In The Game Of Life, Race Is Just A Tool
This piece was written after reading a research paper jointly written by Worker’s Party’s ex-NCMP Daniel Goh and Deputy Director of the ISEAS — Yusof Ishak Institute’s Terence Chong styled “‘Chinese privilege’ as shortcut in Singapore: a rejoinder”. Goh and Chong in gist criticize the use of the phrase ‘Chinese privilege’ as a concept to understand the politics in Singapore. This piece aims to go one step further with their arguments.
Racism is once again at the forefront of conversations in Singapore, driven by the recent spat of racist incidents. Yet, throughout Singapore’s history, race has often been use as a tool to perpetuate its wielder’s arguments. This piece aims to argue that in order to act against racism, one needs to replace this tool over time. To replace this tool, re-emphasizing “Chinese privilege” or “majority privilege” does not help.
Let us first look at the recent racist incidents that happened at a personal level, where individuals expressed their anger and contempt for an entire race.
❶ If we are to probe deeper and to question the reason behind their hatred, we would probably find that race is merely used as a mask for their insecurity. How do we know they are insecure? Beow Tan repeatedly talks about her achievements, and that of her family. Tan Boon Lee feels the need to pick on students to debate with him, imposing his views on them instead of having an objective discussion. Where did this insecurity come from? That is their story to tell. Yet, instead of addressing their own insecurities, they chose to project it onto innocent bystanders who are merely taking the train or out on a date.
❷ Race is often used as a convenient excuse to blame individuals’ behavior. It is more convenient a reasoning than to talk about infrastructure available to or the upbringing of individuals. When landlords choose not to rent to a certain race, they are generalizing the unsavory behavior of certain individuals to an entire race. To them, it is more convenient than to come up with a more comprehensive housing contract or to explain why they would need their tenants to pay a more sizable amount of deposit. This unsavory behavior does appear in people outside of the race, but due to the frequency of its occurrence due to the background of certain individuals, tenants make correlations between race and behavior when what they should be doing is to come up with better infrastructure.
From a broader perspective, Goh and Chong’s paper talks about how ‘Chinese privilege’ is too reductionist a concept for the understanding of politics in Singapore. Let us take it further to talk about how race is also used as a tool in our politics.
❸ In Singapore, it is a requirement that every Group Representative Constituency (GRC) has a member from a minority race. In the GRCs, the government is able to appease the minorities they may struggle to get their votes from. This is crucial, especially with the recent narrow margins in certain important jurisdictions which could be swayed by minority votes.
❹ When we discuss race in politics, it is also important that we refer to the Reserved Presidency, which requires that the Singapore president is from a minority race every so often. The authors wrote that “The more accurate explanation for GRCs and the Reserved Presidency is that they better serve PAP privilege, making it much harder for opposition politicians and anti-establishment figures to gain access to Parliament and the Presidency.” It is often argued that the Reserved Presidency was most recently implemented in 2017 to prevent Progress Singapore Party’s Tan Cheng Bock, who lost in the previous presidential election in 2011 by a narrow margin (0.35%), from competing. Whether or not this is the sole reason, it is difficult to deny that this must have been one of the reasons behind their choice.
❺ Race has also been used as a convenient reason to explain why DPM Tharman, the popular choice among Singaporeans to succeed PM Lee Hsien Loong, cannot be our next prime minister. In one of the most viral comments made by Heng Swee Keat, he announced that “older generation of Singaporeans not ready for a non-Chinese PM” as a response to DPM Tharman’s supporters. This incident proves that Singaporeans actually care more about caliber than they do about race, and hence even the Chinese (who are blamed for having ‘Chinese privilege’) would pick Tharman over the other frontrunners any day. Yet, the government, instead of explaining their reasons, decides to make use of race as a convenient and simplistic explanation.
This piece aims to show you ways in which race has been used as a convenient tool by both citizens and politicians alike. In one of my previous pieces debunking “Chinese privilege”, you will also be able to see how this particular concept is also used as a tool for various purposes. In order to fight racism, what we need to work towards is to stop using this tool. What everyone needs to do is to ask better questions, give better explanations, and to find better solutions to our problems. Of course, these take time because race and religion has been a point of contention since the dawn of humanity. So before that, what we can do is to calm down before we destroy whatever racial harmony we have tried to built since 1965 with a concept as divisive as “Chinese privilege”.
