My Response to a New Citizen who called the Reform Party a Racist Party

Dear TRS,

I came across these screenshots (see attached) taken by a PAP supporter, Nyan Lynn Ang, showing comments he made on the facebook page of the Reform Party on November 21, 2014. Nyan is a Singaporean new citizen from Myanmar. It appears that he is a hardcore PAP supporter, actively posting comments on pro PAP facebook pages like Fabrications About the PAP. 

He is also active on the anti-Alex Tan facebook page (Refer: http://therealsingapore.com/content/please-help-me-i-am-constantly-haras...). During the last general election, Alex Tan contested in Ang Mo Kio GRC on a Reform Party ticket and lost. (Alex had single-handedly raised funds just to contest Ang Mo Kio and offer the residents a chance to vote.)

When Nyan commented on the facebook page of the Reform Party, the page administrator asked him if he was a foreigner and stated that if he was, he should not be commenting on Singapore politics. This was a necessary precaution because the PAP government always advises us that foreigners should not meddle in Singapore politics. During the 1997 General Election, the PAP government under then PM Goh Chok Tong rebuked the U.S. State Department for criticizing the PAP's unethical electoral strategy of linking of votes to estate upgrades [1]. Recently, the MDA introduced the licensing scheme for socio-political sites so as to prevent foreign interference in Singapore politics. Sites are now required to declare that they do not receive foreign funding. 

Had Nyan read up on the reasons given by PAP leaders he admires so much, he would have understood why a foreigner is expected to refrain from participating in the politics of Singapore. However, he took offence and criticized the Reform Party as being racist. He was supported by fellow new citizen, Ted Teik Wai Teoh, from Malaysia who mockingly commented "Come next election, i hope you bring this post to your rally... Hhaa!!! And btw, I have pink ic who can vote..."

Nyan claimed that since Singaporeans are free to talk about Western politics in Singapore, he has every right to comment on Singapore politics especially because he pays taxes. 

Apparently, he forgot that Singaporeans do not surf Western new sites and advise their citizens how to vote and who to support. Commenting on Western politics when it appears in our Singapore news sites is completely different from commenting on their country's news sites and passionately supporting their political parties. Singaporeans commenting on domestic new sites are mere observers and there is no intention on their part to intervene in external politics. 

He also failed to understand why Singaporeans distrust new citizens such as himself when they comment on our politics. It has been shown that new migrants from third-world countries tend to feel overly grateful to the government whose immigration policies allowed them to obtain citizenship. When you come from a third world country, almost any city beats the slums that you and your family have been seeing. So it's quite easy to believe you're in paradise and not demand any further improvement. Even in the USA, Republicans view the Democrat controlled federal government's immigration policy with suspicion. In the United Kingdom, about 3.2 million immigrants were granted citizenship during the rule of the Labour Party and it had been acknowledged by their activists that at least 20 Labour seats were safe because of votes from Asian immigrants [2]. Despite the advantage, the anti-foreigner sentiment prevailed and the Labour Party would ultimately be defeated in 2010, although its defeat was not a complete wipeout as predicted by some observers [3].

Perhaps Nyan should try to see things from the perspective of those who have been Singaporeans for longer than himself. Does he not acknowledge that 'pure-bred' Singaporeans have a reason to feel displaced by the influx of foreigners in such a short time? Is he not aware that he as a Burmese is outside the CMIO model of Singapore society that the PAP government upheld for many years? It is therefore natural for political parties here to advise him that he is not supposed to publicly interfere in Singapore politics if he is a foreigner. The Reform Party page administrator did not accuse him of being a foreigner but simply asked "Are you Burmese? Why are you commenting on Singapore politics?" If he feels so strongly that the Reform Party is a 'racist party' that can only get votes from 'racist xenophobes', then it is all the more the reason why he should join the Reform Party on walkabouts and contribute to Singapore.