is when the past is adroitly reconstructed in order to cater to the interests of the present (Halbwachs 1992; Misztal 2003; Olick 2007 in Low, 2014). The use of nostalgia to explain Singapore’s success — that she was forged by immigrants of different ethnicities, geographical locations and race like these pioneers — could allow sticky issues to be perceived in a more forgiving light. These issues include the proposal of increasing foreign immigrants to 6.9 million by 2030 (Goh & Pang, 2016), which would result in an increase in the percentage of foreigners from 20% in 2013 to an estimated 55% in 17 years. PAP had received considerable backlash from this white paper proposal, which became fodder for opposition parties like the Singapore Democratic Alliance to rally votes during the 2015 General Elections, and also incited a 4,000 public protest at Hong Lim Park’s Speakers’ Corner in 2013. Through the voices of Singaporean grandparents, where we are reminded that the different generations’ aspirations and stories are interwoven, there is an implicit moralism that Singaporeans too came from immigrants who have decided to stay and build Singapore. Moreover the blanket term of ‘pioneer generation’ also reinforce the perception that the different races in Singapore are a naturalised, continuous part of history instead of a result of racial codification by the Britains. The aforementioned racial riots in Singapore between the Chinese and Malay that became a tipping point for Singapore’s separation from Malaysia was not mentioned in any of the “Singapore Memory Project” at all, even in an album entitled “Against All Odds” (Singapore Memory Project, 2016). Instead all memories — except one about the Japanese Occupation — were apolitical. Out of the 44 featured stories, 4 were about accidents (1972 Robinson Department Store Fire, 1961 Bukit Ho See Fire and 1986 Hotel New World Building Collapse) and 8 were about inspirational figures (usually about grandparents with titles like “Story of Ah Gong” and “1st generation migrant”), with the rest comprising of daily life experiences of Singaporeans. Similarly under SG50’s official website, the archive of pioneer stories generally tread along the lines of “self-sacrifice and hard work for Singapore’s betterment” and “remembering Singapore’s struggle”. While the caveat of this observation is that all of these stories are sent in by members of the public or organisations, there is a consistent narrative of ‘Pioneer Generation’ within the SG50 celebration that we should imbue the ‘pioneering spirit’ of overcoming hardship which as argued above, hints at an acceptance for immigrants and mythologising of a united nation across diverse races in the presentist model. For instance, more than 200 Pioneer Generation religious and community leaders were honoured at a tribute event organised by the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) under the theme ‘Racial & Religious Harmony: The Past, Present and Future.” The following excerpt from the Minister of Culture, Community and Youth wholly exemplifies the presentist agenda:
“More than 50 years ago, Singapore was a collection of diverse communities and people. Yet, in the years leading up to Independence, our pioneers saw the importance of racial and religious harmony in building a cohesive society (emphasis added). They worked hard as religious and community leaders to pave the “Singaporean way” of social harmony, founded on mutual respect and restraint. They helped to lay the foundations for the peace and harmony we enjoy today.” (MCCY, 2014)
Invention of a shared history on the other hand tries to evoke an emotional attachment to a shared past, which follows the narrative of Singapore being a fishing village that through the self-sacrificial work of the pioneer generations, have blossomed into the metropolis of today. The evocative use of metaphor that Singapore was a ‘small / sleepy fishing village’ imbuing a ‘Kampong’ spirit (甘榜精神) prior to the arrival of Sir Stamford
Raffles in 1819 has become a staple in ministers’ speeches despite its historical inaccuracy. In actuality, Singapore (or more accurately Temasek in the 1300s) was already a major “emporium” in the maritime trade between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean (The Straits Times, 2014). Its usage has also seeped into the perception of Singaporeans themselves, as recounting of Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy on Singapore often follow the same narrative. This will be elaborated in the case study of Lee Kuan Yew’s death later in the essay. The question then becomes, so what? So what if this metaphor of Singapore as a fishing village stuck, and is recycled wholesale? The implications are significant when we lens this under cognitive linguistics. According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s conceptual metaphor thesis, “our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Because most thought are unconscious, in that we are unaware of it, a conceptual metaphor is a common method to conceptualise one domain of experience in terms of another. For instance we frame morality through the language of finance — “morally bankrupt”, “indebted / owing to you” etc. In his ensuing book “Moral Politics”, Lakoff argues that Democrats and Republicans in American seemed to be polarising parties because their conceptualisation of Nation-as-Family metaphor are different (Lakoff, 1996; 29). Republicans operate under the “Strict Father” paternalistic model, where respect for rules, conventional gender roles and “tough love” are observed. Conversely, the contemporary liberalism of Democrats stems from a “Nurturant Parent” model where fulfilment, empathy for others are emphasised. Thus metaphors can have an enduring effect in our construction of unconscious thought in terms of social structures, world views and broader beliefs. Likewise, in “Ethnicity as Cognition”, Brubaker understood that ethnicity, race, nationhood are not things in the world, but exist only though cognitive mediation such as interpretation and identification to form perspectives on the world (Brubaker, Loveman & Stamatov, 2004). One form of cognitive mechanism is schema which processes information systematically to guide perception, interpret experience and generate inferences. We will see how Singapore-as-fishing-village metaphor has been used by the People’s Action Party to craft an overarching schema that presents a particularly rosy interpretation of Singapore race relations. The metaphor works in two ways; firstly it becomes a shorthand for the Singapore success story. If there is anything to learn from the ascendency of Trump, it is the power of a tagline i.e. “Make America Great Again”. Similarly, the rags to riches story of Singapore transforming itself from a fishing village is a simplified, digestible of version of Singapore’s history that allows easy repetition by schools, public, politicians and international media alike. The colour, vibrancy and complexities of each race (and inter-racial conflicts) are once again muted for the larger context of the construction of a “Singaporean” identity, justified by a shared history of all races. Secondly, the metaphor works by appealing to nostalgia. It harks back to a time where there seemed to be genuine racial harmony amongst the races without mediation from the state. “Kampong spirit” resembles the type of generalised trust imagined by Robert D. Putnam where there is a feeling of cohesion and neighbourliness amongst strangers of different race and religion (Putnam, 2000). This spirit is physicalised and moulded by the architecture of the hut where the openness of it (invites rather than hole people in as compared to the gated communities and HDB flats in Singapore today that house nuclear families) and where children of different races run free and climb trees together. While this metaphor is widely known and acknowledged by Singaporeans, it saw a revival during the passing of the late Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in March 2015.
When Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew died on 23 March 2015 of pneumonia, Singapore was shaken. Outpouring of grief in social media came in spades; people changed their Facebook profile picture into a black ribbon with Lee’s face in it, as tributes by millennials towards the “founding father” or affectionately “ah gong” (grandfather) manifest in the form of hastags — #ThankYouLKY, #rememberingLKY, #TributetoLKY, and #NoYewNoUs. The Straits Times — Singapore’s state controlled mainstream newspaper issued a 24 page spread of Lee Kuan Yew’s lives and had dramatic headlines such as — “Even the sky is crying: Sombre mood as Lee Kuan Yew makes his final journey across Singapore.” (The Straits Times, 2015) on the day of his send off. For the next week or so, Lee Kuan Yew’s famous speeches — especially the one when he cried when announcing separation from Singapore — monopolised the airwaves of radio and television. In fact the reverence for the late Minister Mentor was akin to that of a religious figure, or a Thaithail King, which prompted this satirical response from playwright Alfian Sa’at:
(Stanza 1)
Did you walk around today? What did you see? Did you see a fishing village? Do you know that without Lee Kuan Yew, you would be mending nets by the beach, or making keropok in your kitchen, and every morning you would cross the Causeway to sell assorted fish products at rock-bottom rates to the people of Johor, who would laugh at you and call you ‘the stinky fish-people of Singapore’, and you would try to hold on to some sense of dignity, with your head bowed, a tear rolling down your cheek?(Stanza 4)
Did you breathe today? Did the air smell fresh? This is Lee Kuan Yew’s doing too. For he singlehandedly planted trees in Singapore and turned it into a Garden City. There are photos to prove this, where he is seen holding a spade in one hand and kneeling down in front of a shrub. He did not use his other hand. So, singlehandedly. So what’s the link between trees and fresh air? Photosynthesis, which Lee Kuan Yew created back when he was studying in Cambridge University (Sa’at, 2015).
Stanza 1 and 4 alludes to the aforementioned Singapore as fishing village to glittering metropolis metaphor, which was a common phrase (though sometimes with some variation) used in eulogies and tributes to Lee by locals, international media and politicians. However instead of regurgitating the familiar narrative that Lee’s leadership transformed Singapore from a backward village to a First World Nation, Alfian Sa’at called out on the selective memory of Singapore regarding its past, where everything else is blurred out but the shining beacon of hope that is Lee Kuan Yew. More pertinently, as a Malay playwright who often voiced issues about the somewhat tokenistic minority representation in Singapore’s politics, stanza 1 is also a jab at the white saviour complex that presents Lee as “rescuing” the primarily Malay villagers from continuing their livelihood as lowly fishermen. The exaggerated portrayal of Lee’s contribution to Singapore points to the constructed nature of the Singapore success story that is nevertheless internalised by its people that associate Lee with the transformation of Singapore from a sleepy fishing village to the economic powerhouse of today.
However myths sustained by nostalgia for the past could only do so much in the face of reality. The ideal of egalitarianism among all races embedded in multiculturalism is at odds with the colonial legacy continued by PAP by building its policies based on racial lines. Multiculturalism ostensibly posits that all races are treated equally, and diversity strengthens the social fabric of Singapore through exchanges of different customs and practices. However on the other hand, social policies grounded by racial lines reflect a different story. This paradox that race is at once extraneous in the larger scheme of multiculturalism yet in actuality very consequential as a basis for social policies make Singapore a unique case study in the study of ethnicities. This is because at its core, most theories of ethnicities seek to understand what drives people to form groups. There is an implicit assumption that the dependent variable “y” is group formation, and that the more interesting theoretical questions lie in seeking out the independent variable “x” (instrumentalism, conflict theory, primordialism etc), or for more refined understanding of ethnicity such as using cognitive lens, the possible mediating variables “z” that problematises the simple relationship between x and y. However in Singapore’s case, the desired outcome ‘y’ is not internal cohesion of one group, but the harmonious co-existence of distinct racial groups. Hence the nation-building project becomes a juggling act of maintaining the myth of multiculturalism where there is equal opportunities regardless of race, while contradicting itself by formulating social policies based on racial lines.
PAP’s racially codified policies
Even though the PAP declared that post independent Singapore would provide equal opportunities to all races, by structuring its policies along racial lines, race becomes an important indicator of one’s social mobility in Singapore. As much as the government would like to downplay the significance of race in the myth of multiculturalism, it is quite impossible, if we use Foucault’s governmentality to understand Singapore’s political planning, to ignore race because it rationalises PAP’s intervention. Foucault believed that modern sovereign state and modern autonomous individuals co-determine each other’s emergence (Lemke, 2001). This is accomplished when the government delineates the discursive field which rationalises an exercising power. Furthermore, the solution is to be addressed through specific forms of intervention designed by the government in the form of ‘political technologies’, which Foucault outlines as agencies, legal forms and procedures. Seen in Singapore’s context, the codification of race in identification card and census taking ensures continuous government presence in the management of racial relations through social policies. The CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others) classification that has been instituted in the first Census since 1824 continues to form a core basis of Singapore’s housing, education and larger social policies. For instance, each Singaporean citizen has a pink identity card (IC) that includes his / her name, race, date of birth, sex and country of birth. Prior to 2010, where double-barrelled IC category was allowed, children of mixed race adopted their father’s ethnic category. However even in a double- barrelled scenario such as a Chinese father and an Indian mother, a ‘dominant’ race category still has to be chosen today. This will have implications in which mother tongue (Chinese, Tamil, Malay) the child would take in his / her primary, secondary and tertiary education. Public housing in Singapore is also allocated based on one’s ethnicity. This is to encourage intermingling of different races and avoid the “ethnic clusters” similar in Jackson’s Plan during colonial times. Under the Ethnic Integration Policy, the permissible portion of flats (known as Housing Development Board or HDB for short) for Chinese in the neighbourhood is 84%, and 87% for each HDB block. For Malays, the percentage are 22 and 25 respectively, and for Indians and other minority groups, 10 and 13 respectively. In terms of political representation, the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) was established in 1998 to ensure minority representation in the Parliament (Parliamentary Debate, 1989). Under the GRC system, it is required that at least one of the political party’s group of candidates standing for election belongs to a predefined minority group (Indian, Malay or Eurasian). A clear example of when the tension between upholding multiculturalism in a socio-political system based on race showed its cracks was the public outcry over the Amendment Bill made to the Elected Presidency in November 2016. According to the new Amendment Bill, the candidacy of the presidency will be based on a “hiatus-triggered model” (Channel News Asia, 2016), where only candidates of a certain race can run for presidency in that year. That means that during the 2017 Presidential Election, only Malays can run this time round. Furthermore, a new Community Committee was established in January 2017 to verify potential candidates of their ethnicity (Today Online, 2017). The rationale given by the Members of the Parliament and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is that being minorities, the Malays and Indians have less of a chance amongst the slew of Chinese candidates (Prime Minister Office, 2016). The rhetoric was framed as a purely numbers game rather than possible resistance from a Chinese majority in electing a President of minority race. However public opinion believed it to be a form of affirmative action that contradicts the system of meritocracy (best candidate is chosen regardless of race, religion and creed) enshrined in Singapore’s Constitution. Additionally, the division of social welfare groups based on racial lines — MENDAKI (Malay), CDAC (Chinese), Indian ostensibly promoted as ensuring representations in reality promotes racial homogeneity by reinscribing assumptions of its custom, religion, language and culture onto the communities themselves. Moreover as governmentality is reciprocal with forms of knowledge, the citizens might also couch their self-understanding in racial terms because to exist in the realm of state ordained multiculturalism, they have to play the role of belonging to discrete racial groups. For instance in the aforementioned scenario where there is a child of mixed race, the decision by the parent to choose a ‘dominant’ race would influence the child’s future social relations and perhaps even career opportunities. Whilst there are many opportunities in schools for the intermingling of different races, such as during co-curriculum activities (i.e. activities that you do outside of school, like sports, clubs or uniformed groups) and any other periods other than mother tongue, most students tend to form cliques within their own races. This could be due to a matter of convenience, as being a bilingual country, it is common for Singaporeans to code-switch between English and their mother tongue languages. Hence having friends of the same race is simply easier where there is no need for adaptations regarding cultural practices, religion, food and languages. Another reason proposed by Ooi is that due to the timetabling of an entire cohort to accommodate the child’s mother tongue, there is a de facto racial segregation of children being ‘bunched’ together according to their racial classification (Ooi, 2005; 117 in Barr, 2006). In this aspect, the bilingual policy of Singapore also straddle between de-emphasising race and emphasising race at the same time. Race is de-emphasised as English is institutionalised as a ‘neutral’ medium for fair communication across races. More importantly, Lee Kuan Yew envisioned English as a language of commerce, a form of social mobility that can elevate Singapore to international markets. It was also a natural progression from British colonialisation which had instituted English based systems of administration like the judiciary system and elite English based schools like Raffles Institution. This emphasis on English as a language of social mobility hints at a form of linguistic hierarchy, which puts Singapore minorities (Malay and Indians) at a disadvantage because during British colonialisation, it was the affluent Chinese who could attend private English schools, while the minorities generally attended public schools. On the other hand, race became superbly important in Singapore’s bilingual policy. Whilst mother tongue was relegated to a second language position and sidelined in the hierarchy of school subjects (with math, science and english at the apex), it became the socialising medium for impressionable children to form conceptualisations about their race and heritage. In continuation of British’s unproblematic invention of four races to manage Singapore, mother tongue similarly essentialised and legitimatised the four racial categories by ignoring the complexities of the population. Chinese could only learn “Putong Hua” Chinese common in China, and uses the pinyin system. This blanket imposition of Chinese learning Mandarin Chinese ignores the rich tapestry of dialects spoken by Chinese, such as Cantonese, Hokkein, Teochew and Hakka. In fact, Mandarin Chinese could be as foreign a language as with English, the colonial’s tongue. Moreover, the minorities who knew smatterings of Chinese and dialects through intermixing with Chinese are once again isolated from the majority as they are forced to connect to their “ethnic” roots by learning Malay or Tamil. The implementation of bilingual policy thus reinscribed the British designation of the four races by isolating Singaporeans linguistically.
Additionally, in his analysis of Singapore’s primary school textbooks since 1980s, Micheal D Barr found that these textbooks played an important role in generating, or perpetuating racial consciousness through their constant portrayal of characters in their overtly ethnic and racial identities. A glaring problem was that the editors and writers of these textbooks were primarily Chinese, and it is unavoidable that they have imbued their own school experiences into the textbooks. For instance in the NESPE series of English textbooks, most teaching characters were Chinese, with names like Miss Chan, Mrs Tay, Mr Lim. Comparatively Malays and Indians are portrayed as working in relatively menial jobs like cleaners, housekeepers or mom-and-pop shop owners. This unbalanced portrayal of the minorities (with exception to the Eurasians) is consistent in television programs. In Kenneth Tan’s exploration of Malay characters in Singapore sitcoms, he found that they usually play a buffoon character opposite a predominantly Chinese cast (Tan, 2008). They tend to be a source of comedy relief as they speak broken Chinese (usually heavily accented) in an effort towards finding belonging. In sustaining the myth of multiculturalism, an unintended consequence is the creation of the ‘Other’ that rests on stereotypes, instead of a more nuanced portrayal. As mentioned by Brubaker, stereotypes need not be byproducts of individual pathology but a cognitive structure that contains beliefs, and expectations about social groups. Since the myth of multiculturalism is strong and alive, it gives little motivation to go beyond these surface cognitive understanding about different races. Instead understandings about other races are derived from stereotypes. For instance there is a persistent stereotype that Malays are ‘lazy’. This is usually transmitted as a form of joke that ‘malays always lepak (relax) one corner’. ‘Minah’ and ‘Mat’ are slightly derogatory terms for female and male Malays whom have lower education (i.e. being in Normal Academic or Normal Technical stream instead of Express stream in secondary schools). Towards the Chinese, there is a ‘Minah’ and ‘Mat’ equivalent — ‘Ah Lian’ (female gangster) and ‘Ah Beng’ (male gangster). They are also usually characterised as uncouth and of lower education. There is an element of intellectual chauvinism in these terms in that their basis of being looking down on them is that these ‘Mats’ and ‘Minah’, or ‘Ah Beng’ and ‘Ah Lian’ primarily use their colloquial mother tongue instead of standardised English. As mentioned, English was framed as the language for commerce and social mobility. For the Indians, the derogatory terms are even more severe. Some are caricature of the way they speak, such as ‘apu neh neh’ which is delivered along with a shake of the head and spoken in a rhythmic manner. They could be spoken by school children in jest or in more serious scenario when a mother warns the misbehaving child that the ‘apu neh neh’ will catch them if they continue to be disobedient. There is the idea that dark-skinned is a source of danger and undesirability which qualifies them as a sort of symbolic assailant for the fairer-skinned Chinese. Other terms refer directly to their dark skin like ‘keling-kia’ (Hokkein), ’keling-jan (Cantonese) or ‘keling-pariah’ (Malay). Interestingly, the Indians also have a derogatory term of Chinese based on their skin colour, such as ‘manjans’ (yellow people) based on the herb called ‘munjal’ (turmeric) that is used in curry and facial hair remover (another jab at the ‘hairless’ Chinese men). While the Malays and Chinese have taken ownership of the term ‘Mat’ / ‘Minah’ and ‘Ah Beng’ / ‘Ah Lian’ and may even label themselves as that, the rest of the stereotypes veer on being racial slurs that target the superficial traits of different races and essentialising race by making it the sole indicator of their personhood.
The durability of stereotypes might be strengthened by the wider trend of phenotypically represent racial diversity in Singapore — a Malay, a Chinese, an Indian, and a usually blond Eurasian interacting together in Singapore’s textbooks, media and commemorative events. The consequence is that it coats an artificial gloss over the concept multiculturalism in Singapore. Moreover, due to the inculcation since young that racial harmony has already been achieved, there is little impetus for the society to discuss thorny racial issues for fear of being labelled as ‘racist’ or accused of ruining the social fabric. This resistance towards upsetting the status quo is reflected in schools, where the primary school syllabus of “Character and Citizenship Education” (好公 ) reinforce the importance of racial harmony among the races, against the backdrop that Singapore has no natural resources so she is vulnerable against outside forces. The idea that people are the best resources for Singapore’s success is heavily emphasised, and that being racially diverse and tolerant allowed Singapore to focus on economic goals, rather than be distracted by racial conflicts. The annual celebration of “Racial Harmony Day”, where students are encouraged to dress in different ethnic costumes on 21st July, also feeds into the belief that Singapore has indeed fulfilled an ideal of a multicultural society. Consequently, due to the continued management of race by the government, racial relations in Singapore feels sterile. Her citizens might be cordial towards one another (as per the portrayals), but there is little understanding or genuine inter-racial mixing between them. Thus as much as race is downplayed in the formulation of multiculturalism, it is an unavoidable source of national identity.
Conclusion
So on that depressing note, is there hope for a less sterilised inter-racial interaction in the future? If the ‘hiatus triggered model’ of selecting future Presidents based on race is any indication of the direction PAP will take in the future, the answer is a resounding no. Moreover according to Foucalt’s governmentality, governments attempt to produce citizens best suited for government’s policies. The current status quo of different races having mostly superficial understanding of each other based on stereotypes or are closed off from each other would be more manageable than a population with a mature understanding of the nuances of the human condition because the latter might contest PAP’s many policies that are designed along racial lines. Therefore it is my belief that the PAP government will continue to sustain the myth of multiculturalism in order to install themselves as the guardians of Singapore’s peace and prosperity.
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