The lion, the haze and the people

Civil society in Singapore stands at a crossroads. Sociopolitical issues are actively debated, opinions are readily offered and there is, in general, a constant clamour for increased engagement and space for debate in the public sphere. But, for all the noise, is there real impetus towards taking the initiative on action?

Over a month ago, for instance, there was much furore over the resignation of Singa, the mascot of the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM). Singa’s “resignation letter” noted that he was “too tired to continue facing an increasingly angry and disagreeable society” and that “it (was) time for real people to step up and for the mascot to step aside”.

The campaign polarised public opinion, with criticism directed at the SKM for Singa’s cynicism. While the dust has since settled, it is worth revisiting matters through the lens of civil society in Singapore. Why not, for instance, interpret Singa’s “resignation” as a shift away from government-initiated and run campaigns?

One critic had fretted that Singa the Lion was setting a bad example for his young son by “giving up”. If a make-belief mascot has more influence on the personal development of a young boy than do his parents, family and greater society, well, it is a damning indictment of our social responsibility.

Some also argued that Singa was a failure because he was a plastic representation of a top-down movement that lacked connectivity. So should we not then celebrate the fact that Singa’s inability to relate to a different generation has been recognised, and the responsibility of making this society a gracious one passed on to “the real people”?

FILLING UP SOCIAL SPACES

Civil society in Singapore is evolving and, in many ways, in a positive fashion. People are coming together, mobilising to react to issues, policies and events. This is to be lauded and is a phenomenon that must continually evolve as people seek a place in the country’s sociopolitical sphere.

However, it is also worth wondering if this evolution has been rather limited to a possibly vocal minority, or to issues that are pressing or generate a certain amount of political controversy.

A politically active and reactive civic society will be taken more seriously when it makes itself more socially relevant and assertive. As we demand more political space, it is good to also see social spaces being filled with initiatives that have taken on life apart from state-prescribed campaigns and programmes.

Individuals and groups have been mobilising to address social issues such as (and this makes Singa’s exit timely) advocating graciousness and kindness. Groups such as Mission: Singapore and Project Awareness organise activities to raise awareness, aid those in need or simply bring a smile to people’s faces through flash mobs, giving out free hugs and other fun programmes.

The Stand up for Singapore movement holds various events to “build a culture of love, gratitude and graciousness”. Last National Day, for instance, volunteers travelled on MRT trains distributing red and white badges with the slogans “Stand up for our Elderly” and “Stand up for our Mothers”.

Student initiatives, too, are on the rise. The Singapore Management University’s Initiatives for Social Enterprise, for example, comprises students who use their business knowledge to nurture social enterprises, by teaching members finance, marketing and other business skills.

The Tamil Language Society at the National University of Singapore runs the Saadhana tuition programme in collaboration with the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA) and the Singapore Indian Education Trust, offering subsidised high-quality tuition to junior college students.

The scope for student initiatives is growing and no longer limited to small-scale activities, and young people are increasingly showing a keen interest in being part of a civil society that takes ownership of issues.

This dynamism often does not make the headlines and many Singaporeans may remain unaware of the shifting sands in society.

During the peak of the haze last month, as PSI readings reached previously unimaginable levels, it was met with alarm and the expected panic. The Government moved to address concerns and to reassure Singaporeans that it was doing all it could.

There were those, though, who thought action was not being taken swiftly enough. As has been well-publicised, netizens and groups of people mobilised and helped get N95 masks to those who needed them the most, or even offered up air-conditioned rooms to those without that benefit at home.

A group of undergraduates from the National University of Singapore’s Tembusu College gave out masks to underprivileged families; other student groups distributed masks to elderly people and children.

These are encouraging signs that civil society in Singapore is capable of social action while also functioning as critics. While the haze was a temporary crisis, the clarity it offered must be permanent.

Pravin Prakash
The Social Swami

This article was written for the TODAY paper and was published online on 23rd July 2013

Identity Formation in Singapore – Youth Initiatives (The World Tamil University Youth Conference)

Identity formation in Singapore has always been a difficult and complicated process. State initiatives such as the CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others) have led to the segregation of Singaporeans along broad racial lines that have led to the formation of a identity-culture in Singapore that is often referred to as a hyphenated identity. One is essentially a Singaporean-something, the tag Singaporean not sufficing to explain one’s identity. This has, for much of Singapore’s independent history led to a hyphenated identity that has closely followed the CMIO policy. We are labelled as being Singaporean- Chinese, Malay or Indian. The necessity for a racial identity that exists in tandem with our nationality has become an expected reality in the city-state.

Recent decades however have seen a shift in identity formation in Singapore. Although racial identification remains essential within the context of the accepted hyphenated identity, there has been a distinct shift from state initiated efforts such as language campaigns towards efforts by different groups to understand, identify and cultivate cultural, linguistic and racial identities. Youth initiatives especially have grown in strength over the years challenging and exploring cultural identities that are yet unexplored in an immigrant society that has often lain disconnected from the rich cultural histories of the land of their forefathers.

The World Tamil University Youth Conference (WTUYC) organised by the Tamil Language Society of the National University of Singapore (NUSTLS) is a remarkable and ambitious example of such youth initiatives. It is an effort to host an academic conference that discusses evolving Tamil identity amongst the youth today on a global level. Singaporean Tamils thus are privy to presentations by youth conference delegates from around the world sharing the diverse realities of Diaspora identities as well as Tamil identity in India itself. This global conference is the first of its kind and promises to be largely influential in channelling discussions on identity amongst youth in Singapore on an increasingly global scale.

This effort must be lauded not only amongst Singaporean- Indian- Tamil circles. (Note the extensive use of hyphens) NUSTLS has pioneered a gargantuan effort that must be attempted by groups of all kinds. Not only must the youth of today question and study identity patterns, they must understand the implications of their perceived identities within the context of an increasingly globalised society that is perhaps evolving towards increasingly global identities. The WTYC, I would argue is a guiding light for youth all over the world, especially Singapore. The papers and presentations by undergraduate and post-graduate students from illustrious universities such as Oxford and Cambridge as well as local universities offers both the academic rigour as well the refreshing insight of youth that is necessary in understanding the evolving nature of identity formation.

Such initiatives must be attempted by groups beyond the scope of linguistic and racial identities. NUSTLS’s World Tamil University Youth Conference should be the first of a plethora of youth initiatives that attempt to understand evolving identities on a global perspective. These efforts will not only expose the youth of today to more diverse perspectives, it will enable them to develop skill-sets that will enable them to function in an increasingly global and diverse society.

Far more crucially however, discussions on evolving identities on a global scale will enable Singaporean youth to understand that identity, while integral, is an essentially fluid and malleable entity. It should not function to divide on the basis of differences. Rather, much like the WTUYC hopes to achieve, it can bring together people of different and diverse backgrounds, in an effort to find, study and celebrate differences while finding common threads in our shared humanity.

Pravin Prakash
The Social Swami

(The WTUYC will be held from the 20-22 July 2012. For more information, visit the NUSTLS website at http://www.nustls.org/#!wtuyc-2012 or the Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/WTUYC2012 )

Roar

Inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s Poem entitled Howl

There are no best minds of my generation.
We are merely abject failures perpetually poised on the cusp of greatness
Constantly apologetic for our pursuit of freedom and independence
Caught between the dichotomy of suburbanite expectations and an urban lifestyle.
These are the Confucian horrors of our times.
Lest you worry I am being racist, I will spare you the pedestrian angst – I do not blame our ancient fathers of varied colours, I only blame us.
We are living their legacy with only the fortitude of preservation. The wanton spirit of creation is lost in the rhetoric you spew about my colour versus yours, my country versus yours, my religion versus yours.
War on the streets has been helmed but the war of words has grown.
To what end, at what cost?

We are a land of myth and magic;
Recall the geographically impossible sighting of a lion by Sang Nila Utama,
The mythical Merlion that guards our shores,
We are the land of transformation, impressive and impossible in scope.
Ignore this at our own peril,
Becoming the land where only the reinforced myth of conservatism prevails.
If I tell you, you are better than everyone else, you will listen to me.
If I tell you, you can be better than yourself, you do not hear me.
If I tell you marriage, children, a HDB flat is not my choice of life, you stare befuddled and ask, ‘but doesn’t everyone want those things?’
People, who know us not, look at this mindlessness and think this must be the product of a long sustained suppression by an external form, a government.
But the repression is within.
An island tied to none, mistaken for bigger continents, we are entirely consumed as a negligible civilization with being the best of the best.
To what end, at what cost?

See the earth we dig deep, the rage that flows out of it, it is our rage.
We are angry,
We are alienated, locked away from our own psyches, oblivious to the varied lives, the diverse options, the endless possibilities.
We see only our fractured selves in each other and rage and rage and rage.
We fuss over identity like mannequins in a store window
Grappling for the insides with only frozen smiles on plastic faces.
We love,
Not as a voyage of discovery,
But as a necessary step in the narrow ladder of social acceptability.
Look upon this mirage of a classless society,
Witness social mobility becoming a foregone conclusion of another era.
To be asked to forecast the trends of the future
Then shut down by the soothsayers of the past,
It is cockblocking for the brightest minds;
This intelligentsia the world sees as powerful sharks,
But you, with your breakable ego,
Only willing to acknowledge mediocrity,
Irrationally look upon them as guppies in a small pond.

Surely this vicious cycle has only one doomsday conclusion
Yet we float, buoyed by the sheer tenacity of a structure laid in place by foresight
Foresight, my friends, is the ability to look out of the past into the future,
To view the immortal land of being with the steady gaze of a pragmatic.
Who can do this?
Now you see what I see
There is no greatness in my generation
We have swallowed the past or spat it out, whenever it suits us.
We live in the present, drunk on the power of potentia.
You have it all, you have what it takes, you are the leaders of tomorrow
And yet we are none of this.
In this age of diversity and discernment and power to the agile,
To lead is not to redeem or conserve, it is to break and build, time and again,
Till death and birth become one and the same,
The shadows of the unknown resurrecting the powerful and the wise.

Reena Devi

This poem is for the ones who love me best uncaged…

The Intolerance of Tolerance

The last few weeks in Singapore has been marked by a flurry of racially insensitive remarks splashed across cyberspace. The Racist remarks have been shared, equally bigoted responses have been written and many people have written commentaries much like this one on the issue. Should we not then just let the matter rest?

We do however need to meditate on what this tells us about our society and the philosophies that shape our society. Hence, this article is not an attempt at an angry response nor is it a spirited defence of Singaporean Indians against the slanderous accusations of being odorous terrorists. Rather, it is an attempt at trying to figure out if there is a causal factor in all of this. Are we not after all a racially tolerant society? Do we not at least strive our hardest to be a tolerant society?
That I would suggest, is precisely the problem.

The very foundations of our diverse society is premised on the notion of tolerance. We must be tolerant of other races and people who we deem different from us. We must tolerate their differences, their presence, their cumbersome customs, their idiosyncrasies. If we can tolerate one another, surely we can live our lives in peace, never having to fear the potential conflict that an intolerant society would create.

Tolerance however is premised on an intolerant presumption. It suggests, rather insidiously, that there is inherently something wrong with someone who is different. It, on a subconscious level, dictates that the differences that people have in our society, cultural, biological and spiritual differences that are essentially negative in nature. We tolerate that which we cannot naturally accept. Smelly lavatories and rude behaviour are examples of things we tolerate due to our need to either get things done or due to our better nature. Tolerance is not what our ethnically and culturally diverse society should be based on.

A tolerant society is much like a dam that is built to prevent a village from flooding. It will continue to hold water till it can no longer and will then one day explode, resulting in the devastation of the community that had built it to prevent such a catastrophe in the first place. When seen from such a perspective, is the actions of the much maligned Shimun Lai that difficult to comprehend? From her perspective, she had tolerated for a long time the assault on her senses from people of a community she had been taught to tolerate for the good of society. On a given day, when her nerves were already frayed, and her tolerance had already been tested, she burst forth with words I am sure she has lived to regret. I am by no means endorsing her behaviour or telling you that it is in anyway acceptable. I am merely saying that there is a method to her madness, a causal factor that exists within the philosophies that have shaped our society.

We must not confuse a tolerant society for one that is based on acceptance. A society based on acceptance celebrates differences and is based on respect and mutual admiration. A tolerant society is based on false notions of magnanimity and deeply entrenched (but sometimes subconscious) prejudice. Society is hence divided by its tolerance. Everyone thus essentially becomes the ‘tolerator’ and the ‘toleratee’. Tolerance is premised on the othering of people who do not share similar practices and physical attributes. It is a mask that we put on to hide our bigoted conceptualisations of others. We mask our intolerance with tolerance and hope for peace in a society of painted smiley faces, not realising that paint much like our tolerance fades over the years.

Let us not attempt to paper the cracks of our fragile tolerant society and instead let us move towards a society that is based on accepting differences as reality and learning to celebrate them. It will not be a gentle learning process. Acceptance is a harder pill to swallow than the pretence of tolerance but it is a suitable cure to intolerance. Let us not live in masks but learn to accept one another for the varied beasts that we are.

Pravin Prakash
The Social Swami

An edited version of this piece was published in TODAY newspaper and TODAYonline.

Random Perspectives: Magic & Science in Society

In Lev Grossman’s best selling novel The Magicians, we come to witness a world where power and magic are possessed by flawed human beings who in spite of their schooling and training and brilliance are lost in the real world, trying to find a space for themselves.

Current hit ABC television program Once Upon a Time takes on well-known fairy tales about true love and magical power by showcasing the characters of these fairy tales as real people struggling to find their happy endings, creating a world where good people do bad things and bad people sometimes do great things.

There is no clear divide between the bogeyman and the prince, no separation between white wizard and dark wizard. Suddenly, the world of fantasy has taken on a real world darkness.

Surprisingly, mainstream viewers and readers are lapping this up indicating the mass appeal of such concepts and ideas.

In the early years of the previous decade, the blockbuster success of Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings and Narnia movies indicated that the fantasy genre had became a rather more mainstream preoccupation, a culturally accepted form of escapism from the harsh realities and seismic changes of those times.

So why have we decided to let the world we escape to become more like the world we live in?

Perhaps this blurring of lines between fantasy and reality is an indication of the appetite of our collective conscious, a desire for the return to primitive magic, a yen long repressed by the advocating of rational thought and scientific processes.

Already, labeling and categorizing, a methodology associated with the scientific approach, has become a real issue; In the recent analysis of an upcoming revision of the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM), psychologists, psychiatrists and other experts said new categories of mental illness identified in the manual considered ‘silly’ and ‘worrying and dangerous’.

This brings to mind ‘diagnosis bias’, a term discussed in the best selling book, The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. The authors link the increase of diagnosis of bipolar disorder to the modern diagnostic system put into use in 1980 with the publication of the DSM-III, which “broadened” the bipolar diagnosis. They go on to explain how such diagnosis bias can lead to the patient himself or herself changing their behaviors to fit the diagnosis. Once people are labeled, they tend to live up (or down) to those labels, taking on characteristics of the diagnosis.

What if scientific approach and rational thought are merely social constructs and the world around us is actually the world that has been seen and understood since the beginning of the history of mankind, one observed by the likes of Native Indians and the Ancient Greeks, by our various religious prophets?

What if, alongside exploring the realms of sea and space, we had chosen to keep exploring what is within us, the dark spaces of our inner psyche? What might we have found by now?

These questions have been addressed in depth by the greatest thinkers of our past – Carl Jung, Plato amongst them. Yet with our current twenty first century rational minds, we look at them as throwaway questions of a whimsical nature. Perhaps the current issues with scientific labeling as well as the material conflicts of our times will lead to a mainstream contemplation of such questions. Current cultural preferences certainly seem to predict such a shift.

Reena Devi

The Identity Series Part 2 : IDENTITY TODAY: The Undefined Self

At any given social function, the first question individuals most commonly ask when meeting someone new is an obvious tell of what they give importance to with regards to definition of one’s identity.

In other cities, like Edinburgh for example, the question most often tends to be, ‘Where did you go to school?’ – regardless of age or class, everyone gets asked this. (I suspect it has something to do with the city’s pursuit of academic and intellectual excellence throughout its history.)

In Singapore it varies.

A life is charted by a progression, from birth to family, followed by school and making friends, then accumulating the necessary academic qualifications to get the necessary job to pay the bills and buy the house, to support the elderly parents, forming ties of friendship and commitment with people around us, building a life based on these ties, creating a foundation for a family of one’s own.

We tend to define ourselves based on whichever stage we are at in this progression – the school, the job, the relationship etc.

What happens to an individual who is not at any of the aforementioned stages? Does he or she no longer exist as part of the fabric of functional society? In these times of economic uncertainties, material struggles and rapid social changes, people tend to veer off the path – what then defines them?

At this juncture we are often introduced to a series of non-conformist labels and categories for those who do not fit into the requisite mold of society, we are brought to organizations and movements which fight for the rights of these individuals with lesser rights.

Sexuality is an example of this phenomenon. If you are a man who does not favor women in any physical and sexual sense, you become a ‘homosexual’. If you favor both genders, you are a ‘bisexual’. Then you immerse yourself in the lifestyle and community of individuals who share you sexual preferences. Yet this means of defining one’s identity and place in society based on choice of sexual partner is not as foolproof as it seems. In fact, it is shifting.

A quick look at the current hit primetime television dramas, ‘The Good Wife’, and ‘Revenge’ show a development of a new archetypical character, one who displays a high degree of sexual ambiguity and is able to function within the various strata of sexually classified society. These characters are a mere reflection of an emerging trend of such individuals in society, those who are beyond sexual labels and categories – so how do they define themselves?

We are often told that identity is shaped by a sense of belonging.

This usually entails your family’s history and legacy, recognition of your bloodline, the land your grandparents migrated to, the land your forefathers were born. Nonetheless, these are aspects of the past, of a history that has little to do with you as a standalone individual in today’s world that gives more value to ‘now’ and ‘tomorrow‘ as compared to the past.

You may have been born in a specific place but that does not necessarily mean you will belong there. It does not guarantee you will feel as if you instantly fit in with your family and peers, as if every action you carry out and the words you say will be accepted, given its due measure of importance.

Globalisation, migration and travel grant us the opportunities to create lives for ourselves away from our birth countries but we are fundamentally foreigners there too, only feeling a sense of belonging amongst other expats. Your identity becomes defined by your ‘otherness’.

This is the dilemma of the quintessential twenty first century individual – he (or she) belongs nowhere but is connected to everywhere and a part of everything.

Maybe it is time to define identity as an open ended question, opening up our socially ingrained notions of perceiving ourselves based on the narrowest terms, accepting the multitude of possibilities that we can be at any given time and place.

Being able to pin down somebody within the first few minutes of meeting them always makes someone more comfortable, increases their own false sense of security. I know his type, she is exactly like the kind I know – these are the thoughts that create familiarity and hence facilitate social interaction.

Yet, these means of social identification are quickly becoming outmoded in the world that is creeping up on us, a world where the most interesting individual at a party will be socially and sexually textured, technically unemployed (yet working on several fiscally feasible projects in a diverse range of unrelated fields), and will possess a surprisingly strong sense of family history while being relatively untethered at heart.

He (or she) could be the next new social archetype of this century, simply known as the Undefined.

Reena Devi

The Identity Series Part 1 : The Refracted Identity – A Personal Reflection.

One’s identity is often understood to be a reflection of how he views himself: “I view myself as such and therefore identify myself within the garbs of my understanding”. However, what happens when one’s conceptualization of oneself is essentially a refracted identity; a cross-dressed projection that lacks the safe shelter of accepted socially safe definitions?

My attempts at embracing my identity have always consisted of attempting to wear multiple hats while adroitly dodging impositions of cultural bias. I attempt (and fail somewhat) at being Malayalee with my family and its enjoined social circle. I attempt (and fail somewhat once again) at being Tamil while with my friends. I cling onto an Indian identity (despite its lack of any real essence within Singaporean society) in the hope that it offers a sane explanation at my beleaguered attempts. I do understand that I don’t have to make these attempts. I could rebuff one identity and embrace the other. However, I strongly believe that doing so would be rejection of who I truly am and as such I will continue to attempt a balancing act of sorts, clinging on to a fractured umbrella identity that offers little solace from the storm in my soul.

Perhaps difficulties at finding ones identity are exacerbated when one has to define oneself within state established ethno-cultural moulds. A custom, one-size-fits-all structure that attempts to regulate how one identifies oneself. The complexities that envelop the term ‘Indian’ in Singapore have strong structural roots and are entrenched within state policy. Since Independence, Singapore has followed a multiracial state policy that has attempted to clearly define its population within 4 racial categories, Chinese, Malay, Indian and others. Each race was also allocated a race-language, with the Indians given Tamil as their ‘racial language’ of sorts. This massive oversimplification I would argue has led to intense difficulties with regards to how Indians have identified themselves. The attempt at state controlled ethnicity has created social barriers that have led to a divisive Indian community in Singapore. The idea that Indians must be Tamil speaking had the unintended and immediate effect of creating a North-Indian and South-Indian divide that exists till today. Non Tamil speaking South Indians are also sometimes mistakenly seen as others, a common question statement being, “He isn’t Indian, he is Malayalee.” I do not disagree with the policy of having Tamil as a national language. I myself consider myself to have benefitted from having been exposed to Tamil language and culture. However the oversimplified racial policy (CMIO) has had the unintended effect of preventing the term Indian from being an umbrella identity that essentially culturally and linguistically different Diaspora could have comfortably clung to. I could easily have been a Tamil speaking Malayalee and part of a larger Indian community but all three identities, in my opinion are essentially confused and fractured.

My pursuit to belong has hence often left me uncomfortable in my own shoes, unclear of who I really am and what I am supposed to believe in. My arguments today have run its discourse in my mind for the better part of 2 decades; a sometimes schizophrenic debate that has raged within me as I have struggled to identify myself within myself, my community (various communities?), society and country. This is my attempt at highlighting that there is perhaps a structural reason behind why belonging and identifying oneself is so difficult in Singaporean society. This is my attempt at rationalizing my refracted identity.

Pravin Prakash