Opinion: We Call on the President-Elect to Lead Race Conversations
Hard on the heels of the election of former Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam to the Presidency of Singapore came the outrageous sentencing of rapper Subhas Nair to six weeks’ imprisonment for attempting to “promote ill will” between different races in Singapore. His crimes? Making four social-media posts that called attention to the different responses of the authorities and the media to wrongdoing by perpetrators of different races. Subhas is not alone in feeling angry and frustrated about systemic racism in Singapore. More than half (56.2%) of respondents in a 2021 survey on race relations felt that racism was an important problem—this was an increase of almost 10 percentage points from the 46.3% response in the 2016 survey.
During his run for the Presidency, Tharman spoke about the racism he experienced while growing up as a brown child. When he returned home from sports on public buses, there were fellow commuters who would not sit beside him. It was also not uncommon that buses did not stop to pick him up when he was the lone person flagging the bus down. Although Tharman assured his interlocutor that things have improved since then, we are not so sure. As recently as 2019, the then Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat, then also tipped to be the next Prime Minister, claimed that the older generation of Singaporeans was not ready for a non-Chinese Prime Minister, despite the fact that Tharman’s polls in the general elections—averaging at 70% from a demography of constituents of varied ages and ethnicities—were consistently higher than those of any of his People’s Action Party (PAP) colleagues, with the exception of the Prime Minister. President-elect Tharman smashed that party shibboleth by winning the role with a record vote of 70.4%.
When artist Preeti Nair, the sister of Subhas Nair, asked Tharman during a meeting how Singaporeans should respond to disrespect, he shared about his own experience with racism before saying that he accepted it back then as the social norm. He then added, in Preeti’s paraphrase, that “change falls on people who create art” and through art as a medium “we can kind of talk about different things and kind of shift perspectives wherever we can and encourage that change.” The irony does not escape Preeti and us that Tharman’s recommendation is what she and her brother are doing but for which they are being punished. In her video, she went on to share how disappointed she was with his answer because "for the longest time, many marginalized groups that are [sic] mentioned in my question alone have already chose [sic] the route of acceptance and they have been accepting the way they have been mistreated for a very long time and I think we should pass the acceptance stage of it.”
We cannot agree with Preeti more. Singapore is way past accepting racism as the norm. And resisting racism can come in many ways—art being a sure way to showcase the discomfort of accepting and living with racist attitudes. So, now that campaigning is over and the presidency has been won resoundingly, we call on the President-elect to initiate and lead country-wide, community-deep dialogues on race and racism with the help of civic groups, trained experts on multiculturalism, and sensitized academics and laypersons. President-elect Tharman can display his independence from his former party by making this a focus of his presidency. Although there is rightly skepticism from some quarters about how far a builder of Singapore’s current system would go towards changing it, we are cautiously encouraged by Tharman’s understanding of the link between race and class. In his musings to his interlocutor, he said, “Never think that growing up as a minority is the same as growing up as a majority in Singapore. It isn’t, it isn’t. It’s different,” adding, “and particularly for those who are in the lower rungs of society, it is especially different if you’re a Malay or Indian.”
Therefore, we call on the President-elect:
to lead conversations about racial prejudice and discrimination in the daily life and the workplace
to lead conversations about patronizing and parsimonious attitudes towards welfare recipients, in particular, brown recipients
to lead conversations about the socioeconomic causes of criminalized activities such as drug dealing and consumption, in which brown Singaporeans are disproportionately represented
to lead conversations on the unconscionable treatment of migrant workers and domestic helpers, in keeping with the “Respect for All” campaign slogan of the President-elect.
We want President-elect Tharman to truly be a “President for a new era” as he has pledged. We want him to be a sphere of influence and change—encouraging the authorities to reinterpret the racial and religious harmony laws with forbearance, widening the space for expression so that the younger generation of artists like Subhas and Preeti can express their views by using parody, humor, and irony, without the oppressive fear of reprisals.
We understand that the Elected Presidency is a flawed institution—it divides the nation without giving the winner much power constitutionally—but the Presidency still carries an enormous moral force, and we call on the President-elect, who will become President on September 14 with a strong people’s mandate, to assert that power to unite Singapore by discussing head-on issues of race and racism, as part of the long-term healing for the country.
Editorial Board, Singapore Unbound
September 12, 2023
Singapore Unbound is a NYC-based literary organization dedicated to the advancement of freedom of expression and equal rights for all through cultural exchange and activism.
The role of Singapore Unbound’s Editorial Board is to provide readers with a thoughtful and independent perspective on issues that resonate with our organization’s values. The Board also seeks to engage readers in a critical dialogue about important social questions by providing them with the information to make decisions and take actions for the common good.
The Editorial Board develops its positions on a variety of issues, but the views expressed are independent of the rest of the organization. Editorials are unsigned to reflect the fact that they represent the collective views of the Board instead of any individual member.