No longer Singaporean

Abstract

From communal politics and internet governance to language policies, the tiny speck that is Singapore is known for doing things its own way, with an innovative if patriarchal government kneading a hungry, migrant mass into one of the most well-disciplined, efficient, and diligent working populations in Southeast Asia. Much has also been made of its success at multiculturalism though some, like sociologist Chua Beng Huat, argue it to be multiracialism. Using Chua's argument as a platform for departure, and taking a cue from Stratton's notion of ‘everyday multiculturalism’ I argue through a reflexive exploration of Singapore as a lived experience, that rather than conflict, the two theories complement each other with the former paving the way for the latter.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Kristen Philips, Olivia Khoo, Denise Woods, and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on the paper.

Notes

 1. This policy has been relaxed and gradually broadened in recent years to allow for greater diversity (Dixon 2009, 120).

 2. Singlish is English as spoken by many Singaporeans. It incorporates words and idioms from Malay, Chinese, dialects and to a lesser extent, languages like Sikh and Tamil.

 3. See, for example, the ‘Speak Good English’ Movement (http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/2009/#top), which has been running since 2000.

 4. The term ‘void deck’ describes the empty space at the ground floor of housing development flats in Singapore. Considered a communal space, its usage is administered centrally by the town council, which often hires it out for events as varied as weddings and funerals.

 5. Prior to 1965, when Singapore was still part of Malaya, there was a period known as The Emergency (1948–1960) where mostly Chinese pro-communists led an insurgency against the then British administration. Two race riots also occurred in 1964. Memories of these events and threat of racial disharmony are still used today to justify the laws enacted in response, such as the Internal Security Act (ISA).

 6. Singapore's Prime Minister from 1990 to 2004, Goh Chok Tong, used the term ‘heartlanders’ to denote the majority of Singapore's population who are less affluent, educated, and who live mostly in government-subsidised housing estates.

 7. The Chinese comprise 2.7 million of Singapore's 4.8 million population (Population in Brief 2008).

 8. The Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC) was implemented alongside the bilingual educational policy in 1979 and has been running continuously since then (Teo 2005). The SMC's primary aim has always been to utilize Mandarin as a uniting (as well as homogenizing) factor across the disparate dialect-speaking Chinese communities in Singapore, which have a historical tendency to self-organize along ethno-linguistic lines (Kuhn 2008, 347).

 9. The former Prime Minister of Singapore now sits in government as the Minister Mentor, (MM). His son, Lee Hsien Loong, is the current Prime Minister.

10. See for example, It's Singapore, serve us in English first, please at http://forums.asiaone.com/showthread.php?t = 10827&page = 40#396.

11. Japanese remains one of seven ‘third languages’ that can be taken up by the top 10% of every graduating primary school cohort as a subject. The others are Malay, Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic, French, and German (Language Programmes 2011).

12. NMPs are a unique paradox of the Singapore Parliament and style of democracy. Introduced in 1990 to ‘provide for alternative views and constructive dissent in the House’ and raise ‘the quality of debate in Parliament’, NMPs are not elected but nominated representatives of specific interest groups that are themselves designated by the government in power (Hussain 2009).

13. For details, see Article 152, Minorities and Special Position of the Malays, on http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_retrieve.pl?actno = REVED-CONST&doctitle = CONSTITUTION%20OF%20THE%20REPUBLIC%20OF%20SINGAPORE%0A&date = latest&method = part.