Racial harmony: The fear of your own shadows

What exactly is racism? A quick check with wikipedia yields these various definitions by different dictionaries

"According to the Oxford English Dictionary, racism is a belief or ideology that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as being either superior or inferior to another race or races. The Merriam-Webster's Webster's Dictionary defines racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race, and that it is also the prejudice based on such a belief. The Macquarie Dictionary defines racism thus: the belief that human races have distinctive characteristics which determine their respective cultures, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule or dominate others."

Common among these definitions is that racism involves some form of belief or ideology that one races is superior over another. It is one thing to make hasty generalisations on different races of people out of ignorance and another to practice racism. For example, if one were to state the following: "All chinese love to gamble", that would not be considered racism. That's just a hasty generalisation, unless you can show that the love to gamble makes someone inferior. Racism would be something like refusing to hire a chinese cashier for fear that he/she would steal money from the cash box because "all chinese love money" for it implies that the chinese are inferior in terms of honesty.

On the blogosphere, I found a couple of examples of what people construe as racism. For example, this blogger thought that an Irish woman who voiced out her fears that immigrants were abusing the migration policy of her country was considered racism. I wonder how such a simple fear translates to a belief or ideology that her race is superior over another.

Another example would be this blogger who thought that a joke, on how the different races in Singapore choose a spouse, made by his teacher in secondary school was racist. This was the joke, taken from his blog

“Well boys, listen carefully. A Chinese lady, will not care if her man is handsome or does not have a good character. As long as he has money.An Indian lady, will not care if her man is handsome or has no money. As long as he has good character.A Malay lady, will not care if her man has no money or character. As long as he is handsome.”

At most, this joke was only about stereotyping. Hardly racist in my opinion, unless of course you consider that the love for money, the love for good character and the love for good looks fulfills the criteria of racism as mentioned above.

It seems to me that Singaporeans are a tad too sensitive when it comes to anything that has got to do with race. So much so that whenever one mentions anything related to race, he risks being seen as a racist. For example, I would be surprised if most people did not find this joke offensive

Question: How do you blindfold a chinese?

Answer: With dental floss!

Have we become so sensitive to the point that even a harmless joke on the ocular size of the chinese is considered offensive? Offensive enough to generate anger and hatred?

This begs the question: Why are we so sensitive when it comes to matters with regards to race?

I have my suspicions that the government's attitude to racial matters plays no small part in this anomalous sensitivity. The constant fear mongering that we should not take racial harmony for granted serves only to heighten our fears of racial problems, very much in the same way how an allergen sensitises the immune system of a person so that the next time that person comes into contact with that allergen, he might suffer a huge allergic reaction. This is akin to the story of how a man who wanted to hide his 300 tales of gold. He dug a hole and buried his gold, then put up a sign that says "No 300 tales of gold buried here". Needless to say, his gold was stolen.

Perhaps it's time to remove the requirement to have "race" printed on our identify card. If the government wants to reduce divisiveness in our society it seems to me that this is a very obvious step to take. After all, what exactly is a race? I bet different breed of dogs have more genetic differences than any 2 human races. All race is, is really the different amounts of pigmentation produced by certain cells in our skin. A classification based on skin colour is only as logical as to classify people based on the amount of body hair they have or their differences in height. Perhaps a course in biology would very much dispel these misconceptions people have with regards to race. After all, the root of racism is ignorance.

PAP's idea of achieving racial harmony is really more like casting shadows to scare yourself.

Is religion inordinately protected to the extent that it unfair?

Every now and then, some minister of something from some government of Singapore will say something like

• "We must maintain religious/racial harmony otherwise we will have riots..................."

or something to that effect.

Which is why we have the Sedition Act that says

3. —(1) A seditious tendency is a tendency —

(a) to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the Government;

(b) to excite the citizens of Singapore or the residents in Singapore to attempt to procure in Singapore, the alteration, otherwise than by lawful means, of any matter as by law established;

(c) to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the administration of justice in Singapore;

(d) to raise discontent or disaffection amongst the citizens of Singapore or the residents in Singapore;

(e) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore.

(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), any act, speech, words, publication or other thing shall not be deemed to be seditious by reason only that it has a tendency —

(a) to show that the Government has been misled or mistaken in any of its measures;

(b) to point out errors or defects in the Government or the Constitution as by law established or in legislation or in the administration of justice with a view to the remedying of such errors or defects;

(c) to persuade the citizens of Singapore or the residents in Singapore to attempt to procure by lawful means the alteration of any matter in Singapore; or

(d) to point out, with a view to their removal, any matters producing or having a tendency to produce feelings of ill-will and enmity between different races or classes of the population of Singapore, if such act, speech, words, publication or other thing has not otherwise in fact a seditious tendency.

(3) For the purpose of proving the commission of any offence under this Act, the intention of the person charged at the time he did or attempted to do or made any preparation to do or conspired with any person to do any act or uttered any seditious words or printed, published, sold, offered for sale, distributed, reproduced or imported any publication or did any other thing shall be deemed to be irrelevant if in fact such act had, or would, if done, have had, or such words, publication or thing had a seditious tendency.

Notice that 3-1e says that "A seditious tendency is a tendency to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore".

I suppose it would be fair to state that people with different beliefs would constitute different "classes" of the population. Therefore, this brings about the question

• "Is religion inordinately protected to the extent that it unfair?"

By unfair, i mean that the act is not applied equally to all different "classes" of the population.

Let us consider these 2 statements.

1) Religion "ABC" is (insert whatever insulting/degrading/blasphemous word)

2) The sky is blue

If statement 1 were to be written on a blog or disseminated by any other method, I am sure the person behind that statement would be hauled up to court and charged.

But statement 2 is uttered so many times each day by so many people all over Singapore. They are insulting/degrading/blaspheming a "class" of the population out there in Singapore. In fact I am one of the members of that class who believe that saying the phrase "The sky is blue" is the most heinous act one can do to members of my "class" (Opps i uttered that bad phrase unwittingly). By saying "The sky is blue" (Opps i did it again), these people "promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore." We members of the "class" that holds such strange beliefs are indeed very upset with those remarks and definately felt the "ill-will" and "hostility" behind those words.

So why aren't the police arresting those evil, riot inciting people? Is it because my "class" of the population is simply too small to waste taxpayer's money on? That's wouldn't be very fair would it? Is it because it would be contravening the freedom of speech act? Then why is statement 1 forbidden? That is not very fair either. Is it because my beliefs are unfalsifiable coupled with the total lack of evidence behind it? Nah. That's pot calling kettle black and not very fair once again. So why am I suffering from such injustice? Sob sob :(

According the the Constitution of Singapore,

12. —(1) All persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law.

Yikes! What a strange place i live in!