Each time Mr Seelan Palay has had to fill in the “race” column in application forms, he feels “awkward”. “I’ve cultivated a practice of avoiding to fill it in completely, and many of my friends do the same,” he says in a brief interview with The Online Citizen (TOC).
Mr Seelan feels so strongly that “race” should be removed from the NRIC, an identification card which all Singaporeans carry, that he has started a Facebook group asking others to support the call. The Facebook group currently has 710 members.
A member of the newly-formed non-governmental organization, Singaporeans for Democracy (SFD) (website, Facebook group) headed by Dr James Gomez, Mr Seelan is not new to being at the forefront of championing causes. His latest endeavour saw him and his group make representation to the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur for Racism on 22 April 2010. At the meeting, SFD raised the issue of having “race” removed from the identity card (IC).
The Facebook group “will form part SFD’s efforts to monitor the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism who will present his findings on Singapore before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (in June 2011) and the UN General Assembly in New York (in November 2011),” it says on its information page.
Dr Gomez says on the Facebook group: “I believe the removal of ‘race’ from the Singaporean IC, will help us move one step closer to a Singaporean Singapore and faciliate a more genunie multiculturalism. And I will be prepared to defend this position electorally.”
Here’s TOC’s brief email interview with Mr Seelan on the issue:
TOC: Why do you feel ‘race’ should be removed from the NRIC?
Seelan: It removes the psychological barrier on “race issues” and releases a latent feeling many Singaporeans have to be together and to share our common identity. It would also be good to take note of migrant societies like Australia, Canada and the US where more national identity is stressed.
TOC: Are there any personal reasons or personal encounters which you have experienced which makes you start this initiative? Could you share them with our readers? As a member of the Indian community in S’pore, have you encountered any discriminatory practices, particularly from govt depts or the civil service, for example?
Seelan: My personal encounters with Singaporeans young and old show that there are positive views about removing such social classifications to build a better society in Singapore, and that is the main reason I’ve started this initiative. To show that there are people from all walks of life who share this sentiment.
As for discrimination from official channels, I definitely feel awkward when I have to fill in the “race” column in application forms. I’ve cultivated a practice of avoiding to fill it in completely, and many of my friends do the same. There are also other factors like the HDB’s racial quota and the GRC system, but as I’ve mentioned above, the main reason for this project is to build a better society.
TOC: What is the main goal or end-goal of the initiative? A more inclusive society? A race-blind society?
Seelan: The main goal of this initiative is help create a truly Singaporean Singapore, something which a certain octogenarian claimed he’d create. But we might be well aware of his views on Race, Culture & Genes by now.
Beyond Facebook, Singaporeans For Democracy (SFD) will also be present at the UN Rapporteur’s press conference tomorrow (TOC note: The press conference was held in April 2010), where it will launch a monitoring committee. The committee will be headed by Dr James Gomez and will issue a reply to the Rapporteur’s findings.
TOC: What’re your views on the recent changes whereby the govt is allowing parents/S’poreans to choose their race to be included on their NRIC/birth certs as a result of mixed marriages?
Seelan: The changes only go to show how ineffective and complicated such classifications can be, so its best to remove the classification altogether.
TOC: What do you think of the consequences on security matters? Such as, the police would be better able to identify a person if his race was known to them, for example.
Seelan: International crime investigation practices have progressed quite a bit, if anyone in the Government has been watching CSI at the very least. There are face recognition systems and forensic DNA analysis which are far more efficient.
And even if someone identifies a suspect as looking “Chinese”, how would that information be of any use to the police if its printed on the suspect’s identity card which the police don’t have in the first place?
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mic o mic
My race is registered as Indian. My wife is also Indian. I am Brown skinned. My wife looked as white as a sheet. So, you call for a Caucasian to come forward, you better be ready to get any range of colour, not just white. That is the point about race. It is documented that most whites in America have Afro-American ancestry. Due to racism, this ancestry is never traced back to.
I think I have made myself clear enough. I really have no time for people who argues simply for fun.
I am sure for some people, a horse is the same as a zebra and they will happily include the llama, and hippo too just to be inclusive.
It’s a free world anyways, but I am not going to deny the obvious and pretend to be oblivious just for the sake of holding hands to sing kumbaya around the campfire.
I have presented an argument against the charge that arguments against race are made for fun here. I have a feeling that argument will not be allowed to go through because it is a rational argument.
I wonder what is up here.
readers here should be treated as intelligent enough to judge for themselves. this is a blog for open discussion so why do you want to patronise us?
I dont know why. perhaps it can be explained to us. Look at the kinds of post they allowed in discussions on transgender and on Dana Lam and yet they disallow an argument to be made in response to a charge being made by one of the post here.
I want to know too.
This is not the first time. And you observe a pattern of what is and is not allowed. You are to buy into only one pattern of thinking. You cannot think alternative.
Not seriously for change la. Not a serious enough group with a commitment for open discussion la.
Just ask any Malay friend – sit down and trace back all their relatives – you will find at least one if not more Indian and/or Chinese among their relatives. Almost every Malay family if you trace back would have some adopted Chinese daughter somewhere up the line – adoption pattern has changed today due to changes in adoption law and increased separation of races. While daughters may have been given away for a variety of reasons, this also happened a lot during the Japanese occupation when concerned parents gave away their daughters to secure their safety.
Some people is so hung up on divide and rule that they can only imagine genetic mixing coming about only through marriage. Individuals do cross the given racial lines – and some of this crossing over may even be due to internal culture-specific discriminatory practices like the different values placed on daughters versus the value placed on sons. So, there really is no sense in speaking of differences between races as a biological difference.
are we able to understand culture here?
we do not have statistics that capture cultural complexities within each ethnic category in Singapore because most of our statistics are collected by lumping people into race categories. This is also the main issue that the more enlightened epidemiologists have when tracing genetic distributions using racial categories. They always point to the fact that race categories are arbitrarily used even by statisticians.
Take for example taking off your footwear before entering your home. Can you say this to be ethnic-bound today? And eating with hands? I don’t see Chinese or Europeans eating with fork and spoon or chopsticks at MacDonalds. Singapore statisticians are incapable of capturing the real cultural lives of people due to race blinkers. No wonder we see some of the most ridiculous colour-coded advertisements in Singapore due to the incapabilities of our marketing research agencies who make money by reproducing their racial stereotypes.
Mic o mic,
The Indian sub-continent is not a small place. The socio-linguistic groupings are extensive in number. Ecological variations exist – you have the desert and you have the tropical forest, you have the sea and you have the mountain. There are so many different cultural groups and even more self-proclaimed ethnic identities. If you find a common gene in this variety, it is actually a case against racial classification not otherwise. But the study itself is ridiculous in the way it is conducted, concluded and publicised. 4 per cent of the population is taken to be the whole of Indian sub-continent? Also, who are the single individual and how have they been selected? Genes come directly from your two parents and even in one’s own body, mutation occurs. Genes are not inherited from imagined ancestors.
To most ignorant Singaporeans, Indians can’t be anything but one ‘race’ which actually mean one group of people displaying the same culture, thinking and beliefs and with the same biological make-up (skin colour, IQ). The report on faulty genes of Indians is precisely an example of what is wrong with announcing and even doing medical research in this fashion. There would be some nuts in Singapore who would now say that one should not marry an Indian because they carry faulty genes.
Race is not a trivial issue. Mic, you can be dismissive of others as religious when you want to be and when you have to account for your irrational beliefs, you retreat into your relativism. This relativism IS your religious shroud. One cannot reason with you with this shroud on.
The Indian sub-continent is not a small place. The socio-linguistic groupings are extensive in number. Ecological variations exist – you have the desert and you have the tropical forest, you have the sea and you have the mountain. There are so many different cultural groups and even more self-proclaimed ethnic identities. If you find a common gene in this variety, it is actually a case against racial classification not otherwise. But the study itself is ridiculous in the way it is conducted, concluded and publicised. 4 per cent of the population is taken to be the whole of Indian sub-continent? Also, who are the single individual and how have they been selected? Genes come directly from your two parents and even in one’s own body, mutation occurs. Genes are not inherited from imagined ancestors.
why is it no one is challenging the notion or dictate that to be Malay is to be a Muslim ?
it is as good as forcing a belief system onto Malays and perpetuating century old belief system of compulsion in religion.
don’t let nobody tell you you must change your race just because you are married to a malay – muslim either if the edict for a malay is to be a muslim is not to be taken with a pinch of salt.
its like saying non-malays must remain as non-muslims whatever it takes, religion or no religion.
First off, before you even began to discuss whatever you want to discuss.
Do you agree that to be a Malay is to be a Muslim.
Do you agree with this point of view that marrying into a Muslim household could well change the race of the spouse, if not the race children of such marriages into one of muslim race instead of a malay race per se.
Is someone getting big research grants here without having to be accountable? Using race as the starting point?
To murtad
You get your view published. But I dont get mine posted here. A discussion? What discussion?
To most ignorant Singaporeans, Indians can’t be anything but one ‘race’ which actually mean one group of people displaying the same culture, thinking and beliefs and with the same biological make-up (skin colour, IQ). The report on faulty genes of Indians is precisely an example of what is wrong with announcing and even doing medical research in this fashion. There would be some nuts in Singapore who would now say that one should not marry an Indian because they carry faulty genes.
Race is not a trivial issue. Mic, you can be dismissive of others as religious when you want to be and when you have to account for your irrational beliefs, you retreat into your relativism. This relativism IS your religious shroud. One cannot reason with you with this shroud on.
Race = species – different species cannot interbreed and produce fertile offspring
Is Malay a race? No.
Is a Malay necessarily a Muslim? Unless you think that Islam is a biological fact.
Should a non-Malay who marries a Muslim become a Malay? I dont know – ask the person who marries. and ask Singapore soceity how they are going to acceppt the identity this person proclaims for him/herself. Identity is created through interaction. There is no need for identity if there is no interaction. Race becomes important when you want to say that your difference is not a matter of choice (cultural) but a matter given by birth.
Ask me about religion – it is a belief. You either believe or you dont. You can call me a Muslim, a Sikh, a Buddhist – if I do not believe in say Tawhid, I do not believe. Unless you think you need a biological code to believe. So there is my answer Murtad. I do not think you can understand but does not matter – others can.
Pointless to ask me about race – I do not think race exist but cultural differnces are asserted in singapore as racial difference therefore when people change culture – it is seen as upsetting the natural order – going against nature. Just look at us – culture does not stay the same all the time. The first Muslims who live in Southeast Asia as a community were Chinese even before Malays became Muslims.
murtad
I answered and have been censored. I have no respect for hypocrits.
Why only IndependentObserver get suppressed?
My answer to you is important but it runs counter to what the representative spokespersons here would support. So, you wont get to read it.
“There would be some nuts in Singapore who would now say that one should not marry an Indian because they carry faulty genes.”
Knowledge is neutral. It’s abuse depends entirely on the person. I do not deny the fact that there WOULD be some people who think this way.
Based on your logic, all kitchen knives must be banned because they can be used to kill people.
I just find it rather sad that you did not see the opportunity that a solution can be found that can save lives.
I am dismissive only to arguements that are full of sound and fury signifying nothing. I have no respect for purveyors of all things imbecilic.
Like I said, it’s a free world. Go ahead and fill out “Beige” under race.
Relativism implys that I accept your point of view as much as much I accept mine.
Actualy I really don’t give a hoot and certainly not religious about anyone accepting my view. It was merely a two cent that became a dollar.
Like I said, it’s a free world. Go ahead and identify yourself as “beige” see if anyone will take you seriously after that.
I think the opposition party should not comment on removal of race on IC. Having a race on IC is to identify the person should any person committed a serious crime to assist police to arrest the person while checking the IC via roadblock. SDP shoyld not comment on such issue and is very disappointed that SPD for coming up with such idea. Perhaps SDP should learn more from MR. Low or Mr. Chiam. Provided that Singapore is a country of one race then there needn’t an indication of race on IC.
This is not an important topic.