I’d like to begin by clarifying a few things from my earlier post Stop Humanizing the Banglas/ Indian FTs!. First of all, perhaps I was too harsh to use the term Humanizing. I was going more for ‘Singaporeanizing’. (Though I’m not sure how many readers would get what that meant). I do not expect readers to agree with everything I said, but my objective was to get readers to (at some level) separate Singaporeans from these foreign workers so that they will better accept the content of this article- which will propose solutions which ‘treat them differently’ from Singaporeans.
Secondly, the previous article is targeted at liberals (which I am very mad at after the riot) not the group of Singaporeans who already hate FTs. To garner xenophobia from the ‘pure FT haters’, I wouldn’t have to ‘write so hard’. All I would need to do is to write ‘Banglas are smelly’ (Which is unsubstantiated and not something I believe) and I would probably get over a hundred likes.
You do realize that the liberals are to blame for the riots right? For years they have been fighting for more and more freedoms for these foreign workers. From weekly day offs to trying to get them to live in HDB flats. And now see what has happened?
Do you even realize how much this riot affected Singapore’s image locally and globally? We have managed to preserve such a peaceful, low-crime way of life for so many years. We were like an unbelievable peace-paradise for people living in many parts in the world. Other big cities like Hong Kong, London and New York have been troubled by the occasional strike/ riot even in the recent years, but Singapore managed to stay peaceful and calm for over 40 years. And now because of some foreign workers, our streak has been ruined! BBC, CNN, FT, The Economist all reported the incident to the world media.
Singapore is no longer a haven on peace. It is now a city with riots.
What is more annoying is that it’s not even Singaporeans who were acting like monkeys/ barbarians. Our image got tarnished by foreign workers! Why and how did we let this be? Could we have prevented this?
Proposed Solutions
The most important thing is not to feel like these foreign workers need to live the ‘same kind of lifestyle’ as Singaporeans. They have not earned it nor do they need it to be happy. You do not miss what you never had. Would a kid living in poverty in Somalia miss having an i Phone? It wouldn’t be possible because he never experienced it to ‘miss it’. In the same way, we do not need to accord foreign workers too many luxuries because they have never experienced them to miss them.
To truly understand this, one must visit (or at least watch documentaries) of the living environment of these foreign workers in their home countries. Having stayed in such undeveloped places, I shall give you a short list of my observations.
1. No clean water source (They have to boil dirty water to drink).
2. No smart phones or wifi
3. Difficult to access meat, mostly vegetarian
4. Health care is non-existent (You only get to go to the hospital by emergency transport if you are horribly sick/ bad accident)
5. Dirty environment/ Air
6. Lack of basic sanitation (such as toilets and stuff)
7. No heating system in winter (they have to sleep in the cold)
8. No hot water (In winter, they have to boil water in a kettle, if they can afford the gas, if they want to shower in warm water)
You need to understand the kind of place they come from to understand that you don’t have to provide them much for them to be happy. In fact, I am pretty sure that if you offer them $1 a day, a place to stay and three meals a day, you’d still find large number of foreign workers applying to work in Singapore. Because working in Singapore itself is a privilege.
I am not proposing to introduce such harsh measures, but I do think it is time that we separate the social spaces between locals and foreigners. If you really want to give them a day off and stuff, fine. But they should spend it in assigned areas built specially for foreign workers. They should not be crowding and messing up our city-scape. They are not part of the Singapore image.
I don’t mind if we spend tax money developing weekend football fields, cricket pitches, leisure centers for them etc. We can have a few TV rooms showing SunTV for them to watch and relax too. A small park even, maybe. But they should enjoy the amenities together and away from public spaces such as Little India, Chinese Gardens (If you’ve been there on a Sunday you’d know what I mean), Lucky Plaza ect. It would be easier to ‘watch them’ and they can behave more naturally or rowdily (which may make them happier) because they do not need to behave in a way that conforms with Singapore’s societal norms.
Let’s get one thing clear, this is not putting them in prison. The point of this is not to make them suffer or unhappy. I just do not think we need to let them interact and infiltrate our social spaces for them to be happy- especially given the kind of environment and backgrounds they come from. They in fact should be happier because they can behave more naturally if they are only amongst their own community.
Conclusion
I do believe that the Singaporean identity, cultural and moral bearings differ from these foreign workers. As such there will naturally be tension and potential conflict if we are expected to co-exist in the same spaces. If tensions and conflicts can arise from Singaporeans of different races living together, what can we expect when Singaporeans having to ‘live with’ these foreign workers.
To solve this problem (and to prevent further riots) I propose that we set up and develop designated leisure centers for foreign workers to socialize and have fun at during their free time. I see this as a win-win for everybody.
SG Bangla
*The author blogs at http://sgbangla.wordpress.com