As an Asian, particularly a Singaporean, the temptation to feel
smug has never been greater, particularly when you look at events in the world’s
most prominent nation, the USA. While Singapore has problems and has lost some
of its shine from the explosion of Covid-19 cases, our problems remain
relatively mild, when compared to say the hundred thousand odd Covid-19 cases
in the US and the riots across America that were sparked by the murder of George
Floyd, a black man who was murdered by white police officers on video. Our problems,
as they say, are rather “first-world” when compared to the USA.
However, as tempting as it is to get smug, it’s probably best
not to get smug at all. While Singapore’s apparent tranquility might give one
the impression that all is well, many of the underlying problems that have
exploded in the USA are present in Singapore. We’ve merely been better at applying
the cosmetic dressing.
Like the USA, Singapore is an unequal society. The latest
figures on inequality based on the Gini-coefficient (which measures inequality
on a scale of 0 to 1, with 0 being perfect equality), Singapore hit a two-decade
low of 0.452 last year. The report can be found at:
By comparison, the USA has a Gini-coefficient of 0.485.
Singapore compares well to its main Asian rival, Hong Kong, which has a
Gini-coefficient at 0.539 (joke being the tycoons control Hong Kong the way the
government controls Singapore) and unlike top placed Lethoso (0.632), its not a
case of a handful of people owning everything else. However, Singapore compares
badly to the European nations, like Germany, which has a score of 0.27 and even
some of our fellow ASEAN neighbours like Indonesia which has 0.368 (this being
a country which has some of ASEAN’s richest people while having visible signs
of poverty).
Whenever the issue of the Gini-coefficient is brought up, Singapore’s
powers-that-be, inevitably argue that the Gini-coefficient isn’t the most
accurate measure of anything in particular, rather like the way my old
headmaster used to argue against school league tables (that being until the
tables showed him something he liked to see).
What’s particularly interesting about the “inequality” in Singapore
is that it is often colour related. You have the professional and executive
classes, who are more often than not Westerners or well-educated local Chinese,
and much to the dismay of many locals, a growing number of Indians from Mumbai
and Delhi. At the lower end of the spectrum are the guys doing menial jobs like
cleaning our streets, manning our ship yards and construction sites and looking
after our kids. These guys are predominantly from what Donald Trump calls “Shithole”
countries of the Philippines, Bangladesh and India (specifically the Southern Parts).
The wage differentials are staggering. While our CEO’s have
yet to experience American style 100 million annual stock options, the pay at
the higher end of the scale is not to be sniffed at. DBS’s CEO, Piyush Gupta famously
had a salary of SG$9,000,000 a year. Our Prime Minister is the world’s highest
paid head of government (US$1.61 million per year versus the USD400,000 for the
US President) and the CEOs of our top companies are not doing too badly either.
At the other end of the scale are the labourers and maids
who would be lucky to have a thousand Singapore dollars in their pockets. I
still remember a labourer of a company we put into liquidation telling me that
he earned a princely sum S$18 a day for a 12-hour workday.
What’s particularly interesting is the attitudes towards the
pay differentials. When it comes to paying working professionals, it called “talent
retention,” and we’re told that we’ll lose our competitive edge if we don’t pay
better than first world salaries to people from the first world. It was always
interesting to see the extent of our efforts to “retain” and “attract” talent,
especially when it came to the vices. The police parked themselves across the
streets so that working professionals could have their pick of prostitutes and
overpriced booze without any interference (men, will be men).
By comparison, when it comes to anyone from “developing” Asia,
the line of defense is – “they’re earning far more than they’d ever get back
home.” This on its own wouldn’t be a major topic, but when you add the way law
enforcement looks upon migrant workers, which is as a source of potential
problems. Bored policemen on petrol inevitably cannot help questioning workers
who are damaging the neighbourhood by sitting in a corner and having a cup of
tea.
Just as there’s an economic defense for paying “talents”
from New York or London well, there’s an economic defense for paying people
from Dhaka and Manila badly. The argument runs like this, if we didn’t pay them
badly, we would not be able to give you the Singaporean quality housing and
infrastructure at affordable prices.
This argument is faulty. It enforces the idea that dark
skinned people are less worthy of human treatment and places the profits of
companies above that of basic human decency. What’s more shocking is that official
attitudes seem to support this. There have been too many cases of senior politicians
making blatantly racist statements in the public arena and keeping their jobs
as the following illustration shows.
Furthermore, with the explosion of Covid-19 cases in worker
dormitories, you’d imagine that people would finally understand that its in the
national self interest to ensure the workers get better living conditions.
Unfortunately, you have too many like the Fawning Follower aka Critical Spectator,
who still insist that the downtrodden need to remain that way for everyone’s benefit.
The foreign worker population like the black population inthe USA have born a disproportionate amount of Covid-19 cases. They are generally
law abiding and as stated on many occasions, what they want is to get what is
due to them for their labour and some fairness.
To be fair to the Singapore government, its acted quickly to
contain the spread of Covid-19 in the dormitories and been generous in giving
welfare to the affected workers. However, this is only cosmetic and doesn’t
solve the real problem.
Let’s remember that the cause of the 2013 riots came as a
result of the police appearing to show more interest in protecting a bus driver
who had killed a worker than in the welfare of the worker itself. While mild
compared to what is happening in the USA, our system needs to be revamped to
such a way where our “anti-racist” rhetoric actually means something and we don’t
justify the exploitation of an underclass in economic terms.
Let’s start with this. Politicians who make “racist” remarks
in public should pay with their jobs. It would show that we’re actually serious
about combating racial discrimination. If our leaders can get away with making “racially
insensitive” remarks in public, what type of example does it set for the rest
of the population?
We’ve been lucky in our race-relationship management.
However, we have underlying problems and let’s not waste a good crisis and use
the time to take stock and reform the system for the better. The sooner we do
it the better for the rest of us.
No comments
Post a Comment