Singapore's new reality - CMIO redefined

All Singaporeans are familiar with what CMIO means. This is the general classification of the racial composition of the Singapore population comprising Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others, with Others meaning the minorities that are not of the three major racial groups. Since independence, the composition of the population has a Chinese majority of about 78%, with the Malays about 12%, Indians 8% and Others 2%. The composition could be quite different today given the huge influx of foreigners, and though the Chinese is still the majority, the percentage of each racial group could be different. What is the official statistics?

Many are still calling this a Chinese majority state, legally, according to what were stated in their Birth Certificates and Identity Cards. But there is a new reality in Singapore based on a different definition of race officially sanctioned by the govt with a President that is legally Indian according to the race in the identity card/birth certificate but accepted officially as a Malay be virtue of her adopted way of life and acceptance by the Malay community. I stand corrected as to what was her legally stated race as written on her IC or birth certificate. I don't know as this is not made known publicly.

Using this new interpretation of a person's race, the racial composition of Singapore population is quite different, starkly different. The Chinese is not the majority race in Singapore if the chosen way of life of a person is good enough to redefine his race. Quite a significant number of Chinese in Singapore, particularly the English educated, do not see themselves as Chinese. They would only want to be known as Singaporeans. They have no race or refused to be identified as persons of the Chinese race. Some hate be called Chinese, ashamed to be called Chinese. Some hate being Chinese, anything Chinese, anything to do with China. They lived more like westerners, think like westerners and know more about Snow White and the 7 dwarfs and all the western fables and fairy tales but nothing about Chinese fables or nursery rhymes. And of course they could not speak Chinese, refuse to speak or learn to speak Chinese, and got angry with anyone speaking to them in Chinese. How can they be Chinese, when they even despised Chinese?

Under the new officially sanctioned definition of race, these ethnically Chinese are anything but Chinese. They should more appropriately be classified under the Others category. There are also the nyonas and babas, ie Straits born Chinese that have been here for many generations whose way of life is more akin to the Malays, speaking Malays and not a word of Chinese. And there are also the mixed parentage with many chose to live like the other half than the Chinese half and did not know Chinese and did not want to be called Chinese. Ask a Straits born and he would say he is a baba, not a Chinese.

Added together, these groups of ethnic Chinese but not wanting to be Chinese, also known locally as OCBC, should be classified as Others rather than Chinese. If this is the case, then the biggest racial group in Singapore should be Others. Thus it is not right to call Singapore a Chinese majority state. The Chinese, or those that still identified themselves as Chinese, could be a minority or would be a minority given the trend.

The implication of this development is that being a state with a Chinese minority, with Others as a majority, it is a fallacy to make the accusation that this is a racist country with the majority Chinese in a way practising racial discrimination against the minority races. The Chinese is not the majority, the majority is Others. If one is to look at the govt set up, one would not fail to notice that many top appointees are actually not Chinese. And to add the Chinese/Others into this interpretation, the Chinese in top govt positions is even smaller. How many of the top appointees, political and administrative, are or should be classified as Chinese/Others or rightly as Others? How many of these top appointees would call or rather identify themselves as Singaporeans and not Chinese?

This is a new phenomenon in Singapore where a people have chosen to have no ethnicity except a nationality called Singaporean. Oh, this only affects the ethnic Chinese, not the other races. The Indians and Malays are proud of their ethnic origins, not the OCBC 'Chinese' that have chosen to be 'raceless', a people that has no ancestry and can choose whichever ancestry they preferred as reflected in their thinking and way of life, what they like and what they dislike or even hate.

So, instead of CMIO in that order, perhaps it should read OMIC or OIMC, with O the majority and C the smallest minority group in Singapore.

What do you think?