Don't Make a Boogeyman out of the Foreigners !!

       I watch with profound interests on the news and articles that were written in local print media about the saga of Serangoon Gardens estate and how the residents had petition to the government against the proposal to build a temporary foreign dormitory from an abandoned school building. For those who recall the debacle some weeks ago, you should recollect the ruckus that was caused over the seemingly apolitical decision. For those, who like me may only have the opportunity to catch up with the news and the happenings of the world around us only at the end of each week, Serangoon Gardens is a cosy little landed property neighbourhood, tucked away in a north east corner of the island with a population of a few thousand residents of which mostly consists of Caucasian expatriate families and middle-class Singaporeans.

        When the government announced that they would convert an abandoned school building into a dormitory for foreign workers, all hell broke loose. Out came the alarm bells, shrill and insistent and panic buttons. Even the economic downturn and property meltdown that is occurring in states and the ripple effects that it have in our world market seems to have little interest to them.

         A petition organized by the residents of the estate went around and a few thousand signatures were collected in protest against the proposed building. Congestion! Crime! Noise! Dirty! They came from all corners of the neighbourhood, up in arms, sleeves over and giving their MP Lim Hwee Haw a barrage of excuses and reasons, why this plan should be shelved.

        Opinions were flying fast and furiously in the newspaper, even making headline news. I watched in amazement how the government listened, responded and then go ahead with the plan anyway. Come one, I would think that the authorities should be given more credit in thinking out all the scenarios and anticipating such incident before approving the plan. However I have to give the authorities credit for how deftly they handled everything, even the most ludicrous and offensive criticisms were met by a patient, almost placating response that was near to conciliatory.

My opinion.... Singaporeans are getting too pampered and the MPs have been too accommodating in responding and acceding to all our complaints. We are now becoming a 'NATION OF WHINERS". I was sharing this opinion with a friend of mine but he was telling me to think about how I would feel if I am in the shoes of the Serangoon Gardens' residents. I considered how I would respond if my nice, quiet suburban housing estate were to suddenly be made to accommodate a few thousands foreigners. Flashes of seeing the foreigners camping out on my neighbourhood playgrounds, maybe small groups of them squatting on the grass in the small park, meeting up and drinking at the void decks of the estate any several others  dining out at my favourite kopitiam. What will I see? 

  The answer to the question is "I see dark foreign people everywhere." Unfortunately that is basically all that the residents of Serangoon Gardens see. I am using the word "dark" facetiously, as I am sarcastically making fun of the xenophobia behaviours that Singaporeans had openly displayed online, on the national newspaper and in public. If we think that Singaporeans are more tolerant towards people of other races and we have gone beyond looking at creed and status, think again. I read in disgust at the prejudice that was blatantly displayed in the past month on online forums over at the Internet by Singaporeans and their suggestions on the possible solutions to the situation as Serangoon Gardens Estate. 

Caged up the Dormitory

Like how we would treat our pet animals that had misbehaved or how we would incarcerate a Criminals, a writer had suggested building a fence around the proposed dormitory so that the inhabitants of the dormitory would not be able to wander into the general population or specifically Serangoon Gardens estate. As quoted "If you can't get rid of them, put them in a cage. That way, every one feels safer" 

One Neighbourhood ... Two Towns 

Another had even suggested that the proposed dormitory be build far away from the general population so that it limit the risk of the foreigners from interacting with the local residents. To cater to their needs infrastructure and facilities like shops and food outlets be built thus making it a "town within a town" concept. Believe me when the writer was suggesting that in his posting, the interest of the foreigners that we employ to develop our nation was never a consideration. The proposal is what the Americans did during their less enlightened period when they segregate the Native American into "settlements" so as to enable them to be policed and monitored. 

Restricting  movement - Birth of Ghettos 

Of all the ludicrous suggestions that  I have read is from another resident who demanded that the Police imposed limits as to where the foreign workers should be allowed to walks and which places they could patronise all in the interests of the "safety" of the elderly and children of Serangoon Gardens. I am surprised that he did not go to the extend into suggesting that the foreign workers wore the Star of David arm band similar to those that the Nazis forced the Jews to wear in Nazi Germany.

The fear of the foreign workers was overwhelming and many Singaporeans are writing and expressing their views in the National Paper with sentiments mirroring that of the old apartheid. Some are clearly racist and exclusionist sentiments. What saddens me was the lack of any reply to rebut the hateful and skewed mentality and thinking. Personal anecdotes were flying everywhere each day about someone's car being smashed and its cashcard stolen; someone's domestic helper running away with foreign workers; urine and abandoned beer bottles at the void decks and streets. Here I would like to point out that if Singaporeans think that the foreigners are a bunch of anti-social behaved people, then Singaporeans themselves are guilty of the worst sins. For many years lifts were the convenient place of many residents to urinate and despite the reminders and national campaigns, the problems remains unabated. 

Other Bright Ideas...... the lists did not end there 

The lists of ideas from Singaporeans and like minded people did not end there. Put them in a floating platform or perhaps a floating island. I supposed the success of the marina floating platform has caught the interest of many. Build separate roads for them and provide them with their own shops so that they don't have to mingle with the rest of us. 

Hey why stop that, Singaporeans? Why not we suggest that underground is dig and build them some tunnels to stay in. They could be the burrowing society in Singapore. Or in the interest of cost, extend the MRT tunnel or the KPE underground tunnel. Wait.. we just announced  the construction of the Marina Central expressway, maybe we can factored that in. Least of all these foreigners staying under ground, we do not have to look at them not until they need to come up for fresh air or a feel or sunlight and to do all the dirty work that we 'SINGAPOREANS' shy away and look at with askance. 

Are we listening to ourselves.....? Do we realise the kind of remarks that we are making. These are People we are talking about. Decent human beings who travelled thousands of miles away from their homeland and family  to a foreign country to earn a decent living just much like 'ALL OUR ANCESTORS' (emphasis intended) use to. Some of us don't even want to treat our own pets  the way we are thinking of treating this people. I know of a friend who spent almost $ 800 every month on her which includes grooming, exercises, massage and pedicure. (I wanna to say manicure, but am not sure which is which). Is this what it means for Singapore to be a 'First World Nation' that is we have to treat other differently and like lepers. 

I am sorry, but some of the suggestion that I came across on online forums and print media make me nauseous. If I know half of the writer, I have half the mind to grab your head and give you a tight slap. Most probably that will shook some sense of whatever little brain you have up there. 

Fear of the Unknown, The  'White Man', 'The Dark Man' and the 'Yellow Man'

Singaporeans fear the Dark Man (foreigners from the Mid-Asia) a lot more than the White Man, and it has more to do with the social class rather than colour. Foreigners from India and Bangladesh  make out the majority of foreign workers in Singapore and are more apparent because of their visibility in the nation's building project. They are the back bone of Singapore's infrastructure progress, shedding sweat  at the construction site braving height in transforming Singapore's landscape and under the hot sun paving the road in Singapore's ever changing transportation network or collecting rubbish being thrown by the residents and cleaning and sweeping the neighborhood, giving Singapore the 'clean green country' label that it is known for. Because of their presence, doing the mediocre job that Singaporean's themselves are willing to do we see the Dark Man everywhere. Because of what they do, Singaporeans see them in the most unflattering ways: living in squalor, living in close quarters like animals in a barn, they have no where to go to do their "leisure" activities but in the small confines of the space they are allowed to exist in. And so they are exposed like puppets on a stage. We can see them, and so we can point at them and make judgments about them.

The Other Spectrum of Life...............

The 'White Man' lives among us too. He works among us, he eats among us, he partakes in his leisure among us. He is free to go anywhere, he does not have to live among other White Men in Little Europe or Little America or in dormitories specially designed for them. We don't point because we think he is like us and we are like him. Nothing special. It doesn't help that in our collectively short memories, we remember the White Men being our authority figures, we remember how they strutted about in their white linen shirts in their large bungalows and dining in candlelight at the most expensive and exclusive establishments. We do not impose the same standards that we imposed on the 'Dark+ Man' as in our mind, they are incapable of any anti-social behaviours. They are the perfect specimen of men. 

Because of the nobility of that class, we have always associated the White Man with the upper class, but we forget that the Yellow Man and the Black  Man were the man in the street, the rickshaw pullers, the street hawkers, the construction workers. Today we all think we are White because we live almost like the middle class postcolonial and we all ASPIRE to BE that middle class postcolonial.

I think Singaporeans are a lot more racist 40 years after the "race riots" of our post-Independent years than we ever were before. We don't talk about it because we aren't allowed to. The only people who need educating are Singaporeans, not the Persons of Other Nationalities who come here to work on our construction sites. I won't say that I am completely free of prejudice, being a middle class SIngaporean myself, but at least when i have a prejudiced thought, I stop to think about it before I speak. And it is truly ironic that only when people have to co-exist side by side with what they find foreign, and in large numbers, that their prejudices rise to the fore. Xenophobia is nothing but a defensive response to perceived danger borne out of prejudiced fear. But again, it's not a matter of colour, but class. 

I failed to understand Singaporean's fear and perception that the foreigner's "The Dark Man' are responsible for all the ills of society, for all the crimes and criminal acts, for all the socially undersirable behaviour and for all the anti-social acts. I have not seen any statistics or figures to support the notion. I supposed it is the inherent perception in us, either by the influence of the media who seems to sensationalized  any news of foreigners being involved in crimes or the perceived beliefs that only they are capable of committing such acts. 

Wake Up Singaporeans !! I think it is time that we should be expressing our gratitude and thanks to the 'Dark Man' for their pivotal road in nation building, building the skyscrapers that we enjoyed working in, the flats and houses that we comfortably stay and sleep in and the roads that we enjoyed riding on, instead of demonising and making a Boogeyman out of them. Singaporeans are capable and guilty of all the acts that we made the 'Dark Man' out and even more. In any situation there will be inconvenience. This is a fact of live, We are a small nation with limited living space. Apart from living skywards, the only other option is to go downwards. But mind you everyone of us will have that opportunity when it comes, just a matter of time when the lord calls of us. I would think that till now we should be able to appreciate our neighbours. I am okey with whining cause mind you all of us do just t o release the tension and stress but it is the bigots that I have problem please. Remember this old adage that my grandma use to say "If you have nothing better to say.. then keep quiet"