Stakes even higher for citizens to continue cementing bonds: Vice-chairman of OnePeople.sg

Having parents who drilled it into him from young that “multiracialism is to be celebrated, not just tolerated”, it is no wonder that Mr Gerald Balendran Singham became such a proponent of racial harmony, dedicating his past 15 years to promoting it.

The vice-chairman of advocacy group OnePeople.sg told TODAY he sees the future of the Republic’s multiracialism as already more than “glass half-full”.

Citing examples of how local youths — such as his own four children — are making friends from all over the world and not “sticking to their own kind”, he believes the next generation recognise that they are actors in a multiracial world.

The most evident sign of progress is that, increasingly, a Chinese living in a one-room flat is more likely to identify with a Malay or Indian living in the same housing type than with someone of his own race, said the 55-year-old.

In his 17 years as a community mediator with the Ministry of Law, he has seen the nature of complaints morph from those between Singaporeans of different races into those involving new immigrants.

“In 50 years, or effectively one generation, we have blended to a point where we define outsiders not as people outside our race, but outside our common upbringing,” said the deputy managing partner of law firm Dentons Rodyk & Davidson.

Growing up, Mr Singham did not see himself as being different from other children due to his race. An ethnic Ceylonese, the youngest of five children had a Chinese name in school — Shen Jie Le — as he took Chinese as his second language because his mother who is a teacher thought “why not”.

The oldest children, his two sisters, studied Tamil, whereas his two brothers took Malay.

The first time he was singled out because of his race and called a “keling” (a derogatory term for someone of Indian origin) was in Secondary One. Though he kept his cool while his teacher dealt with the offender, the 13-year-old cried his hurt in secret in the toilet.

In the army, he was also referred to as a “mama” (Tamil for uncle), a term he found slightly offensive.

His method of dealing with what he saw as casual racist terms was not to let them get to him.

“You can either get angry and slap the fellow, walk away, or you can confront in a friendly way. When they realise you speak the same, you actually find that there is so much more that unites us than divides us,” said Mr Singham.

“I learnt not to be thin-skinned about it … I know they are not bigots or racists.”

His own reason for dedicating so much time to promoting racial harmony is because he is concerned that the future generations might become complacent with what Singapore has achieved in racial relations.

“If you’ve got cracks in the racial fabric in Singapore, our existence as a nation may be in doubt because, by definition, we are a multiracial society,” he said.

Citing the 1992-1995 Bosnian War where more than 8,000 Muslims were killed by Serbian forces in the name of “ethnic cleansing”, he added: “In Bosnia, everything blew up after hundreds of years. So no matter how harmonious things are, don’t say we have arrived ... Every generation must continue to work on it and strengthen it.”

While he feels lower common denominators like racial tolerance and harmony are largely out of the way by now, the challenge going ahead lies in establishing inclusiveness and trust.

For example, a block party where everyone is invited shows multiracialism at play, but Singapore still has some ways to go in building inclusiveness. “Inclusiveness is when I dance with you … Not just invite you, but you stay in your corner and I stay in my corner, not engaging you,” he explained.

Given Singapore’s size, the stakes are even higher for its citizens to continue to work at cementing those inter- and intra-racial bonds. Each race, he said, is interdependent on the other.

“I cannot harm you without harming myself. If you cause a riot … the foreign investors might think twice about investing in Singapore. The economy will suffer. When I lose my job, you may also lose your job,” he said.

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by WONG PEI TING

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