Why do I feel that the Government’s condemnation of the Ngee Ann Polytechnic lecturer for his racist tirade against a Singaporean interracial couple (Indian/Filipino and Chinese/Thai), was only lukewarm? Not only did the so-called lecturer express his dislike of seeing Indian men with Chinese women and disapproval of intermarriage between the races but he went further to accuse the Singaporean Indian of “preying”on Chinese girls.This is the vilest form of hate speech, familiar to everyone with a passing acquaintance with the history of the Jim Crow American South, where black men (and probably Chinese men as well) were lynched for brushing past white women or even looking at them, or with Hitler’s Mein Kampf, where Hitler talks about Jewish men lying in wait to rape pure Aryan maidens.

Ngee Ann Polytechnic suspended the lecturer but its statement was weak and lacked any proper appreciation of the severity of the offence. It did not call him out for racism and hate speech but merely said that “We take a very serious view of the matter as the remarks made by the individual are highly offensive, disrespectful and goes against our staff Code of Conduct and values as a community,”

It was also disturbing to see that the Indian/Filipino Singaporean in the video seemed inarticulate at first and as though grasping for words rather than coming out with a straightforward and robust condemnation of racism. This is clearly the result of decades of uninterrupted indoctrination by the totalitarian PAP regime and its success in making Singaporeans unaware of their fundamental rights or indeed that they have any rights at all. Even when they are abused they find it difficult to respond, like the unfortunate animals in Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Unfortunately the poly lecturer could point to no less an authority than Lee Kuan Yew, the so-called Father of the Nation, who expressed exactly the same sentiments. I have quoted often enough in this blog some of LKY’s choicest racist utterances, particularly on the subject of the inferiority of the Malays and Muslims in general and on his belief in a hierarchy of races. This is a quote from the blog Lee Kuan Yew On Race which gives his views on racial intermarriage:

I remember a story by a colleague who interviewed him for Hard Truths. He said after one interview, in which LKY’s views on race astounded my colleague so much, as they were preparing to leave the room and recording had been turned off, my colleague casually asked LKY if in his mind he had a pecking order of races … like in the order of intelligence. And to his amazement, LKY did.

It was Jews at the top; whites and Chinese tied right after that; and I can’t remember who it was further down. All this is not on public record and is purely based on my colleague’s memory.

Another story from the same colleague: LKY had a thing about interracial marriage. He thinks there are three or four main groups of races and each group should marry within the group and not across groups. The groups are white, black, yellow, and brown. He literally said that.

Actually there are are plenty of public statements by LKY giving his views on racial hierarchies (including unscientific claims about the Bell Curve for IQ, itself a discriminatory measurement and how blacks supposedly scored far less on average than whites) and on how Singapore would have done better if it was 100% Chinese.

Nothing demonstrates how completely the Poly lecturer’s views accorded with LKY’s own than the story from the 1980s that he stopped his own daughter from marrying a Tamil doctor. Not surprisingly it has never been confirmed but it has not been denied.

Despite claims from Shanmugam that Singapore has made “tremendous progress” in racial harmony over the years, the opposite seems true. I commented in a previous blog on the fact that Indians and Malays are still treated as second-class citizens by the PAP, with both LHL and Heng Swee Keat having said that Singapore is not ready for a non-Chinese PM.

Even by 2025 or 2030, SIngapore will still not be ready for a non-Chinese PM (or for a woman), according to the PAP, since the current batch of contenders is four middle-aged Chinese men which means effectively 2040 or 2050. Chan Chan Sing, with his adeptness at Singlish stand-up comedy and atrocious command of the English language, is in effect “othering” Indians and others who do not speak like that and suggesting they are not real Singaporeans if they do not speak like him.

Even Indian SIngaporean Ministers and MPs who have married Chinese women or are half-Chinese are not considered suitable. Tharman’s wife is Japanese-Chinese, Vivian Balakrishnan is half Chinese, as is Darryl David while Vikram Nair has a Chinese wife. Apparently they are not Chinese enough to be considered as potential leaders. Shanmugam has had two Indian wives but it is rumoured that his proclivities lie elsewhere.

Of course a large part of the current Chinese male prejudice against Indians probably stems from jealousy at the fact that in the global market for talent Indians are doing better than the Chinese. If we look at the US, which probably has the most open and least discriminatory job market, at least for those who are not African American, many of the top companies are now headed by Indians. Google, Microsoft, and IBM are just a few of the examples. The US already has a VP who is half Tamil.

The Poly lecturer was also no doubt expressing jealousy at the fact that many Chinese women reject male-dominated and misogynistic Confucian culture and prefer non-Chinese men. I remember in the 1980s a Cambridge contemporary and former President’s scholar saying she found her male superiors all incredibly chauvinistic. Clearly not much has changed. Devan Nair’s son told me in 1986 that he had been warned by LKY to keep his mouth shut otherwise apparently LKY would tell his Chinese wife to leave him and she would obey.

Despite Obama talking nonsense and praising SIngapore as being successful because “it has been able to bring together people who may look different, but they all think of themselves as part of Singapore”(I wonder how much he and his wife Michelle were paid to speak in SIngapore after he stepped down) the fact is that the Government embraces a Chinese supremacist philosophy inherited from LKY that is barely disguised. Indians may at least be contenders at some distant date in the future to be the country’s leaders but Malays are clearly still unacceptable. While Obama praises Singapore as a model of integration it is clear that it lags far behind even the US. With the rise of China as the dominant economic force in the region and the PAP’s dangerous flirtation with dual loyalties (as exemplified by the case of Dickson Yeo) it is clear that the PAP will not be dismantling the edifice of Chinese privilege any time soon.

Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam