Curries, interracial dating, and Indians in Singapore
On June 18 of last year, I made a post about growing up as a Tamil in Singapore. Because there was a spark of conversation around race, which came about when minorities pointed out the majority’s willingness to support Black Lives Matter while ignoring the plight of minorities right here at home. In just under a year, I find myself speaking about racism in Singapore yet again. I thought I had said everything I needed to in my last post already. But apparently, I have more.
Especially since the recent tirade of anti-minority rhetoric, harassments towards minorities, and blatant racism are being dealt with surprise and as though something new. As much as articles published in Chinese newspapers would suggest otherwise (read: gaslight), racism is clearly not new in Singapore. Editorials there attribute the “current” conversation around race to frustrations borne from Covid-19, “imported” ideas like Critical Race Theory, and lack of responsibility on social media. But we all know racism was here well and true before Covid-19, and before social media, and will stay well after Covid-19 and in a social media-less world. How convenient is it to claim the conversation around race in Singapore is something that has only happened in the past couple of years? When we have a track record of people in power continually describing how advantageous it would be to have a 100% Chinese community, or how we are not ready for a non-Chinese Prime Minister?
More importantly, why aren’t these discussions presented in the Tamil, Malay, or even English newspapers? Why are the people who DESERVE to talk about race in Singapore actively excluded from the conversation? Why is it something only the Mandarin-speaking cohort gets to discuss? For years we have asked, begged, and pleaded with people to hear us out. When anything that challenges the “status quo” happens, i.e., challenges the perceived racial harmony, we say again and again that this is not the first time, or the only person this has happened to. For years we have had our feelings denied, discounted, or explained back to us. Just like how they did in the Chinese newspaper. We have been angry, disappointed, frustrated, saddened, and deeply hurt by the reactions from the majority. And sometimes even fellow minorities, when they downplay our experiences and ask us to suck it up or ask us to distance ourselves further from the minority community and get closer to the majority to pander to them. And now, we are being asked to share our feelings in the comments section of a video where an interracial couple is harassed by a Chinese man. Where do you even start?
The main reason I decided to write this post was this video. Because I think it’s the best way to show that the problem in Singapore lies in asking us to be “tolerant” of other races.
People tolerate the performances we put on for Deepavali and Hari Raya Haji in school.
People tolerate colleagues’ religious observations in their diet.
People tolerate sharing HBDs with minorities who have their own cultures and practices.
People tolerate having minorities in positions of power.
People tolerate the sheer intermingling of majorities and minorities.
And then, the breaking point hits.
Now, people are unhappy when we take the mandated half day we get the day before for our religious public holiday. People don’t even want us to comment on how Hindus continue to get a mere one day of Public Holiday while every other community gets two.
People are unhappy to source a Halal caterer to a team because of how difficult it is, or conveniently yet, “forget” about the need for Halal options.
People are unhappy with people cooking food in their own homes.
People are unhappy with people praying for 5 minutes at best.
And people are unhappy with Indian men “preying on Chinese girls. Prey, as in predatory.” A seven-year relationship is a predatory move.
It goes without saying that the narrative that is continued to be built here is for the Chinese majority. When you ask why a Singapore based ad only features Chinese people and Chinese people alone, you're asked what's wrong with it. If you ask back “Where are the minorities?”, you’re asked, “WHY should there be a minority?” Talks on racism, or merely voicing out concerns on racism are shut down for being "too sensitive", "upsetting", or "too radical". It took me a long time to understand these were for the majority who are forced to reconsider their privilege and position. The minorities who speak on such matters are considerably punished for agitating racial harmony. Even something as simple as signboards often lack the Tamil language, deciding that having something in English and Mandarin should more than suffice. Or more interestingly, feature other languages like Japanese. Despite claiming that the four official languages of Singapore are English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil. There is so much of mere symbols and tokens, but often nothing more. And when you ask for anything more, for actions rather than words, it’s a concession, or you are told to be happy with what you got in the first place.
Every single day, minorities are side-lined, insulted, and humiliated. In normal conversations with peers, job applications, housing applications, service industries, healthcare. Yet, we compartmentalise it and move on. We learn to not let it dictate our day. We find a way to make things work for us and we gloss over acts of microaggression we experience on an hourly basis. And we are still harassed. We are glared at in shops. We are tsked at for having the audacity to be in public spaces.
This time last year, I wrote describing a specific incident where a lady had bumped into me on the train and rubbed off the parts of her body that came in contact with me without apologising for bumping into me or throwing me off balance. Just last week, I sat down on a train only for the lady next to me to glare at me in anger and disbelief and shift down the seats with a loud harrumph. “Right. The variant.” I thought to myself. As if living in a pandemic is not challenging enough, and emotionally and mentally draining on its own, Covid-19 and the B.1.617 variant have given rise to more acts of racism, no matter how micro, than one would already experience. Honestly, I don’t recall hearing about the other variants or the situations in other countries as much as I have had about India. It is one of the worst-hit countries, I’m not denying that and so I can understand the intense media reporting and scrutiny of it. But, it sparks reactions that the other variants didn’t. It creates conversations where I find myself being the unilateral and go-to point of view for things. “I heard they just throw the bodies in the river leh??” “Is it normal to just burn in the back of the house??” “Are their A&Es always like that??” Ideally, I would like some compassion and concern for what’s going on in the country I was born in, and for my relatives who are all living there. But I know that’s asking for too much. Realistically, all I ask is not to be the source of information on all things Indian because these are often extrapolated into "My Indian friend said (insert anything)”. I don’t want to answer these questions because I don’t want to be the token for acceptability or the measure for “strangeness”. I don’t want to be the sole minority who determines a majority’s subsequent point of view about a minority’s community and culture. Like how specific ministers step in to speak and ease things when there are agitations around a specific community. Because that’s how I often see my words and the words of those around me be used by the majority. “My Indian friend is okay with apunehneh. He also laugh.” “Actually, my Indian friend also thinks curry is smelly.” “My Indian friend thinks my Indian neighbour is ridiculous also. Apparently not all Indians are like that.”
Meanwhile, every day, I see groups of the majority interacting in Mandarin with no attempts to include the non-Chinese speaker (often a Malay or Indian person) even if they are supposed to be included in the conversation. No one bats an eye. But the minute two people talk in Tamil (or Malay), there’s a need to know what they’re talking about, there’s a mocking of the language, there are implications that the majority feels excluded and like they are not in their own country. A country built on immigrants. Other than the indigenous Malay population (a much more diverse one at that, before the homogeneity in labels by the British), ALL of us are immigrants just from different points in time. So, the cheek that goes into telling people like me to “Go back to INDIA lah!” or to not talk in Tamil for fear of exclusion or saying “I don’t even feel like I’m in Singapore leh” when in a space full of Indian expats is astounding. Forget the recent things we are trying to define Singapore with like Marina Bay Sands and the refurbished Newton Food Centre. I was here before Woodlands had a MRT station. I was here before the standard-issue Admin Tees given to NS recruits. I was here before the Suntec City towers. Yet, these don’t qualify me to be Singaporean any more than the fact that I hold a pink IC and a red passport. I am, first and foremost, a minority, an outsider.
Separately, I observed another thing from the video of the interracial couple that I want to talk about. I don’t think there was any negative implications behind it. You never know what you’re going to say when you’re backed into a corner with such hate and vitriol anyway, but I think it’s necessary to point it out. It was one of the first things Dave said, “but I’m not even full Indian.” Again, I really don’t think there was any malice here. Dave was backed into a corner and defended himself WHILE impressively pointing out to the guy he was racist. I’m only flagging this because this is something I’ve seen plenty. Something I have done in the past too – distancing myself from my Indian origins by trying to pass off as Singaporean. Just so I would be more accepted here. The thing is, I found myself in the midst of many racist actions nonetheless. Trying to pass off as a Singaporean Indian did nearly nothing to protect me from scrutiny and hate. Because racism boils down to the colour of your skin. Similarly, when I express something that has happened to me, I’m often asked if the perpetrator was a Singaporean Chinese or a Chinese person from mainland China. All this does is deflect and by virtue, throw another community under the bus. There is no ownership or accountability involved. Distancing ourselves from racist rhetoric does nothing. As much as we want to believe someone only acts the way they do simply because they are insensitive or have mental health issues, as much as we want to distance ourselves from such people because we believe we are better than that (and want to pat ourselves on our backs for it), racism lives in the ordinary and every day. It is not a niche or exclusive topic that happens somewhere to someone else. We are not detached from this. Every single minority has encountered this in schools, shops, workplaces, movie theatres, libraries, museums, restaurants, cafés, in trains and buses, on a walk home, and in our own home. And when the members of the majority go overseas, they experience similar, heart-breaking incidents. It doesn’t change much the way they act when they’re back home. But they do seem to have some awareness of racism then. Seeing people for their differences rather than similarities lives in every single one of us. That’s how we are evolutionarily wired. Which is why every single one of us is capable of hatred. As much as are capable of compassion and empathy.
Speaking of which, every one of us has stood at assembly and recited the Singapore Pledge every single school-going day for a minimum of six years. Every single year, we recite this Pledge during National Day, some of us with more gusto and pride than others. “Regardless of race, language, or religion”, words formed by former Deputy Prime Minister S. Rajaratnam as he saw these as “potentially divisive factors”. “To emphasise that these differences could be overcome if Singaporeans were united in their commitment to the country.” He believed patriotism could be the bridge that connects us all. And that’s the essence of patriotism, isn’t it? To put the country before self; to live in harmony for the greater good of the country. The most basic thing we did to remember some empathy and the need for harmony from the age of six. Yet, reciting this Pledge seems to be lip service. And these increasing acts of racism, specifically by the majority towards minorities, like that of the guy who harassed the interracial couple, seems to be bordering on racial nationalism. An extremist belief in the way Singapore should be, where minorities stay in their lanes, and in the shadows, while the majority thrives and stays in the spotlight. An attitude born from selfishness and self-preservation. An attitude where we are all equal but some of us are more equal than others. Is this the Singapore our forefathers set out to build?
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