To the 'Opposition' : The meaning of 'maintaining harmony'

In the days following the 3 Chinese teenagers and the Rony affair, there’s much that’s been said about the need ‘to maintain religious and racial harmony’.

To all those whom are inclined to make such a statement; or to observe that the government has done an admirable job in maintaining it; or that the harmony that’s been for quite a while must be ‘maintained’ - all of which i’ve come across amongst ‘neitzens’ - remember this, there is a great difference between maintaining a harmony despite the religious and racial status quo and maintaining it in respect of an egalitarian religious and racial status quo, just as there is a great difference between tolerance-cum-sensitivity and appreciation-cum-respect. Till the latter is proven to be true, the former can serve to maintain a fascist and racist state of a affairs.



What the people have to ask - and which all oppositional elements are not inquiring after, including the ‘new media’ like the TOC and TR, whom all as a totality oscillate between nodal points within a web of xenophobia, self-absorption, self-centredness, and a grossly arrogant sense of complacency emerging from the knowledge that a majority defined along racial lines do not have to bear what the thus-defined minorities had to for a couple of decades till the influx of ‘foreigners’ - is, if the ‘harmony’ you seek to ‘maintain’ is a racially and hierarchically ordered status quo where everyone has learnt to accept their ‘rightful’ positions.

A2ed is all for maintaining a religious and racial harmony that is pursued in tandem with assiduous efforts for the realisation of an egalitarian religious and racial status quo. But where this is not true, A2ed expects the ‘opposition’ to afford this its rightful attention. I personally had written to the TOC to suggest a ‘race relations’ or ‘discrimination and identity’ section to explore these issues and educate a public sorely in need of it given the self-absorbed and bigoted stupor they will inevitably suffer after 50 years of PAP rule. They ignored this suggestion.

I’ll state again, as I always will, that the entirety of the Singaporean opposition, by their constant oversights with regards to these matters, by British standards, is nothing short of racist and fascist. In perspective, they are nothing more than a faction within the existing party and not a true alternative as they’ve never taken issue with the elevation of the culture of the majority over the rest, or the host of policies that have advantaged them over all others, amongst others. I’m waiting. Prove your worth as a Singaporean alternative, as opposed to bending over for a populist-style rectal anointment and validation of your status as 'opposition'.

Populism, sir, within an inegalitarian status quo is, oftentimes, the maintenance of the iniquitous legacy of the past.


a2,

ed

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