Ethnicity in Asia by Mackerras Colin

Author:Mackerras, Colin. [COLIN MACKERRAS]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published: 2011-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

An emerging national identity

The ideological success of official ‘multiracialism’ is reflected in the ease, even self-congratulation, with which Singaporeans readily describe the nation as a multiracial nation, by citing all the religious, cultural and linguistic guarantees and practices of the state. Furthermore, there are constant worries about the ‘disappearance’ of the racially defined ‘cultures’ by the respective self-identified racial groups, not through the assimilation of each other but in the face of ‘Westernization’.

However, the insistence on racial divisions as a means of generating demand for the state as an agent of harmony encourages the three racial groups to reconnect with their respective ‘homelands’. Indeed, remittances to kin in China and India have always been significant to the local economies in these two countries; furthermore, Singaporean investors have capitalized on their respective racial ties in their transactions, as the economies in China and India liberalize. Of the three possible reconnections, the Malay one is the nearest, most immediate and perhaps most troublesome. Geographically Singapore is contiguous with peninsular Malaya, which accounted for its membership in Malaysia in 1963. Membership was brief, however. Singapore separated and became an independent city-state in 1965. Given this history, Malaysian Malays, apparently unable to sever all their real and imagined kin ties, often take it upon themselves to ‘look after’ the interests of Malays in Singapore.

A sense of nationalism, of ‘this is our domestic affair’, of ‘we Singaporeans’, has certainly taken hold. This is disclosed, ironically, by the position of the ‘guest workers’ in Singapore, who have been arriving since the mid-1970s.5 The unemployed in the neighbouring countries of Southeast Asia, South Asia and the People’s Republic of China, constitute a reserved labour force which continues to supply Singapore’s labour demand. The national origins and ethnicities of a large segment of these guest workers are the same as the native Singaporeans: South Asians, generalized locally as ‘Indians’, Malays and Indonesians, generalized as ‘Malays’ and ethnic Chinese. As such, these guest workers can be absorbed into local racial communities with relative ease. Yet they remain temporary and marginal because the state keeps them on temporary work permits, without any opportunity to obtain permanent residency or citizenship. Singaporean citizenship and status is privileged over possible racial connections, affinities and identities. Economic development and its consumer cultural implications have placed ‘Singaporeans’ as ‘superior’ to potential racial kin from ‘underdeveloped’ Indonesia, South Asia and the People’s Republic of China. A sense of nationalist belonging, of being ‘Singaporean’, has apparently taken hold with economic success as a marker.

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