Below is an extract of an article posted in YahooNews by a Laavanya Kathiravelu, likely a foreign talent recruited to replace the local talents in the academia. Dunno what is the percentage of foreigners in the academia is now foreigners, must be quite substantial. Though the article started innocently about inequality and privileges in general, the punch lines came from the below few paragraphs of the YahooNews article.
The inequality and privileges are in favour of the Chinese majority and this must change. This was historical and unnatural. The thinking in between the lines is that the racial composition should be changed to provide more equality and privileges for all, if I read it correctly, the ethnic distribution of the races should be more equal, maybe 25 per cent of each race. That would solve the problems of inequality and privileges of the Chinese majority at the expense of the minorities.
The inequality and privileges are in favour of the Chinese majority and this must change. This was historical and unnatural. The thinking in between the lines is that the racial composition should be changed to provide more equality and privileges for all, if I read it correctly, the ethnic distribution of the races should be more equal, maybe 25 per cent of each race. That would solve the problems of inequality and privileges of the Chinese majority at the expense of the minorities.
And as the writer wrote, the conversation has begun and cannot be stopped until affirmative actions are taken to dismantle the Chinese majority so that there would be less inequality and privileges favouring the majority. The Chinese majority must go in order to create a more egalitarian society.
What do you think? Should the govt start on a policy to bring in more minorities to even the ethnic composition of our population to ensure more equality and less privileges to a majority race? If the writer is a foreigner, is this not interference in the internal affair of our country? How would the article be received by the majority Chinese and the minorities here?
Would the white majority in white migrant countries like the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada agree to sharing their privileges by changing the composition of their population?
Here is the article....
'What
became quickly obvious in the impassioned responses was that the
language of privilege has a galvanising and emotive appeal. While racial
discrimination or racism must also be acknowledged and legislated
against, privilege is more difficult to dismantle.
The
idea of privilege is powerful precisely because it also speaks about
the passive. It conveys how merely through inaction, we allow for
inequality and unfair discrimination to perpetuate.
It
is the structural basis of such privilege, whether it is lack of
meritocratic education systems, or integration policies that generate
unfair consequences. Individual acts must be understood as being shaped
by those structures.
In
Singapore, privilege at times takes on a racialised character. This
adds an uncomfortable dimension to discussions of inequality, as race
cannot be altered, through education, hard work or effort.
While
the existence of Chinese privilege can be dismissed as simply due to
the Chinese population being the overwhelming majority ethnic group, it
is not a “natural” development and is held up by structures that
underpin everyday social, political and economic life....
We
should draw collective energy from this political moment to keep
talking. It is only in acknowledging the shared costs to our nation that
we can begin to dismantle privilege and create a more egalitarian
Singapore.'
Laavanya Kathiravelu is an assistant professor at the division of sociology at the Nanyang Technological University.