This is not going to be a well-written nor a well
thought-out post, this is my appalled reaction to xenophobic harassment to the
celebration of the Philippine Independence Day celebrations back at home. This
is me being utterly ashamed.
I love my country, and I say that to everyone who has asked
me about home while I've been here in the States: Singapore is a great place to
live in, it is safe; the Marina skyline is stunning; it is an affluent,
metropolitan city; it is an eclectic mix of cultures and peoples. And the food,
oh the food. I am proud to be Singaporean, it is my country, my home - it has
given me everything that I have, including this chance to study abroad in
America - and I'm thankful. I make no pretence that Singapore is a perfect
nation - it is not - and I always remark self-deprecatingly that chewing gum is illegal in Singapore to the dismay and
horror of the person unfortunate enough to have that conversation with me. But
I am optimistic, I am hopeful that my generation will bring about change, that
we will create a better, more egalitarian and just tomorrow.
But I just read about the deplorable comments made by my
fellow Singaporeans in opposition to the celebration of the Philippine's
Independence Day being held at the heart of Orchard Road - hateful vitriol
hurled and wielded as misguided weapons of nationalistic pride and solidarity -
and it grieves me.
I have read about race and ethnicity in my sociology texts,
I am informed about the inequality in allocation of resources and life chances
of the different racial groups in Singapore. But being part of the majority at
home, I've never known race prior to coming to and studying in the States. All
of a sudden, race becomes real and reified: one becomes more self-aware even as
some start treating you differently. The way I look and the way I speak all
serve to pigeonhole me as an individual into a certain category, a certain expected
normative role in the minds of others the moment I meet them. All of a sudden,
I was different.
Is this not what we are doing to the Filipinos? Pinoys we
call them, almost derogatorily; foreigners we label and hasten to differentiate
ourselves; competitors who depress our wages, we charge them to justify our
acerbity. These "underlings", "scum", "filth" are
fit to clean our houses, to raise our children, to cook our food but not to
celebrate their Independence Day, to interact with us. We don't want to see
them, nor to hear them; we don't want them on our trains and buses, nor our
malls. They are beneath us.
So who are the people who would befit us superior
Singaporeans? Perhaps the Caucasians. Did we not join in the St. Patrick's Day
festival (wait what did we say about alcohol causing riots again?). Did we not
close off an entire road for the entire weekend for an Irish celebration? Did
the Caucasians not take our jobs and ride our trains and shop at our malls too?
Yes, but these are people that behove our approval and interaction.
I believe that our xenophobia transcends our government's
flaws immigration policy. We seem to venerate whiteness while demeaning
Asian-ness, whatever that is. We approve of the white expatriate while
condemning the darker-toned foreign labour. We credit a white man as the
founding father of Singapore (as if Temasek needed finding) while eliding the
part of being part of the Sri Vijaya Empire from our history books. In so
doing, we have internalised our own racism, we lead a dual consciousness of our
own Asian-ness, both deploring it and distinguishing ourselves as superior to
other "inferior scums".
Singapore, my home, we are altogether better than this. We
are proud of our remarkable achievements over the past 5 decades and we should
be. We pride ourselves on our affluence, but our economic success is built upon
an open, trade-oriented market economy, contingent on our friends and
neighbours. We pride ourselves on our multi-culturalism, but we are being
increasingly intolerant. We aspire to be a great and liveable city, but to be
truly great, we will be judged based on how we treat the weakest and the most
destitute in our society.
matt,
05:37:00
Monday 2 September 2013
to the biggest mistakes that we just wouldn't trade
Realisation:
but why do i feel so old? cos i know i’m still so young short write up for my application to GWU for exchange. fingers crossed.
The "American dream" is summarised succinctly and eloquently in the Declaration of Independence: that all men are equal, and are endowed with "unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
All men (and women) are free to improve their lives in accordance to their abilities and assiduity. Innovation, tenaciousness and a can-do spirit are crucial to success - not the circumstances that one is born into.
Similarly, Singapore is built on the ideology of meritocracy. The Nation Pledge declares that all Singaporeans are equal, "regardless of race, language or religion" in order to achieve "happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation".
In a like manner, success is achieved based on one's own merit, and is not a birthright. Upward mobility can be achieved as long as one is to put his\her heart to it. Education is perceived to be a social leveler.
Hence, there are great similarities between the American dream and Singapore's meritocracy and the term "Singapore dream" has too been coined.
But is it more dream than reality?
In Singapore, there is an increased awareness of a social divide between the haves, and have-nots. The National pledge notwithstanding, economic class, race and gender all greatly affect the life chances of Singaporeans. The middle and upper classes predominate the best schools; socio-economically the Chinese dominate the other races, while the Malays (the minority group) have the highest crime rates. Also, the recipients of the prestigious President's Scholarship are disproportionately male. Currently, there are 18 women out of 84 elected parliamentarians.
Likewise, tax, education and healthcare issues have been debated in America with a growing divide between the top 1% and the other 99%. Both America and Singapore are struggling with income inequality, with Gini-coefficients of over 0.45. The acquittal of George Zimmerman has also called into question the racial relations in America as well as the practice of racial profiling. White Americans remain socio-economically privileged. Moreover, gender discrimination, while not overt, continues to disadvantage females as they continue to come up against the glass ceiling.
In short, I do not believe that the Singapore dream, or the American dream, has been achieved. Class, race and gender continue to affect the life chances of individuals. The discipline of Sociology gains me insights into how class, race and gender add together to from what Patricia Collins terms the "interlocking structures of oppression", and it is though the "sociological imagination" that I wish to investigate and delve deeper into the class, racial and gender relations in Singapore. I believe that only through awareness and understanding can one truly bring about change and progress.
I want to be part of the generation that brings Singapore one step closer towards the Singapore dream, to live out the pledge that I had to recite every morning as a student in school, to make a difference, however minute.
And there is no better place to start than in America, the country that taught the rest of the world to dream the American dream, albeit one that is yet to be fulfilled.
matt,
22:07:00
Monday 11 February 2013
someday i'll learn my lesson
To be honest, the past few weeks have been rough for me. To compound matters, two of the best friends that I've come to know from my days in polytechnic are leaving for their studies tomorrow. The strangest thing is that my initial impressions of the both of them - Bingsheng and Jiasheng aren't exactly flattering. Yet is it not true also that many a time, our initial thoughts and assumptions on a given situation, on people, are very much mendacious and misleading.
And so I write this, in part a tribute to these two dear friends of mine, and more selfishly, to count my blessings, to remember, to keep faith. Indeed, my own limited and prejudiced ideas and assumptions are, and have been frequently proven to be, erroneous.
Well, first things first - Jiasheng. I believe I speak for most of my class when I say that he was thought to be entirely annoying. Imagine the first day in school, in a new environment, a new class, with new people, and an overtly enthusiastic individual steps forward and chides the class for being aloof, albeit in a joking manner, and continues to endeavour for a "bonded" class (on the first day of meeting each other mind you). That is Jiasheng on the first day of school for you. And his strategy to accomplish the abovementioned goal was though constant, utterly needless and gratuitous noise production.
Pain in the ass.
I didn't get to know a lot of people in my first two years; I was playing too much football, and I had my own affairs and commitments to see to. Year three though was when I got more involved and as a result, got to know Bingsheng.
What a terrible person: perpetually unhappy and grumpy, he could always find something to complain about. Worse, entire conversations (when he wasn't complaining about something) could go by with him giving monosyllabic replies - if one was lucky. Otherwise you would have to make do with a combination of intonated grunts and head tilts.
My initial impressions of them notwithstanding, they are truly remarkable individuals. I have honestly yet to meet anyone as tolerant as Jiasheng, with all the pranks and jokes hurled at him. Who could forget the hey gorgeous photo submission (an out of focused snapshot) with '我什么都没有, 就是又fit, 又俊, 又有钱.' as caption? And as a teammate for our final year project, he worked no less hard than anyone of us, although the running joke is that his sole task is to buy us siewmais while we slogged. I'm always proud to say that ours was a team that had no falling outs, no arguments, no resentment between the four of us.
Bingsheng has amazed me incredibly with just how much he's changed from a stoic, impassive brute to a someone unembarrassed to show affection even in public . All the crazy times in India, hunting down little religious figurines to ward off evil, the playing of the 大悲咒 in our room (both of which I teased him no end about), surviving on potato curry in the village of Mudhole, and then stuffing our faces silly after we got back to the city. All that shopping in Bangkok, together with Jiasheng, as we tried, in vain, to keep up with the ladies, and the fun times in Taiwan. In crisis, Bingsheng is someone who is just there: indomitable, solid - no words required nor requested, he would simply do what needs done.
There was the time too when the few of us, together with Joseph and Jordon, trained for enlistment, bought our army gear, cut our hair. How bright-eyed we were then.
And then of course, army. I have recounted much of my army experience elsewhere, and so I won't repeat them here. But I'm grateful for the buddies that I have made along the way, the people who picked me up, who had my back, who were by my side though it all. A very special shoutout to my 3 SIR buddies too. I wrote a couple of paragraphs about these tough men before, but never went about completing the post, so I shall simply copy and paste them here. Friday, 7th September 2012: ORD parade for the first year commanders of 14th mono, 3 SIR. This parade also symbolically rounds up the concluding chapters of a adventure that began more than 2 years ago. A journey that led me to do things that I'd otherwise never have attempted, to learn lessons and skills that I'd otherwise never have mastered, and most markedly, to know people whom I'd otherwise never have befriended.
I've been extremely blessed, this past 2 years, and it is in this spirit of gratefulness, of indebtedness, that I document my NS story here, lest I forget the tough times - but more encouragingly, the tough men who pulled each other through those times; the highs and the lows - but more saliently, the brothers who were there to share in the pleasure and the pain; the silly times - but most amusingly the harlequins who were there to jest with.
And now, university. I guess life is as such: moving from one set of challenges and obstacles to another. There have been instances when I felt overwhelmed and overcome, but from polytechnic to the army, from the army and for sure in university now too, I put my faith in the God who has brought me through it all, who gave me countless victories, who blessed me with genuine friends - people like Jiasheng and Bingsheng.