Singapore: A multiracial success

By David Chew

SINGAPORE (JP): Long after they've served as building blocks in the creation of national identity, language and culture may still retain their controversial nature. And though these two elements can exasperate multiracial societies struggling to hold together disparate ethnic groups as one nation, they appear to have been successfully tackled in Singapore.

The few emotive issues of language and culture in Singapore center on the dominant Chinese community, and their management of the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) in particular. The Chinese-dominated, multiracial government has been in power since 1959.

Singapore has established its own identity, 31 years after creation. And unlike countries of a similar background, such as Sri Lanka, the creation of a national identity in Singapore has been free of violence and unrest over language and culture, right from Aug. 9, 1965 -- the day the island became independent from Malaysia.

But its consolidation over three decades has not meant all the cracks and fissures have disappeared. The lines of division remain and have widened when exposed to powerful external influences, the most significant being the emergence of China as a major economic power.

Much of the PAP's success in creating a Singaporean identity has stemmed from downplaying the Chinese characteristics of the island republic through a deliberate policy of multi-racialism, making Singapore readily acceptable to its Southeast Asian neighbors.

It stressed the cardinal principle of granting equal rights to all communities in Singapore, contrasting sharply with the nation-building processes of its neighbors who constantly gave more rights to indigenous peoples over Chinese and other minority groups.

The PAP's nation-building approach, termed "pluralist" by scholars, took into account Singapore's circumstances and unique position among its neighbors. More significantly it aimed to show the future of Singapore, a tiny island with no natural resources, would be linked to that of its ethnically diverse neighbors -- and not with a distant giant who happened to share the same language and culture.

Unlike its neighbors, where indigenous populations predominate and hold the reins of power, Singapore is dominated by the Chinese, who make up 77.4 percent of nearly 3 million people, which also includes 14.2 percent Malays, 7.2 percent Indians and 1.2 percent other minority groups. Chinese minorities in other parts of Southeast Asia range from 30 percent in Malaysia to 3 percent in Indonesia.

Chinese dominance in Singapore is a product of recent history. Modern Singapore emerged in 1819 when Englishman Stamford Raffles set up a free port on a tiny island at the tip of the Malay peninsula, to challenge the economic dominance of the Dutch in Southeast Asia. British liberal commercial policy soon attracted immigrants, with the greatest influx from China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Singapore was to eventually become a Chinese-dominated commercial hub of Southeast Asia.

In 1963, at the end of Britain's process of phasing down colonial activities in Southeast Asia, Singapore inevitably became part of Malaysia. But bitter political quarrels between the Alliance Federal government and the PAP over the nature of a Malaysian identity (the Alliance wanted indigenous Malays to have more rights than other races while the PAP demanded equality for all) led to a parting of ways two years later.

Following independence the language and culture of the majority ethnic group did not take precedence over those of minority groups. Had they followed this "assimilationist" policy, a Singaporean identity with Mandarin as its national language and Confucianism as the core of its national culture would have ensued.

But the PAP realized a nation-building approach underlining Singapore's Chinese predominance in a Malay world would have been suicidal. It would have been instantly frowned upon by neighbors, particularly in the 1960s, when hostility towards Communist China's subversive tendencies through local insurgency movements was at an all time high. They would have done everything possible to undermine what would have been perceived as the creation of a third China in their midst, making the young republic extremely vulnerable to charges of being fifth columnists.

What was needed was a strategy that retained the political support of the local Chinese, yet at the same time distanced Singapore from China and brought it closer to Southeast Asia. It had to begin from the cardinal principle of granting equal rights to all races under a system of meritocracy.

The four languages -- Chinese, Malay, Tamil and English -- were given official status in the country's administration. Their study in schools as mother tongues was made compulsory. While mother tongue instruction underlined the equal efforts made to promote and develop the Chinese, Malay and Indian cultures as integral parts of a Singaporean culture, the study of English -- a neutral vehicle -- served as the common glue sealing the foundations of a multiracial society.

Over three decades, a multiracial Singaporean identity has emerged to take its place among its neighbors. Singaporeans are effectively bi-lingual, speaking English and their mother tongue which might be Chinese, Malay or Tamil. A Singaporean might be culturally attracted to the homeland of ancestors such as China, India or elsewhere, but their political loyalty lies with their country of birth, i.e. Singapore.

The PAP feared the Singaporean identity it carefully nurtured over 30 years might be undermined by local Chinese chauvinists exploiting the strong linguistic and cultural influence of an emerging China on overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia.

Unless something is done to check this growing tendency within the next 20 years -- when China's growing influence will reach its peak -- Singapore could become another China, with the majority of its citizens placing Mandarin and Confucianism over bi-lingualism and multiracialism.

Thus Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong forced the issue on Chinese Singaporeans at the last general election and won a massive mandate for bi-lingualism and multiracialism which underlined the parameters of a Singaporean identity.

The PAP's move to downplay Singapore's Chinese influences brings into focus Singapore's ties with China. It does not mean a discontinuation of bilateral ties, as such a move is equally suicidal, given not only the Chinese political base of the ruling party, but also the long tradition of bilateral ties, especially in culture, language and trade.

But such ties need to be handled so as to meet with the approval of neighbors. Although most of them have ceased to perceive China as a military threat in the wake of Chinese leader Deng Xiaopeng's economic reforms, there will always be some degree of suspicion of China, given its sheer size and influence.

Being pragmatists, the PAP will encourage and in fact even strengthen such ties, since the economic progress of Southeast Asia, including Singapore, depends very much on China's emergence as an economic powerhouse in the Asia-Pacific in the next century.

But it has made clear they will be between two sovereign nations, free of political overtones, and no different from China's ties with Singapore's neighbors. It wants China to regard Singapore as a Southeast Asian nation which identifies more with its neighbors than with the ancestral homeland of its Chinese citizens.

Chinese Singaporeans would be encouraged to retain Mandarin and Confucianism as their language and culture through more Speak Mandarin campaigns and cultural-religious activities such as the Hungry Ghost festivals and others. But these would be within the larger framework of a Singaporean identity that has English and multi-racialism as its pillars.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Singapore.