Les Singapouriens de souche? (Indigenous Singaporeans)

Before we begin, yes the title is French and no I am not being pretentious because a) I do speak near native standard French and b) we are talking about France in this article and making a comparison between Singapore and France. Donc alors, I feel I am in a good position to make this comparison being a guy from Singapore who has lived in France - but not just live on the periphery as a foreign student hiding in the small English speaking community, hell no. When I was there, I completely assimilated and didn't allow myself to speak any English to the locals. What is the point of studying in France if you don't throw yourself into the deep end? I went to France first in 1997, then moved to the UK, before returning for the period of 1999-2000.

J'habitais a Paris quand j'étais étudiant à Paris-IV Sorbonne de 1999 - 2000. 

Now there has been much talk recently in Singapore and my blog about the problems caused by PRCs who refuse to assimilate. Well tonight, on BBC radio 4, I heard a programme which addressed the same issue in France. Singapore is hardly the only country struggling with immigrants who refuse to assimilate. The French have struggled with that for ages and they're gearing up for a presidential election on the 22 April 2012 - so the question of "what does it mean to be French?" has been a hot topic in the debates. Now BBC link does provide a one page summary of the arguments involved and I do suggest you read it if you do not already have a very good understanding of the political situation in France.

Can I just get this out of the way before I go any further? Many Singaporeans (especially my parents) think of the French as extremely racist. I completely disagree with that! I see the French as the least racist amongst all the Europeans and are far less racist than say the British. The fact that they refuse to speak English to tourists is another issue altogether and they would do that to white, very pale, blond, blue eyed, completely Aryan looking British or American tourists as well - so it's got nothing to do with racism.

A mon avis,  France who may offer a good solution to the PRC problem in Singapore. Now in France, it doesn't matter if you're white, black or Asian - if you're born in France or if you have French nationality, then that's it - you're French. The concept of being French is not a race or ethnic group, it is a lot more than a nationality - it is a state of mind. It means adopting a French identity - speaking French as your first language, learning about how French society works and abiding by their rules, respecting the way French society is governed and run and existing as a part of that French society by their rules and participating actively in that French society as a French person. In short, it doesn't matter where you're from - you are invited to be French if you live there.

And for those of you haters who want to attack me for having assimilated whilst in France, well screw you, Limpeh is a very powerful linguist who speaks over 10 languages and I can learn yet another language without forgetting my existing languages. So before you wanna bitch about me forgetting my roots, please remember that my Mandarin and Hokkien is better than 95+% of Singaporean-Chinese people. Being Chinese means knowing your culture and language - it does not mean refusing to learn foreign languages and remaining stupid, uneducated and ignorant. Limpeh's brain is like a powerful computer with plenty of memory, capable of installing many more programmes and learning each new language for me is just like installing a new programme - I don't need to delete existing ones to make room for new ones.

Anyway, that is why the French extended such a welcome to me - there I was, the young student from Singapore who spoke French absolutely fluently and they appreciated the fact that French is not my first language and it must have taken many, many hours of very hard work to get my French to this standard. In exchange and in recognition of my effort, they extended their warm welcome into their midst, to live amongst them, study with them and be one of them. I remember how a French friend remarked to me that he was amazed how good my French was compared to some of the north African immigrants who were born in France (or have arrived as children but struggle in the language). But there you go, they're just like the PRCs in Singapore who refuse to learn English.

In the run up to this election in April, there has been a term that has been used quite a lot by the right-wing extremist party Le Front National: "Français de souche" - that translates literally to "French of roots", or indigenous French people. Now that has been quite hard to define given that France is in the heart of Europe and French people are a mix of Celts, Iberians, Ligurians, Greeks, Franks, Burgundians, Moors, Saracens, Normans and even Vikings - but united by a shared desire to be French and partake in French culture. Add to that a big influx of Vietnamese people during the Vietnam war along with recent migrants who have arrived from Eastern Europe - it is a real melting pot. By that token, Singapore is very similar - we are a nation made of a mix of peoples with Chinese, Malay, Indonesian, Indian and a mix of other Asian roots, united by a desire to be Singaporean and with a shared understanding of what it means to be Singaporean.

This is why many French people reject this concept of Français de souche, dismissing it as a racist concept designed to exclude non-white people. Even the current president Nicolas Sarkozy is only a quarter French by blood. The rest of his heritage is a mix of Hungarian and Greek-Jewish - but to the French people, he is 100% French as he is born in France, raised in France and is in every way French.

In rejecting the concept of Français de souche, the French people were challenged to then define what it means to be French and it has been a fascinating debate to follow (well, you probably need to be fluent in French to follow some of these debates) - but the discussions have talked about all aspects of French cultural and social life from music to literature to food to fashion to new media to politics to history. But of course, one convenient defining factor is the French language. Ah la langue Française. The French people celebrate the diversity in their midst but they do insist that you must speak their language when in their country - and I think that's absolutely brilliant, this ethos they have, ie. it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, who your parents are, they extend an invitation for you to become French like that. Note that in the UK, the mentality is very different. I can be British (I do have a British passport) but I am never English. For them, being English is an ethnic thing - there are no black or Asian English people, only black and Asian British people.

Now compare this to a country like America or Australia where the bulk of the population are descended from immigrants from Europe. When you talk about native Australians or Americans, you are referring to the Aboriginal peoples of Australia or the native Americans. What immigrants do in the absence of a dominant local culture or language, is to build a strong sense of a national identity based on national ideals rather than cultural/ethnic ideals, of what it means to be Australian or American and both countries have succeeded rather well in that endeavour.

Now the French believe in the assimilation approach (as opposed to the integration approach taken in the UK). Let me explain the difference. Both France and the UK are quite multi-ethnic societies and let's represent these different cultures with different fruits. The French approach is like a fruit smoothie whilst the British approach is like a fruit salad.

In France, you put all these different fruits into a blender and blend them into a French smoothie. The end result is a drink which takes on all the characteristics of the ingredients that went into the smoothie, but it is very hard to pick out individual flavours. Whereas in the UK, the fruits are merely mixed together in a fruit salad - you can still pick out individual pieces of fruits - strawberries, kiwis, mandarin slices, raspberries etc.

Such is the difference: the UK doesn't really care that much if you assimilate or not as long as everyone finds a way to get along and co-exist peacefully in a friendly manner within friendly society. Whereas the French are quite strict about assimilation - either you're one of us or you're not. Neither system is perfect and I think that the Singapore system is far more similar to the British system than the French system - is that a good thing?

Now in comparison, Singapore lacks a defining factor like a language. After all, Singapore has four official languages, an unofficial local patois (Singlish) and a widely spoken Chinese dialect Hokkien which has no official status. There is some notion of a local culture but instead of encouraging it, the government has done some pretty strange things to stop it from developing organically. Let me give you an example. One of the key features of Singaporean language patterns is the way we are multi-lingual and often mix languages. Here's a sentence with Hokkien, English, Mandarin and Malay"Lr buay sai trust that 先生李, he is si-beh 狡猾 leh, like ular licin you know?" In standard English: "You can't trust that Mr Lee, he is very cunning, like a slippery snake you know?"

I am glad that they have finally embraced the fact that we have this habit of mixing up our languages in Singapore, it makes us who we are. It's not bad English or bad Mandarin - it's just the way we talk. But guess what? Back when I was a kid, the government decided no, it was wrong to do so. So we had the actors in the SBC Channel 8 soaps speaking in perfect Mandarin, untainted by even a word of Hokkien all through the 80s and 90s. Likewise, when Channel 5 started making their own programmes - the English could only be described as... painful. It was not Singlish as we knew it - but simply a version of English that was painfully artificial. Things evolved slowly and gradually the ban on Hokkien and Singlish was relaxed little by little and producers were allowed to mix languages a little - so you could eventually get a Mandarin drama with a few lines in Malay or English, but it took SBC/TCS/MediaCorp decades to get that far.

The ban on Singlish and Hokkien in the media reflects a certain degree of self-loathing and self-doubt amongst Singaporeans - none more so than on the part of the government who inflicted this ban on Singaporeans without their consent. Nonetheless, some expressions of true Singaporean identity have struggled to emerge over the years and they were at best tolerated by the government. I have written a piece about Mambo at Zouk last year. Oh I love Mambo. Now those of you who are old enough in the early 1990s might remember this little ditty:

Now that was the first time someone actually did get Singlish onto the radio - I think it was by a group called the Copy Cat Clan if my memory serves me right. It was banned at first - why? Because it was not proper English, but after a while, the government relented and despite it only being 1 minute 37 seconds long, it became extremely popular in 1992. I think it's really sad that Singaporeans at that time had this self-loathing about how Singlish was improper and inappropriate when really, for goodness' sake, few Singaporeans actually spoke standard English amongst themselves. It's like, even if we can speak British or American English, we still choose to speak Singlish amongst ourselves. Well the government believes that's low class and wants to stamp it out. Tsk tsk. Talk about self-loathing.

So... what effect has the government's stern censorship on our language resulted in? For my readers who are not from Singapore, I have to tell you about our 'national songs' which have been penned in the early days by Canadians. Whoopee. Can you imagine if 'La Vie En Rose' or 'Non Je Ne Regrette Rien' was written by a non-French foreigner? Instead of trying to get a local talent like Zubir Said to write national patriotic songs - guess what the PAP did? They went to a foreign talent, a Canadian: Hugh Harrison - a Canadian expatriate in Thailand who made a living mostly from making catchy jingles for TV ads to compose our national patriotic songs. So what the hell did a Canadian who didn't even live in Singapore know about what patriotism in Singapore is? Like what the hell would this Canadian know about the greatest act of Singaporean patriotism: serving national service? He actually penned two 'patriotic' songs which were so prominent in the 1980s: Count on Me Singapore and Stand Up For Singapore. Apart from the fact that the word 'Singapore' was in the title of both songs, if you were to scrutinize the lyrics of both songs, neither make any reference to anything in Singapore - no, not even one reference. You could effectively remove the word 'Singapore' from either song and replace it with any city or country or name of a high school and it would still work. The music of both songs were also terribly bland with no Asian influences whatsoever despite Singapore being an Asian country.

Talk about fuck ups that happen when the government outsources important tasks to bloody foreign talents who knows fuck all about Singapore. But guess what? They got away with it! Why? Because Singaporeans in the 1980s were just too timid and obedient to ever question anything that came from the government. Oh it's like being in a church when questioning the authority was tantamount to blasphemy - no, in my primary school, we simply didn't question the lyrics on the song sheets. We simply sang out hearts out despite the fact that those lyrics were fucking awful and written by a Canadian who knew fuck all about Singapore. Oh come the fuck on - how the fuck do you write a patriotic song about Singapore without referring to anything about the country?! This project was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture at that time, surely someone should've thrown that piece of shit back at the Canadian and along with a long list of Singaporean cultural references to include in his work. Off the top of my head, the things I would associate with Singapore include: laksa, Orchard Road, the MRT, Changi Airport, Lee Kuan Yew, Raffles, Ang Mo Kio, Singapore River, Boat Quay, Chilli Crab, Jurong Bird Park, NUS, satay, Sentosa, Raffles Place, the Esplanade just to name a few. I'm just you guys can come up with a lot more. Did I mention laksa?

I bet you that Canadian has no idea what the hell this is...

So by the time they approached this dozy Canadian fucker to pen yet another song (why haven't they learnt their lesson yet?!) - he makes one reference to 'hear the lion roar' in We Are Singapore. Okay, one reference is better than none at all but this is still fucking pathetic. Oh is that not enough? Fuck it, instead of doing more research about this place called Singapore, the Canadian merely cut and paste the entire fucking national pledge into the song. Fuck me, talk about a fucking awful job. And guess what? This was the 1980s, we Singaporeans had this pathetic "angmor always better" attitude - which Jack Neo captured in his film where Mr Khoo the Bak Kwa (pork jerky) merchant insists on letting the American expatriate John handle his advertising campaign despite the fact that Bak Kwa is a quintessentially Chinese product that the white expatriate knew nothing about - with hysterical consequences when John fucks it up big time.

I know this may be 25 years too late but fucking hell, can you see why Singaporeans don't have a clear sense of national identity and have no idea what it means to be Singaporean? The French had Berlioz, Bizet, Clérambault, Debussy, Josquin, Chausson, Couperin to name a few of their famous composers and in the modern era they had Edith Paith, Mylene Farmer, Johnny Hallyday, Patricia Kaas and Pascal Obispo. And okay, so Singapore doesn't have that kind of long history, but instead of investing in local talent, take your pick: Anita Sarawak, Kumar, Maizurah Hamzah, Dick Lee, Jacintha, etc - no, they went to get a dozy Canadian foreign talent to give them shit and we made this shit our national heritage. Is it any wonder why younger Singaporeans prefer to consume foreign culture even our own government looks down on our local talent and would turn to a foreigner instead for our national musical heritage? Okay, even if this guy did make some very good TV ads in the 1980s, how is that any substitute for actually being a Singaporean who grew up in Ang Mo Kio and served NS? And can Singaporeans, in turn, present this to our newly arrived PRC migrants and tell them, "here, this is our culture, please indulge and enjoy?" Alamak, even Limpeh feels paiseh to show non-Singaporeans these so-called 'patriotic' songs...

Given that we have this big influx of migrants from China amongst other places, I hear many Singaporeans demanding them to assimilate. But when you ask the locals, "okay, can you tell us what it means to be Singaporean? What is the Singaporean equivalent of a Singapourien de souche?" If you asked a French person the same question, the answer may be complex but it would always start at the same place. "Learn the French language, speak French."

Where do we start with Singaporeans though? The official languages are not indigenous with the exception of Malay. Singlish and Singaporean-Hokkien (as opposed to Taiwan Hokkien or Amoy Hokkien) have no official status and are discouraged by the government. And as for culture - Singaporeans consume relatively little local culture. TV programmes, films, magazines, fashion and music tends to be imported. When I was last in AMK Hub, I remembered hearing music by Rihanna, Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas whilst I was browsing in the shops - there simply wasn't any inclination to consume local music. The DVD shop boosted plenty of imported films from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Hollywood - but had virtually nothing local. I had asked the man there (who was PRC) for a local Singaporean film and he wasn't even aware of there being a local film industry.

So, let's make some comparisons between France and Singapore via the power of youtube. Let's begin with the obvious - the national anthem. La Marseillaise has been the national anthem of France since 1795 and every French person will know it and it is sung enthusiastically at national events and football matches alike. Have a read of the lyrics in the Wikipedia link: it is French poetry at its best and it is drummed into the head of every single French student in France. They do not merely memorize it but the meaning of the lyrics are explained to them and taught to them.

Now let's compare that to the national anthem of Singapore: Majulah Singapura. It has been our national anthem since 1965 and it is in Malay. My regular readers will know that Limpeh speaks Malay - I'm not fluent and it has become somewhat rusty since I've moved to Europe but yes I do speak Malay and used to be quite good at it when I was living in Singapore. And by speak Malay, I don't mean I know a few words, when I was in Kuala Lumpur last year, I was able to have a conversation that lasted over an hour with the taxi driver who drove me from the airport to my meeting in Malay using 90% Malay and 10% English okay? I am glad that the national anthem is in Malay and not English, for Malay is indeed the indigenous language of the region - but here's the catch: the majority of Chinese and Indian people in Singapore do not speak Malay and the number who do speak Malay are falling year on year.

I recall the Chinese kids in my primary school totally mangling the lyrics of the national anthem every morning. I swear the kid who stood next to me in assembly sung "Mali kita lakya Singapula ya mama la buah luku buah hakia..." (I challenge you non-Malay Singaporeans to try to get the words right without checking the spelling on the internet.) You get the idea and believe you me, as a Malay speaker, I tried so hard to correct him but to no avail. Ironically, I was the only one who tried to correct him - none of our Chinese or Indian teachers made any attempt to correct the way the kids mispronounced the Malay words in the national anthem as none of them could speak Malay either. The Malay kids in my school didn't seem to care either - they were like, "yeah Chinese and Indian kids don't speak Malay, so what?" We had Malay language teachers - surely they could have organized a session during assembly to teach us about Majulah Singapura, what the words meant, how to pronounce the words, the history of the song. But no, this wasn't done in primary school, nor in secondary school, not in my JC and certainly not in the army.

What is the solution? Definitely not an English version. Fuck no. Please no. Not English. No fucking way. Cos I know they're going to track down the same Canadian TV jingle writer to do a ghastly bland English version. The solution is to simply teach the non-Malay Singaporeans how to speak enough Malay to understand their national anthem.

Why isn't this part of the national curriculum? Practically every school in Singapore would have Malay teachers (or Malay-speaking teachers) who would be able to teach the students about our national anthem, yet it is not done. Why? Why is there this resistance to learn the Malay language? Limpeh certainly believes that every Singaporean should be taught Malay in school for it is is an important regional language and that it should be compulsory at least till PSLE. Ha! I think the main reason why the MOE doesn't want to go down that route is because all the Chinese kids will realize that Malay is a lot easier than Chinese (heck, any language is easier than Chinese) and will get As in Malay and English with ease but Cs and Ds in Chinese despite working equally hard.

Ki chiu ki chiu - who thinks we should make Malay and English tests compulsory for PRCs before we grant them PR? After all, many countries have compulsory language tests for new migrants.

I could go on - comparing anything from literature, classical music, pop music, movies to famous people, but the conclusion is simple: there is a very clear idea of what it means to be French whilst Singaporeans are not that certain about what makes them Singaporean. So when we talk about new migrants learning to be like local Singaporeans - well should be on that list of lessons? I have compiled a small list here but please, feel free to let me know what else you think should be there:

• Early Singaporean history all the way from the early history of Singapore - we're talking about the stuff from the 2nd century AD till 1819 before Raffles, all that stuff. Heck, I don't think many Singaporeans even know much about Singaporean history from that period, if you are Singaporean and you know precious little about pre-1819 Singaporean history, have a read here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_history_of_Singapore 
•  Singaporean history of the period 1819 - 1965
• Contemporary Singaporean history from 1965 to present day
• An appreciation of all four official languages: Malay, English, Tamil and Mandarin 
• An appreciation for the further two unofficial languages: Singlish and Singaporean-Hokkien
• An appreciation for Singaporean writers, artistes, actors, directors. And not Gong Li and Vanessa-Mae, not them. I'm talking about people like Tan Hwee Hwee, Catherine Lim, Anita Sarawak, Ivan Heng, Lim Kay Siu, Jack Neo, Goh Choo San, Kumar, Michelle Chong, Maizurah Hamzah, Annabelle Chong, Dick Lee, Hirzi Zukiflie and Jacintha Abishineganaden. Whilst they're not as famous as Gong Li and Vanessa-Mae, at least they're properly Singaporean to begin with and we should celebrate what they have contributed to the arts scene in Singapore. 
• An appreciation for Singaporean sports stars like Ang Peng Siong, Joscelin Yeo, Fandi Ahmad, Eileen Chai, Lim Heem Wei, Tan Howe Liang, David-Jonathan Chan, Ronald Susilo, Gabriel Gan, Junie Sng
• An understanding of the SAF and national service in Singapore (compulsory for all immigrants, females included) 

In my previous post, I talked about a certain "je ne sais quoi" that has made Singapore so much more successful than all other Asian countries. Whilst Singaporeans are undoubtedly proud of their achievements, they probably would still struggle to answer questions like, "So why is Singapore so much richer than China? Why is Singapore so much more successful than Thailand? Why has Singapore managed to develop so much faster than Malaysia? Why do foreign investors love Singapore so much more than other Asian economies?" I don't suppose one stops for a moment to ask those questions whilst in Singapore - one only really engages in those questions outside Singapore, when one is faced with a foreigner who doesn't know much (or anything) about Singapore as I did in Croatia.

Limpeh in Croatia

Whilst I have come across as very anti-PRC in some previous posts, I want to make something very clear. I am not anti-PRC per se, I just wish they would make a greater effort to assimilate. It is important to keep one's borders open for foreign talent to come to one's country to nurture one's economy - after all, as I explained in a previous post, it tends to be the most adventurous, daring and dynamic individuals who have the balls to make the big leap and go work in a foreign country. Those who are risk averse, timid and afraid are highly unlikely to venture out of their comfort zone. Part of Singapore's success is because we were all descended from those adventurous, daring and dynamic forefathers who had the balls to leave behind everything familiar to them and move to this little island far away called Singapore to try and make a better life for themselves there. Heck, the deadbeats who had no balls, no courage, no sense of adventure stayed behind in China and didn't have the guts to下南洋.

However, we need to be selective as to what kind of foreign talents we let into Singapore - is the PRC bus driver who killed that woman in Sengkang the kind of people we want in Singapore? No way.

When the UK introduced citizenship tests for new migrants in 2005, I applauded them. When I actually set for the test to get my British citizenship in 2006, I had a major palm to face moment in that test room. It was multiple choice to begin with and done on the computer, so when you finish, you are automatically told if you pass or fail. In the room with me were a bunch of Indians, Africans, Aussies and Kiwis. The Aussies, Kiwis (well let's not beat around the bush, I am referring specifically to the white candidates) and I finished the test in less than five minutes, I kid you not. I checked my watch (sorry, I am a product of the Singaporean system lah), I took precisely 4 mins 53 seconds including checking my answers and I scored 100%. The white people scored 100% as well and we were saying to each other, this test is a fucking joke. If I am going to pay to take a test like that I expect to be challenged - instead I am having my intelligence insulted because it was so freaking easy. I must have been in primary school when I could last score 100% on a test or exam. And guess what? The lady at the reception said to me, "Sir, I'm so sorry but can you take this outside please? Some of the other candidates are still doing their tests and I can tell you that we average about 50% pass rate for this test."

I was shocked. "50%? You mean half the people actually fail? How is that possible? Anyone with half a brain can pass this and anyone with a quarter of a brain can finish it in less than 5 minutes."

She shrugged her shoulders, "It varies - but on average about half fail. That's the way it is... I know what you mean. Certain nationalities tend to do better than others."

One of the Aussies then commented, "If someone can't even pass a simple test like that, do we actually want them in the UK?"

The receptionist replied, "Well it's simple - until they pass the test they cannot get residency, so no, there's no way around the test."

Fortunately, the test has been made more difficult since and you can have a taste of it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/quiz/2011/oct/11/uk-citizenship-test-quiz One of the key questions asked when they increased the difficulty of the test was this: can a local British person pass the test? Likewise, if they had an equivalent test in Singapore, could a local Singaporean pass it? Are Singaporeans taught enough about their own country in their education? Is it fair to expect new immigrants to learn about your country when the locals can't even pass such a test? Certainly, Limpeh feels that such an equivalent test for new migrants in Singapore would be greatly welcome by the locals who need to be assured there is some element of filtering these new migrants from China. But expect the same questions too from the migrants if they were to implement such a test: do young Singaporeans know who people like Ang Peng Siong and Dick Lee are? Or would they only be familiar with Michael Phelps and Bruno Mars?

So, if Singaporeans want the PRCs to assimilate, perhaps the first step would be for them to set a good example by learning about our Singaporean roots as les Singapouriens de souche. After all, if local Singaporeans don't even know what it means to be Singaporean - how do we know what to teach the new migrants? What does being Singaporean mean to you? Let me know, please leave a comment, kum siah.