First and foremost, I’d like to say that I believe myself to be a patriot, a proud Singaporean son, even though I don’t support every government policy. I love my country and I believe loving one’s country has nothing to
do with loving her government.
One thing that I don’t agree on is the government urging Singaporean Chinese to speak Mandarin. ‘华语 Cool’ or whatever. In my opinion, telling a Singaporean Chinese to speak Mandarin and a Singaporean Malay to speak Malay implies that we’re different people with different roots and only seeks to divide us. I believe that for nationalism to grow in this country, all Singaporeans should adopt a common identity. This can only happen if all Singaporeans speak a common language (i.e. English). And by ‘speak’ I mean the first language that naturally comes to mind when conversing with another Singaporean, regardless of race.
For the next few paragraphs, I didn’t refer to any official statistics. It’s solely based on my own observation and there’s a high possibility that I might be wrong.
I feel that the most xenophobic people in this country are the ones who are more comfortable speaking their ‘mother tongue’. They’re more likely to only get acquainted with people of their own race and understand little about other cultures. When within a multi-ethnic group of people, they usually alienate minorities by using a language not everyone understands. Whether 3rd generation or 10th generation, their refusal to assimilate is what makes them perpetual foreigners. Strangely however, they’re almost always the same people who oppose immigration, even of people from their own race.
Regarding immigration, there’s currently an influx of foreigners coming to our shores. I personally don’t oppose this phenomenon, as long as they’re the ‘right’ people. To a certain extend, this country does need foreign
talent in order to prosper. However, a large majority of these ‘new Singaporeans’ don’t make any attempt to integrate into our society. They refuse to learn English and maintain racist attitudes towards our Singaporean
Malay and Indian brothers and sisters, whom they deem inferior. Some even insist that these Singaporeans learn Mandarin in order to cater to them.
Of course, this doesn’t apply to all ‘new Singaporeans’. There’re those amongst them who take the effort to understand our local culture, learn our national anthem and try their best to speak English even when within a
group of only Singaporean Chinese. These are the people I’d gladly accept, with open arms, as fellow Singaporeans.
My point is, we’ve gone a long way as a nation and the Speak Mandarin Campaign is only a step backwards from our efforts. Whether it’s Singlish or Queen’s English level, Singaporeans should all speak the same language. And to that matter, fluency in our lingua franca should be a requirement for naturalisation. Learning Mandarin may put some of us at an advantage considering the rise of the People’s Republic of China but it shouldn’t be a priority.
Anonymous TRS reader