Singapore Perspectives 2017

What If?

Gillian Koh, Debbie Soon;;;

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9789813224766
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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Singapore has experienced remarkable progression in the first 50 years of its independence. This volume comprises chapters written by thought leaders in Singapore where they re-examine Singapore's key governing institutions, systems, principles and values as they consider the country's next 50 years. Given the prospect of deep and possibly disruptive internal and external change, how might Singapore's governance fundamentals respond; which will we have to re-commit ourselves to and which might we have to adapt or even abandon? The book comprises some quietly provocative thoughts that the informed public, intellectuals and scholars interested in Singapore as well as political development in small countries in an uncertain, global age might find useful as they formulate their own positions about the future.

--> Contents:

• Preface (Janadas Devan)
• Acknowledgements
• Looking Out:
  • What if the Nation-State is No Longer the Key Organising Unit of the World? (Wang Gungwu)
  • What if Globalisation Fails? (Khong Cho-Oon)
  • What if Singapore has to Choose between China and the United States? (Joseph Liow)
• Looking In:
  • What if Non-Economic Indicators Become the Measure of a Country's Progress? (Jeremy Au)
  • What If Singapore Fails to Become a Creative and Innovation Nation? (Aaron Maniam)
  • What if Singapore Fails to Sustain Itself as a Vibrant, Cosmopolitan "Global City"? (Amanda Chong)
• Looking Across:
  • What If We Ignore Race and Religion? (Norman Vasu)
  • What If We Cease to Accept Immigrants? (Marian Jaafar)
  • If the Family is No Longer the Fundamental Building Block of Society? (Thang Leng Leng)
• Looking Ahead:
  • What if Singapore Becomes a Two or Multi-Party System? Two Responses (Ong Ye Kung & Ho Kwon Ping)

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--> Readership: Students, academics, policy makers, corporate sector officials and civil society activists, and general public interested in Singapore. -->
Keywords:Social and Political Issues in Singapore;Governance and Political Reform in Singapore;Policy StudiesReview:0

SECTION III

Looking Across

CHAPTER 7

What if We Ignore Race and Religion?

NORMAN VASU AND PRAVIN PRAKASH

The exchange between Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Viswa Sadasivan and the late Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in Parliament back in 2009 clearly illustrates the two different ways race and religion is understood in Singapore. In his maiden parliamentary speech, Sadasivan called for a return to the much cherished words of Singapore’s National Pledge, “one united people, regardless of race, language and religion” as a “core belief system” and “a set of inalienable values” that “demands adherence in the face of the lure of pragmatism”. He further argued that while it was challenging to unite people of diverse cultural backgrounds, Singapore should never stop trying to fashion a “collective reflex” (Parliament of Singapore, 2009a). The speech raised a strong response, with Lee saying that he wished to “bring the House back to earth”. Arguing that the NMP’s words were “false and flawed”, he said it was “dangerous to allow such highfalutin ideas to go undemolished and mislead Singapore” (Parliament of Singapore, 2009b).

It is clear from the exchange that the understanding of religious and race relations in Singapore have essentially existed in two distinct camps. The first and perhaps more dominant camp — expressed by Lee — is one founded upon an essentialist understanding of identity — one where identities are viewed as primordial and immutable. From this perspective, Singaporeans coming from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds will irrevocably retain a sense of being different. As such, while it is critical to focus on building an intercommunal, core Singaporean identity, citizens’ full sense of identity will permanently exist in a state of hyphenation — a Singaporean-something. Informed by the communal violence of the past, this view stresses the need to be grounded in the realities of communal identities and it demands an appreciation of the fragility of ethnic relations in Singapore.

The second camp often finds its legitimacy in the much cherished words of the Pledge — the normative goal of becoming “one united people, regardless of race, language or religion.” It views ethnic and cultural identities as non-essentialist and mutable. Members of this camp believe ethnic and cultural identities can be altered and shaped, thereby permitting the creation of a Singaporean identity strong enough to exist sans hyphenation. The second camp, however, has often been dismissed as being quixotic and lacking practical relevance. Echoing this view in his National Day Rally in 2016, Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong referred to the findings of the study conducted that year by Channel NewsAsia (CNA) and the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) and said “race does matter, and will matter for a long time to come” when Singaporeans make a full range of decisions — from the personal to the political (Lee, 2016).

Dismissing the second camp has led to a peculiar phenomenon in Singapore. In the absence of “highfalutin” ideals, an essentialist understanding of communal identity has led to a focus on passing strong legislation to ensure racial harmony is maintained and the worst outcome that communal difference may bring is avoided. The view has also enshrined the critical and central role the state plays in the management of ethnicity and religion in Singapore and has also entrenched a strong belief that policymaking aimed at managing such a powder keg must be drenched thoroughly in pragmatism.

The dominance of pragmatism and the ingrained perspective of primordial identities dictate that ignoring race and religion will remain a “highfalutin” ideal. However, pragmatism also dictates that policies and perspectives change with time, context and normative goals. As such, it may be prudent that Singapore reflects upon how its approach to the management of its multicultural complexion can evolve with growing diversity and changing times. Is there a different approach that can be taken to manage communal relations in Singapore come 2065? What is the Singapore that Singaporeans would like to see? In this contribution, two alternatives to the current approach to managing race and religion in Singapore are explored and readers are left to decide which he or she prefers or might wish to be committed to. It does so in three sections. The first section discusses Singapore’s current model of managing race and religion in Singapore. The second section then introduces the first alternative to the current model — customarily termed “soft multiculturalism” in academic literature — and is one that demands revolutionary change to the current approach. Finally, the third section discusses the second alternative termed the “Singapore-plus model” that offers an evolution of the current approach.

THE CURRENT SINGAPOREAN SYSTEM — HARD MULTICULTURALISM AND MUSCULAR SECULARISM

As indicated earlier, it is undeniable that Singapore’s approach to the management of race and religion is undoubtedly one of hard multiculturalism. Hard multiculturalism maintains that the very purpose of politics is to manage group difference (Miller, 1995). It is an approach more commonly associated with communitarians such as Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka (Kymlicka, 1996; see also Taylor & Gutmann, 1994). A general feature of hard multiculturalism is that the state acts in the central role of manager, protector and if needed, arbitrator between different cultural groups. Motivated by the belief that cultural identity is the key enabling tool through which people understand the world, the position distinguishes itself from other approaches by being openly supportive of state intervention to protect cultural differences (Taylor & Gutmann, 1994). It is important to note that under hard multiculturalism, cultural differences cannot influence the manner in which, for example, habeas corpus is determined, but a polity should be allowed to “weigh the importance of the uniform treatment of individuals against the importance of cultural survival, and opt sometimes in the favour of the latter” (p. 61). Following from this, hard multiculturalism protects group rights through the institutional recognition of cultural difference in the public sphere in areas such as, political representation.

With regard to Singapore, its policy is indisputably one of hard multiculturalism. At its founding in 1965, Singapore embraced multiracialism as its official multicultural policy with differences within the new nation administratively limited to the racial boxes of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others (CMIO). Largely inherited from census-taking in the British colonial period, this racial categorisation reflects the two major sources of immigration to the island when the British first established a trading post here — China and South Asians from British India — along with a recognition of the indigenous people on the island and in the immediate Southeast Asia region. The immigrant Chinese soon developed into the majority, and by the 1960s, they already comprised 65 percent of the population. At political independence, the national demographic distribution stood at 75 percent ethnic Chinese, 17 percent Malays, 7 percent Indians, and a small percentage of “Others” — individuals who were not considered Chinese, Malay or Indian by the state were, by process of elimination, defined as being in the “Other” category. Typically, they would include the Eurasians and Jews.

Therefore, the Singaporean model of hard multiculturalism has been founded on an immutable understanding of race where individuals are recognised to have only one unchanging racial identity. To preserve the racial boundaries of the CMIO categories, the Singaporean state enforces a strict bureaucratic separation among the groups by determining a citizen’s race by paternal line. This ascribed racial category is recorded in one’s birth certificate and national identity card. The possibility of altering the ascribed racial identity or expanding the four categories to better reflect mixed cultural parentage is limited. In recent years, Singapore has admittedly loosened the requirement for race to be defined by paternal line. Bi-racial children are permitted to reflect their bi-racial status with a hyphenated racial identity. However, in dealings with the state, the race appearing before the hyphen is considered the child’s “prime” race.¹ For example, a Malay-Chinese individual will be treated as Malay by the state.

In such a system of managing diversity, that management goes beyond ascription as it has to take place in a “lived” identificational container. The state does this in various ways. Besides administrative enforcement of the racial categories, the state has also essentialised the cultural identities of each race by furnishing these races with “unique” cultural traits — suggesting in many forms of public communications that language, dress, food and the arts are distinct and associated with one of the four racial groups. Moreover, these cultural traits are held to be permanent and are passed down through the generations. This essentialisation of race through these markers is most clearly expressed in the celebration of “Racial Harmony Day” in Singapore’s schools on July 21. Students are made to dress, eat and dance in the “traditional” manner of their ascribed culture in an effort to, as noted by PM Lee, “celebrate our diversity, and share each other’s customs and cultures” and drive home the idea that “harmony between our different races and religions is a fundamental principle of our nation” (Nair, 2016).

Beyond the preservation of racial boundaries through administrative diktat as well as the investment of unique traits, other government policies pertaining to education, housing, the electoral system and socio-economic assistance further reinforce racial distinctions among Singaporeans.

With regard to education, while the language of instruction is English, since the 1980s, students have been required to study their “mother-tongue” — a misnomer for a policy that up to now, demands they study a second language associated with the race following their paternal line. As such, the Chinese learn Mandarin, the Malays learn the Malay language and the Indians — recognising the greater linguistic variation within South Asian communities — Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi or Urdu.

Besides education, Singapore’s housing policy further amplifies racial distinction with the imposition of racial quotas since 1989 which aims to prevent the emergence of racial enclaves in a country where approximately 83 percent of the population live in government-built housing estates. Hence, having created “hard” racial distinctions in the public sphere, the Singaporean government has subsequently been forced to impinge upon the housing market to ensure the constructed racial groups do not constellate together.

In 1988, the need to manage the CMIO categories spilled over into the political arena. Singapore practises a variant of British parliamentary democracy and, in order to ensure that the non-Chinese minority in Singapore will consistently have parliamentary representation, some constituencies have become Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs). Within a GRC, a team of politicians represents a constituency and the members of the team have to include at least one non-minority candidate, the race of which is specified by the President on the advice of the Cabinet. In 2016, the government also passed constitutional amendments to ensure all races are represented in the office of the Elected President (EP) as Head of State from time to time by stipulating that an election will be reserved for a racial group if they have not been represented for five continuous terms (Yong, 2016).

Finally, with regard to socio-economic aid, the Singaporean government established in 1982, a precedent for the development of racial self-help groups by setting up the Development of Singapore Malay/Muslim Community (MENDAKI) charged with finding solutions to social issues such as drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and educational under-achievement.

The management of religion in Singapore has also closely mirrored the concept of hard multiculturalism in enshrining the centrality and active participation of the state. Ramakrishna refers to Singapore’s approach towards managing religion as “muscular secularism”, noting the state’s “no-nonsense position on religion” and its presence as a “neutral umpire between the contending interests of the various faiths” (Ramakrishna, 2010, p. 9–10). Abdullah refers to muscular secularism as “a direct, interventionist approach” to ensure “the submission of religion to the overarching authority of the state, rendering the state the final arbiter in all affairs within its borders (Abdullah, 2013). Tan highlights that the Singapore state “is deeply involved in, concerned with and exerts a measured influence over religious matters” and organisations (Tan, 2008). This is to ensure that “religion does not cross over to the political domain” and can be observed in the state exerting a “symbolic and putative influence on the administration of faiths subscribed to by Singapore’s racial minorities, viz. Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism” (Tan, 2008). Tan also argues that Singapore “adopts a calibrated mixture of hard and soft law” in regulating and controlling religious groups which attempts to “ensure that the laws generate norms and behaviour that become self-enforcing” (Tan, 2009). Like race, religion is carefully defined, packaged and managed through active state intervention to ensure that multicultural harmony is maintained.

MILD MULTICULTURALISM — BENIGN NEGLECT

“Mild multiculturalism”, while acknowledging the diversity of cultures within a polity, holds that the business of states does not extend into cultural matters. Instead, cultural diversity is recognised as part of the private sphere. For such a state, which is neutral towards questions of cultural diversity, the only assimilation expected from all its members is that they accept the idea of the neutral state in the public sphere. Therefore, a degree of assimilation is expected of immigrants and ethnic minorities in the public sphere of law and government, the market, education, and employment. The assimilation demanded of all members of the polity is an acceptance of the liberal political culture that enables the state to practise a policy of “benign neglect” with regard to communal difference (Kukathas, 199...