How to reject casual racism? SM Lee Hsien Loong tells Singapore youth ahead of National Day 2024

Diverse and well-knit as it is, Singapore society still sees incidents of racism, especially casual racism, the kind that goes largely unnoticed in day-to-day interactions. Handling it requires one to strike a balance, but just how should that be done? Senior Minister and former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave some pointers to Singapore students during his session at HarmonyWorks! Conference 2024, held at the ITE College East auditorium on August 3.

Upon witnessing an instance of casual racism, SM Lee said, “we have to express disapproval, and if it is done with ill intent, we have to be quite firm to come down and put it down”. At the same time, he advised, “we should not become hypersensitive”.

To understand how casual racism works, a case that comes to mind made headlines in September 2023. A Chinese taxi driver in Singapore mistook his passenger, a woman, for an Indian — she was, in fact, Singapore Eurasian — and got into an argument with her over the road directions, when the driver found that a part of the route was blocked because of MRT works.

According to The Straits Times, the driver quickly began throwing racist insults at his passenger, first stating, “You are Indian, you are stupid”, and then, “You are India[n], I’m a Chinese… You are the very worst kind…” The woman, who was taking the ride with her young daughter, felt that the cabbie was accusing Indians of being the worst sort of customers.

Seemingly petty, such incidents can still leave one shaken. This woman, for instance, feared physical violence from the taxi driver, following his verbal abuse.

Unless stopped at the outset, casual racism could spiral out of control and adversely affect social cohesion. That would be a problem for any country, and for a small nation like Singapore, perhaps even more so.

Opening the HarmonyWorks! Session with SM Lee — under the banner of OnePeople.sg — conference organising committee chairman Sarabjeet Singh pointed out that Singapore was about to turn 59 on August 9, and that the country had “come a long way” in terms of race relations, “but there are still some concerns about the incidents of casual racism that happen from time to time”. Singh asked SM Lee if the latter thought things would improve on this front.

Lee replied, “I think it is something we have to pay attention to. We should see it in its context because the basic requirements for us to get on well together is to have harmonious racial and religious relations in Singapore at a national level and going back to very fundamental things — we are one people regardless of race, language, and religion.

“And therefore, the way we construct our society and the way we make sure that we have equality, we have meritocracy, we have fair treatment, that we respect each other, that we accommodate each other, we do all these things and in Singapore, you can expect to be respected as an individual, to be treated equally regardless of race, language, and religion. That is a starting point.”

Without this, there may be “polite” exchanges at the individual level, but the feeling of there being “a very unjust society” would prevail, said Lee.

Stating that “generally, we have got things right”, Lee, who governed Singapore for two decades, added that “at a personal level, we have to make sure that we interact with each other with respect, understanding the sensitivities, not rubbing against and causing offence to each other. And that is where the question of casual racism comes in.”

Referring to certain incidents in Singapore over the past few years, he spoke of how it happened: “…People just scolding others on the basis of race or religion, or people sometimes having a conflict and they decide to post something intemperate and make everybody agitated. Or it could be a religious matter and in the process of talking about your own faith you denigrate some other faith.”

There had to be a clear disapproval of such intemperate language, said Lee, but the response, too, had to be measured.

“If you are amongst friends and you are comfortable with each other, you are chatting, you are joking, you may say things you did not intend to offend, but it may cause offence, and you may not be conscious of it,” he said.

In such a situation, what is the right reaction from the person who feels offended?

SM Lee outlined the possible scenarios: “And how should the response be? Should [the offended person], therefore, go home and make a post and say, ‘So and so said this to me yesterday, we were in a group of three or four and I am outraged about it’, and everybody then gets outraged about it to share your anger? Or should you just stand up and say ‘Sorry, you may not intend it, but I do not think that it is nice or fun or cool and please do not do that’?”

He said that it was a better process to “get to understand each other better” and, in doing so, “avoid causing offence to one another”.

I think we need to be able to manage that, to calibrate that — and a lot of it is not book knowledge but growing up together, interacting with one another, talking about these subjects, including in OnePeople.SG’s HarmonyWorks! dialogues, and therefore, being sensitised and naturally knowing what to do.

Lee Hsien Loong, senior statesman of Singapore

As someone who has seen social mores change over decades, Lee emphasised that while being sensitive to what could offend others, it was also important not to become hypersensitive.

“Because,” he said, “if you look at what is happening in Western countries, there is a mood now where you are so careful about not doing anything which may cause offence to anybody. And sometimes they even say, ‘I am going to say something which you may be unhappy [with], so if you do not want to hear me, please leave the room before I say it.’”

Indeed, the zeal for curbing casual racism could drive one to the other extreme of walking on eggshells, always afraid of causing offence.

When things get to this point, “life becomes very tiring”, said SM Lee. “I think it is not an adult nor a mature and practical way to get on together with one another.”

The approach that should be taken is based on give and take, and getting along is based on the fundamental belief that “we are Singaporeans”.

Lee said, “I think we should take that kind of an approach. And will the problem go away? Probably never completely. But should we keep on working at it? Answer is yes, of course.”

Singapore has achieved “comfort level” in racial percentage

Following a round of conversation between SM Lee and Singh, the floor was opened to questions from students.

Ashie, from the School of the Arts, asked, “On the topic of race, my question is, do you think that it is important to maintain the racial percentage in Singapore and why?”

Lee said that the Singapore leadership tried not to upset the racial balance in the country, “because I think there is a certain comfort level which we have achieved with the way our society is”.

The only way to change the current racial mix “drastically” would be through immigration. Organically, that mix could change a little through inter-racial marriages, but Lee said that he did not expect this trend to significantly shift the balance.

Explaining why the current racial composition worked for Singapore, the senior minister said, “It is majority Chinese, but it is not dominant Chinese. The Malays have about 15 per cent of the population, the Indians have about 9 per cent of the population — if we are talking about the citizen population. If we look at residents with PRs, that makes it slightly different, but broadly the same picture, and everybody is comfortable with that.”

He continued, “I think if you change it drastically — the only way it can change drastically is through immigration — if you do that, I think there will be a very, very strong sense of unease and pushback from the group which feels suddenly, ‘I am fewer, or suddenly, ‘why are there so many of some other groups who are here’.

“It can cause a lot of tensions. Therefore, as a matter of policy, to the extent that we can, we would like to keep this broad mix — maybe go up a bit or down a bit, but we do not consciously try to change it and we do want to try and maintain it roughly like this.”

There could be no discussion concerning the youth without a mention of the impact of the Internet, and sure enough, one of the students brought it up.

The student named Alister cited “increasing [casual racism] incidents in the digital and cyberspace”, and asked SM Lee how the youth could overcome “potential challenges”.

Lee replied that while the digital space “makes things easier because there is a shared interest”, it would be even easier to end up in an “echo chamber” when trying to create a like-minded online community.

“…You may end up with friends who are only your own narrow interest group. Maybe you are the same race or same religion, and you hear nobody else and your feed becomes nothing else,” cautioned Lee.

His advice: “That becomes a difficulty and you really need to get out from that. Actually, the most direct answer is, do not spend all your time in cyberspace. Please spend some of your time in real life. We are not just avatars; we are real people. You want somebody whom you can touch and feel and go out and be touched and be felt by others, too.”

Is Singapore ready for a non-Chinese PM?

Moderator Singh ended the HarmonyWorks! Session by asking SM Lee one last question: “How have you come to be a leader who is absolutely colour-blind? What life experiences have shaped that?”

“I would not claim to be absolutely colour-blind,” said Lee. “We all have our prejudices; we all have our biases. We try our best to be neutral, to be fair. And what helps you is the environment in which you grew up, the family, your parents, the way they brought you up, your experiences in school, at work, in [National Service] and the [Singapore Armed Forces], and working with Singaporeans and knowing what works and what does not. And, therefore, feeling that this is what people really truly deeply want, and what we should work with them to try and go and achieve.”

That upbringing and depth of experiences gave one “mental points of reference, fixed stars”, said Lee, so that “you have a sense of direction” and know what the right thing would be in a given situation.

Leadership opportunities, he said, were available right from one’s school days, be it as the school magazine editor or as part of a school band or as part of a project team.

Later in life, at work, too, “there are many opportunities to be tested and to feel the impact of what you are doing on people and to get a sense that what you are doing is making a difference, and people are benefiting from it, and are appreciative”.

The visible results of his own work had been “a strong motivation”, said Lee, as it would be “for anybody who takes this path”.

Cultivating and encouraging leadership qualities were “crucial”, said the former prime minister. “Without good leadership, you can have a lot of good-intentioned people, [but] they will be very frustrated, [things] cannot be done,” he said.

“And we must have the best leader,” said Lee, “and the best leader… may be Chinese, may be Malay, may be Indian, may be some other race, may be Eurasian. It does not matter — if he can win Singaporean support and mobilise Singaporeans and command respect in the world, he should be the Prime Minister. Look for such people and develop such people.”