I would never have completed my degree without the benefit of using my parent’s CPF, and I have always been envious of those who could enjoy the benefits of free education, be it in Singapore or abroad.

Let’s see how far we could go without benefits of any kind to anybody (except those who are needy and less privileged) and let the actions of each individual speak for themselves as they take up their various posts in society (if your superiors don’t appreciate your talent and work, then it’s really time to move on).

I sometimes feel discriminated by the HR in govt sector as I do not hold a prestigious scholarship…but I would not give up trying for them. I know I have nothing to lose in being persistent.

I have people telling me of how life abroad is so much better here, yet there’re those who have felt discrimination being the minority. In a way, it is a matter of what you want or look for in life that determines what kind of treatment you deem as fair or not. And I know some things here are not beneficial for me and what I want to achieve in life. I’m not sure if it’ll work out for me elsewhere, but I’ll give it a try too.

I didn’t experience the era that LKY and our pioneers lived in so I can’t judge them on the policies that they deemed were necessary for Singapore back then. Some may be archaic but a lifetime of struggles and fears could be too deep-seated to let go now. What I do appreciate is whatever small comforts I could afford even while the rest of the world is dealing with job losses and bankruptcies.

Section 152 was created around the time Singapore was preparing for merger into Malaysia. Around that time too, to reassure KL that Singapore had a pro-Malay orientation, it was decided that Malay should be the National Language, and that the Yang di-Pertuan Negara (ie, the President) should be a Malay person (Yusof Ishak). There were also Malay language night classes being conducted as a rite of citizenship, and even campaigns, such as ‘learn one new Malay word a day’.

Of course, after Separation, many of these lost their relevance to the PAP elite and became only anachronistic reminders of Singapore’s aborted entry into the larger Malayo-Indonesian world.

In my opinion, Article 152 should NOT be abolished. After much thinking, my questions to all of you reading this article, is this;

1) Why does the MM of S’pore created such clause in the first place knowing that it would create disagreement in the society? (Put in his shoes/position) Do YOU PEOPLE reading this article EVER EXPERIENCED that ERA which were experienced by the MM? Ask yourself…

2) Why was the clause being compose 40~45 years ago and not in the present moment? What, our MM is a physic whom can predict the future? Ask yourself…

3) What happens if the clause were not created? Ask yourself…

4) Why would the MM of Singapore creates such clause for the minority knowing he himself is the majority?

5) Does equality even existed?

Answer:

1) For the answer in question 1 to my fellow viewer reading the article, the answer is, I dont know the answer. Yep, that right, that is the answer. We dont know the answer to question 1. Reason? Because we do not experience what the MM HAD EXPERIENCE during the ERA… That a fact. Our MM is one of the oldest yet the most experience person in Singapore… So if you viewer who wants to know the HISTORY of SINGAPORE and the reason of the clause creation, asked him… Dont be a liar and create your own grandparent’s story about Singapore.

2) If the clause were to be created in this present moment, im afraid, it will be too late for this land called Singapore. Let me give a scenario, in Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese were being prejudice by making the state as thier own. Sinhala as the priority language and declaring Sri Lanka as a buddhism state, among others.
As result of that, the tamils which were the minority were upset as equality were not shown upon them, and in return, they retaliated with AGGRESSION and many parts of the country declare them as terrorist. Terrorist were not created without a cause, in fact, terrorist is created for a reason… To be heard and fight for their right… However, in cruel ways. Besides, the tunku of malaysia a malay man kick singapore out of malaysia, our MM being concern with the safety of the malays in singapore perhaps created this clause to protect the minority from the hatred of the majority from being kick out of the country. In my opinion.

3) The clause actually gives a sense of hope towards the minority, not just the malays, rather, to all minority living in Singapore. So, if you were one of the minority, be happy that at least some of the majority shows concern to you all.

4) Because the MM is not selfish. He prefer peace over majority power.

5) It depends…. The 1st malay general was elected 40 years after singapore independecies… That shows that equality happens with respect to time.

Conclusion, yes clause 152 should not be scrapped, it shows a sign of hope for the minority that even if they are not the majority, they can succeed if they put effort in it, Clause 152 also REMINDS the majority that even if they were the majority, they should be humble about it…. IT NOT ABOUT THE QUANTITY RATHER ITS THE QUALITY that COUNTS….

Now all you minority, enough sitting down on your comfort zone and stand up and rise because we are part of the country, not the majority themselves!

@mice is nice

after MSK you forgot about complacency already? lol…

aiyoh , mice is nice, mice is nice, what you say not relevant to what i say lei. can you rephrase?

strange question, anyway, people do rely on track record. by now the words “track record” have been echoed often enough, to me at least.

aiyoh there are principles or axioms underlying why race and religion work as diversion. stuff like human behavior, the difficulty to maintain a totalitarian state in a super global dependent small little dot. i am asking do you know what these axioms are or do you just sukah sukah take as assumption that these axioms don’t change.

actually i was asking gemani but you chose to answer so i ask you lor.

A couple more supplementary points:

1. Moral Equality is sometimes spoken of as Equality of Worth; it’s inherent to the person, and therfore justification for either equal or unequal treatment. But as I said, different people may use different words even though they are conceptually the same thing.

2. In any one issue, one may be talking about multiple types of in/equality.

Eg. In the issue of gay rights, the ones that come up foremost are moral and legal equality. But formal equality – and this time, it would be the “lip service equality” that I referred to earlier – also comes into play in the government’s official statement of “non-prosecution”. In the meantime films continue to get banned, media censored, and services (gay-specific social programs) get denied – the equalities of access, opportunity, and outcome are all affected.

5. Equality of Access

6. Equality of Opportunity

7. Equality Outcome

8. Affirmative Action, which I now disagree is a “type’ of equality, but rather an equalization process. (Your thots?)

This line in the last but second para should read: “Every P 1 student in a class is provided exactly [the same] levels of instruction, but more controversially exact [the same] levels of help…”

I have a bout half an hour for now, so I thought that I would write this info out for you. I tried googling for the types of equality that I had spoken about earlier, but what I’m finding is not really what I studied; hence this. Also, please note that now that I’m taking a relook at the source first had, I have my disagreements that two of them should even be part of this category – I’ll explain why when I come them. (I’m also quite sure I have left one more type out; will fill in later.)

1. Moral Equality

This is best undestood by understanding its converse, inequality based on morality. An example still topical in Singapore is that of people who believe homosexuality to be a moral issue and advocate fo different treatment on that basis. Another example is racism: while the overt ‘moral’ justification for racism – racism is a punishment from God for being born black – is clearly becoming increasingly dated, racism isn’t, and I wonder how much of a hold the original ‘moral’ basis for racism still has.

2. Legal Equality

This is easy: its equality under the law. Relevant to the discussion in this thread, Article 152 and 153 is an example if legal inequality and which is the way that Lee Kuan Yew read it. But as I have also written, it isn’t meant to read in isolation from the rest of the Constitution; in political science there must be compelling reasons for this to have be in in any legal document.

3. Equality of Liberties

This is the first of the two that I disagree should be here because I don’t really see how it is a “type” of equality. (You can tell me what you think.) this “type” of equality includes all the Articles in Section IV of the Constitution, as anorexic as Singapore’s version of it is.

4. Formal Equality

This type of equality draws from the one interpretation of legal equality; it is the committment to treat people exactly the same, and is best illustrated by examples.

Eg1. Everyone in line for theatre tickets for a show are treated exactly the same (in theory – haha, “lip service equality”): they name the show, choose their seats, pay for their tickets, colect their change and are thanked for their custom. Sometimes, depending on the context and circumstances, formal equality is the only thing that can be done

Eg2. More controversial is this example which I thought up of to help us consolidate our discussions and move it further. Every P 1 student in a class is provided exactly levels of instruction, but more controversially exact levels of help – this would disregard any systemic diadvantage that might be interfering with the students ability to perform to the same levels as his/her peers. Some have referred to this as “equality of input” – which 1 don’t disagree with – to contrast it with equality of outcome.

500-word limit-wise, I will continue in the next post; it’s also a logical separation.

It’d have been great to see that done as some kind of a photo essay. Just keep an eye out though for the possibility of offending some quarters. I suppose it’s quite delicate, to ensure that what you do comes off as self-reflexive criticism, and does not widen the schism between the English-educated and Chinese-educated Chinese communities…

All the best! : )

Great work there. This was one of the topics I intended to write about during my brief stay in TOC, and wanted to set out on a huge project to photograph and document the Chinese-dominated media on our papers and in the streets in order to show it to my fellow Chinese.

Unfortunately, I could not write about this because of my parents’ fears of repression, and I had to respect their wishes. Thank you for expressing in words the very sentiments I’ve harbored for the past half decade.

YES WE CAN

I haven’t abandoned this discussion; I’m just experiencing a time/energy crunch.

Will post shortly.

In the name of SECURITY….

In the name of SENSITIVITY….

In the name of SOCIAL STABILITY….

Scenario (3) is unlike the others, because it appears to involve ‘horizontal’ discrimination; the Malay military dentist is treated badly, not by official policy, but by his colleagues. So this is one step removed from the archetypal situation where Article 154 is breached; if the Government is at fault, it’s because it hasn’t done enough to eliminate everyday workplace discrimination among its employees. Establishing that such a ‘due diligence’ standard exists, and that the SAF/Government hasn’t lived up to it, would be difficult, though.

The other three scenarios raise two interesting questions. First, the SAF (or any Government agency, more generally) is likely to argue that confidentiality is a “term of employment” as referred to in the proviso of Article 154, so that the SAF/Government cannot be forced to disclose its reasons for issuing or not issuing a specific security clearance, or for transferring personnel to and from specific vocations. If so, the dispute does not even get off the ground.

Second, even if somehow the reasons get disclosed, I’m not sure there would be a legal-constitutional remedy as opposed to a political one. A general principle is that decisions by the executive branch, particularly if they impinge on national security, cannot be second-guessed by the courts, except in the most flagrant cases (perhaps Scenario (4), where an experienced personnel is arbitrarily transferred elsewhere and forced to start again at the bottom rung of the ladder). Otherwise, the aggrieved serviceman will probably have to seek recourse in the court of public opinion, which may not be entirely sympathetic about his or her predicament.

I think it’s precisely the act of conducting a poll which would perhaps activate people out of their indifference. I can imagine a survey conducted asking able-bodied people: “Do you support the use of public funds to build wheelchair ramps in housing estates?” This is an extreme example, of course, but a question like this does make a respondent reflect on the kinds of priviliges he or she might otherwise take for granted, and to examine a personal stand on majoritarianism and even the idea of social welfare.

It’s clear *how* the disabled are disadvantaged, but less clear how other kinds of minorities might be. So perhaps the survey methodology might include some pedagogical aspect that might persuade a respondent to reconsider entrenched views on meritocracy. I suppose one could also introduce the idea of ‘market forces’ as at times being antithetical to minority interests (race-specific employment practices for eg, the unsustainability of vernacular broadcast and print media, etc.)

****

Back to 154, I’d like to float some scenarios here to see whether 154 would be relevant to these cases:

1) Two military personnel, one Malay, and another Chinese. They are both Singaporeans, working in the same unit, of the same rank. The Chinese personnel is given a higher security clearance than the Malay one.

2) Two military personnel, one Malay, and another Chinese. They are both working in the same unit, of the same rank. However, the Malay personnel is Singaporean by birth, but the Chinese personnel is Malaysian by birth and has applied for PR status. The Chinese personnel is given a higher security clearance than the Malay one.

3) A Malay military dentist is called down to an air base. Upon arrival, he is informed that there has been some error. Some personnel actually accidentally lets slip that ‘we didn’t know the dentist from your camp is Malay.’ He is then told to return to his camp.

4) A Chinese military personnel is a specialist regular in an artillery. He marries a Malay woman and converts to Islam. After his marriage, he is transferred out from his unit, into an entirely different vocation–infantry–for which he has to begin training from scratch. The Central Manpower Branch will not disclose the reasons for this.

Thanks, gurus. : )

So progress will only be had if policies are implemented to some extent against majority will, or with its acquiescence (what the majority doesn’t know can’t hurt it). The Government has opted to take the latter route, trying to work quietly behind-the-scenes as an enabler, supporting VWOs like SINDA and MENDAKI, working with madrasahs to improve the quality of their education, coordinating numerous mosque-building projects, etc., even as it harps on ethno-religious harmony and meritocracy. This is sensible, but it gives the public the impression that any help the Government gives to minority communities is part of a strategy of appeasement conditioned by our demographic and geopolitical realities. MM Lee’s speech was unsettling because, even though he cited Article 152, he too portrayed it as a kind of appeasement. Such official attitudes in turn affect public perceptions about what should be done for minority communities.

The Government needs to take a different tack on racial and religious relations, one that doesn’t involve being in a perpetual mode of ‘crisis management’. It should emphasize that equal opportunities for all and cultural diversity are valuable goals in their own right, rather than a facade we put up to ensure national survival, and implement policies specifically to achieve those goals. It should also affirm that this elusive community of ‘Singaporeans’ we like to talk about is only possible if all of us have a genuine stake in it, regardless of political or cultural affiliation.