If you really think about it, Singapore is a nation preoccupied with racial lines. From the insistence upon listing race on our identification cards (we’re so attached to the system that we’d rather have parents choose to double-barrel their children’s races rather than get rid of the practice altogether) to the way we hold the racial riots up as a bogeyman to scare school children into embracing “racial harmony,” much of Singapore’s structure is built upon race-tinted values and beliefs.
Unfortunately, the existence of laws like the Sedition Act have done well in ensuring that issues surrounding race and religion remain taboo in Singaporean society, lest we be reported to the authorities and charged. Although this has for the most part been justified as a way to keep the (apparently) tenuous peace between the races, the restrictions have also served to silence any mature discussion surrounding race and culture. Full story
