The problems for the Muslim community tend to be defined in specific policies. The discussions centred around the PAP’s distrust of the Malays in the military (especially the airforce), the hijab and some comments made by PAP politicians.
One common reference was Lee Hsien Loong’s statement made in 1987 on the reason Malays were not allowed to be pilots in the Singapore Armed Forces. According to Hsien Loong, the government was concerned that Malays may not be able to pull the trigger in case of a war with Malaysia. As a result, Malays as a whole community are distrusted and rejected from the Air Force. But the prohibition of Malays in the armed forces went further than that and affected more than just their feelings of being distrusted.
The Malays had traditionally seen the uniformed services as their vocation for social mobility. In 1957, 20% of the Malays worked in the uniformed services[1] making up 80% of the military and police personnel[2]. When the government introduced National Service in 1967, 50-80% of the first batch of volunteers were Malays[3].
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee explained in 1971 that National Service aimed to bring together all the different races together, following through with the supposed integration and interaction during the school years[4]. According to Dr Goh, “Nothing creates loyalty and national consciousness more speedily and thoroughly than participation in defense and membership in the armed forces.”[5] And yet, Malays were not drafted until 1973[6]. How would National Service bring together all the races when it intentionally excludes one of the main communities?
And while the policy of absolute exclusion was loosened in 1973, it did not end then. Very few Malays were allowed into the uniformed services. The policy is finally rescinded in the late 1970s although it went on until the 1984[7]. Till this day, Muslim students who attend Islamic schools are excluded from National Service.
The PAP government removed Malays from the service through active but unannounced discrimination. The policy to discriminate against the Malays were intentional, representing the general collective opinion of the Chinese civil service elite[8]. Part of it was due to the Chinese leadership’s distrust of other races. The distrust on Malays was so severe that the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Intelligence unit use Chinese analysts to read Malay papers instead of the Malays[9]. Apart from the airforce and intelligence, Malays are also mainly shut out from various other units. It is generally accepted that these are the “sensitive units”.
When I served in the National Service between December 1990-June 1993, I was posted to the School of Infantry Weapons (SIW). There were 6 wings to the school. Apart from there not being Malays in the Ministry of Defence at that time, throughout the 30 months I was at SIW, I did not meet any Malay who was posted to the sniper wing. In fact, there were very few Malay staff in SIW apart from those in the support services (drivers, quartermaster etc). But because these are units that are not known, the probability that Malays are excluded are not discussed.
The exclusion does not merely affect the Malays morally, even as it emphasises the distrust the government and society have for them. It also suppressed their economic progress and created social problems that lasts till this day. As stated earlier, the Malays had traditionally seen the uniformed services as their avenue for economic development. When they were shut out, young Malay men lost access to their primary means of livelihood. Existing Malay military staff were “transferred from field commands to logistics and support, while many others were forced to retire or were shut off from promotion”[10]. Many Malays had to leave the service without marketable skills, made worse as the country went through a recession[11].
More crucially, Malay youths were left in a limbo from 1967 onwards. Even though they were excluded from National Service, they were not informed that they were. As a result, these youths were not able to gain proper employment or enrol in classes since they and potential employers thought they would be drafted at anytime. For about 10 years, from the age of 14 to 24, they were unemployed and denied further studies[12].
This period of massive Malay youth unemployment which lasted for about 17 years has been blamed for the growth in drug abuse in the Malay community[13]. While the Malays did not have a history of drug use prior to this period, we are now the community with the largest number of drug abusers. Incidentally, it was during this period of Malay unemployment that heroin began to be popularised.
Apart from the inherent racism from the Chinese elites in the government and especially the armed forces, another reason given for the extreme distrust of the Malays was the riot between the Malays and Chinese in 1964[14]. Lee Kuan Yew attributed the riot for the fragility of race relations in the 1960s that carried over to the ensuring decades. He argued that “The government could not ignore race tensions, simply recruit all young Malays and Chinese and have them do military training side by side.”[15].
This admission has at least three fatal flaws. First, it totally contradicts Dr Goh’s statement that National Service (even during those years), were meant to foster interaction among the various races (including Malays) in Singapore. Second, it was not just about excluding Malays, or even that they were excluded from their traditional profession. It is also about them not being informed of the exclusion, denying them of employment or educational opportunities for those 10 years.
Third, the riot occurred between the Malays and Chinese. Both ethnicities participated and were to blame. And yet, only the Malays were punished with the discrimination. While the Malay economic progress was suppressed and they were discriminated and marginalised with its effects felt till today as a result of the policy (which was attributed to the riot), nothing happened to the Chinese community for their part in the riot.
It is also instructive that according to the PAP, the largest threat to Singapore’s security in the 1960s until the late 1980s was communism. This was a time when the PAP’s biggest political threat were the Chinese educated. Labelling them as communists allowed the PAP to detain them without trial. The PAP ran media campaigns to claim their main political rivals, the Barisan Sosialis as fronts for the communists.
The supposed communists in Singapore were largely (and almost exclusively) Chinese. And yet, it was the Malays as a whole ethnicity that was punished and distrusted.
I do not advocate punishing the Chinese community instead of the Malays. I would rather we manage individual behaviour rather than applying blanket discrimination on an entire ethnicity. What I argue however is that, if the concern over the riot and race relations is true, the PAP chose to punish the Malays rather than the Chinese because they were largely Chinese. While it can be argued that to exclude the Chinese would have been politically costly, that is not the case. Chinese youths did not want to be drafted. In fact, they had previously rioted against being drafted. And the Malays volunteered for National Service.
It should also be noted that the PAP with its Chinese background was concerned about Malays dominating the armed forces. The exclusion of the Malays was driven by distrust and need for the Chinese to gain control of the military. It is understandable that the PAP is driven to discriminate given their anxiety of not having the Chinese being in control. The problem for me is that there were too many excuses made to conceal their policies. From the reason for the discrimination to the pretence that Malays were not excluded, there was no transparency in these policies.
My concern is that while we can point out the visible vocations where discrimination occurred, such as airforce pilot (which now admits a few Malays after years of Malay community complain) and senior officers, we do not know for certain where else Malays are excluded. This is the problem with trying to resolve individual policies. We point out what we can see, neglecting the unseen bottom of the iceberg.
My interest as I learned about these systemic discriminations, is not merely about these specific areas in the military that have been shut out for the Malays. I am interested in the ideas that legitimise and support such policies. Early on in my activism, I advocated looking at the problems from a systemic perspective. I was not just interested in the PAP’s attempt to close the madrasah or ban the hijab but in the worldview, beliefs and values they held that resulted in these policies.
Various researchers have written about systemic racism in Singapore[16]. But very few of these works are accessible to the general population. As such, while many Malays and Indians speak of racism in Singapore as a lived reality, many Chinese still believe that there is little or no racism in Singapore. This narrative is changing and there is greater recognition that there is Chinese privilege in Singapore. The discussion of Chinese privilege prompted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to argue in his National Day Rally in 2021 that the accusation of privilege is “entirely baseless” and that the government treated “all races equally, with no special privileges”[17].
Academics Michael Barr and Jevon Low noted that the PAP’s concern is no longer communal violence or claims of meritocracy but rather “are aggressive programmes of assimilation of the racial minorities into a Chinese dominated society”[18]. Christopher Tremewan referred to the PAP’s multiracial claims as “bogus” and argued that the PAP attempted to “contain Malays in the lower sections of the working class” with some “token presence in the top levels of the administration to sustain the PAP's multi-racial credentials”[19].
References
[1] Li, Tania (1989) p. 109
[2] Bedlington, S (1978) p.218
[3] Walsh, Sean (2007) p.274
[4] Bedlington, S (1978) pp. 240-241
[5] Walsh, Sean (2007) p. 273
[6] Bedlington, S (1978) p. 218
[7] Li, Tania (1989) p. 108
[8] Walsh, Sean (2007) p.274
[9] Walsh, Sean (2007) p.273
[10] Walsh, Sean (2007) p.274
[11] Li, Tania (1989) p. 109
[12] Li, Tania (1989) p. 108
[13] Li, Tania (1989) p. 109
[14] Walsh, Sean (2007) p.273
[15] Lee Kuan Yew (2001)
[16] For example, Lily Rahim, Michael Barr, Sean Walsh, Tania Li.
[17] Tang, See Kit (2021)
[18] Barr & Low (2005) p. 162
[19] Tremewan, C (1994) p.126