Dear Dr. Chee,
Further to your article on elections in Singapore, I would like to add the following.
One reason why the PAP continued to win in elections is the HDB’s policy of insistence that each HDB housing estate has a mix of 76% Chinese, 15% Malay and the rest Indian. The general perception is that the Chinese have a greater tendency to vote for the PAP than the other races. Therefore, the minorities, however hard they try, cannot manage to have their will in any election, because it will always be the majority Chinese who will have the upper hand, as they form the majority in every Housing estate.
The Indians and the Malays are disadvantaged because they cannot live wherever they want in Singapore; this denial of right itself is a major transgression of their human right, namely, the right to live wherever they want in their country. Now if the Indians can live wherever they want, they would probably chose to live in the Serangoon Road area in large numbers. If so, it would be very likely, that they not only elect a non-PAP MP, it would also probably mean that he would be an Indian.
Furthermore, the Indian MP of Serangoon Road and the Malay MP of Geylang Serai and the Chinese of Chinatown would benefit their community and culture because they will be more in tune and immersed in their local constituents and their particular advancement in education, culture and traditions. By no means would this create racial strife and intolerance. Indeed each community will grow to much greater heights in their own spheres and will compliment and benefit the understanding and fraternity between the races.
The same goes for the Malays in Geylang Serai. And the same would goes for the Chinese in Chinatown.
The PAP says that their policy of forcibly spreading the population according to race is altruistic, that this would help in bonding among the races and prevent racial strife. But the real reason is that this is another added weapon in their arsenal of dirty tricks to perpetuate PAP rule.
Lastly, as a concomitant to the above, the government policy of maintaining the racial mix artificially by bringing in larger numbers of people from China, is also a violation of the basic rights of Singaporeans. Singapore belongs to Singaporeans and the rate and level of their procreation and the racial mix of future generations should be up to Singaporeans. Therefore, if Malays have more children than the Chinese, it is the fact of life which must be accepted. Bringing in greater number of Chinese from China to artificially increase the Chinese population in Singapore is a fraud, not only on the Malays in Singapore, but also on the Indians and the Singapore Chinese.
I have grown up in Singapore among Chinese and Malays and I know that we have all got on well together. The future racial mix of the Singapore population and where they live in the Island, should be decided by Singaporeans. Not by the PAP to win elections unfairly.
GOPALAN NAIR