Opinion Piece by Ghui
This week’s super long weekend with both (Labour Day & Hari Raya) could not have come soon enough. With the lifting of most Covid restrictions and people returning to work, this has been a week of change.
Labour Day, by virtue of its name, is about people and workers, while Hari Raya, among other things, is a time to reflect on society and humanity. Yet, even as these days are being marked, it would appear that as a society, we are still unable to let go of old stereotypes and sweeping racist generalisations.
Sweeping generalisations and ignorance
Syawal’s Message
The Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) has taken down a Hari Raya video following online backlash that the ‘advertisement’ stereotypes the Malay community. The video featured a Malay family facing financial difficulties.
The father was a mover and the mother a housewife. Their young son, Syawal, is too embarrassed to invite friends over to his home. Lepak Conversations, among other netizens, criticised the stereotypes presented in the video.
“To me, the biggest problem with the video is the way it recycles racist ideas about Malay attitudes towards work and education,” the site noted.
While this may be the latest incident to highlight the problem we might have with how we view minorities in Singapore, this is certainly not the first time.
Bagharib’s Message
Just shy of a year ago, the People’s Association (PA) had to apologise to Ms Sarah Bagharib for using her wedding picture as a standee for a Hari Raya celebration without her and her husband’s consent.
At that time, Ms Bagharib pointed out a “superficial understanding of the gravity of the issue” and said that “there is a larger issue affecting the wider Malay/Muslim community”.
She then asked if a lack of diversity in the PA’s leadership could have led to the lapses that caused her wedding photo to be used. Instead of taking on board the larger issues at play, the PA blamed an external vendor for the problem.
This was an opportunity missed in addressing the deeper issue of wilful ignorance. While this incident was eventually brushed away with the PA unilaterally cancelling a meeting with Ms Bagharib, here we are on a different day, involving different people and a different scenario – but yet, the same issues of prejudice, a lack of awareness and a refusal by the powers that be to take some ownership.
Half-baked and meaningless apologies
In this latest incident, while the MCI removed the video, Lepak Conversations observed that “there has not been any proper acknowledgement of why the narrative in the video was inappropriate for a Hari Raya campaign. We can do so much better.”
It was the same thing with Ms Bagharib – even though the PA apologised for its oversight, it did not acknowledge the deeper lack of understanding that created the oversight in the first place.
These are just 2 cases of state or state-affiliated institutions. I am sure that if we were to dig deeper, there would be other incidences of racism, however unintended, that have found their way into our system.
At what point will we dig deeper and have the honest conversations that we need to have? Or are we going to continue to hide behind half-baked and meaningless apologies?
It’s Labour Day… yet we Labour On
As we mark Labour Day as a public holiday, it is imperative to remember that we still do not have a minimum wage for workers. This is something that the Workers’ Party (WP) has long supported.
Amid escalating food prices, many Singaporeans are understandably worried about bread and butter issues of putting food on the table. While some supermarkets have stepped up to absorb part of the costs of eggs, netizens have queried if the Government is doing enough.
At the end of the day, it must be remembered that Singapore’s ministers are among the highest paid in the world. While the Government cannot solve every single problem, it can surely do more than simply bringing forward the distribution of the $100 vouchers?
Fixing the Opposition?
Workers’ Party (WP)
While the WP labours on, it would appear that the Singapore Police Force will be reaching out to individuals relevant to the case of possible offences committed by WP-Members of Parliament Pritam Singh and Muhamad Faisal bin Abdul Manap over the Raeesah Khan saga. Tad strange for the SPF to be wasting resources on Pritam Singh and Faisal Manap when the established liar only got off with a fine!
This has led some to question whether this has become an opportunity to fix the opposition, rather than about the original lie told by Raeesah Khan?
While the justice system is set up to bring about justice, I do wonder if the system has also created unintended consequences.
Death Penalty
Another example of possible unintended consequences is the hanging of Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam (Nagen). Nagen was hanged despite having an IQ of 69 and despite outrage from Singaporeans and the international community alike.
To make matters more muddling, Nagen’s initial hanging was postponed because he had tested positive for Covid-19. So, it is not ok to hang someone who has Covid, but ok to hang someone with intellectual disabilities? What a topsy-turvy result!
Then there is the case of Datchinamurthy Kataiah (Datch). The state had scheduled his execution for 29 April despite the fact that he has an ongoing prison correspondence misconduct legal challenge that is scheduled to be heard on May 20.
How can that case on 20 May go ahead if one of its Plaintiffs is dead? To make matters worse, after the High Court ruled to grant a stay of execution for Datch, in lieu of the ongoing legal proceedings, the Attorney-General’s Chambers filed an immediate appeal against it, which was heard by the Court of Appeal on the same afternoon.
Thankfully, the Court dismissed the appeal and maintained the stay of execution.
Are the Attorney-General’s Chambers so bloodthirsty that it doesn’t care about due process? Or is it an “oversight”? Neither scenario is very reassuring.
A deeper issue that all this has thrown up is how those in power view those who are not in power. There is no mercy for people like Datch or Nagen, who are from the poorer and less educated margins of society. But yet there is mercy for trainee lawyers who cheated in their ethics exams?
I know that drug offences and cheating in exams are not comparable offences, but I would like to query the mindset behind what played out.