LET ENGLISH BE OUR MAIN LANGUAGE

Let us be more Singaporean,
By being less Chinese, Indian and Malay as can be.

Adopting English as our Main Language,
Has been the right step in Nation Building?

This firm Belief has bonded us together,
Thus we are One People, One Nation, and One Singapore.

English has united us as a People and Nation.
That is how the Singapore Identity will evolve?

-Don’t ever break this Foundation no matter what? – Sunflower 1991

Thinking Aloud - English Is The Foundation Of Our Nation

On August 4 last, at Cairnhill Community Center, I asked PM Goh “Why did our previous leadership, in order to forge a national identity, decide to disassociate themselves from our ethnic roots, and support a campaign for a Malaysian Malaysia (and by inference now that we are independent, a Singaporean Singapore?” “And why is our present leadership reversing that policy to search for separate ethnic roots?”

I told him I hope I was wrong in my assessment of where the present leaderships were now leading us. That I was afraid the roots were going to divide our citizenry. His reply was – “We can be as Chinese as we want to be, and still maintain ourselves as Singaporeans”.

After this many months of thinking on the subject, I am still unable to agree with him. I still believe that being a Singaporean means letting go of a chauvinistic attachment to past origins and re-identifying ourselves in our new nation as Singaporeans, with a distinctive culture of our own.

Even Lee Kuan Yew has once said after a visit to China, that the Singapore Chinese must not mislead themselves into thinking they are the same as the Chinese in China. Singapore with its multi-cultural facets is now our motherland as well as our children’s motherland. Definitely not China or India or Malaysia.

We can be proud that our forefathers originally came from China or India or the old Malaya or other country as fate may have has it, but we must now cultivate new roots in Singapore itself, a new multi-racial culture and a new heritage for our children. That means a new beginning for all in order to forge a truly multi-cultural, multi racial Singaporean identity in spirit and in fact.

Being a multi-racial society, we must first have something common to bind our various races together to reach our objective of true multi-cultural Singaporeans who are prepared to fight alongside each other and to die, if necessary in defense of our country.

We have now had English as a common language for more than two decades after gaining our independence. Through the use of English, we are beginning to bind together as a nation and establish a common ground for all Singaporeans regardless of ethnic origin and creed. Our English is neither an “England” English nor an “American” English, although the best practitioners amongst us can hold their own in diplomacy and business against the best of any of England’s or America’s natural born citizens.

Our English is a blend of our Asian origins and due regards to accepted grammar a product of our local outlook, first as a Singaporean, then as a world citizen. With our multi-racial background founded on oriental cultures, we feel unique because if the world is our hinterland, then as an Asian nation, we are truly representatives of Asia in our cultural origins, and of the world in our adoption and our control of a language that is understood and used international.

Yet, most of us who have our mother-tongue, are at least orally bilingual, if not multi-lingual and amongst the English-speaking Chinese, we are as keen as any transplanted Chinese in other parts of the world to observe the traditions of our forefathers. Quietly, our children continue to learn our ethnic languages. Not with fanfares. Not with boastings.

Amongst the various races in our own country of Singapore, we talk an English that takes into account Chinese, Malay Indian expressions, and yet when we confront English-speaking westerners we express ourselves as effectively as they, and can take them on in any field of endeavor in their language.

When we mingle amongst ourselves in sports, business or cultural activities, we know we can touch each other’s innermost feelings in English with local expressions, and still in our respective homes we maintain our origins as Chinese with our Chinese beliefs and customs, as Malays with our respect for family and religion, and as Indians with our veneration for our elders and our deities.

To achieve a true Singaporean identity and culture, I believe our only solution and answer is to search within our multi-racial groups for the values and beliefs we hold most dear for ourselves that will not offend compatriots of another race. We must then endeavor to define a mutual essence of commonly desired and admired values that we can combine into a core of Singaporean values as a nation.

As we evolve, we can re-define them to suit all our different races and peoples so that love for our country is raised to a level where we will unhesitatingly lay down our lives alongside our compatriots of other races and creeds to preserve what we have nurtured and created, and to preserve what is most dear to us –Nationhood.

We can never be the homogeneous nation like Japan. Nor do we want to be. Indeed in their very homogeneity and their obvious pursuit and pride in it, we sense an impending disaster for themselves and for this part of the world at least, unless they steer clear of military ventures. As concepts in a shrinking global village, pride in purity of race, or even purity in culture, is passed.

For us Singapore, inter-marriage across racial and cultural boundaries must occur in increasing numbers, and these events must not be viewed as undesirable or worse still, objectionable.

If you expect me to make my supreme sacrifice and die by your side in a fight for a common cause and love for our motherland, how can you object or be irritated if my son marries your daughter even if my skin is darker than yours or my home language and customs are different from yours?

We must continuously develop and maintain the cohesion of our society through affinity and desire for the well being of another, as communicated through a COMMON LANGUAGE, if we are indeed to secure our long-term survival as a nation.

Unfortunately, Singapore is not developing a COMMON CULTURE and HERITAGE through the promotion of a COMMON LANGUAGE; it seems to me that our present leadership does not now believe that such a language is essential foundation for a UNITED NATION. English is now classified as WORKING LANGUAGE only. The peoples of Singapore are confused and lost with all the current emphasis by Government on ethnic origins and languages and communities.

How’re we to achieve unity if we are to be as Chinese as we want to be, or as Malay as we want to be, or as Indian as we want to be, taking an impassioned pride in our respective ethnic languages, and trumpeting our shame for our inadequate command of the language of our ethnic groups? If we feel pride in our ethnic origin, do it with consideration of the feelings of fellow Singaporeans not of the same origin. If we feel ashamed then repair our inadequacy quietly. But let us press on with the urgent task of nation building, and of unifying our citizenry with a common language and a common approach to all our problems as a nation.

We can and must continue to maintain an understandable pride in our forefathers, and their origins, but we must not go backward and give undue encouragement for everyone to be as Chinese, as Indian, or as Malay as we want to be. In a multi-racial nation these are dangerous passions to INFLAME.

Try as we may, we cannot be as Chinese as the Chinese, because the Chinese in China are themselves evolving, and they are those, which prevailed when our forefathers were alive. Already the Chinese characters we now teach to our children in school are different from the Chinese characters our forefathers used. As the years and decades pass by, these differences must inevitably widen farther.

By all means, let our best dual-language inclined Chinese in Singapore study the traditions and lore of old time China, and the majesty of the Chinese language and its literature. In this way, Chinese language and culture can be preserved here. But that does not mean that all Singapore’s Chinese must endeavor to be as Chinese as they want to be?

The history of India is as glorious as that of China before the arrival of the British. They have an ancient language and literature as majestic as that of the Chinese and their culture is in no way inferior. The best of Buddhism in China, to which Confucius himself was exposed, in fact originated in India.

Let our best dual-language inclined Indians then also study their Indian traditions and languages, and thus preserve their culture. Again does that mean that all Indian Singaporeans must endeavor to be as Indian as they want to be?

The Malays have a culture of their own of which they are justly proud. Their young show a respect for their elders, and not just their parents, in ways that are admirable. Some Malay parents have inculcated in their children through devotion and self-sacrifice as great love of their parents as in the best of Chinese families in Singapore and even in old China.

There are intrinsic values in each of the cultures of the many races that comprise Singapore that can be absorbed into the core of a Singaporean culture. Not just the culture of the Chinese alone.

Difficult though the decision may be, it has to be made. The different racial groupings must SUBMERGE themselves and DILUTE their emphasis on ethnic origins (though not necessarily their pride) and come out less as Chinese, Malay or Indian, and more a Singaporean.

Therefore if we start to integrate different cultures, this means in time to come we will develop our UNIQUE Singapore culture that everyone will feel as one community. This is an essential step to take in our progress towards one people, one nation, and one Singapore. Henceforth, let us work towards being one people and a unity in nationhood amidst a fast overwhelms us if our citizenry is not solidly united as one people.

Our approach must be one of care and sensitively to minority feelings and concern for their welfare that must as soon as possible be further by a change back to a common endeavor and not through separate ethnic communal channels.

We must not look at the Swiss and think how well they have integrated in spite of their communal approach to national unity. We must also look at the Balkans, and think there is an even chance that what is happening in Yugoslavia can happen here if we continue with our communal approach. We MUST NOT LAY TOO MUCH STRESS ON COMMUNAL SELF-HELP in Singapore.

We must start now to integrate these separate efforts. We must not allow minority communities to feel left out from the main stream of activity in our nation-building efforts as many now do though they are too polite or perhaps feel impotent to voice their fears.

Is this a mere straw in the wind? It is not. Many of my friends of non-Chinese origin have in fact quietly expressed their unease to me, and to many of my English speaking Chinese friends. For every one who feels confident enough to express his fears there must be many other non-Chinese who stifle their fears in silence.

Such silence may well be the deep unheard rumbles of a volcano in the making that can erupt if Government carries on the present unheeding dash towards a more Chinese Singaporean unabatedly. Let the ultra Chinese-speaking Singaporeans be as Chinese as they want but they must do this under their own steam – not Government’s

In recent days, in the course of an address at a Chinese community function, B.G. Yeo has advised that the promotion of the Chinese language and culture must be done in an “inclusive and non-threatening” manner. How can it be inclusive when the GOVERNMENT itself emphasizes the separateness of ethnicity? How can it be non-threatening when the Chinese form the overwhelming majority of the population of Singapore and Government is clearly encouraging their ethnicity? That these words are used in a public speech may be an indication that some of our leaders in Government are already concerned.

Maybe 20% of English-educated Chinese still read Chinese novels, as Mr. Lee Kuan Yew says. What about the other 80% of the English-educated Chinese? What about the English-educated Indians, and the English-educated Malays? Together they form more than half the electorate.

Their silence does not mean acquiescence. If the Chinese-educated Chinese continue their unheeding ways, some even boasting that now it is the Chinese-educated who are calling the national tune, then silence over such inconsiderate action may one day erupt to break up a nation we have so laboriously built.

I believe that our present PAP Government should not continue to promote the extensive use of any particular ethnic language. I believe that the limits of ethnicity have already been reached by Government sponsored “Speak Mandarin” campaigns. The Government should now get out of intensive ethnic related activities. Government’s aim should be to promote national cohesiveness and co-operation and instill civic, social and national Consciousness.

The progress we have already achieved in unifying our nation of multi-racial multi-cultural peoples is due to the foresight of an earlier Government which consisted of strong leaders from not only the Chinese sector of the population but also from the other sectors. Combined, these past leaders brought about an English-speaking environment for inter-ethnic communication and national solidarity.

If we can refer to the common language not as English but as the world language for diplomacy, science, trade and commerce, then we are more able to see the wisdom and foresight of our earlier leaders.

Our nation was not forged by Mr. Lee Kuan Yew alone, but through the joint efforts amongst others, of an English-speaking Indian by the name of Mr. Rajaratnam, who was multi-racial in outlook, a Malay President by the name of Mr. Ishak, who was against Malay chauvinism and whose dignified assumption of duties as the figure-head of a multi-racial society gave our fledgling nation its first notion of inter-ethnic pride and respectability, and a Eurasian leader by the name of Mr. Barker, who submerged the claims of his community to the interests of a united Singapore.

There are others originally not in the PAP camp but who later supported its objectives loyally because it was then a Singaporean Singapore that the PAP leadership sought. One of them, a Jew Mr. David Marshall, is still with us and we must honor him for his nation-building efforts.

Let me say that I have voted PAP all along. I am not one of those in the opposition who will delight in the downfall of the PAP. But I must voice my deep concern and in so doing, also that of more than 50% of the electorate. This is our Singapore and our children’s Singapore.

I want to be sure that the cohort of leaders that will arise in the years to come will be Singaporeans of the caliber of our Ambassador at Large Mr. Tommy Koh and of another one-time Ambassador Ms. Chan Heng Chee, who are Chinese enough to be Chinese in origin, but thoroughly Singaporean with a command of the diplomacy and the English language that can match the best that the West can offer in a world dominated by the use of the English language.

Our leaders must not be afraid of a chauvinistic section of the electorate, who wish to hold the Government to ransom. Give us what we want, even if it means breaking up our nation, or we will form the swing vote that will destroy you. To give in, is to allow the seeding of hidden but potent destructive forces that will eventually destroy our beloved multi-racial, multi-cultural nation and the future of our children.

Fortunately, the Chinese chauvinists do not constitute a majority in our electorate. There is yet time for the present leadership to change course and de-emphasize communalism. Damage has been done. But the damage is not irreparable. I pray the Government will see the light and act accordingly.

English is one of our roots - Sunflower, 3rd Sep 1992