Race issue moves to center of S'pore campaign
Race issue moves to center of S'pore campaign
SINGAPORE (AFP): The sensitive issue of race moved to the center of Singapore's poll campaign yesterday when top government leaders trained their guns on an opposition candidate for allegedly espousing Chinese chauvinism.
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew warned that this multi-ethnic island's "racial fault lines" would be disturbed if lawyer Tang Liang Hong won election.
They likened Tang to Australia's controversial anti- immigration MP Pauline Hanson, at the center of a widespread race debate involving Asians.
Goh, 55, told a People's Action Party (PAP) rally that he was staking his personal prestige on the outcome of Thursday's poll in the district of Cheng San from where Tang is running for parliament on a Workers' Party ticket.
"You want this man to get into parliament? I am not going to allow him and therefore I am entering the arena to contest against him through the (PAP) candidates in Cheng San," Goh, 55, said.
"It is a choice for the people -- whether they believe my policies are the right ones for Singapore or whether they want Singapore to go that (Tang's) way," he told the lunch-time rally in the financial district.
PAP leaders charged that Tang, 61, unknown in the political arena until last week, holds extreme views on the promotion of Chinese language and culture.
In past speeches, Tang has reportedly said there were too many Christians and English-educated Singaporeans in the cabinet and civil service and that the Chinese-educated were left out of the mainstream.
The issue has given a racial tinge to the campaign for Thursday's general elections in the island of three million people, 77 percent of whom are ethnic Chinese, 14 percent Malay and seven percent Indian.
"This is a very sensitive problem, pitting one language against another, and you need to balance this carefully, in order to hold the whole place together," Goh said.
"Tang Liang's views are dangerous because the fault lines between races would always be there," Goh said, citing the examples of Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.
The fault lines in Singapore have been obscured by years of affluence and economic growth but if it enters a prolonged recession and people of various races have to compete for jobs, "you may begin to see the fault lines clearly, " he warned.
Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew told reporters after the rally that racial disharmony was not an immediate problem, and placed it against the background of a growing China.
"We have got to see this problem in the context of 10, 15 to 20 years," said Lee, prime minister for 31 years until 1990 and the architect of Singapore's much-envied economic success.
He said Tang was not a danger in himself, but "the danger is in the context of a growing China."
"Let us face it -- in 30 years it is going to be a very powerful country and a powerful language.
"We are in danger if we go along with the tide, because year by year ... the Chinese tide rises. So (does) the desire of the Chinese-educated to assert their stronger position because they share a reflected strength.
"We go that way, we would be destroyed," Lee warned. "I have got no doubts in mind... One, our internal divisions will destroy us. Two, there will be external forces out to destroy us..."
Tang has denied being anti-Christian and said the PAP had labeled him a chauvinist to frighten voters and prevent him from entering parliament. He has threatened to sue Lee and Goh, and both dared him to commence legal action.
The Workers' Party urged the PAP to elevate the campaigning in the last two days "from haranguing opposition candidates" to focus on issues.