are we still a nation that is strongly racist and can this come bite us back in the ass?
i really really dont think that that statement has an ounce of truth and i dont know if its because thats what i wanna believe.
i dont deny however that we are still racist to a teeny tiny extent. but to say that we are strongly racist is pure bullshit.
we have not see any riots so far that has matched the intensity as that in 1964 and neither have we had any heated debates or arguements that are based on racial and religious circumstances (as least i dont think so).
yet we are in a small way racist. ken whatsisname (yea that s'pore idol judge that has no emotions) told taufik that he should appeal to the masses, 'to other races'.
if that doesnt prove that were still racist to some degree i dunno what does. (and on national televison even!)
sure we stigmatise certain races, even i am guilty of this crime. sweeping statements like malays are failures in education, chinese are selfish and that indians are well... black have been heard and are still heard now. but does this qualify as being strongly racist?
i think the government has done a phenomenal job in integrating the different racial groups in s'pore and i'm sure they had a hell of a time too in the 60s and 70s. our society today is a testement to how well they've done. even if racist thoughts are still present today, i doubt that many will voice it out loud or will do something drastic about it. why?
simply because they do not want a repeat of what happened in '64 or they just dont want to cause trouble.
which poses another question: are we racist on the inside and living the life of a should-be s'porean on the outside? if so, isnt this like a ticking time-bomb?
personally i do not think that s'poreans, well a vast majority of them at least, are strongly racist.
the thoughts are, no doubt, there, but i dont think that many mean it. they're just there because its been there for decades, passed on from parent to child maybe. word like mat and mina are now even taken likely, though i doubt many would want to use it on a malay person that they do not know. i like to believe that many singaporeans see us as singaporeans, not s'porean-chinese or s'porean-malay or...
but the fact that these thoughts/words/feelings exist is kinda dangerous. in a weird way its silent-racism. a taxi driver i met once (he's indian by the way) rambled on and on about how the indians are treated unfairly in s'pore after asking if i was indian myself. personally i thought that he misunderstood certain things and was just talking crap, but it made me wonder, if i wasnt indian what would he have said. probably nothing racist but that doesnt mean that he didnt felt it or had it in him. isnt it scary?
well all i know is that we have to be careful. and what better way to have fun while being careful than to understand and appreciate each other by just having fun and integrating with the other races. you know, participating in the holiday and all the usual stuff.
even though we may not be strongly racist, history might repeat itself (as the fucked up cliche goes) and we dont want this to blow up in our face now do we?
i really really dont think that that statement has an ounce of truth and i dont know if its because thats what i wanna believe.
i dont deny however that we are still racist to a teeny tiny extent. but to say that we are strongly racist is pure bullshit.
we have not see any riots so far that has matched the intensity as that in 1964 and neither have we had any heated debates or arguements that are based on racial and religious circumstances (as least i dont think so).
yet we are in a small way racist. ken whatsisname (yea that s'pore idol judge that has no emotions) told taufik that he should appeal to the masses, 'to other races'.
if that doesnt prove that were still racist to some degree i dunno what does. (and on national televison even!)
sure we stigmatise certain races, even i am guilty of this crime. sweeping statements like malays are failures in education, chinese are selfish and that indians are well... black have been heard and are still heard now. but does this qualify as being strongly racist?
i think the government has done a phenomenal job in integrating the different racial groups in s'pore and i'm sure they had a hell of a time too in the 60s and 70s. our society today is a testement to how well they've done. even if racist thoughts are still present today, i doubt that many will voice it out loud or will do something drastic about it. why?
simply because they do not want a repeat of what happened in '64 or they just dont want to cause trouble.
which poses another question: are we racist on the inside and living the life of a should-be s'porean on the outside? if so, isnt this like a ticking time-bomb?
personally i do not think that s'poreans, well a vast majority of them at least, are strongly racist.
the thoughts are, no doubt, there, but i dont think that many mean it. they're just there because its been there for decades, passed on from parent to child maybe. word like mat and mina are now even taken likely, though i doubt many would want to use it on a malay person that they do not know. i like to believe that many singaporeans see us as singaporeans, not s'porean-chinese or s'porean-malay or...
but the fact that these thoughts/words/feelings exist is kinda dangerous. in a weird way its silent-racism. a taxi driver i met once (he's indian by the way) rambled on and on about how the indians are treated unfairly in s'pore after asking if i was indian myself. personally i thought that he misunderstood certain things and was just talking crap, but it made me wonder, if i wasnt indian what would he have said. probably nothing racist but that doesnt mean that he didnt felt it or had it in him. isnt it scary?
well all i know is that we have to be careful. and what better way to have fun while being careful than to understand and appreciate each other by just having fun and integrating with the other races. you know, participating in the holiday and all the usual stuff.
even though we may not be strongly racist, history might repeat itself (as the fucked up cliche goes) and we dont want this to blow up in our face now do we?
<< Home