“India cannot take.” Neither should multi-racial Singapore take this lightly.

Singapore’s leaders can make beautiful speeches about being inclusive and united. The reality on the ground is something else altogether. 

Take the country’s security guards. For some reason, they seem to have become punching bags for some people.

At the beginning of this month, a shop tenant at the WCEG Plaza at Bukit Batok was unhappy that his two vehicles were wheel-clamped for blocking a fire escape route. If a fire had actually broken out, he would have been in deep trouble. He was unhappy anyway and vented his frustration at the condo’s security guards who were just doing their job.

Would the tenant have shouted at the traffic police if they had given him a ticket? 

On April 3, a man was seen in a widely circulated video berating and insulting a security officer at the Thomson Grand condominium in Sin Ming Road. He had parked his BMW illegally, resulting in the vehicle being clamped. A widely circulated video showed the condo resident shouting at the guards after the car was clamped: “Do you know how many units I have?”

And there was another earlier incident. The driver of a Bentley threatened to run over a security guard at a school. For his stupid behaviour, that driver ended up in jail for eight weeks and had to pay a $600 fine. 

What’s happening?

NMP Raj Joshua Thomas, who is a lawyer and also president of the Security Association of Singapore, boiled it down to: meritocracy. Some of the unintended consequences of a meritocratic system included, he said, “a perceived hierarchy of individuals based on success and expectations of privilege by some who think they are higher up” in the totem pole. According to Thomas, security officers were generally regarded as of lower status. People saw them as some kind of upgraded jagas.

Just as sad, Thomas said, was that some owners and operators of the security agencies themselves seemed unenthusiastic about putting on uniforms on awards ceremony days to show solidarity with their staff. Their answer, according to Thomas: “I am a boss. I am not a guard.” And these operators expect the public to respect their security guards?

Next comes a shocking revelation of the total lack of interest of certain groups of Singaporeans in anything beyond their own tiny group on a very small island. If you are not Chinese, then you are probably of no consequence whatsoever to them. They may be your neighbours, colleagues, people who see in the market. These other than yourself residents might well be men or women from Mars.

So what if you are working in the multi-racial NTUC FairPrice?

You have been told by your boss, most likely Chinese: “Take care of these Hari Raya Iftar snacks. Distribute them to Muslim customers – free.” So you nodded your head. Three sets of words came to your mind – Hari Raya, Malay, Muslims. Unthinkingly, your supervisor (maybe from another country, just guessing) just wanted to make clear.

He or she said: “Only for Malays. India cannot take.” 

In one fell swoop, all Indian Muslims, all Singaporeans of Pakistani Muslim origin and Bangladeshis are lumped in the “India cannot take” category.

And we are talking about multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious Singapore – purported crossroads of the world.

Tan Bah Bah, consulting editor of TheIndependent.SG, is a former senior leader with The Straits Times. He was also managing editor of a magazine publishing company.

NTUC FairPrice receives flak despite apology after their staff told Muslim couple ‘Not for India, don’t take. Go away!’ from taking free iftar snacks