Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore's state controlled newspaper Straits Times of Aug 30, 2013 has the story "Indian community concerned about job discrimination". Please see http://www.straitstimes.com/archive/friday/breaking-news/singapore/story/indian-community-concerned-about-job-discrimination-20130830
Singapore's multi millionaire Minister for Environment and Water Works, Vivian Balakrishnan (by the way they are all multi millionaires. Each of them get paid five times what the President of United States is paid) has said "employment discrimination was a key concern raised by (Singapore's) Indian community" and "I think it's a perception that we must address head-on"
But so far, despite the island's claim to glitter and glamour and first world status, it is actually worse than even the worst sub-Saharan African country. Believe it or not, the island does not have any minimum wage laws and neither does it have any anti racial discrimination laws.
And let me say this one more time if it hasn't sunk in. Singapore does not have any laws against racial discrimination!
In Singapore island, where the population is deliberately maintained at least 75% Chinese by deliberately bringing in Chinese immigrants from China, because Lee Kuan Yew the island dictator prefers Chinese over others, Chinese businesses, which by the way are naturally the majority can lawfully deny a job to an Indian or Malay for no other reason other than his race. And this racial discrimination can be practiced not only by private employers but also by the government.
And even if they are compelled, in the unlikely event, to employ an Indian because no Chinese person had applied, he would be passed over for promotions and at the earliest opportunity fired from his job to give it to an available Chinese applicant.
In developed countries, where there are laws in place prohibiting such discrimination, the aggrieved person has a recourse and can seek redress in the courts under race relations laws. But in Singapore where there are no such laws, what does a person such as this do? I tell you what they will do. When the kettle reaches the boil, he will explode. And he would beat the brains out of the Chinese person who has treated him this way. That is what any human being in this situation would do.
It is the same with an Indian or a Malay who has been denied a job, fired from his job for a Chinese, denied a HDB flat because he was an Indian or in any other situation, where he cannot seek redress under the law which clearly requires a set of rules, they would simply explode. I would. It is only human to seek redress for this injustice.
The reason why the Singapore government, bent on being business friendly at all costs, refuses to have minimum wage laws or race relations laws, is the fear that such legislation would adversely affect business or the rights of employers. You see, it is all about protecting employers in that Alice in Wonderland island, never mind the stupid worker.
But this is a stupid reason not to legislate in such areas where laws are clearly required for peaceful co-existence among different races. There is not a single developed nation in the world that does not have such laws. And their failure to realize this would inevitably result in far more racial violence than is already happening there, which the state controlled newspapers refuse to report.
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew's son who runs the island should take note that unless he does something to really address the situation, by which I mean enforceable legislation to criminalize racial discrimination, the Malays and the Indians are going to beat the Hell out of the nearest ethnic Chinese person.
It is only human. Unless of course they are all Mahatma Gandhis and sworn adherents and proponents of the principle of non violence or Satyagraha. I am not and I don't think most Indians and Malays are either.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
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12 comments:
Already there are anti chinese sentiments...but indians in spore dun have the balls to fight for their rights anyway..they have been tortured bullied...but they wll suffer thru silence for in fear of that stupid old man!!!
This is indeed sad and very worrying indeed. The Singaporean Malays and Indians are being marginalized.
To an outsider, Singapore boasts its meritocracy but this is not meritocracy, rather it's hypocrisy.
I've never heard of a Malay medical doctor from Singapore. It implies every single Malay born in Singapore is very dumb and is not good enough to take up medicine.
Indians and Malays have had it up their arse from the Chinese majority since the 1960s. They did nothing since then. And they will not nothing now. There will not be any race riots.
LKY is a bigot. Singapore's Chinese have taken their cues from this bigot and act like bigots themselves.
They convinced themselves about the specialness of Chinese & China and openly embraced the PRC.
Little did they realise that the PRC immigrants to Singapore would look down upon the local Singapore Chinese.
Now I call this poetic justice. Could not have happened to a slimier bunch of f*ckers,. i.e. the Singapore Chinese who embraced LKY's bigoted views.
To Sammy who said
"Indians and Malays have had it up their arse from the Chinese majority since the 1960s. They did nothing since then. And they will not nothing now. There will not be any race riots".
You are entitled to your opinion that the Indians and Malays will do nothing when deliberately discriminated.
I am not sure.
If we can go by normal human reaction, a person who has been deliberately victimized, for example in a Government HDB housing office, by an employer who has fired him to give that job to a Chinese person, may react violently when he has no recourse under the law.
Remember Singapore laws legalize racial discrimination. Violence is part of Singapore society as you see everyday in the state controlled press. To assume that he will always accept the discrimination lying down in delusionary.
I have no doubt you will see violence. It is already happening now, except the state controlled press there is not reporting it.
To Anonymous who said,
"Already there are anti chinese sentiments...but indians in spore dun have the balls to fight for their rights anyway..they have been tortured bullied...but they wll suffer thru silence for in fear of that stupid old man!!!"
I am not so sure that the Malays and Indians will continue to take this discrimination lying down much longer.
As you are aware racial discrimination is not prohibited under Singapore law.
Therefore any Chinese taxi driver can refuse to carry an Indian without any reason, any Chinese employer can refuse a job to an Indian and the government can sack an employee in the PUB and give the job to a Chinese.
All this perfectly legal under Singaporean law. I am not so sure whether they can carry on engaging in this nasty practice I understand is on the rise, encouraged by the Lee's son, the Prime Minister, an ethnic Chinese.
every one is talking how spore will be when the old emperor no longer in power.of course there is large discriminations and racists laws in spore.the old emperor is the one who indirectly and directly causes it by his own policy.dont say Indians and malays don't have balls.as human if they push to the ground of course they will retaliate.
btw I have master degree in science.my friend have too.both of us went for interview for the post. the weird part that the first questions they ask us if we can speak mandarin.they don't even bother to look at our qualifications.In the end a Chinese from china mainland get the post even he do not talk in English and he did even have a degree.sometimes I wonder even he has a diploma most prc certificates are fake.
Many good PAP dogs are Indian.
Multi racial and multi cultural policies have failed. The United Nations Special Raporteur on racism , 3 yrs ago, urged the singapore govt to enact law prohibiting racial discrimination.(see report A/HRC/17/40/Add.2 atohchr.org). With impunity this th UN report has been ignored. There being no legal remedy , people should write to the UN Special Rapporteur about the racial discrimination they have experienced with time,date,place,name of staff, name of govt dept or company etc.If they fear victimisation then they should say so and ask for your details to be kept confidential.The address for UN Special Rapporteur on racisim: OHCHR- UNOG, aVENUE DE LA PAIX, 1211 GENEVA 10, SWITZERLAND. e-mail:racism@ohchr.org. Further id discriminated by a branch of a western company or corporation then write to Chairman/CEO at their HQ in the west. If you get nowhere then write to the anti racism organisation their respective western country. All addresses are on the internet.What a irony that the Interpol global HQ is being set up in singapore, when singapore is not aa signatory to many of the UN Conventions related to Interpol@s work.
Re: Multi-racial and multi-cultural policies have failed.
Guys apologies for the typing errors. Here below is a pukka version.
Multi-racial and mult-cultural policies have failed.The United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism, 3 years ago, urged the singapore govt to enact law prohibiting racial discrimination(see report A/HRC/17/40/Add.2 at www.ohchr.org). With impunity this report has been ignored. There is no legal remedy. People should write to the UN Special Rapporteur about the racial discrimination they have experienced with details of time,date,place,name of staff,name of govt dept or company etc. If people fear victimisation then say so and ask for your details to be kept confidential. The address for the UN Special Rapporteur on racism: OHCHR-UNOG,8-14 AVENUE DE LA PAIX,1211 GENEVA 10,SWITZERLAND. e-mail:racism@ohchr.org . Further if you have been discriminated by a branch of a western company or corporation then write to the Chairman/CEO at their HQ in the west. If you get nowhere with them, then write to the anti-racism organisation in their respective western country. All addresses are on the internet.
What a irony that the Interpol Global HQ is being set up in singapore, when singapore is not even a signatory to many of the UN Conventions relating to the Interpol's work (see initiatives page at www.interpol.int). Guys don't forget to check out the Interpol,OHCHR and other equal oppourtunity employers on the net in their recruitment pages for jobs, internships etc.
What's the point of telling the minorities to take up their mother tongue language in school if they can't use it to find jobs. This is just one of the ways to discriminate the minorities further.
In Singapore, bilingual means English and Mandarin.
Singapore is a racist country or should I say the Chinese are racist people. It does not matter if they are Chinese Singaporeans, Chinese Malaysians or Chinese China......
To Anonymous who said
"What's the point of telling the minorities to"
Please don't be racist here. You can call the government racist because that's what they are. But not ordinary people. Chinese are just like anyone else and if they are discriminating others, it is because the government is encouraging them.
If the Singapore government would treat everyone fairly, there should be no problem.
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