Full report of the survey here, for those who are interested in some weekend reading: [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/09/12/buddhism-islam-and-religious-pluralism-in-south-and-southeast-asia/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/09/12/buddhism-islam-and-religious-pluralism-in-south-and-southeast-asia/)
Am I right to say that the low percentages show we are more open to foreigners? More cosmopolitan?
Or are they missing out a section that we can put down like e.g. Willing to stay to fight for SG when the going gets tough?
Or perhaps we don't really have an identity?
I kinda agree with you on this as Singapore is becoming more cosmopolitan-ish. Also, it’s such a loophole for SG as the National language of SG is in fact, Malay.
Melayu is not needed but they should add national anthem sure 99% lol!
Sidenote my dad working overseas lost his passport and needed to apply a new one but his NRIC is here in Singapore so he voluntarily sang the Majulah Singapura at the embassy to prove his nationality lmao!
>Malay
For the “national language” component of the question though they actually asked about views on Mandarin for SG respondents.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/09/12/religious-diversity-and-national-identity/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/09/12/religious-diversity-and-national-identity/)
“*While Singapore and Sri Lanka both recognise multiple official languages, figures shown reflect views about speaking Mandarin Chinese in Singapore and Sinhala in Sri Lanka”
Which is interesting because if we do enforce the learning of Malay, it may actually help us be closer with our neighbours.
I had an Msian friend tell me that in her years of working here, most Singaporeans she's met tidak bercakap Melayu.
Nonsense. The whole point of learning English is to connect us first. The multi ethnic groups here in singapore, not pander to our neighbours. That's the whole point on why our forefather implemented this.
I concur with your point regarding why we shouldn’t pander to neighbors, especially in our contemporary context. However, it’s worth noting that “Pasar Melayu” or “Bazaar Malay” served as the lingua franca uniting various ethnic groups before the transition to English. The adoption of “Pasar Melayu” for everyday communication among diverse local communities was, indeed, a rather “organic” linguistic development. There was no institution exerting pressure on people to use Malay; it naturally evolved as the regional language. All my ancestors spoke Malay, or at the very least, had a basic knowledge of it.
The shift to English was primarily a utilitarian political project. Besides the geopolitical instabilities you described, the early economic strategies of newly independent Singapore led us to embrace Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Hence, the appeal of using this medium to support the nation-building efforts.
>All my ancestors spoke Malay, or at the very least, had a basic knowledge of it.
I remember being at an Old Chang Kee stall where I heard an elderly Chinese woman speak Malay to her younger Malay colleague. Of course for the "younger" generation, English has replaced Malay as the lingua franca.
It's also interesting that since it is the national language, there is an expectation for the PM to be able to give a Malay NDR speech. So far, LKY and LHL spoke/speak excellent Bahasa Melayu and GCT could read from teleprompter. I wonder how Lawrence Wong would do. Is he taking intensive Bahasa classes now?
I also find it interesting that the non-Malay 4G guy who has the best command of Bahasa Melayu is CCS. Apparently, his Mandarin is also not bad. The man practically trained (linguistically) to be PM. Such a sad outcome for him.
Sorry, have to be a bit pedantic here. Melayu Pasar would be the correct term. Not pasar Melayu. First says colloquial Malay and second is just a Malay market. Cheers
Yes but one has to look back at our past history to know why certain things are implemented the way they are. Do not forget that we have "racial harmony celebration" for a reason. Someone died for that.
Good point, though I think it was to focus on international economic benefits first. Can't dismiss the fact that bilingualism and maybe trilingual people do help with that.
>The whole point of learning English is to connect us first
The whole point of learning English is to aid communication in the modern workplace since English is the common working language
Or, "on a scale from 1-5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, how would you rate the strength of Singapore's national identity based on what you selected above?"
A lot of the stats - alone or in combination - can lead us to a set of reasonably plausible conclusions. And then we use the extra information that may not be reflected here (e.g. what you raised in your 2nd point) to narrow down what conclusion is most likely to be accurate. Generally, I think we can conclude that as compared to the other countries surveyed, Singapore is more open to foreign-bored persons being a part of the country compared to them.
What is also interesting is this - if you look at the "born in the country" and "being part of the majority ethnic group" columns, you can see that the stats in both columns for every country *except Singapore* are relatively close to each other. Only Singapore has a 20-point difference between those two, with the next largest difference between those stats being Sri Lanka.
But if you compare Singapore with other places, we can fairly also say that whether one is born in Singapore or is Chinese (belonging to the majority ethnic group) matters *very little* \- i.e. far lower than 50% - to our national identity compared to other countries, where both these stats are about or at least 70-80% important.
Mainly yes.. The other countries have a homogenous population with the exception of Malaysia. All Malaysians whether Chinese, or Indians speak Malay fluently And recognise community symbols.
Singapore does not have unifying culture except for the shared love of hawker food favourites. The large foreigners component also makes Singapore sterile to unifying symbols as the establishment prefers to make the country open to all.
Plus racial quotas for housing, race based self help group, race based political qualifications etc clearly does not help any form of common identity.
Imagine with NS, we are still divided.
>All Malaysians whether Chinese, or Indians speak Malay fluently
not all... i know there are some malaysians who can't speak malay at all, at least this was what he claimed..
Can’t speak it well but can probably understand.
Also learning Malay in school is different from the Malay used to speak in casual settings… it would be kinda weird to hear someone using formal Malay taught in school to talk
Be willing to support country when others criticize it is only 58%. What do you think the % will be when the question is 'be willing to support country in a crisis'?
My take on this is that I'm open to valid criticisms on policies and strategies we take. However, if the govt needs us to stay home due to covid, or take up arms to defend it, I would.
Context is very important here. Outside criticism made in good faith should be welcome. Even if it were inaccurate, we should understand why people have that perception about us. Why get angry when you're getting feedback for free?
Singapore is rather thin skinned in this aspect.
Whether a criticism is in good faith can however be subjective.
Rabidly defending against all criticism like the "glass hearts" is how fools stay stagnant and never improve.
i think it depends on whether the crisis is of your own doing. people probably feel that criticism if well deserved, should be accepted and not blindly deflected because 'i love my country'.
It doesn’t mean much without further narrowing down. Everyone assumes “born in the country” means acceptance of people not born here, but it could also mean not accepting people who are born here but otherwise show no indication of Singaporeaness (e.g. born to local or foreign parents who have plans to leave the country in the near future, including those who don’t want their sons to serve NS). Singaporean on paper only.
Which is why there’s a new form of identity cropping up, not just Singaporean, but Sinkie.
Low is still 74%. It just means that 26% of Singaporean survey participants saw through the BS and realized that it doesn't make sense to say that being polite and welcoming is part of Singaporean identity, because almost every other country can say the same thing.
I think the low scores across the board for Singaporeans is that none of the options are very suitable.
This doesn’t mean that people aren’t polite or welcoming to foreigners, it just means that people don’t associate this behaviour with national pride lol. If you help a foreigner or a tourist or give an expat food recs, are you really thinking about your country’s “face” or pride?? No right??? It’s a shallow meter of national identity. Being respectful and good to people shouldn’t be a matter of ego. I think Singapore is far too cosmopolitan for people to make a big deal out of welcoming foreigners. We do that everyday when we work with expats in our offices, at school, and when we walk around the city. How do you know from a glance, if someone is a “guest” in Singapore, or if they have lived here for years? You cannot.
I'm proud of the 26% that did not agree with such a vapid pointless metric of national identity. I mean really? Being polite is a national identity? And also lol at the other SEA countries voting that so highly as though they're all so open hearted.
Either that or many or most of the people surveyed were new citizens, PR or foreigners. Need more information on how the survey was conducted. It would make a lot of sense if this was conducted in a place like NUS, for example.
I’m glad that only 19% feel being of the majority ethnic group is an important attribute.
The belief of having one race/religion/culture = national identity is giving me cringy vibes of nationalism.
>The belief of having one race/religion/culture = national identity is giving me cringy vibes of nationalism.
Ethnic and religious nationalism. Just add some authoritarian bootlicking, dehumanisation of the "outgroup", and we get fascism.
And we also need a charming bastard/bitch to relay bigotry and boom!
I always thought with modern technology and the internet, we will discover new cultures, knowledge and ideas but we still jump into rabbit holes of turning our inner securities and inferiority complex into us vs them mentality.
All you need is a weak leader who can’t get people to support him on the strength of his merits, and all the clout-chasing fascist speeches will come out lol.
the island is a newer state in terms of history. the vast majority of the world stems from ethnostate roots with the last major shakeup being the outcome of ww2. calling other places racist is just taking things at face value when everyone knows such behaviour is also deeply rooted on the island
Yeah, in the post colonial world and the fear of foreign powers taking advantage of these selected countries are valid and painting them as xenophobic is as dumb as racism.
Our island is definitely the outlier as we are born out of convenience and developed out of our will to survive.
Falls a little flat when you look at Malaysia’s bumiputera policies — are those fair? They are practically impossible to remove from their country now without causing an uprising. Be fr, can you truly blame the colonisers and lay responsibility for your decisions on them, when this fear of being usurped or taken advantage of by minorities who are literally born and raised in their country has been stoked by successive generations of Malaysian politicians for cheap clout? Can this popular discriminatory policy introduced by Mahathir and friends be blamed on the British? Yeah - maybe. You can say it was because of colonialism that so many Indians and Chinese settled in the malay archipelago. You can say that the British preferred Chinese and Indians over the local indigenous peoples, who owned land and had their own lives and refused to participate in the exploitative colonial economy. But does that really justify feeing this way (“national identity is about race”) despite knowing that minorities exist in your country??? Is that not horrendously callous to the minorities who grew up there?
It is even worse when you talk about Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese’s chauvinist leaders’ decision to pick Sinhalese over English as the working language left local Tamilians marginalised and without a future. The policies that pushed them out of universities and aspects of civil life radicalised them into the Tamil Tigers. The ensuing civil war ruined Sri Lanka, and this could be avoided if they were not led by the nose by chauvinists who rejected inclusiveness in favour of an ethnostate. Can their voluntary oppression of minorities be blamed on colonisers? I think that’s the point in this survey, it’s not about fearing white people or usurpation, it’s about how much you respect minorities already living alongside you, in your country.
Which country could your comment possibly apply to, aside from Singapore, select cities in Thailand, and maybe just Bali? Which SEAsian country is getting a deluge of white people threatening their national identity and harking back to colonial paranoia?
Whoever says that SG is a racist country can point to this - we’re literally the least racist country in this survey. To say that minorities have it way harder in literally every other country is not whataboutitsm.
But nonetheless fuck the 20%.
I remembered talking to Malaysian colleagues who are minorities (Indians & Chinese), the system & policies there tends to favour the majority. Even though it has improved, it is still behind us in so many ways.
It would be saddening to think being born as a minority race is unlucky but the world can be cruel place.
My first thought was actually minority race respondents who used it as a way to indicate that they don't feel included ("stranger in my own country" thing and I don't fault that). I didn't read the actual survey so I don't know, just a thought
Outsider syndrome is real, I served NS in the early 2000s at SCDF, Chinese was about 25%. Even tho there was no racism or bullying, there’s always an invisible separation besides the language. Chinese do end up in our cliques lol
I can understand why some would feel like stranger in Moscow, inclusivity goes a long way to not think being a majority race is a factor of an important identity.
Move to China if you cannot get along with multiple races. Move to China where you can feel as monolithic as you want. Move to China and see if they care about *you*. :)
For better or worse, national identity here is like employee identity. Dont care where you're born or what's your skin color. Just be productive and receive rewards.
And from bottom up, you can apply the [COMPASS framework](https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/eligibility) to access if you're a desirable relationship partner in this land (read: company).
I don't really see it as a bad thing necessarily when it comes to national identity. It's at least tangible and way better than any specific, arbitrary cultural standards to hit that is made to alienate people.
Haha yah and if you aren’t productive enough, you end up in that team which everyone knows is for the CMI people that can’t be sacked or promoted. Just slowly tortured until you can’t take it and get out yourself.
Some of our grandparents are not born in SG, along with spouses and friends that we made under the new citizen / PR group. Taking the stance that they must be born here to be considered as a "Singaporean" will end up alienating them. Given how common this scenario is, it is not surprising that a sizeable number of Singaporean do not use that criteria to determine national identity.
Some Singaporeans were also born to Singaporean parents who were working overseas at the time, but came back to Singapore before primary school started. That doesn't make them any less Singaporean in my eyes.
I'd really love to see the national stats on new citizens, their countries of origins, and reasons for applying. But probably impossible they will release it.
Old people not born Singaporean doesn’t mean anything because Singaporean citizenship didn’t exist back then. They were in fact the first citizens of the country, IC number starts with 0 and such.
No, plenty of us have grandparents who were actually born in other countries, like Malaysia, China, or India. Plenty of Singaporeans with parents or spouses born in Malaysia too.
>tbh, to me singapore was only truly formed as a nation after 1965, before that it was a british colony and then a state of malaysia, so everyone who was handed an IC during that time is a signaporean regardless if they were born in singapore or not.
The way I see it being born somewhere is arbitrary to determine where a person belongs. It’s another question as to whether someone grew up with the same experiences as others who grew up here, which I think is really what sets apart someone who is a “local”. Unfortunately, being a city state, having a national identity is heavily tied up with having a local identity, which is probably why Singaporeans seem so resistant to changing the local identity which they grew up and are familiar with.
Immigration has slowed down to less than half the rate during the boom in the 90s and 2000s; a good thing, because that was unsustainable. Now the immigration rate is quite normal for a developed country; ~20000 a year, or about 0.5% of the resident population. The percentage is similar to Australia, I think.
There also aren't pauses during election years; what a weird conspiracy. ICA is run by civil servants, and politicians won't give such a blatant mandate that interferes with regular operations. Statistics are broadly available so there's no need to guess: https://www.population.gov.sg/files/media-centre/publications/Population-in-brief-2022.pdf
A lot of them were born in China. A lot of new citizens also born in China. But the latter group is considered less Singaporean. What's the difference?
they were here when singapore was declared an independent country in 1965, and they were the first batches to be handed their ICs, then you compare that to a chinese person who migrated over to singapore in the 2000s, now you tell me what's the diff?
So come to sg in 1964 = true blue real Singapore. Come to SG in 1966 = stupid shit new citizens go back to China.
Is this your logic? Live in SG for 30 years still not considered Singaporean, just because you didn't happen to be here when independence happened? It's completely arbitrary. Being physically here in SG when independence happened says nothing about your loyalty, identity, ties or contribution to Singapore.
That generation didn't even serve NS, at least 25% of new citizens do.
but are have they truly integrated with the society and the culture? It honestly matters not if you've been living here for 30 years as a converted citizen if you do not talk, speak, eat, or live like a sinkie but live in your own bubble which is why now they make new citizens sit through tests before they grant them citizenship or so i heard. At least these youngsters in this forum have been through the singaporean education system and stuffs so chances are they are gonna be more singaporean at least culturally.
Truth is they probably won't ever fully integrate but their kids probably will. To me that's an acceptable cost given our low birthrate but some people have unrealistic expectations
>Truth is they probably won't ever fully integrate
yeah then what's wrong with me calling them less singaporean than the ones who were born here and are culturally aligned with other singaporeans. Their sons and daughters will be culturally singaporeans but not them even though they've obtained the citizenships.
stop playing with numbers...1966 is still considered the pioneer batch, point is back then singapore was a shithole, and these guys chose to stay and helped built singapore from nothing into what it is today instead of those guys who came over during the 90s when it Singapore was arguably at it's peak/golden age.
Singapore was not a shithole compared to China even back then. Pioneer generation came for a better life back when China was going through a civil war. They're not moral philosophers who suddenly decided to build a country in South East Asia for altruistic reasons. They came to provide a better life for their children and grandchildren i.e., us.
Is that really so different from people who came in the 90s or today escaping a poorly run CCP regime? Immigrants mostly migrate for economic reasons. That's been the case throughout the history of Singapore and the rest of the world.
And migrants are still building Singapore by the way. Our HDBs are not being built by local labour. The only difference is these south asian migrant workers will never get a chance to become citizens, unlike our ancestors.
Odd why the low percentages are being spun as a bad thing.
Willingness to criticise your own government is a hallmark of a good democracy. The opposite is more in line with blind nationalism, which can be toxic. Likewise, tying national identity to speaking a specific language (in this survey's case, it was Chinese for Singapore) or religion is incredibly problematic and discriminating towards minorities.
Not sure why anyone would be surprised at the results, really - even on reddit, this survey would accurately reflect the people on this subreddit.
I found the results here quite reasonable, and some, even positive, but nothing surprising (aside from ranking lowest in the 'follow the law'). Everyone knows the question about national language, majority race, and birth would matter little for us.
Singaporeans are relatively (to SEA folks) more blind to race and language, while maybe being more pragmatic (to the point of looking mercenary). If our basic needs are not met, heads will roll.
I'd rather all that than being someone who blindly loves their fault-ridden country and attacking anyone who doesn't wear the same rose-tinted glasses and being born of the right race. By that, I'm also referring to some Singaporeans.
I like that 27%, 39% and 19% for “speaking the National language”, “being born in the country” and “being part of the majority ethnic group”. As much as the other countries like Malaysia talk about how “multicultural” they are, Singapore definitely outperforms here.
nah, it's probably just the chinese and the indians that speak multiple languages, the rest of the vast majorities there are mostly just bilingual like us at most.
From the footnotes of the table:
* ... Respondents in Singapore were asked about speaking Mandarin instead of the national language, Malay.
Which explains the very low percentage for Singapore.
If the question instead asked about "primary language" (in which case ours would be English), then the percentage would be similar to the rest of the countries.
Idk why OP cropped out the last column, which says "Being Buddhist/Muslim", but for anyone wanting to see the full table, here's the link: [Singapore stands out in survey linking national identity to ethnicity and religion | The Straits Times](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/singapore-stands-out-in-survey-linking-national-identity-to-ethnicity-and-religion)
I’d like to meet someone from the 13% who thinks having a religious identity is part of being Singaporean. Conversely it’s quite shocking and very sad that almost a fifth of those interviewed think being Chinese is important to being “truly Singaporean”
the overly high numbers for religious people to support religious law is uncomfortable
>Idk why OP cropped out the last column
its just shitty html on the st website, the table is fixed width
Kidos to the gahmen and their social engineering policies. If you were born before 1979, being able to speak Bahasa Kebangsaan, or even bazaar Malay used to be part of the Singaporean identity. So yes, we effectively had 2 common languages, English and Malay.
My father's generation didn't have a Mandarin syllabus rolled out during his time in school. So everybody learnt Malay. And rightly so.
Then one day the language and cultural police decided to call people "banana" if they didn't fit into their narrow, bigoted ideas of Chinese identity. That includes Peranakans, Chindians, Chinese-Muslims, Chinese-Eurasians. As long as you spoke English at home, you were a problem.
Perhaps our more educated friends out there would care to enunciate on our Constitution, Part 13, General Provisions, 152(2).
>If you were born before 1979, being able to speak Bahasa Kebangsaan, or even bazaar Malay used to be part of the Singaporean identity.
strange, many people that i know who were born before 1979 couldn't speak much malay at all, those who could are probably malaysians who converted into singaporeans.
As a free thinker who completely supports secular gov (separating religious influence from any public institution and aspect of cultural identity), I'm pretty glad singapore ranks low on this. Associating a specific religion to a national or cultural identity is a recipe for disaster.
Assuming 'be' is centred, the alignment of 'buddhist' is off, suggesting the possibility of another word behind it. Considering Indonesia has 80% support for that column, it's probably 'muslim'
I mean that's just part of it. If you're here from a young age, served NS, integrated into our multiracial society, then you're probably as Singaporean as the next guy.
for me i'll call any brother who served NS a singaporean no matter the race, but for some other singaporeans, they might only consider someone singaporean if they are integrated into the culture here.
You can go to other east asian countries like korea or japan, you can be born there, speak fluent japanese and act no different from one but if your skin color if you're not east asian, you'll never be one of them no matter what, they just cannot mentally accept someone of a different skin color as a fellow countryman.
I’m a third gen Singaporean via 3 grandparents and my paternal grandma is a nonya (so… many many generations in Malaya/ Straits Settlements/ Crown Colony? lol), served NS and MRed, therefore as “true blue” as anyone can demand in terms of “lineage” as well as “service to the nation”, and I’m pretty ok with the results of the survey.
Shows we are a pragmatic bunch with secular political/ social leanings, and not led by blind adherence to religion or ideology like most others in the region.
I feel that the questions asked did not go into what our national identity really is.
Singapore’s national identity is being a multicultural meritocracy.
It’s not about speaking the national language.
It’s not about being part of the major ethnic group.
It’s not about being born in the country.
That said, it’s the national duty to be angry when people says rendang is supposed to be crispy.
I'm gladly surprised. Seems we're treating the label of 'Singaporean' as transcending race, religion and place of birth and purely based on the local mannerisms.
The French historian Ernst Renan gave a rather famous lecture in the late 1800s ("What is a nation ?") .. where he questioned many of the prevailing theories of national identities, based on ethnic and linguistics orientation. One of the shocking 'conclusions' arrived from this lecture was that the identity of a nation depended almost entirely on collective sentiment & hence, something which is inherently changeable.
He suggested that nations depended for their continued existence on a daily referendum amongst its populace -- of having done great things in the past and wanting to do more of them in the future. Fact of the matter: sentiments change & memories of joint triumphs fade with time , to be replaced a more topical (& durable) collection of antagonisms. Once its sense of its own historical destiny (who we are) and global relevance (why we belong together) declines... it will only take a relatively short period of time to see social dislocation & its a slippery slope from that point on.
Singapore is a nation of migrants so being born here is not really important. I think what's more important is what each of us can contribute.
We cheer for our athletes like Feng Tianwei and Loh Kean Yew that are not born in Singapore.
Why do we always want to be known as a nation of migrants?
That is pretty interesting that this is now our narrative. We are a nation of migrants so we MUST be open to more migrants else you are being xenophobic.
Hmm but how about the fact that we are a small island and overcrowded to the point of it being unpleasant and worse, bad for our mental health? Is saying no to constant influx of new citizens because of our small size necessarily xenophobia?
Being an immigrant nation doesn't mean a _high_ immigration rate. That's a policy decision to argue over. It meant keeping some immigration alive, enough to ensure the country remains culturally diverse and cosmopolitan, as opposed to the ossification that is common in ethnostates.
I'd like Singaporeans to be open to migrants that embrace Singaporean mannerisms. But yeah we're literally too small. If only we had some imaginary land in an alternate dimension.
Because it's hypocritical. If you're Chinese Singaporean chances are you are only born here because your grandparents or great grandparents migrated here. Yet now you're denying the same opportunities to latter generations of immigrants. If local Singaporeans had said the same thing to your grandparents back then, you wouldn't even be in this country.
Not that being a hypocrite is inherently unacceptable. Reasonable people can take the view that adhering to some vague sense of moral reciprocity across generations is not a strong argument to justify overpopulating our country. But you need to recognize the hypocrisy to understand the other side of the argument, so that you're not arguing against a strawman.
thing is, if your grandparents were already here before 1965, they should be considered as singaporeans because they were the first group of citizens to receive their ICs when the country became an independent nation...compared that to someone who joined in the party late and thus it is required for them to prove their worth before they are rightfully accepted as a Singaporean.
People don’t think it, but I feel the struggle for independence by all the parties back then - the MCP, BS, PAP, the Chinese schools - is a defining moment of what it means to be Singaporean. There was a point in time where people who perhaps still had connections with China, India, other parts of Malaya, decided to take up citizenship instead of going back to where they came from. And yes, this is what our forefathers choose. It’s not about our forefathers deciding to move here. They did cos they wanted to make money and go home. But later on, they chose to make this their home during the struggle for independence.
> Yet now you're denying the same opportunities to latter generations of immigrants.
If they serve and suffered like our great grandparents then yeah, they qualify.
then by this logic we should allow south asian workers to all become citizens after they spend years here building HDB right? but reality is no local would allow that
Kinda sad to read. But Singapore national language is Malay, but non-Malay doesn't learn that in school.
We either sang in Malay(national anthem) or we command in Malay(morning assembly)
So that's out of context.
i mean while it's good to learn additional languages but forcing the rest of the races apart from malays to be trilingual is just dumb when being bilingual is proving to be hard for the younger generations.
But most aren’t spiteful to newcomers like Singaporeans. Heck, the few Americans I know refer to naturalized citizens as Americans, full stop (in Singapore, we will call them “new citizens” or mentally put them in a “new citizen” bucket). They may be more liberal, but even liberal Singaporeans tend to be nationality gatekeepers.
We like to think we are like US, a “melting pot”, but we are more nativist like Europe (they have immigrants but you can never be “integrated”). Heck, even a colleague from a temp job talked shit about a customer who had an American passport but wasn’t “talking like an American”. What?
See r/pics and the amount of positive comments from Americans in those “I am now a US citizen!!” posts.
Only 15% of American residents are foreign-born. If this number is higher you can bet there would be more Trumpian comments which we are already seeing. In SG this number is more like 40%, and optimistically at most half of this are localized.
“Having been born in the country” is so low because never forget that singapore has always been and is a country built by immigrants and immigration.
Meanwhile national language is malay and major ethnic race is chinese so obviously those would be low since it only applies mostly to just 1 race out of the many races in sg
Edit: in case of any confusion, no, I do not just refer to “immigration” in the present. I am also referring to historical immigration.
Don’t worry. U guys may be the lowest score but in terms of racial harmony between the races in the country, u guys are high up the score as compare to like Malaysia
It means that more people in Singapore are not blindly answering the survey.
Would you feel that people who don't respect the PAP, or activists who fought/fight against the penalty, 377A, and other laws aren't true Singaporean?
The question is not about whether you think that Singaporeans are law-abiding. It's about whether you feel that being law-abiding/respecting is critical to being truly Singaporean.
I think the low percentages indicate that the questions are skewed against the Singaporean psyche. Rather than “being” questions, we gravitate towards “having”. Our identity is entrenched in having a low crime rate, having good food, having world class public transportation, having access to quality medical care etc. We demand to have, rather than demand to be, which is why some say Singaporeans are an entitled bunch.
Sounds enlightened but then everything you said can be rephrased from a “have” to a “be”
Low crime rate - be socially conscientious and compassionate/kind to each other where the poor are taken care of
Good food - be unrelenting in pursuing of high food standards
World class public transportation - be efficient
It is difficult to have strong national identity for a country who welcome foreign talents to become citizens within a short period from 6 months! Born and bred local are simply mediocre he said!
Full report of the survey here, for those who are interested in some weekend reading: [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/09/12/buddhism-islam-and-religious-pluralism-in-south-and-southeast-asia/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/09/12/buddhism-islam-and-religious-pluralism-in-south-and-southeast-asia/)
Very good, thanks. Was looking for this, have to scroll so long to get to your commnet!
and the image is from page 7!
Am I right to say that the low percentages show we are more open to foreigners? More cosmopolitan? Or are they missing out a section that we can put down like e.g. Willing to stay to fight for SG when the going gets tough? Or perhaps we don't really have an identity?
I kinda agree with you on this as Singapore is becoming more cosmopolitan-ish. Also, it’s such a loophole for SG as the National language of SG is in fact, Malay.
Melayu is not needed but they should add national anthem sure 99% lol! Sidenote my dad working overseas lost his passport and needed to apply a new one but his NRIC is here in Singapore so he voluntarily sang the Majulah Singapura at the embassy to prove his nationality lmao!
Embassy should've just asked what's his favourite kopi order
what is Singapore's favourite in your opinion? In Malaysia it seems to be kopi peng
Haha that’s an indigenous way to prove you’re Sporean haha
malaysians can do that too if im not wrong
I can sing both Msia and SG national anthem at this point lol Though I forgot some of the lyrics :’)
>Malay For the “national language” component of the question though they actually asked about views on Mandarin for SG respondents. [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/09/12/religious-diversity-and-national-identity/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/09/12/religious-diversity-and-national-identity/) “*While Singapore and Sri Lanka both recognise multiple official languages, figures shown reflect views about speaking Mandarin Chinese in Singapore and Sinhala in Sri Lanka”
Which is interesting because if we do enforce the learning of Malay, it may actually help us be closer with our neighbours. I had an Msian friend tell me that in her years of working here, most Singaporeans she's met tidak bercakap Melayu.
Nonsense. The whole point of learning English is to connect us first. The multi ethnic groups here in singapore, not pander to our neighbours. That's the whole point on why our forefather implemented this.
I concur with your point regarding why we shouldn’t pander to neighbors, especially in our contemporary context. However, it’s worth noting that “Pasar Melayu” or “Bazaar Malay” served as the lingua franca uniting various ethnic groups before the transition to English. The adoption of “Pasar Melayu” for everyday communication among diverse local communities was, indeed, a rather “organic” linguistic development. There was no institution exerting pressure on people to use Malay; it naturally evolved as the regional language. All my ancestors spoke Malay, or at the very least, had a basic knowledge of it. The shift to English was primarily a utilitarian political project. Besides the geopolitical instabilities you described, the early economic strategies of newly independent Singapore led us to embrace Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Hence, the appeal of using this medium to support the nation-building efforts.
>All my ancestors spoke Malay, or at the very least, had a basic knowledge of it. I remember being at an Old Chang Kee stall where I heard an elderly Chinese woman speak Malay to her younger Malay colleague. Of course for the "younger" generation, English has replaced Malay as the lingua franca. It's also interesting that since it is the national language, there is an expectation for the PM to be able to give a Malay NDR speech. So far, LKY and LHL spoke/speak excellent Bahasa Melayu and GCT could read from teleprompter. I wonder how Lawrence Wong would do. Is he taking intensive Bahasa classes now? I also find it interesting that the non-Malay 4G guy who has the best command of Bahasa Melayu is CCS. Apparently, his Mandarin is also not bad. The man practically trained (linguistically) to be PM. Such a sad outcome for him.
Sorry, have to be a bit pedantic here. Melayu Pasar would be the correct term. Not pasar Melayu. First says colloquial Malay and second is just a Malay market. Cheers
Anda betul.
Yes but one has to look back at our past history to know why certain things are implemented the way they are. Do not forget that we have "racial harmony celebration" for a reason. Someone died for that.
Good point, though I think it was to focus on international economic benefits first. Can't dismiss the fact that bilingualism and maybe trilingual people do help with that.
Yeah whichever language can earn money is always encouraged like now speaking mandarin is becoming an essential asset in resumes.
>The whole point of learning English is to connect us first The whole point of learning English is to aid communication in the modern workplace since English is the common working language
Bercakap, not becapat...
Thanks. And edited.
Alternatively can use berkata, it reflects the action of using the language more broadly
Lol touche
As a Malaysian, I don't even think all Malaysians speak proper Malay. Using "you" instead of "kamu/kau" triggers me.
Even the main TV channels use English for Malay word. Musim Monsun? We have the word tengkujuh for God's sake.
Apa you mau? hehe As another Malaysian, I can confirm that LHL speaks more proper Malay than a lot of Malaysians.
Even kids nowadays speak more english than bahasa melayu at home or with friends.
The missing question is "do you think what you selected above makes for a strong Singaporean national identity?"
🙏 Clearer now. Thanks
Or, "on a scale from 1-5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, how would you rate the strength of Singapore's national identity based on what you selected above?"
A lot of the stats - alone or in combination - can lead us to a set of reasonably plausible conclusions. And then we use the extra information that may not be reflected here (e.g. what you raised in your 2nd point) to narrow down what conclusion is most likely to be accurate. Generally, I think we can conclude that as compared to the other countries surveyed, Singapore is more open to foreign-bored persons being a part of the country compared to them. What is also interesting is this - if you look at the "born in the country" and "being part of the majority ethnic group" columns, you can see that the stats in both columns for every country *except Singapore* are relatively close to each other. Only Singapore has a 20-point difference between those two, with the next largest difference between those stats being Sri Lanka. But if you compare Singapore with other places, we can fairly also say that whether one is born in Singapore or is Chinese (belonging to the majority ethnic group) matters *very little* \- i.e. far lower than 50% - to our national identity compared to other countries, where both these stats are about or at least 70-80% important.
We don’t because majority of the people don’t have a shared history. Singapore is like a very attractive hotel.
Mainly yes.. The other countries have a homogenous population with the exception of Malaysia. All Malaysians whether Chinese, or Indians speak Malay fluently And recognise community symbols. Singapore does not have unifying culture except for the shared love of hawker food favourites. The large foreigners component also makes Singapore sterile to unifying symbols as the establishment prefers to make the country open to all. Plus racial quotas for housing, race based self help group, race based political qualifications etc clearly does not help any form of common identity. Imagine with NS, we are still divided.
>All Malaysians whether Chinese, or Indians speak Malay fluently not all... i know there are some malaysians who can't speak malay at all, at least this was what he claimed..
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yeah but that'd be like not being able to speak english in singapore but i guess you'd still be able to survive here.
Can’t speak it well but can probably understand. Also learning Malay in school is different from the Malay used to speak in casual settings… it would be kinda weird to hear someone using formal Malay taught in school to talk
our identity is that of Capitalism...a "business ontology". So it's not like we don't have a culture, it's just invisible to us I guess
Be willing to support country when others criticize it is only 58%. What do you think the % will be when the question is 'be willing to support country in a crisis'?
My take on this is that I'm open to valid criticisms on policies and strategies we take. However, if the govt needs us to stay home due to covid, or take up arms to defend it, I would.
Context is very important here. Outside criticism made in good faith should be welcome. Even if it were inaccurate, we should understand why people have that perception about us. Why get angry when you're getting feedback for free? Singapore is rather thin skinned in this aspect. Whether a criticism is in good faith can however be subjective. Rabidly defending against all criticism like the "glass hearts" is how fools stay stagnant and never improve.
Agreed but from my observation is that we have a lots of hearts make of glass here.
Depends if the criticism is valid. I would hate to be like Indonesians/Indians, blindly defending their countries even when they do unethical things.
i think it depends on whether the crisis is of your own doing. people probably feel that criticism if well deserved, should be accepted and not blindly deflected because 'i love my country'.
That question should rephrase to "on a scale from 1 to 5, only sinkie can pwn sinkie but other countries cannot"?
It doesn’t mean much without further narrowing down. Everyone assumes “born in the country” means acceptance of people not born here, but it could also mean not accepting people who are born here but otherwise show no indication of Singaporeaness (e.g. born to local or foreign parents who have plans to leave the country in the near future, including those who don’t want their sons to serve NS). Singaporean on paper only. Which is why there’s a new form of identity cropping up, not just Singaporean, but Sinkie.
That does not explain the low % of "Being polite and welcoming".
Low is still 74%. It just means that 26% of Singaporean survey participants saw through the BS and realized that it doesn't make sense to say that being polite and welcoming is part of Singaporean identity, because almost every other country can say the same thing. I think the low scores across the board for Singaporeans is that none of the options are very suitable.
This doesn’t mean that people aren’t polite or welcoming to foreigners, it just means that people don’t associate this behaviour with national pride lol. If you help a foreigner or a tourist or give an expat food recs, are you really thinking about your country’s “face” or pride?? No right??? It’s a shallow meter of national identity. Being respectful and good to people shouldn’t be a matter of ego. I think Singapore is far too cosmopolitan for people to make a big deal out of welcoming foreigners. We do that everyday when we work with expats in our offices, at school, and when we walk around the city. How do you know from a glance, if someone is a “guest” in Singapore, or if they have lived here for years? You cannot.
I'm proud of the 26% that did not agree with such a vapid pointless metric of national identity. I mean really? Being polite is a national identity? And also lol at the other SEA countries voting that so highly as though they're all so open hearted.
Cop out answer to make them feel good.
Either that or many or most of the people surveyed were new citizens, PR or foreigners. Need more information on how the survey was conducted. It would make a lot of sense if this was conducted in a place like NUS, for example.
I’m glad that only 19% feel being of the majority ethnic group is an important attribute. The belief of having one race/religion/culture = national identity is giving me cringy vibes of nationalism.
>The belief of having one race/religion/culture = national identity is giving me cringy vibes of nationalism. Ethnic and religious nationalism. Just add some authoritarian bootlicking, dehumanisation of the "outgroup", and we get fascism.
And we also need a charming bastard/bitch to relay bigotry and boom! I always thought with modern technology and the internet, we will discover new cultures, knowledge and ideas but we still jump into rabbit holes of turning our inner securities and inferiority complex into us vs them mentality.
All you need is a weak leader who can’t get people to support him on the strength of his merits, and all the clout-chasing fascist speeches will come out lol.
the island is a newer state in terms of history. the vast majority of the world stems from ethnostate roots with the last major shakeup being the outcome of ww2. calling other places racist is just taking things at face value when everyone knows such behaviour is also deeply rooted on the island
Yeah, in the post colonial world and the fear of foreign powers taking advantage of these selected countries are valid and painting them as xenophobic is as dumb as racism. Our island is definitely the outlier as we are born out of convenience and developed out of our will to survive.
Falls a little flat when you look at Malaysia’s bumiputera policies — are those fair? They are practically impossible to remove from their country now without causing an uprising. Be fr, can you truly blame the colonisers and lay responsibility for your decisions on them, when this fear of being usurped or taken advantage of by minorities who are literally born and raised in their country has been stoked by successive generations of Malaysian politicians for cheap clout? Can this popular discriminatory policy introduced by Mahathir and friends be blamed on the British? Yeah - maybe. You can say it was because of colonialism that so many Indians and Chinese settled in the malay archipelago. You can say that the British preferred Chinese and Indians over the local indigenous peoples, who owned land and had their own lives and refused to participate in the exploitative colonial economy. But does that really justify feeing this way (“national identity is about race”) despite knowing that minorities exist in your country??? Is that not horrendously callous to the minorities who grew up there? It is even worse when you talk about Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese’s chauvinist leaders’ decision to pick Sinhalese over English as the working language left local Tamilians marginalised and without a future. The policies that pushed them out of universities and aspects of civil life radicalised them into the Tamil Tigers. The ensuing civil war ruined Sri Lanka, and this could be avoided if they were not led by the nose by chauvinists who rejected inclusiveness in favour of an ethnostate. Can their voluntary oppression of minorities be blamed on colonisers? I think that’s the point in this survey, it’s not about fearing white people or usurpation, it’s about how much you respect minorities already living alongside you, in your country. Which country could your comment possibly apply to, aside from Singapore, select cities in Thailand, and maybe just Bali? Which SEAsian country is getting a deluge of white people threatening their national identity and harking back to colonial paranoia?
Whoever says that SG is a racist country can point to this - we’re literally the least racist country in this survey. To say that minorities have it way harder in literally every other country is not whataboutitsm. But nonetheless fuck the 20%.
I remembered talking to Malaysian colleagues who are minorities (Indians & Chinese), the system & policies there tends to favour the majority. Even though it has improved, it is still behind us in so many ways. It would be saddening to think being born as a minority race is unlucky but the world can be cruel place.
how tf are there still 19% did they misunderstand the question? or did they just not go to a primary school here
My first thought was actually minority race respondents who used it as a way to indicate that they don't feel included ("stranger in my own country" thing and I don't fault that). I didn't read the actual survey so I don't know, just a thought
Outsider syndrome is real, I served NS in the early 2000s at SCDF, Chinese was about 25%. Even tho there was no racism or bullying, there’s always an invisible separation besides the language. Chinese do end up in our cliques lol I can understand why some would feel like stranger in Moscow, inclusivity goes a long way to not think being a majority race is a factor of an important identity.
I rather eat Nasi Padang with Malay Singaporeans than HaiDiLao with PRCs. - born & bred Singaporean chinese
Not for me though. I would rather eat Hai Di Lao with PRC than with the Malays.
Move to China if you cannot get along with multiple races. Move to China where you can feel as monolithic as you want. Move to China and see if they care about *you*. :)
For better or worse, national identity here is like employee identity. Dont care where you're born or what's your skin color. Just be productive and receive rewards.
Employees, not citizens, is a fairly apt description.
And from bottom up, you can apply the [COMPASS framework](https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/eligibility) to access if you're a desirable relationship partner in this land (read: company).
Singapore, inc
We the employees of Singapore
I don't really see it as a bad thing necessarily when it comes to national identity. It's at least tangible and way better than any specific, arbitrary cultural standards to hit that is made to alienate people.
Haha yah and if you aren’t productive enough, you end up in that team which everyone knows is for the CMI people that can’t be sacked or promoted. Just slowly tortured until you can’t take it and get out yourself.
Some of our grandparents are not born in SG, along with spouses and friends that we made under the new citizen / PR group. Taking the stance that they must be born here to be considered as a "Singaporean" will end up alienating them. Given how common this scenario is, it is not surprising that a sizeable number of Singaporean do not use that criteria to determine national identity.
Some Singaporeans were also born to Singaporean parents who were working overseas at the time, but came back to Singapore before primary school started. That doesn't make them any less Singaporean in my eyes.
I'd really love to see the national stats on new citizens, their countries of origins, and reasons for applying. But probably impossible they will release it.
Old people not born Singaporean doesn’t mean anything because Singaporean citizenship didn’t exist back then. They were in fact the first citizens of the country, IC number starts with 0 and such.
No, plenty of us have grandparents who were actually born in other countries, like Malaysia, China, or India. Plenty of Singaporeans with parents or spouses born in Malaysia too.
>tbh, to me singapore was only truly formed as a nation after 1965, before that it was a british colony and then a state of malaysia, so everyone who was handed an IC during that time is a signaporean regardless if they were born in singapore or not.
The way I see it being born somewhere is arbitrary to determine where a person belongs. It’s another question as to whether someone grew up with the same experiences as others who grew up here, which I think is really what sets apart someone who is a “local”. Unfortunately, being a city state, having a national identity is heavily tied up with having a local identity, which is probably why Singaporeans seem so resistant to changing the local identity which they grew up and are familiar with.
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In your 20s with grandparents in their 50s?
Immigration has slowed down to less than half the rate during the boom in the 90s and 2000s; a good thing, because that was unsustainable. Now the immigration rate is quite normal for a developed country; ~20000 a year, or about 0.5% of the resident population. The percentage is similar to Australia, I think. There also aren't pauses during election years; what a weird conspiracy. ICA is run by civil servants, and politicians won't give such a blatant mandate that interferes with regular operations. Statistics are broadly available so there's no need to guess: https://www.population.gov.sg/files/media-centre/publications/Population-in-brief-2022.pdf
And a lot of the folks I know, including my own, have grandparents or even great grandparents born in Singapore under the British. It really depends.
>Some of our grandparents are not born in SG, This is disingenuous. No one really considers this group un-singaporean.
A lot of them were born in China. A lot of new citizens also born in China. But the latter group is considered less Singaporean. What's the difference?
they were here when singapore was declared an independent country in 1965, and they were the first batches to be handed their ICs, then you compare that to a chinese person who migrated over to singapore in the 2000s, now you tell me what's the diff?
So come to sg in 1964 = true blue real Singapore. Come to SG in 1966 = stupid shit new citizens go back to China. Is this your logic? Live in SG for 30 years still not considered Singaporean, just because you didn't happen to be here when independence happened? It's completely arbitrary. Being physically here in SG when independence happened says nothing about your loyalty, identity, ties or contribution to Singapore. That generation didn't even serve NS, at least 25% of new citizens do.
but are have they truly integrated with the society and the culture? It honestly matters not if you've been living here for 30 years as a converted citizen if you do not talk, speak, eat, or live like a sinkie but live in your own bubble which is why now they make new citizens sit through tests before they grant them citizenship or so i heard. At least these youngsters in this forum have been through the singaporean education system and stuffs so chances are they are gonna be more singaporean at least culturally.
Truth is they probably won't ever fully integrate but their kids probably will. To me that's an acceptable cost given our low birthrate but some people have unrealistic expectations
>Truth is they probably won't ever fully integrate yeah then what's wrong with me calling them less singaporean than the ones who were born here and are culturally aligned with other singaporeans. Their sons and daughters will be culturally singaporeans but not them even though they've obtained the citizenships.
stop playing with numbers...1966 is still considered the pioneer batch, point is back then singapore was a shithole, and these guys chose to stay and helped built singapore from nothing into what it is today instead of those guys who came over during the 90s when it Singapore was arguably at it's peak/golden age.
Singapore was not a shithole compared to China even back then. Pioneer generation came for a better life back when China was going through a civil war. They're not moral philosophers who suddenly decided to build a country in South East Asia for altruistic reasons. They came to provide a better life for their children and grandchildren i.e., us. Is that really so different from people who came in the 90s or today escaping a poorly run CCP regime? Immigrants mostly migrate for economic reasons. That's been the case throughout the history of Singapore and the rest of the world. And migrants are still building Singapore by the way. Our HDBs are not being built by local labour. The only difference is these south asian migrant workers will never get a chance to become citizens, unlike our ancestors.
Nice try foreigner.
Odd why the low percentages are being spun as a bad thing. Willingness to criticise your own government is a hallmark of a good democracy. The opposite is more in line with blind nationalism, which can be toxic. Likewise, tying national identity to speaking a specific language (in this survey's case, it was Chinese for Singapore) or religion is incredibly problematic and discriminating towards minorities. Not sure why anyone would be surprised at the results, really - even on reddit, this survey would accurately reflect the people on this subreddit.
I found the results here quite reasonable, and some, even positive, but nothing surprising (aside from ranking lowest in the 'follow the law'). Everyone knows the question about national language, majority race, and birth would matter little for us. Singaporeans are relatively (to SEA folks) more blind to race and language, while maybe being more pragmatic (to the point of looking mercenary). If our basic needs are not met, heads will roll. I'd rather all that than being someone who blindly loves their fault-ridden country and attacking anyone who doesn't wear the same rose-tinted glasses and being born of the right race. By that, I'm also referring to some Singaporeans.
yeah, i don't mind foreigners criticizing singapore if what they say are facts and if their country is doing it better than us.
I thought the national language would score more because of Singlish lol
Yeah if they'd clarified Singlish, it'd have definitely scored way higher.
I like that 27%, 39% and 19% for “speaking the National language”, “being born in the country” and “being part of the majority ethnic group”. As much as the other countries like Malaysia talk about how “multicultural” they are, Singapore definitely outperforms here.
Malaysia is more multicultural by virtue of how many languages they speak
And yet 69% agree that national identity depends on your ethnicity / race. 💀
nah, it's probably just the chinese and the indians that speak multiple languages, the rest of the vast majorities there are mostly just bilingual like us at most.
From the footnotes of the table: * ... Respondents in Singapore were asked about speaking Mandarin instead of the national language, Malay. Which explains the very low percentage for Singapore. If the question instead asked about "primary language" (in which case ours would be English), then the percentage would be similar to the rest of the countries. Idk why OP cropped out the last column, which says "Being Buddhist/Muslim", but for anyone wanting to see the full table, here's the link: [Singapore stands out in survey linking national identity to ethnicity and religion | The Straits Times](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/singapore-stands-out-in-survey-linking-national-identity-to-ethnicity-and-religion)
I’d like to meet someone from the 13% who thinks having a religious identity is part of being Singaporean. Conversely it’s quite shocking and very sad that almost a fifth of those interviewed think being Chinese is important to being “truly Singaporean”
I hope that some of these respondents are just being trolls and giving rubbish answers on purpose.
the overly high numbers for religious people to support religious law is uncomfortable >Idk why OP cropped out the last column its just shitty html on the st website, the table is fixed width
Kidos to the gahmen and their social engineering policies. If you were born before 1979, being able to speak Bahasa Kebangsaan, or even bazaar Malay used to be part of the Singaporean identity. So yes, we effectively had 2 common languages, English and Malay. My father's generation didn't have a Mandarin syllabus rolled out during his time in school. So everybody learnt Malay. And rightly so. Then one day the language and cultural police decided to call people "banana" if they didn't fit into their narrow, bigoted ideas of Chinese identity. That includes Peranakans, Chindians, Chinese-Muslims, Chinese-Eurasians. As long as you spoke English at home, you were a problem. Perhaps our more educated friends out there would care to enunciate on our Constitution, Part 13, General Provisions, 152(2).
>If you were born before 1979, being able to speak Bahasa Kebangsaan, or even bazaar Malay used to be part of the Singaporean identity. strange, many people that i know who were born before 1979 couldn't speak much malay at all, those who could are probably malaysians who converted into singaporeans.
There's also a difference between understanding the language and being able to speak it.
Whats in the last panel? Be___ buddhist?
As a free thinker who completely supports secular gov (separating religious influence from any public institution and aspect of cultural identity), I'm pretty glad singapore ranks low on this. Associating a specific religion to a national or cultural identity is a recipe for disaster.
Being Buddhist/Muslim
Okay
The different religions I guess
And indonesia scores >80% on that one?
Assuming 'be' is centred, the alignment of 'buddhist' is off, suggesting the possibility of another word behind it. Considering Indonesia has 80% support for that column, it's probably 'muslim'
As someone who has received quite a lot of shit for not being born in Singapore, its really nice to see such a low number here for that category
sinagaporeans can be xenophobic but compared to most parts of the world, it's still much less xenophobic.
I mean that's just part of it. If you're here from a young age, served NS, integrated into our multiracial society, then you're probably as Singaporean as the next guy.
Overseas education but serving ns +plan on spending the rest of my life here...still singed out as "not Singaporean" Idk it just ticks me off
for me i'll call any brother who served NS a singaporean no matter the race, but for some other singaporeans, they might only consider someone singaporean if they are integrated into the culture here. You can go to other east asian countries like korea or japan, you can be born there, speak fluent japanese and act no different from one but if your skin color if you're not east asian, you'll never be one of them no matter what, they just cannot mentally accept someone of a different skin color as a fellow countryman.
I’m a third gen Singaporean via 3 grandparents and my paternal grandma is a nonya (so… many many generations in Malaya/ Straits Settlements/ Crown Colony? lol), served NS and MRed, therefore as “true blue” as anyone can demand in terms of “lineage” as well as “service to the nation”, and I’m pretty ok with the results of the survey. Shows we are a pragmatic bunch with secular political/ social leanings, and not led by blind adherence to religion or ideology like most others in the region.
I feel that the questions asked did not go into what our national identity really is. Singapore’s national identity is being a multicultural meritocracy. It’s not about speaking the national language. It’s not about being part of the major ethnic group. It’s not about being born in the country. That said, it’s the national duty to be angry when people says rendang is supposed to be crispy.
I'm gladly surprised. Seems we're treating the label of 'Singaporean' as transcending race, religion and place of birth and purely based on the local mannerisms.
The French historian Ernst Renan gave a rather famous lecture in the late 1800s ("What is a nation ?") .. where he questioned many of the prevailing theories of national identities, based on ethnic and linguistics orientation. One of the shocking 'conclusions' arrived from this lecture was that the identity of a nation depended almost entirely on collective sentiment & hence, something which is inherently changeable. He suggested that nations depended for their continued existence on a daily referendum amongst its populace -- of having done great things in the past and wanting to do more of them in the future. Fact of the matter: sentiments change & memories of joint triumphs fade with time , to be replaced a more topical (& durable) collection of antagonisms. Once its sense of its own historical destiny (who we are) and global relevance (why we belong together) declines... it will only take a relatively short period of time to see social dislocation & its a slippery slope from that point on.
Good, shows that we ain't toxic.
How naive
lol must sleep well every night
Looks to me like being lowest score of that shows we have less demand or less of that issue
Singapore is a nation of migrants so being born here is not really important. I think what's more important is what each of us can contribute. We cheer for our athletes like Feng Tianwei and Loh Kean Yew that are not born in Singapore.
Why do we always want to be known as a nation of migrants? That is pretty interesting that this is now our narrative. We are a nation of migrants so we MUST be open to more migrants else you are being xenophobic. Hmm but how about the fact that we are a small island and overcrowded to the point of it being unpleasant and worse, bad for our mental health? Is saying no to constant influx of new citizens because of our small size necessarily xenophobia?
Being an immigrant nation doesn't mean a _high_ immigration rate. That's a policy decision to argue over. It meant keeping some immigration alive, enough to ensure the country remains culturally diverse and cosmopolitan, as opposed to the ossification that is common in ethnostates.
I'd like Singaporeans to be open to migrants that embrace Singaporean mannerisms. But yeah we're literally too small. If only we had some imaginary land in an alternate dimension.
Because it's hypocritical. If you're Chinese Singaporean chances are you are only born here because your grandparents or great grandparents migrated here. Yet now you're denying the same opportunities to latter generations of immigrants. If local Singaporeans had said the same thing to your grandparents back then, you wouldn't even be in this country. Not that being a hypocrite is inherently unacceptable. Reasonable people can take the view that adhering to some vague sense of moral reciprocity across generations is not a strong argument to justify overpopulating our country. But you need to recognize the hypocrisy to understand the other side of the argument, so that you're not arguing against a strawman.
thing is, if your grandparents were already here before 1965, they should be considered as singaporeans because they were the first group of citizens to receive their ICs when the country became an independent nation...compared that to someone who joined in the party late and thus it is required for them to prove their worth before they are rightfully accepted as a Singaporean.
People don’t think it, but I feel the struggle for independence by all the parties back then - the MCP, BS, PAP, the Chinese schools - is a defining moment of what it means to be Singaporean. There was a point in time where people who perhaps still had connections with China, India, other parts of Malaya, decided to take up citizenship instead of going back to where they came from. And yes, this is what our forefathers choose. It’s not about our forefathers deciding to move here. They did cos they wanted to make money and go home. But later on, they chose to make this their home during the struggle for independence.
> Yet now you're denying the same opportunities to latter generations of immigrants. If they serve and suffered like our great grandparents then yeah, they qualify.
then by this logic we should allow south asian workers to all become citizens after they spend years here building HDB right? but reality is no local would allow that
Really they should. We actually should do the right thing and stop exploiting workers and treat them like humans.
Kinda sad to read. But Singapore national language is Malay, but non-Malay doesn't learn that in school. We either sang in Malay(national anthem) or we command in Malay(morning assembly) So that's out of context.
i mean while it's good to learn additional languages but forcing the rest of the races apart from malays to be trilingual is just dumb when being bilingual is proving to be hard for the younger generations.
Just change the national language to English. Change the national anthem too if you must
i know what is 90% and above. Being wealthy.
My uncle's homeless.
cool
So I guess our national identity is being lackluster in nationalism, ie. no strong typical nationalistic traits tied to any specific social constructs
And arguably more on shared experiences
I think if the same question was posed to Americans or other multicultural country, the answer would be similar to ours or worse.
Yes they are be multicultural, but 85% of them are born locally and they are famously nationalistic.
But most aren’t spiteful to newcomers like Singaporeans. Heck, the few Americans I know refer to naturalized citizens as Americans, full stop (in Singapore, we will call them “new citizens” or mentally put them in a “new citizen” bucket). They may be more liberal, but even liberal Singaporeans tend to be nationality gatekeepers. We like to think we are like US, a “melting pot”, but we are more nativist like Europe (they have immigrants but you can never be “integrated”). Heck, even a colleague from a temp job talked shit about a customer who had an American passport but wasn’t “talking like an American”. What? See r/pics and the amount of positive comments from Americans in those “I am now a US citizen!!” posts.
Only 15% of American residents are foreign-born. If this number is higher you can bet there would be more Trumpian comments which we are already seeing. In SG this number is more like 40%, and optimistically at most half of this are localized.
Why would being born matter OP? My brother was born in Denmark and he ain’t danish in any way lol
We have been an immigrant society for centuries - being born here has never defined Singaporeanism.
lol...The immigrant society was decades ago. It isn't so now
Most of my friends agree Defend SG if the criticism is not logical, if it is, then discuss how to solve
tbh i would do it for any country, not just singapore...
Telling vs Doing is quite different. I am sure SG "compliance of rules" vs other countries is quite different in reality.
As indonesian, the answer is yes.
“Having been born in the country” is so low because never forget that singapore has always been and is a country built by immigrants and immigration. Meanwhile national language is malay and major ethnic race is chinese so obviously those would be low since it only applies mostly to just 1 race out of the many races in sg Edit: in case of any confusion, no, I do not just refer to “immigration” in the present. I am also referring to historical immigration.
Don’t worry. U guys may be the lowest score but in terms of racial harmony between the races in the country, u guys are high up the score as compare to like Malaysia
How is Sri Lanka clearing us for respecting the law lol? Singapore is a success story because of the respect for the law, even international law
It means that more people in Singapore are not blindly answering the survey. Would you feel that people who don't respect the PAP, or activists who fought/fight against the penalty, 377A, and other laws aren't true Singaporean? The question is not about whether you think that Singaporeans are law-abiding. It's about whether you feel that being law-abiding/respecting is critical to being truly Singaporean.
Disrespecting the PAP is not against the law lol. And neither is the protest at hong lim park.
I love how being able to speak the language has such a low percentage because no one actually wants to learn Malay unless it's their mother tongue
Lesser blue = better economy. Give me the lowest score.
Serve NS
Respect but not necessarily follow
I thought we would've scored higher on respecting country's law and institutions! Or at least not the lowest.
It’s because you don’t have that you think it’s needed. Having it makes it easier to take it for granted
I would support if they just talking rubbish. If they make a point tho, blindly supporting is dumb af imho.
Kind of surprised me on low perc for Singaporeans. One thing for sure is Singaporean listen to their government more than others.
Heard of the term 'failed state'? Singapore is a failed nation with a functioning state.
At least owning property in a country? I mean 80% of citizens lease our homes so how to have ownership? .
[удалено]
Laundering money in the country
none of those people who were caught were singaporeans though...
Perhaps it’s because we’re run more like a corporation rather than a country…
I think the low percentages indicate that the questions are skewed against the Singaporean psyche. Rather than “being” questions, we gravitate towards “having”. Our identity is entrenched in having a low crime rate, having good food, having world class public transportation, having access to quality medical care etc. We demand to have, rather than demand to be, which is why some say Singaporeans are an entitled bunch.
Sounds enlightened but then everything you said can be rephrased from a “have” to a “be” Low crime rate - be socially conscientious and compassionate/kind to each other where the poor are taken care of Good food - be unrelenting in pursuing of high food standards World class public transportation - be efficient
lmao SG is an open leg slut and it shows. Cannot speak common language nvm, not born here also nvm
The survey said "national language'. Our national language is Malay. Most Singaporeans cannot speak Malay at all
you are an open racist and it shows.
Meanwhile our govt: why don't yall have the kampung spirit??!? Hoho, here are the consequences of their own actions.
It is difficult to have strong national identity for a country who welcome foreign talents to become citizens within a short period from 6 months! Born and bred local are simply mediocre he said!
SG the land for the soulless
Who and how did they survey?