SDP to launch Malay policy paper

[yellowarse]

so SDP has to remove Vincent Wijeysingha to pacify the Malays.

Not related lah. Vincent wanted to pursue the gay cause and felt that it would drag the party down. So he left on his own accord.

 

[rushifa666]

i honestly don't know why malays will support pap, when its very clear they are treated second class by them. are they all blind?

 

[Cosmos10]

(Not related to the launch of SDP Malay Policy Paper. Just sharing a nice picture and note from Panglima Hussien Hitam's Facebook wall)

Panglima Hussien Hitam shared Bicara Bangun Bangsa's photo.

15 hours ago

Panglima Hussien Hitam wrote: "this is the rare unity of leaders from National Solidarity Party (NSP), Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and People's Action Party for the sake of Malay Language.

eh MANA The Workers' Party? too busy operating their daily tour bus to Malaysia again? LOL"

Walau berbeza mazhab politik, kami bersatu menyokong Bulan Bahasa 2013 !

Panglima Hussien Hitam wrote: well done Syafarin Sarif, Mohamed Jufrie Bin Mahmood, Bob Ahmad, Zaqy Mohamad

 

[3_M]

i honestly don't know why malays will support pap, when its very clear they are treated second class by them. are they all blind?

The way i see, the community believes in staying united as one. In voting collectively as community, they are in a better position to get more benefits from the gov.

no one knows how much Malay votes went to PAP, maybe we can apply the 80-20 rule.

 

[yellowarse]

no one knows how much Malay votes went to PAP, maybe we can apply the 80-20 rule.

A good estimate.

Most Malays are oblivious to the institutionalised biases against them: immigration policies, armed forces, HDB racial quotas, GRC system, systematic destruction of kampungs.

Instead they see the various assistance schemes, subsidies and rebates trotted out by the government to ostensibly help the community 'level up' with the other ethnic groups. Never mind if these patronizing schemes serve to reinforce Malay dependency and maintain their status as a subordinate and subservient class to the ruling elite who know the geopolitical implications of ruling a Chinese majority nation in a sea of Malays.

Also, the civil service, particularly the education sector, is the single largest employer of Malays – an important vote consideration since many Malays (and Indians) have suffered employment discrimination in the private sector from the '80 onwards owing to the 'Speak Mandarin' campaign. Many Malays are grateful – perhaps rightfully so – and fear that voting for the opposition might bring in a more racist government which may further reduce their employment opportunities.

It is ironic because the policies and affirmative action that Malays appreciate and vote the PAP for are the very thing that keeps them down as a second-class citizens, many of them trapped even in a permanent underclass.

 

[metalmickey]

A good estimate.

Most Malays are oblivious to the institutionalised biases against them: immigration policies, armed forces, HDB racial quotas, GRC system, systematic destruction of kampungs.

Instead they see the various assistance schemes, subsidies and rebates trotted out by the government to ostensibly help the community 'level up' with the other ethnic groups. Never mind if these patronizing schemes serve to reinforce Malay dependency and maintain their status as a subordinate and subservient class to the ruling elite who know the geopolitical implications of ruling a Chinese majority nation in a sea of Malays.

Also, the civil service, particularly the education sector, is the single largest employer of Malays – an important vote consideration since many Malays (and Indians) have suffered employment discrimination in the private sector from the '80 onwards owing to the 'Speak Mandarin' campaign. Many Malays are grateful – perhaps rightfully so – and fear that voting for the opposition might bring in a more racist government which may further reduce their employment opportunities.

It is ironic because the policies and affirmative action that Malays appreciate and vote the PAP for are the very thing that keeps them down as a second-class citizens, many of them trapped even in a permanent underclass.

There are a lot of interesting questions all around.

Some things, I see as definitely racist. All the matas are Malay, the infantry is Malay, the support arms are non-Malay. Immigration policy is tilted against Malay.

HDB quotas - I'm not so sure. I see it as a desegregation policy, where Chinese / Malay / Indian are forced to live side by side. We prevent enclaves from forming, that is the reason why there is no "Malay ghetto" in Singapore. I have a Malay friend who thinks that it is "fucking fantastic" that when he applies for a flat anywhere else other than the East, say a nice location like Tiong Bahru, he gets it just like that, while a Chinese couple will have to queue and queue and queue.

The speak Mandarin campaign is not good for Chinese people also because it cuts us away from our traditional culture. But it was also for the sake of preventing strife between the different Chinese communities, so it strengthens the Chinese community.

What Malays can do is to promote young kids doing science and engineering so that they can get these respectable jobs and move up in society. Problem is the perception that all these knowledge-intensive work (which are the only good jobs available these days anyway) are not considered, either by Malays or non-Malays, as "Malay" enough. These days the barrier to entry for IT work is low enough that Malays really ought to consider going down this route.

Oh, about the question of estimating the Malay vote, if you have the data for how many Malays lived in each electoral district, just do a linear regression on the numbers.

 

[tanwahp]

"this is the rare unity of leaders from National Solidarity Party (NSP), Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and People's Action Party for the sake of Malay Language. eh MANA The Workers' Party? too busy operating their daily tour bus to Malaysia again? LOL"

Rare unity? I thought if WP is involved in such things it becomes a "PAP-WP buddy" accusation.

 

[3_M]

Rare unity? I thought if WP is involved in such things it becomes a "PAP-WP buddy" accusation.

remember this?

 

[tanwahp]

remember this?

Pangenam Putih: This is the rare unity of leaders from Workers' Party and PAP for the sake of sports future in Singapore. Eh MANA SDP? Too busy doing their Teddy Bear walks to cheat children again?

Cosmos21: WP acting like mini-PAP. Pritam Singh who wants to form coalition with PAP taking intimate photos with disgraced affair PAP ex-Speaker and the PAP minister linked to the PA woman. Disgusting.

 

[Cosmos10]

Rare unity? I thought if WP is involved in such things it becomes a "PAP-WP buddy" accusation.

You do know that I did not write that comment, right? It was written by Panglima Hussien Hitam on his FB wall, ok? I merely copied what he wrote and pasted it here on this thread, that's all. I am a little surprised though, to learn that I am not the only person noticing the bit about "too busy operating their daily tour bus to Malaysia again?" :p

 

[leetahbah]

Panglima Hussien Hitam wrote: "this is the rare unity of leaders from National Solidarity Party (NSP), Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and People's Action Party for the sake of Malay Language.

eh MANA The Workers' Party? too busy operating their daily tour bus to Malaysia again? LOL"

Win some, Lose some, lah. They win those on the Malaysia tour bus, they lose those not on the Malaysia tour bus.

 

[skponggol]

.....


Look closely at all the Hammerrhoid Facebook posts boasting about their Malaysia tours, an even bigger irony is that one can hardly find any Malay participating in any of their countless trips to MALAYsia.

A Malay who does not like to visit MALAYsia???!!!

Maybe all the Malays in Aljnunied/Hougang/Punggol don’t like to eat durians or that the Hammerrhoid zombies have deliberately ostracised their Malay constituents inside the ghetto.

Organising tour trip to MALAYsia is one thing. But to exclude other members of the minority community from joining them is unacceptable.

Look at all the Hammerrhoid MALAYsia tours, almost all the people joining them are homogenous Chinese.

Why is there a need for the Hammerrhoid zombies to promote and to learn Bahasa Melayu when they hardly communicate with their Malay constituents inside the Hammerrhoid ghetto?

That’s why the panglima is making that sarcastic comments on the Hammerhoid zombies for ignoring and abandoning the Malay community.

.....

 

[yellowarse]

HDB quotas - I'm not so sure. I see it as a desegregation policy, where Chinese / Malay / Indian are forced to live side by side. We prevent enclaves from forming, that is the reason why there is no "Malay ghetto" in Singapore.

What's wrong with enclaves? They're what makes cosmopolitan cities vibrant and diverse, each community with a strong sense of rootedness contributing their respective strenghts to the multi-racial, multi-cultural fabric. New York has Harlem (blacks), the Bronx (Hispanics), Brooklyn (Jews), New Jersey (Italians), Queens (minorities of all shades), Manhattan (rich New Yorkers). As long as they don't descend into slums and hell-holes of crime and drugs, they strengthen community spirit, inculcate tolerance and add colour to the social fabric.

But enclaves make it difficult in a nominal democracy like Singapore's for a totalitarian party to cling on to power, because it is easier for smaller opposition parties to win seats in constituencies where a minority ethnic group predominates. Hence the disingenuous PAP mantra that we have to desegregate, can't have ghettos, for the sake of multi-racial harmony, blah blah.

And you guys fall for it hook, line and sinker.

 

[metalmickey]

As long as they don't descend into slums and hell-holes of crime and drugs, they strengthen community spirit, inculcate tolerance and add colour to the social fabric.

As long as they don't descend into slums and hell-holes of crime and drugs. Two of the places you mentioned - the Bronx and Queens. Ever been there lately? The old town plan of Singapore was designed as a series of enclaves, and we already have the enclaves in the city centre.

Maybe it's better to keep the enclaves out of the public housing, since this is the usual formula for the formation of ghettoes. And you forgot to mention the kind of community spirit that comes from forcing Malays, Chinese and Indians to live side by side. That is not tolerance and diversity? Maybe you should live in a US city where there's a "white part of town" and a "black part of town" for a little longer and see if you like it. See what it's like when you have white people who never ever have to see black people, and black people who never ever have to see white people.

But enclaves make it difficult in a nominal democracy like Singapore's for a totalitarian party to cling on to power, because it is easier for smaller opposition parties to win seats in constituencies where a minority ethnic group predominates. Hence the disingenuous PAP mantra that we have to desegregate, can't have ghettos, for the sake of multi-racial harmony, blah blah.

And you guys fall for it hook, line and sinker.

That is true. But do you really want a situation where the Malay MPs always come from Geylang or Aljunied, the Indian MPs from Serangoon and the Chinese candidates come from everywhere else? If you have HDB estates which have a uniform composition, the election results will be same as each other, which is pretty nice when the PAP is dominating. But when the pendulum swings, and everybody's on 45-55 balance, you will suddenly get a lot of opposition in parliament, and you will have it happening in a relatively short span of time. They may like this in the past but it's not really to their advantage in the long run. It's a double edged sword which cuts both ways.

 

[yellowarse]

And you forgot to mention the kind of community spirit that comes from forcing Malays, Chinese and Indians to live side by side. That is not tolerance and diversity?

I'm a libertarian. I believe that if a group wants to congregate together along cultural, linguistic, religious lines whatever, they have a right to. That's the ultimate in tolerance. The Swiss have their German-speaking, Italian-speaking and French-speaking cantons and cities, and they seem to be doing fine. In fact, there's a Swiss national identity, which we still lack.[/QUOTE]

Maybe you should live in a US city where there's a "white part of town" and a "black part of town" for a little longer and see if you like it. See what it's like when you have white people who never ever have to see black people, and black people who never ever have to see white people.

I have, and the most bigoted places are those where only one race predominates, especially in the deep South or parts of the mid-west. The most diverse and tolerant cities are also the most cosmopolitan ones on the west coast and north-east, each with their own many ethnic enclaves.

If you have HDB estates which have a uniform composition, the election results will be same as each other, which is pretty nice when the PAP is dominating. But when the pendulum swings, and everybody's on 45-55 balance, you will suddenly get a lot of opposition in parliament, and you will have it happening in a relatively short span of time.

One simple question: Let's say, taken to its logical conclusion, every HDB precinct, every constituency comprises 15% Malays and 7% Indians. How are the minority voters ever going to have a significant voice at the ballot box on community specific issues, particularly those relating to race and class discrimination?

It is a travesty of democracy, is it not? – taking away the right to associate, congregate, organize (this applies to civic groups as well as to social and living spaces) with fixed racial quotas for public housing, especially when our public housing (unlike elsewhere) houses 80% of the population!

 

[metalmickey]

I'm a libertarian. I believe that

It's very simple. We could go into debating a lot of things but it's very simple for me to just say that I'm not a libertarian.

I have, and the most bigoted places are those where only one race predominates, especially in the deep South or parts of the mid-west. The most diverse and tolerant cities are also the most cosmopolitan ones on the west coast and north-east, each with their own many ethnic enclaves.

No, the south have two ethnic enclaves. Black and white. People naturally separate out from each other.

One simple question: Let's say, taken to its logical conclusion, every HDB precinct, every constituency comprises 15% Malays and 7% Indians. How are the minority voters ever going to have a significant voice at the ballot box on community specific issues, particularly those relating to race and class discrimination?

Enclaves will always form so long as you allow people to do what they want to do. Then the rich separate themselves from the poor, and the races live apart from each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling#Models_of_segregation

Maybe they'll get along, more probably they won't. The most basic result of social psychology are that people self organise into groups, and divide the world into "us" and "them". People have that tribal instinct. And if this tribal instinct is aligned to race, it gets worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realistic_conflict_theory

It is a travesty of democracy, is it not? – taking away the right to associate, congregate, organize (this applies to civic groups as well as to social and living spaces) with fixed racial quotas for public housing, especially when our public housing (unlike elsewhere) houses 80% of the population!

Democracy is what it is. Majority rules, nothing more, nothing less. It is not some magic panacea that will make the world a better place. It is the tyranny of the majority, most of the time. There was the need to get the balance of race right in parliament. Just because the GRC is a fucked up solution, it doesn't mean that the problem is not real.

Fixed racial quotas actually doesn't have anything to do with the right of assembly. That is a totally different thing. You can have freedom of assembly and racial quotas as the same time. There are various reasons why I think you might want maybe five Malay homes in a row in a HDB flat, or five Chinese homes in a row, but none of them are good reasons.

You're in Singapore, you have to get along with somebody of a different race anyway, and I can't think of a better way to teach you how to do that than to force you to live next door to one.

 

[yellowarse]

You're in Singapore, you have to get along with somebody of a different race anyway, and I can't think of a better way to teach you how to do that than to force you to live next door to one.

That's a load of crap. Anyone can see that the HDB quotas are not working. Our parents' generation (I think you're about half a generation younger than I) and their parents before them had much more interaction with the other ethnic races, and all of them spoke pasar Melayu, if not proper Bahasa, fluently. That's back in the days when major ethnic groups each had their own 'enclaves', way before even HDB came into existence. And this observation did not originate with me – that's the general consensus among people who have lived here in pre- and early Independence days.

And you probably weren't born yet when my Indian and Eurasian friends emigrated to Australia in droves in the late '80s when the Speak Chinese Campaign effected a heavy toll on minority jobseekers in the private sector.

You don't make friends with an ethnic minority which forms just 15% or 7% or 3% of your neighbours. A recent study showed that only 2 in 10 Chinese have a Malay or Indian friend (http://ifonlysingaporeans.blogspot.sg/2013/07/race-not-issue-in-singapore-study-finds.html). I daresay 2 or 3 generations ago, if a study were done then, the figure would have been much higher.

Most of us make firm friends – sometimes for life – in school and NS, and that's where all this talk by the PAP about racial mixing is exposed as just hot air: local international schools, SAP schools, independent schools, mission schools, elite vs neighbourhood schools, PNS vs SAF NS, exclusion of Malays from sensitive units and vocations, etc all serve to institutionalize the class and racial divide (in Singapore the class divide IS the racial divide). Many of my Hwa Chong friends in university could not count even one Indian or Malay friend or classmate in their entire 12 years of basic education.

And then there's the workplace. By which time all the social engineering would have ossified the class divisions and further alienated one ethnic group from another. Plus the lack of discrimination legislation has led to blatantly discriminatory employment practices, the chief victims of which are minorities, pregnant women and folks above 40. How many Chinese cops do you see out there? How many Malays do you see in every medical cohort? In a stockbroking firm?

It's time younger Singaporeans like yourself took off their blinkers and see what the PAP's so-called racial-harmony engendering policies (HDB quotas, GRCs, ethnic self-help groups) are really about: tightening and preserving their grip on political power by heightening racial/class differences, repressing the minority political voice, erasing clan loyalties among the Chinese to form a homogeneous bloc, using immigration to maintain 75% Chinese majority.

It's everything to do with perpetuating PAP power, and nothing to do with racial desegregation. Just so, new Malay ghettos are forming every day – in mosques.

 

[metalmickey]

No, I'm not a kid. I was born before the speak Mandarin campaign. Or maybe anybody who doesn't see things your way wasn't born yet.

You have basically accepted the logic that you have to force people of different races to mix in order to make them get along with each other. What you're actually complaining about is the segregation of people from different backgrounds, you're saying that the desegregation doesn't go far enough. In schools, in NS, and later on, in the workplace.

So many things have taken place during the 80s and you cannot blame it on the quotas alone. At most, you can only say that they are "not working", as in, they are good, but not good enough. You're not actually saying that they're making the problem worse.

There are other things that have changed in the 1980s. The Speak Mandarin campaign was a result of a change in foreign policy. Mao Zedong died. The Speak Mandarin campaign was the beginning of a thaw in relations between Singapore and communist China. There was globalisation, which made it plausible for Singapore Chinese to identify with China / Taiwan / Hong Kong rather than locally. When you speak Mandarin, Mandarin is the language of greater China, rather than dialects, which is the language of the overseas Chinese. More people speak English, which displaced Malay as the lingua franca.

The Chinese grew wealthier, and the changes in social status also had the effect of separating the races. There was streaming.

I was in a non-Malay part of the SAF, which meant that I mixed with Indians but not Malays. In fact the only Malay in that whole place was a guest trainee from Brunei. Streaming - the Malays don't get the best grades (except one or two), they don't populate the top schools, they're excluded from the SAP, which is pretty racist. But at the same time it's also pretty ridiculous to suggest that it's the fault of us Chinese that the Malays don't do science and engineering. Why do they not do the things you need to do to get ahead? You got to ask them. I see Malay rockers and the amount of hard work and discipline it takes them to master guitar playing, I'm like, "but you could have done computers and engineering and become middle class like us yellow people". I don't understand that at all. BTW I am one of the 2 out of 10, I have Malay and Indian friends.

Now, suppose that by magic, even without all the GRCs and the quotas and everything, you'd get a parliament which accurately reflects the balance between the races. So what? Parliament will forever be Chinese majority. And these guys will tend to be slightly less sensitive to the needs of the Malays. What you got to do is to solve the deeper problem: how to get these guys to be more sensitive and get the Malays to step up. And sometimes when you got to kick their asses you also got to kick their asses.

I have a suggestion for you. When things are 80% fucked up, you don't start hammering the 20% which is not fucked up (I'm talking about the HDB quota policy). That is stupid.

 

[yellowarse]

You have basically accepted the logic that you have to force people of different races to mix in order to make them get along with each other. What you're actually complaining about is the segregation of people from different backgrounds, you're saying that the desegregation doesn't go far enough. In schools, in NS, and later on, in the workplace.

You got me wrong. I believe people should be free to mix around and form their own 'tribal' communities if they so wish. What I was pointing out is the PAP's hypocrisy where on the one hand they enforce 'mixing' via racial quotas, and on the other hand they institutionalize racist policies which deepen racial fault lines and segregate the ethnic groups.

There are other things that have changed in the 1980s. The Speak Mandarin campaign was a result of a change in foreign policy. Mao Zedong died. The Speak Mandarin campaign was the beginning of a thaw in relations between Singapore and communist China. There was globalisation, which made it plausible for Singapore Chinese to identify with China / Taiwan / Hong Kong rather than locally. When you speak Mandarin, Mandarin is the language of greater China, rather than dialects, which is the language of the overseas Chinese.

Again you've naïvely swallowed the PAP propaganda line that Chinese cultural identity and proficiency in Mandarin can only come with the exclusion of dialects. You can't be more wrong. Growing up, the kids in school who had the best command in Chinese were those who came from dialect-speaking backgrounds. Dialects aid, not hamper, the learning of Mandarin. The Taiwanese and Hong Kongers have far better command of the language and yet they continue to use Hokkien and Cantonese as their lingua franca.

The entire portion of China south of the Yangtze River speak a regional dialect of some sort far removed from Mandarin. Yes, Mandarin proficiency in the south has improved since the CCP took over, but dialects still remain a mainstay of communication in daily life for these folks, and there's been no detriment to their grasp of the language despite preserving their dialect heritage. Some of the greatest Chinese writers are southerners: Lu Xun and Su Tong (2009 Man Asian Literary Prize winner) come to mind.

The Speak Mandarin Campaign had nothing to do with improving Chinese mastery or accentuating Chinese identity. (In truth Chinese standards have fallen since the days of Nantah and Chinese stream schools; most young Chinese today are effectively monolingual in English with only a smattering of pidgin Chinese to show for 12 years of second language education.)

It had everything to do with breaking down clan loyalties (based on dialectal and ancestral ties) to prevent dialect-speaking politicians from gaining a political advantage over the Peranakan tyrant. Old fart was shaken to the core when he saw how the Mandarin and Hokkien oratory of Lim Chin Siong had swayed the masses (at his best LCS made old fart look like a schoolboy reciting his essay on stage).

Now, suppose that by magic, even without all the GRCs and the quotas and everything, you'd get a parliament which accurately reflects the balance between the races. So what? Parliament will forever be Chinese majority. And these guys will tend to be slightly less sensitive to the needs of the Malays. What you got to do is to solve the deeper problem: how to get these guys to be more sensitive and get the Malays to step up. And sometimes when you got to kick their asses you also got to kick their asses.

Minorities could punch above their weight if they could form their own voting blocs and vote in minority politicians to form a disproportionately larger (still minority) segment of parliament. Of course minority causes always need majoritarian support – the American civil rights movement could not have taken off without Jewish and liberal white support. And there's always affirmative action which when judiciously applied can be useful in lifting a community. (Malaysia's Bumiputera policy is an instructive exercise in how not to carry out an affirmative programme.)

I have a suggestion for you. When things are 80% fucked up, you don't start hammering the 20% which is not fucked up (I'm talking about the HDB quota policy). That is stupid.

And you still think that HDB racial quotas are about promoting multi-racial tolerance? And that GRCs were devised to help minorities get into parliament because they couldn't get in otherwise? And that not speaking dialects helps improve your Mandarin and command of the Chinese language?

Boy ...

 

[metalmickey]

You got me wrong. I believe people should be free to mix around and form their own 'tribal' communities if they so wish.

No, you already said that segregation was racist. And I already pointed out to you that when people are given their own freedom to mix around, the races aren't going to mix around. Birds of a feather always flock together. The absence of a desegregation policy is ipso facto a segregation policy.

Again you've naïvely swallowed the PAP propaganda line that Chinese cultural identity and proficiency in Mandarin can only come with the exclusion of dialects. You can't be more wrong. Growing up, the kids in school who had the best command in Chinese were those who came from dialect-speaking backgrounds.

No, you totally read me wrong. I never said that. What I said was that the speak Mandarin campaign had changed the character of Chinese culture in Singapore, and broke people away from their local roots, and changed it into something that came from the mainland. It changed the mindset of Chineseness into something that was a little more foreign, something that could be better controlled by the government. Thus, they can act like they know what your Chinese culture is by calling their own policies "confucianist"

I didn't say that speak Mandarin campaign improved the local Chinese identity. What both of us have been saying is that the speak Mandarin campaign was pretty destructive to Chinese culture. The older dialect heritage may or may not have had anything to do with the learning of Mandarin, but it was definitely something more Malay friendly. I note that Singlish has a lot of Hokkien, some Malay, and almost no Mandarin.

While I am not denying that LKY has always had an inferiority complex where his abilities at Chinese were concerned, I have to point out that Peranakans have always been better at dialects than mandarin.

I have left a few lines blank, so that next time you can put words into my mouth and then debunk them in order to show that I'm naive and stupid.






Also, you have said that the Speak Mandarin campaign had something to do with Malays being excluded from job applications. Why would this be the case?

Minorities could punch above their weight if they could form their own voting blocs and vote in minority politicians to form a disproportionately larger (still minority) segment of parliament. Of course minority causes always need majoritarian support – the American civil rights movement could not have taken off without Jewish and liberal white support. And there's always affirmative action which when judiciously applied can be useful in lifting a community. (Malaysia's Bumiputera policy is an instructive exercise in how not to carry out an affirmative programme.)

No, the numbers don't really have to do with it. It's more about what sort of guys get into parliament. In America you have minorities which punch about their weight (Jews, Mormons) and those which punch below (blacks) and they behave differently. The Jews have the ear of the whites, and a lot of their support comes from there. If the Malays are going to carry on excluding themselves from other parts society, it's not to their benefit (although this is not entirely up to them). Even if you get the right numbers of people in parliament, it always seems that the minorities are in charge of the Ministry of Sewage, and the Chinese guys are in charge of Ministry of Trade and Industry.

In fact, the formation of organisations which manage the affairs of their own race is not a bad thing: the CDACs, the Mendakis and the Sindas. But the execution, for whatever reason, is not very good. Maybe it'd be better if we required members of all three races to sit on the boards of these organisations. In US universities, there are organisations that are dedicated towards increasing the participation of women and minorities in engineering, and I'm sure we can do the same for medicine and law. These are the sort of things that the Mendakis should be involved in.

Affirmative action policies which are of the type that give opportunities to people are the best. Up till today, there are still racial quotas on a lot of university admissions in the US, including the best public universities. Unfortunately many of the Ivy Leagues are pro-white. Admitting more Malays into NUS will be good for them, although they'll not do very much for the ranking of NUS / NTU. (In fact, other than the undergraduate student body, locals are getting purged from all levels of these universities in order to improve their ranking). Affirmative action policies which are about redistribution of wealth and money are going to end up as corruption.

Unfortunately affirmative action is the main reason why Singapore split from Malaysia in the first place and they'll be a hard sell.

Other things are that a substantial amount of Singapore's economy falls under Temasek linked companies. The way that these companies manage the racial components of their hiring policies has a huge impact on the Malay community. The Malays cannot be forever always only working for the civil service. Other things are why these companies never seem to have Malay leaders. The tourism sector - something that you'd think Malays would excel at - really should be run by the Malays. The casino was really unfortunate. Malays have always been good at service industries and hospitality, and now a lot of them have to work for organisations which run unIslamic things like casinos.

And you still think that HDB racial quotas are about promoting multi-racial tolerance? And that GRCs were devised to help minorities get into parliament because they couldn't get in otherwise? And that not speaking dialects helps improve your Mandarin and command of the Chinese language?

Boy ...

Yes to the first two, no to the third. For the second question, racial quotas in parliament are actually the secondary effect, not the primary effect. We all know that the primary effect of the GRC is to entrench PAP political power.

Some PAP policies are Malay friendly and many are not. What is truly stupid and naive is to cast a blanket over all policies as being anti-Malay for no better reason than they're PAP policies.

I've just read the Malay policy paper. These jokers are actually saying that allowing Malays to participate in the Chinese market for resale HDB flats is going to be good for the community. The biggest headache for Singaporeans in general are the real estate prices, and the ability of the first time home owners to secure a piece of property, and now they're saying that they want the real estate market for Malays to be sky high like they are for Chinese?

I don't have much else to comment about SDP's main points.