Goh Chok Tong on netizen’s request to delete his Hari Raya greetings: ‘I am dismayed that some have misinterpreted the post as portraying Malays/Muslims as “scarecrows”’

UPDATE:

Due to the comments on his post, Mr Goh posted on Tuesday night (May 2) to say that he was “dismayed that some have misinterpreted the post as portraying Malays/Muslims as ‘scarecrows'” as this was “far from my mind.”

The former Prime Minister added, “I spent my political lifetime working for a harmonious multi-racial society. This episode reminds us that strengthening multi-racialism is always work in progress. All of us have to do our part. Scary, isn’t it?”

Former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong posted a photo on Facebook on Monday (May 2) of himself and his wife standing next to what appeared to be a scarecrow in the middle of a garden at HortPark.

He captioned the photo, “Selamat Hari Raya Puasa to all our Muslim friends. — gct”. Though Mr Goh’s Hari Raya greeting received a lot of reactions from netizens, it wasn’t however, in a way that was expected.

Some comments seemed to take the greeting at face value and greeted the former PM and his wife back, while others, including many of those who shared the post, expressed puzzlement.

On Twitter, activist Lim Jialiang wrote that the picture shows “how these photo ops reduce Singapore minorities to mere props during their own festive celebrations as a shallow, ritualised adherence to the CMIO (Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others) model.”

This is such a good photo that shows how these photo ops reduce Singapore minorities to mere props during their own festive celebrations as a shallow, ritualised adherence to the CMIO model

That it was posted unironically by a former Prime Minister of Singapore is *chef kiss* pic.twitter.com/56OgFy2gGH

— Lim Jialiang (@lim_jialiang) May 3, 2022

Some wondered why the scarecrow was included in the greeting, and expressed dismay at what this seemed to imply.

Other netizens accused the former PM of being tone-deaf and expressed their unhappiness with Mr Goh’s post more directly, with a few even calling for him to delete it.

One netizen, in particular, schooled Mr Goh, writing, “I certainly expect better from a prominent figure like you, whose older generation of my community has spoken well of your leadership as prime minister.”

Another attempted to shine a light on Mr Goh’s possible motivation for posting the photo, but wrote that “As an experienced politician, he should have been more alert to the possibility of this being seen as provocative and insensitive. This is especially after MCI recalled their video to be extra safe.”

UPDATE:

Due to the comments on his post, Mr Goh posted again on Tuesday night (May 2) to say that he was “dismayed that some have misinterpreted the post as portraying Malays/Muslims as ‘scarecrows'” as this was “far from my mind.”

The former Prime Minister added, “I spent my political lifetime working for a harmonious multi-racial society. This episode reminds us that strengthening multi-racialism is always work in progress. All of us have to do our part. Scary, isn’t it?”

/TISG

Goh Chok Tong’s FB posts get more and more cryptic