Recently in Singapore, there is a big issue when the Minister of Environment, a Malay, remarked that Malay should be taught as a foreign language. On reading the various news and commentaries, I was unsurprised that I didn't really feel strongly about it other than the fact that I think it is unfair to the Malays. Seriously, it didn't affect me personally.
Several weeks before that, I met a Malay Singaporean who was studying in Cambridge and she asked me something to the point of whether I feel Malay? That is the question, isn't it? Do I think myself as Malay and therefore makes it part of my identity? Is then racial identity important?
If you ask me what my race is, I would say I'm Malay (and half Chinese), but that's because it is a fact that my father is a Malay. However, do I identify with Malays? Possibly not. I can probably say that neither my brother nor sister would identify themselves with Malays.
Perhaps that's because of our upbringing. Before going to the University, I had very few Malay friends. We grew up rarely mixing with the Malay kids in our neighbourhood, spending most times with friends from school. Given I went to CHIJ (a Catholic school) and then to Nanyang Junior College (a mainly Chinese dominated school), I grew up with a mixture of Chinese, Indian, Malay and Eurasian kids. At home, we spoke mainly English amongst the siblings and with our father. This was instituted by our father to improve our English. Culturally, my father did not and still does not practise much of the Malay traditions. We grew up mainly with Muslim values without the cultural baggage. For example, my parents did not do "kenduri doa selamat" which in the Malay tradition is a gathering where you invite people to pray for the dead and then feed them. But even then, I lost faith in the Muslim community as I saw them to be very inward looking, caring more for the form than the substance.
After going to the University, I rediscovered Islam. The friendships that I formed within the Muslim Society in university are mostly with Malays but the friendships were based on being Muslim brothers and sisters and not so much based on being Malay. However, as I grew up and started working and went on to explore the world, there are three great old friends who remained and none of them are Malays. I'm not sure whether they see me as my race but I seriously don't see them in a racial light.
As I look back now, I realise that race is not an issue for me. My family and friends are made up of a mix of different races and I feel belong to them. What I feel is I'm a Singaporean and I'm a Muslim. A Malay, a Chinese, an Indian, or any other race, or bi-racial, it does not matter as to who you are deep inside. What matters is the values you hold; that you should get to know people for who they are, not for what they are.
I think to reach a racial harmony in Singapore, the racial barrier and constant harping on racial identity need to be cast aside. We need to be racially blind if ever we want to reach true meritocracy. I think a race is an accident of birth...God's way to make things more colourful for us but nothing to impede our understanding of each other. This is especially true as we have more mix marriages. Like that of my brother's marriage. If he has children, they will be a quarter Chinese, a quarter Malay, and half Burmese. My sister's children are almost half Chinese, a quarter Malay and a quarter Indian (probably some Arabic blood as well). Are they expected to think of themselves in terms of a single race? Is it fair for them?
Therefore, no, I don't think a racial identity is important.
