Ethnic divisions and your grains of rice

Lee Kuan Yew has done it again.

In a recent interview with National Geographic magazine’s Mark Jacobsen, Lee has already caused controversy by criticizing Singaporeans for being less hardworking than Chinese immigrants from the People’s Republic of China. In the transcript released by the Singapore Government, more issues seem to emerge; this time, Lee Kuan Yew appears to have raised some issues with the problems of nation building by highlighting, of all the ethnic groups in Singapore, the Malays, to enlighten Jacobsen on the “delicate” situation in Singapore. This particular quote below was quickly spotted by the Singapore Democratic Party and an article has already been written and circulated around the internet by the party’s members. I’ll present the particular offending quote here:

“Well, we make them say the national pledge and sing the national anthem but suppose we have a famine, will your Malay neighbour give you the last few grains of rice or will she share it with her family or fellow Muslim or vice versa?”

Such a comment is pretty offensive when you end up labeling groups or societies to make your case for something. The remark is extremely stupid and i think many others will be looking for an apology, but good luck trying to get him to apologize for anything (though he has apologized for the bilingualism policy and not teaching kids English and Chinese properly – but only because it was about Chinese). However, when i look a little closer at this condencending example i think i see his point. Replace the words “Muslim” and “Malay” with “Chinese” and you’re back to the same fundamental problem with Singapore society. Do i expect a Chinese family to share the last few grains of rice with anyone else? Maybe. I doubt it. I doubt it not because i am bigoted towards my own ethnic gfroup and race, but rather, i doubt that they’ll be kind enough to engage in such acts because we’re still stuck with the ethnic divisions between us, besides the individual freedom to be economically selfish towards each other. We have Lee Kuan Yew for reminding us where we are today. Thanks for revealing your failures, big man.

Ethnicity is still a very important aspect for people; everyone is born into an ethnic group and we cannot avoid that. The reality of the situation is, we have some major ethnic groups in the country and yes, we should maintain respect and tolerance for different groups and beliefs. However, i still think that we should go beyond our ethnic groups and forge some common values as citizens of Singapore. Such a concept of nationhood and citizenship is possible. He is right in that sense. We still lack consensus (whose fault is this, though?). He has brought up the issue of race and ethnicity in a very crude way, and this speaks a lot for itself and the PAP’s own failures in nation-building. He also cites Confucianism for imposing his own rigid value system. Confucianism, as we all know, is part of Chinese ethnicity, and not Malay or Tamil cultures. When he mentions this, as well as labeling the Malay ethnicity over the supposed selfishness of a grains of rice, we can be extremely clear on the point that Lee Kuan Yew loves the ethnic divisions he has created for himself and some intolerance of other cultures. We know about his love for superior East Asian cultures or ethnic groups and his apparent elitism through scholars such as Michael Barr. Instead of civic nation-building to off-set the extremes resulting from ethnic divisions in Singapore and getting people to identify themselves firmly as Singaporeans, we have is a very implicit set of ethnical values that are not cited in the Constitution of Singapore but discovered from his, and his colleagues’ gaffes. So what ever happened to the “Malaysian Malaysia” idea, you ask? Has it disappeared completely from the minds of the PAP elite, or it was never formulated properly in the first place? Our national constitution has enshrined English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil as official languages. HDB estates are managed in a way where these is an ethnic balance. The flawed GRC system is built on the premise of “protecting” racial minorities. But what are these for when you have leaders who make such disparaging remarks? Where are the vibrant discussions to dispel such madness? Can we really trust each other to be brothers and sisters in an egalitarian community where ethnicity is not a decision in helping others? This is not, and should not be about four or five different ethnic identities driving the way we live our lives as a country.

Lee goes on to say in this interview:

“And so we have a more homogenous and more homogenous in the sense that they haven’t changed their religions, the Malays are still Muslims and they go to the mosques every Friday and they’ve slightly different habits. The influence from the Middle East has made them have head-dresses for no rhyme or reason.”

This is another episode of silly bigotry and ignorance from the big man. “No rhyme or reason” is a phrase that will drive many Malay Muslim voters to abandon the PAP, Lee Kuan Yew, Yacoob Ibrahim and anyone else in the Malay community within the PAP in due time, if they have not already done so. I’m citing this as his indifference and ignorance towards the Malays based on his own ethnic beliefs, though this is not just an issue which is peculiar with the leaders. As i said, the ethnic dimension that has been driven into the minds of some people, and they just accept it too quickly. It is no wonder that our nation-building policy seems to be so slanted towards a particular set of ethnic values which some of us do not even share today. We fell for it. We are obviously not making progress as a nation when you can hear dispariging remarks being uttered behind the backs of Malays and Indians by the members of the Chinese ethnic groups themselves. We are not making progress when we are said to keep a few grains of rice for ourselves in times of crisis. We are not making progress if we fail to understand that we should act like comrades, not peculiar beings with an own set of values which drive us to selfishness, ignorance and apathy. There is obviously a reason why Muslim women bear the hijab, you zygote, and its not because they prefer to be excluded.

I know this is not the first time the Malays have been targeted. The big man had slammed the idea that nation building based on the values of our national pledge is “highfalutin” because does not protect the “special rights” of the Malays. Yes, only in his mind, in his dreams, but now we clearly know what he thinks of others in ethnic terms. Our national pledge will be highfalutin as long as we have a nation built on his biases, his cultural and ethnic divisions he has built in his mind, and the loyal legion of supporters who back him up wituout understanding the very words they utter. If people are going to save rice for themselves or their own ethnic groups based on their cultural “beliefs”, then what will happen to Singapore when a severe crisis ruins the calm here? They, the government/PAP, say these are realities that they’re there to prevent. This is human nature. We need police, ISA, we need GRCs, Mendaki. We need confucianism to guide us. Yada-yada yada. Yes, these are realities, this is human nature but that’s why we need social institutions, discussions and interaction to build some civil resiliance towards ethnic divisions that can tear us apart. This should be the way for a state that is multi-ethnic and multi-racial, that needs a common identity, not four different identies. We do not need to be reminded about human nature, or “no rhyme no reason”. Social institutions can change, given time but effort as well.

It is time to conclude. Funnily, a Greek aquaintence of mine was joking as i am writing this, telling me that Singapore’s sole official language will be Chinese by the year 2025. I am amused, and at the same time i am actually concerned that it may possibly be so. Will we see ethnic divisions grow deeper till we will have future politicians who will bring out their ethnic beliefs more explicitly and run the country like a mini-China, and end up like a mini Sri Lanka? Who should we blame for the lack of a national identity where the Wongs, the Abdullahs and the Shanmugams hoard up their own supplies of rice or anything else for themselves? It’s the banner with the fading red lightning bolt, that’s what; a bolt that is beginning to look like it’s part of a certain ethnic group which views others with contempt.