Tag: Indians

A Chinese-Singaporean Husband’s Dilemma – ‘Sorry Your Wife Is Indian. Landlord Won’t Rent To You’.

Darius Cheung, founder of Singapore-based property listing site 99.co, is married to Indian-Singaporean wife Roshni Mahtani, who’s also an entrepreneur (she started parenting portaltheAsianparent).

Late last year, they began searching for a property to rent, thinking that an oversupply of apartments would make it easy. They were wrong.

You see, as a Chinese Singaporean man, Darius had been sheltered from the everyday racism felt by minorities. He was about to get an education.

“I began to notice something very odd as we went for these viewings, something I never encountered before in the dozen years that I’ve been renting,” he writes on the company blog.

“On several occasions, the agents seemed eager to end the viewings quickly, sometimes without even discussing the offer. I would text them afterwards to negotiate on the price, but one of the responses we got was a shocking ‘Sorry your wife is Indian, landlord won’t rent to you. Next time please indicate earlier, so we both don’t waste time.’”

He did precisely that. True enough, 20 percent of their enquiries were rejected right away because Roshni was mentioned in the text message.

“In one case, after the typical vague response of ‘profile doesn’t match,’ I pushed harder to ask ‘Is it because my wife is Indian?’, and the response was a dead-pan ‘yes, thanks for your understanding.’”

They ended up paying 15 percent more than what they should have because of their difficulty finding a place.

The event led to some soul-searching. They wanted to include both parents’ surnames in their daughter’s name. They thought about dropping the Indian surname to protect her, but decided against it.

So Darius sought to do something about racial discrimination in the property market. He writes:

If you google ‘No Indian No PRC’, you will find actual rental listings in Singapore in the top results. The problem is so prevalent that even BBC had extensive coverage on it some time ago.

Enquiries about rental properties often come with a series of profiling questions that includes ‘What race are you?’, ‘Where are you from?’, or outright rejection by stating ‘Profile doesn’t match.’ The top two groups of people who receive discriminatory responses are Indians and PRCs (referring to those from the People’s Republic of China).

Landlords often cite reasons like “lack of cleanliness”, “likelihood of damaging the apartment,” and even “I don’t like them.”

99.co is now tackling this by introducing an “all-races-welcome” indicator on its website. What this means is that agents and landlords can positively indicate that their properties can be rented by anyone regardless of ethnicity. Such listings will get prominent placing on the website.

“The idea is to give renters peace of mind during their home search journey – reducing instances of rude comments and unpleasant experiences while enquiring about listings.”

Source: www.techinasia.com

July 20, 2016
US Special Rep To Muslim Communities: Important To Give Singapore Minorities Equal Entrepreneur Opportunities

PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA – For Singapore’s entrepreneurship landscape to reflect the diversity of its society, business owners and youths from minority groups must have equal access to funding and opportunities, a United States official said.

This is important because entrepreneurship can act as a powerful counter to violent extremism, while also exposing young people to new ideas and opportunities, noted Mr Shaarik Zafar, the US Department of State’s Special Representative to Muslim Communities.

Mr Shaarik was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, which is being held over three days on the Stanford University campus in California.

More than 700 entrepreneurs and 300 investors from around the world are taking part in the summit, including at least seven representatives from Singapore.

Mr Shaarik has made three visits to Singapore, most recently in May this year when he met with Singapore’s Minister for Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli.

“Singapore’s diversity, just like diversity in other countries, is its strength,” he said in response to questions from The Straits Times at the Summit.

“Singapore has strong rule of law, and access to capital. But the challenge is, as in many parts of the world, sometimes minority youth don’t have access to this,” he noted.

“I think the key is mentorship, and often that means people mentoring young people outside their community.”

Mr Shaarik added that Singapore can be an “important role model” when it comes to helping minorities access entrepreneurship opportunities.

“The next step is engaging Muslim youth, and other minority youth, and making sure they have access to the same training, the same mentorship, and the same capital…It’s important that all aspects of Singaporean society are able to access (these).”

Mr Shaarik also said promoting entrepreneurship is a “fundamental part”of US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, “because we recognise entrepreneurship is directly linked to stability, economic growth and connectivity with the world”.

His comments echoed remarks made by US Secretary of State John Kerry earlier the same day, during the official opening of the Summit.

Entrepreneurship can create jobs and opportunities for young people all over the world who might otherwise be vulnerable to violent extremist ideas, Mr Kerry told the audience.

“Think of the peril if we leave those minds, which have the same desires that many of you do here, if we leave them to the pickings of extremists and exploiters and demagogues,” he added.

“(Entrepreneurs) provide a highly visible and very effective rebuttal to the propaganda of violent extremist groups. Because your optimism provides an alternative to their nihilism. Because you’re trying to build the brighter future that in fact these folks are determined to prevent.”

Source: www.straitstimes.com

June 27, 2016
Joshua Simon: What Is Racial Harmony?

I propose a challenge.

Go to town. Ion, 313, Orchard Central, Wisma, Takashimaya – any mall in town. I want you to count how many Malay/Indian men and women featured on the posters.

Ok now out of town. Wherever you go in Singapore now open your eyes to it and really count. On the bus. On the train. On the commercials before the movie starts. On the newspapers. On the magazines. On the tv commercials.

Are you cool with that?

Because it seems to me the ‘Singaporean Look’ is a skinny Chinese girl with long hair and a big smile! ☺️ Yay and her boyfrend smiling right behind chasing after her is a slim fit Chinese boy with straight hair and a big smile! Tee-hee!

Are you cool with that? Seems to me we are. Coz if this was the US we’d bring this up and talk about it. Really, talk about it and fix it. But Josh this is Asia! And this is the Asian look! Ah, see that’s the problem right there.

As a young kid growing up in Singapore, I’d never see someone of my skin color rocking ads and headlines unless it’s Singapore Idol Season. I couldn’t entertain my first ambition of being an actor coz every role (although said open to all races) would go to the man with the Singaporean Look.

I do music, I do radio. I’m behind a microphone. If I had a dollar for every person that has come up to me saying “OMG I didn’t know you’re Indian!” I’d be able to afford a down payment for an HDB flat.In the industry, I’ve had peers get turned down gigs because they were too “ethic looking”. I don’t watch Channel 8 or Vasantham but… off the top of my head I can name you 10 Chinese local celebrities (includes Rui En). Is it just me?

Maybe there isn’t enough talented Indian and Malay celebrities. Or maybe we’re not given a chance to see them.
Who’s stopping them? Who’s saying no to these people? Who’s decided what the Singapore Look is?

I’m not celebrating Racial Harmony in Singapore till I get my answers and see some change. It’s 2016. Do not get complacent. I represent the next generation that isn’t gonna just keep quiet and nod my head and say it’s all okay.

Racial Harmony isn’t just about us getting along. It’s equal opportunities. Equal chances to shine. I wanna see diversity.

I can smell the smoke and tell that something ain’t right. Now I wanna see people move. Share that spotlight.

Source: Joshua Simon

April 29, 2016
Chinese Singaporean: Racism Is Rampant Among Singapore Chinese

Today, I heard from someone very close to me that she’s a racist and that she hates my boyfriend (who’s Indian, I’m Chinese) because he’s ‘black’. She proudly declared it to me. It didn’t come as a shock to me initially because I always knew she was a closet racist, as are many people her age here in Singapore. The strange thing was, my boyfriend and I have been together for over four years and she had always welcomed and greeted him with a smile and some obligatory small talk.

So on this day, she let it all go on me and briefly mentioned something about ISIS. Was it the sudden outburst of terrorism and violence that had unleashed her unhappiness? I couldn’t argue. She was manically shouting about hating ‘black’ people and Muslims. Basically, all people of colour to her was ‘smelly’ and ‘disgusting’.

I had to stop her there. I had taken offence long enough. I started quoting something MLK said off my head and she immediately went like, yeah but he’s black. So I replied with a startled “AND?” And she replied me with a swift sentence, “he’s black. So is Obama and his entire family. He’s a disgrace.”

This woman I’m writing about is a pretty decently educated Chinese middle class female in Singapore that watches and reads the news daily and frequently. Yet being in this time and age with information readily available to her via her 5 handy Apple gadgets, she was still adamant on her stance. Funny thing is, she isn’t THAT religious. She only takes attendance on special occasions. So why was she hating other religions that aren’t her own? It irked me to hear her bash other religions so aggressively. This isn’t strange of course. Hateful religious groups are rampant the world over. But she woke me up.

I read an article yesterday about a student from Zimbabwe who’s currently studying in Yale-NUS, who talked about how she was constantly being fed with racism everywhere in Singapore. Both from the younger and older generation. Taxi drivers who refused to drive her and staff who rudely dismissed her. This might seem like a small problem at hand but it is a lot bigger than you think. Everywhere in the world, there are bigoted people who refuse to be open to the idea that there could be diversity. There are bigoted people who judges based on skin colour and one’s physical appearance. There are bigoted people who hate instead of understanding. Why do we live in a society where people pretend to understand when they don’t actually do?

The argument with racism stems way far back and as a 21 year old, I genuinely thought that everyone already got the whole picture. That ethnicity, nationality and race does not define a person. So many brave souls have stepped up to talk about the issue and yet, things like this still happens regularly every day.

Okay so back to the problem at hand-
She adores our late Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew, a respected person everywhere for his efforts in helping Singapore move on into the 21st century and building its own identity in the world. He is someone who stressed on something called ‘racial harmony’. So much so that we celebrate ‘Racial Harmony Day’ in Singapore.

The hypocrisy is almost too much. She bought me my first kebaya (traditional Malay outfit) to wear to Racial Harmony Day in school. She still chats and laughs with the friendly Malay Muslim store lady. She is always polite to the old Indian Muslim shopkeeper and greets him with a smile. She buys food home for the Indian security guards in her apartment block. She dotes on and gushes about the cute Indian boy living in her block.

Yet, she tells me proudly that she feels superior to every other race and that she dislikes all people of colour. Strange isn’t it? Does she feel scared or afraid so she built up all the hate? Does this have anything to do with the recent aggression and spark of acts of terrorism all around the world?

It’s just scary to think that she is one in possibly hundreds of thousands of people in Singapore alone to have almost the exact same mindset.

What would you do?

Edit: I saw quite a few comments when some of my Facebook friends shared this post saying that I never did try to talk to this person. I’m pretty sure I made it clear that I did. She just wasn’t open to listen and that’s a huge problem on a bigger scale because for one, this proves that a whole community of small minded people who refuses to let anything remotely different affect their boring daily routines, exists. And they are everywhere. They are people who can never be open to more ideas, whether good or bad. Being stubborn or defensive about the things you believe in isn’t wrong, but when you go out of your way to bring an opposing idea down, that’s pretty much the lowest blow. Also, isn’t this basically the root of every problem ever? Power. The need to be in an authoritative position. We need change. ASAP too.

Source: Cheryl Ann Chong

April 14, 2016
Zulfikar Shariff: Don’t Dilute Role Of Malays In Building Singapore

Growing up, I read and heard about Lim Boh Seng, Tan Kah Kee, Tan Tock Seng, Elizabeth Choy.

And I wondered, apart from Lt Adnan and a few other rarely mentioned names, where are the Melayu, Indian, Eurasian personalities?

Surely Singapura was not built solely on the back of Chinese migrants.

It was later that I realised how Singapura’s history is Sinicised.

And why we need to make sure we magnify the history of the other communities. Insha Allah in this post, I will briefly discuss a little bit of the colonial history of the Indians in Singapura.

There were more than 100 Indians who arrived with Raffles in 1819, including Sepoys, clerks and the famous trader Naraina Pillai.

Naraina Pillai was a trader and philanthropist who gave out substantial amounts of his wealth to build temples and other social causes.

By 1873, there were about 12,000 Indians resident in Singapura. They were mainly labourers, financiers, traders, administrative workers and shopkeepers.

But the British also brought a substantial number of Indian convicts. When the British left Bencoolen in 1825, they brought 600 Indian convicts with them. By 1860, there were 2,275 convicts residing in Singapura.

However, British residents were not happy with the arrangement and by 1873, the remaining convicts were sent to the Andamans islands.

Skilled Indian convict labourers contributed substantially to the city’s development.

As Governor of the Straits Settlements, Colonel Blundell noted

“The whole of the existing roads throughout the Islands… every bridge in both town and country, all the existing canals, sea wall, jetties, piers, etc., have been constructed by convict labour. But not only is the community indebted for these essential works to the mere manual labour of convicts, but by the introduction among them of a system of skilled labour, Singapore is indebted for works which could not otherwise have been sanctioned from the State funds.”

The next time we walk pass St Andrew’s cathedral or the Istana….take note…

They were built by Indian convict labourers.

Reference:
Sandhu, Kernial Singh. “Some Aspects of Indian Settlement in Singapore, 1819–1969.” Journal of Southeast Asian History 10.02 (1969): 193-201.

Picture: Construction of the Government House (Istana)

Source: Zulfikar Shariff

January 16, 2016