Always, Singaporean first

By Laletha Nithiyanandan, Published TODAY, 7 Oct 2013

Twenty years ago, I, a Singaporean of Indian descent, married an Englishman and we chose to build a life in this city. So it was with a mix of amusement and disappointment that I read just recently about a study that found, among other things, that Singaporeans aren’t yet comfortable with a spouse of another race.

I have been following the dialogue about racial harmony in Singapore all my adult life.

As a female entrepreneur of a minority race, I am often asked about the repercussion of discrimination on my business. And while I have sometimes spoken about being discriminated as a woman, I have never spoken about being discriminated as a Singaporean of Indian descent because I feel ashamed to talk about it.

This is because I believe in the Singapore I grew up in.

It was one where we played in each other’s homes and ate each other’s food; where neighbours would send food to your house if they were making something special; where people just turn up at someone’s house for their new year because it was about community.

We never missed the opportunity to eat rendang on Hari Raya or chicken curry on Deepavali, and my favourite was those delectable love letters during Chinese New Year. The best part? We received hongbaos at every festival.

I see myself as a Singaporean first and whenever I introduce myself to others outside Singapore, I add that a true Singaporean has a bit of Malay, Indian, Chinese and Eurasian in them. It’s not about descent or blood line but about the fact that we embrace each other’s culture.

And most times, this is my experience of Singaporeans.

A DIFFERENT GENERATION?

A lot of this, I know, is owed to my parents. This was a generation that survived war and the Japanese Occupation. My dad didn’t tell us many stories of the war but I remember the one story he did share — of how he helped a young Chinese woman escape a Japanese soldier and seek refuge in his home by posing as her husband.

This is the Singapore I yearn for now, when I read about the findings of the recent survey on the state of racial harmony by OnePeople.sg and the Institute of Policy Studies.

Growing up, my grandmother would dress us in ethnic Chinese clothes to carry lanterns around the neighbourhood during the lantern festival. No one saw us differently. In today’s world, would that have been quite a funny sight, two dark girls in Chinese silk pyjamas carrying lanterns?

My parents took us to every place of worship. I remember going to the temple near Kim Keat Road and the turtles there. They took us to the church at Novena and they took us to Muslim shrines, Buddhist and Indian temples.

We didn’t just visit, we had to pray and I think something happens when you can understand someone else’s faith — it suddenly breaks down the differences between you and someone else.

When I became a professional recruiter later, it added a dimension that was invaluable. It helped me understand others around me and what was important to them.

Has something of that been lost today? When I celebrated the lantern festival with my own children, we were pointed at and giggled at. And the kids, embarrassed, didn’t want to do it again. But, still, we try celebrating everything from Chinese New Year to Christmas.

COSMOPOLITAN CITIZENS

We have managed, I think, to “engineer” citizens who are more racially unaware, and that’s shame on us. But the good news is that if we can create something, we can also un-create it. And it starts with each one of us as individuals, how we want our children to grow up and fit into this rapidly globalising world.

When my daughter was born, a friend commented on how mixed-race children don’t belong anywhere. “They’ll be nothing,” she said. I laughed and said I think they’d be everything. I called them “planetary citizens”, and said it at the time with tongue planted firmly in cheek. But there is some truth to it.

As a cosmopolitan society, we have the rare gift of being able to live amid a very diverse population and we should capitalise on that. The Government can do its part to update policies or campaigns that appear to create divisiveness, as some other commentators have argued, but as citizens we can do our part to educate one person at a time.

Many times , people come into my home and when I greet them, they express surprise that I am Indian because they thought it was a Chinese home based on the décor. This presents just one of many opportunities for me to educate the people I come in contact with — that we aren’t races, we are people.

We don’t always have control over how people view us. They may persist in putting us in boxes and stereotype us by just by a glance. But we can also choose the “box” we want to be put in, and in my case I decided long ago that mine was going to be a big one filled with rich experiences.

What about you? What do you want your world to look like and who will your children marry?

Laletha Nithiyanandan is the founder of the Behavioural Consulting Group.