Systemic Racism In Singapore

In light of everything that’s been going on, I’ve been reconsidering systemic racism in my own surroundings and have come to learn that it’s even more prevalent, highly institutionalized, and widely accepted in Singapore than I’d thought. If I’m surprised that Singapore’s even more racist than I thought, that really says something. The following two practices that I highlight in this article are just two of many, and I encourage readers to re-evaluate their own surroundings to recognize and address elements of systemic racism in your own surroundings. 

For basic context, Singapore prides itself on its multiculturalism and ethnic diversity, and comprises of approximately 75% Chinese, 15% Malays, 7% ethnic Indians, and 3% “others”. Singapore celebrates almost every ethnic holiday that falls under these ethnic categories, but there undoubtedly exist underlying racial tensions that frame the way Singaporeans approach everything. 

Despite the ethnic composition of Singapore, the school that I used to attend had an ethnic composition that was almost entirely Chinese. Out of 1600 students across four grades, I met at most 5 individuals who weren’t Chinese, and this was largely if not entirely due to the fact that my school, Nanyang Girls’ High School (NYGH), was a SAP (special assistance plan) school. SAP schools are primary (grades 1-6) and secondary schools (grades 7-10)  that were designed with the specific intention of developing “effectively bilingual students” that are “inculcated with Chinese values”. To gain entry into these schools, students needed to take both English and Chinese throughout primary school and secondary school and typically had to undergo rigorous testing. SAP schools are simply meant to be ethnically homogenous. 

At the same time, these schools constitute many of Singapore’s most elite institutions. Take Hwa Chong Institution (HCI), my “brother” school that NYGH graduates attend that is a notorious feeder school for Oxford and Cambridge. This is just one example of many, and these benefits can and should undeniably be attributed to the added resources that are offered to SAP schools. Between increased funding and coveted education pathways, these schools continually exclude other ethnic minorities and essentially cultivate the idea that Chinese culture is inherently superior and more worth learning and preserving. This system effectively breeds cultural insensitivity, and as someone who briefly studied in one of these schools, instances of racial microaggressions are hardly rare. Students who come out of spending years in SAP schools inevitably graduate with a warped sense of Chinese culture in relation to the cultures of ethnic minorities, and minorities who attend these schools inevitably end up tokenized.

In addition to this certifiably insane education system, Singapore continues to employ a race-based housing system, with quotas determining where one can or cannot live. The Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP), ironically, was constructed with the very purpose of preventing ethnic enclaves, and mandates that resident compositions of government-built-housing–where about 80% of Singaporeans live–need to reflect the ethnic percentages of Singapore. Because of this, people are only free to buy and sell property to people of the same ethnicity, with very little flexibility.

This inflexibility with complete disregard for varying socioeconomic levels has inevitably and unsurprisingly led to a plethora of problems, leaving some apartments perpetually empty and forcing certain ethnicities to pay higher prices for the exact same living areas. Because of differences in median incomes between ethnicities (which can also be tied back to systemic practices in Singapore that favour the Chinese over other ethnicities), some Chinese-designated flats that cost less typically remain empty, like Malay-designated flats that cost more. Given Singapore’s continual struggle with land and living space, the EIP is undeniably arbitrary, ineffective, and racially-motivated. At the same time, because the amount of competing buyers for Chinese flats exceeds that of Malay or Indian ones, Chinese flats typically sell for less and are hence more affordable than Malay or Indian ones. The EIP also forces children of mixed races to literally just pick one of them, and essentially assumes that forced racial mixing automatically leads to integration. Ultimately, the EIP is a sloppy and thinly-veiled racial statement that claims to be able to single-handedly solve a complex problem. 

These are just two elements of a highly complex system that continues to oppress, which is a theme that seems to be recurring everywhere, albeit in some places more than others. With that in mind, change on a bigger scale cannot be expected without careful reconsideration of our own surroundings.