Many Singaporeans may not be aware of the main reason for the hype on the need to allow a candidate among the minorities (in this instance the Malays because the Indians have had 2 of their own already) to be elected as Singapore’s President.
I fully share the views expressed by Alfian Sa’at in a recent post.
I am basically colour blind when it concerns this. To blazes with symbolism/tokenism. What we Malays want are fair and equal treatment. We want to be treated not as second class citizens. We want to be represented in all aspects of the Singapore socio political and commercial landscape. We want to play a real and meaningful role in the defence of our nation. We want to be allowed to freely practise our culture and religion without intruding into those of the other communities or reducing the common space, like the donning of the tudung. We want an end to all forms of discrimination in all sectors, especially in the NS and immigration policies which are so blatantly to our disadvantage. We want to be truly united with the other communities as one people.
We want a president who can unify us all, irrespective his race. We say a big NO to a puppet president even if he is a Malay.
If asked to choose between an ex Malay PAP minister (because under the proposed new criteria only such persons would qualify, I suppose) and Dr Tan Cheng Bock, for instance, I would gladly choose Dr. Tan even though he is not a Malay.
Source: Mohamed Jufrie Bin Mahmood
