Rilek1Corner

Tag: minority

  • Dr Tan Cheng Bock: By-Election Result Is Victory For Multiculturalism

    Dr Tan Cheng Bock: By-Election Result Is Victory For Multiculturalism

    A victory for Multiracialism.

    The results of the Bukit Batok by-election clearly show that a minority candidate can win an election on his own.

    This win by Murali is significant because he won his seat as a member of a minority race in a predominantly (75%) Chinese constituency. And the win is even more telling because it was won in a by-election. Recent past by-election results have not been in favour of the ruling party eg Ponggol East by-election.

    Apart from the many other factors that contributed to his win, an important observation was that, race did not affect his performance of 62%. It is a victory for multiracialism and a sign that voters are more discerning and colour blind.

    The fear that a minority candidate cannot win on his own, resulted in the creation of Group Representation Constituency (GRC) after GE1988. The setting up of this GRC was to address this early concern that minority races may not be represented in Parliament if Singaporeans vote along racial lines.

    This victory by Murali has put paid to this fear and should pave the way for the removal of any race-based politics in future.

     

    Source: Dr Tan Cheng Bock

  • Perwakilan Kaum Minoriti Isu Utama Perbincangan Awam Bagi Presiden Dipilih

    Perwakilan Kaum Minoriti Isu Utama Perbincangan Awam Bagi Presiden Dipilih

    Melindungi hak perwakilan minoriti dalam sistem Presiden Singapura Dipilih tanpa menggadaikan merit menjadi topik utama perbincangan awam pertama Suruhanjaya Perlembagaan.

    Sesi hari ini adalah yang pertama dalam satu siri perbincangan yang bakal diadakan, di mana ia akan menyaksikan 19 individu serta kumpulan memberikan maklum balas tentang perubahan-perubahan yang disarankan kepada sistem Presiden Singapura Dipilih.

    Suruhanjaya Perlembagaan sembilan anggota ini merupakan yang kedua sejak kemerdekaan Singapura, ditugaskan mengkaji aspek-aspek penting sistem Presiden Singapura Dipilih.

    Salah satu aspek adalah melindungi perwakilan kaum minoriti.

    Dalam membahaskannya, profesor undang-undang Eugene Tan berkata sistem tersebut tidak seharusnya menjuruskan para pengundi untuk mengundi kaum minoriti hanya kerana ia seharusnya begitu.

    Tetapi ia patut meneliti siapa yang paling layak untuk jawatan tersebut.

    Selain aspek merit, penyelidik kanan Matthew Matthews mencadangkan agar satu pilihan raya bagi calon minoriti diadakan jika Singapura tidak mempunyai Presiden dari kaum minoriti selama empat hingga lima penggal.

    Satu lagi isu adalah berkenaan perubahan kepada kriteria kelayakan.

    Namun Suruhanjaya melahirkan keprihatinan tentang melonggarkan kriteria tersebut kerana jawatan Presiden sepatutnya seorang yang berkaliber dan mampu menjalankan tugas Presiden dengan baik.

    Encik Tan juga menyarankan agar perubahan pada sistem tersebut dilaksanakan pada 2023, tahun di mana pilihan raya presiden keenam dijangka akan diadakan, dan bukan semasa pilihan raya tahun depan.

    Ini kata Encik Tan akan mengelakkan pilihan raya tersebut daripada tidak semena-menanya dikaitkan dengan politik.

    Namun Profesor Chan Heng Chee berkata, jika begitu, saranan sedemikian hanya boleh dilaksanakan setengah dekad kemudian.

    Dan menurutnya, ia “terlalu lama”.

    Sesi perbincangan awam seterusnya akan diadakan Jumaat ini.

    Source: http://berita.mediacorp.sg

  • Mohd Khair: Singaporean Muslims Have Contributed To Singapore, Why Are We Still Viewed With Suspicion?

    Mohd Khair: Singaporean Muslims Have Contributed To Singapore, Why Are We Still Viewed With Suspicion?

    I DISAGREE with this view.

    Muslims in Singapore have been very active in inter-religious dialogues and other related activities.

    I must say that at times some quarters of our community even say that we are even “overdoing” those things because we seem to have to keep on proving to others that we are indeed Singaporeans.

    It seems, time and again Muslims in Singapore must always prove themselves to be okay.

    Muslims in Singapore have contributed so much in ensuring racial and religious harmony, over and above the contributions we’ve made in other aspects of nation building.

    And yet now, we are being accused of having grown more distant.

    Why must the authorities cast aspersions on Muslims in Singapore?

     

    Source: Mohd Khair

  • Zulfikar Shariff: Don’t Dilute Role Of Malays In Building Singapore

    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

  • LTA Amends Tamil Names Of Four Downtown Line Stations

    LTA Amends Tamil Names Of Four Downtown Line Stations

    The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has amended the Tamil names of four more Downtown Line stations after it was discovered that one of them was wrong, The Straits Times has learnt.

    Changes have been made to the translations for Promenade, Downtown, Telok Ayer and Cashew for “better clarity and more accurate pronunciations”, an LTA spokesman said.

    The station signs were changed before the second stage of the Downtown Line, the DTL2, opened on Dec 27.

    Cashew is a new station on the DTL2, while Promenade, Downtown and Telok Ayer opened three years ago as part of the Downtown Line 1.

    During the open house for the DTL2 on Dec 5, a commuter noticed that one of the 12 new stations, Tan Kah Kee, had an inaccurate Tamil translation as “paan kah kee”.

    The LTA apologised for the error and has since rectified it.

    Following the incident, the LTA said it reviewed the Tamil names for all Downtown Line stations.

    Asked about the four new names, Dr A Ra Sivakumaran, a language specialist, said: “The enunciation is clearer and sounds more like how it is pronounced in English.”

    For example, the previous Tamil name for Promenade was pronounced as “pro-ma-net”, but the new one reads better as “pro-ma- nat”, said Dr Sivakumaran.

    The original Tamil name for Downtown was “down-tavun” but the new one is “down-town”.

    Mr J S Sasikumar, a member of the National University of Singapore’s Tamil Language Society, said the old name Telok Ayer sounds like “teh-luk-aayaer”, but is more accurate as “teh-luk-aayer”.

    “They sound more natural. In the Tamil language, a change in a single letter can alter the sounding of the entire word drastically,” said the 23-year-old undergraduate. “So it’s essential that the Tamil letters are selected carefully, as they’ve done so here.”

    Dr K Shanmugam, head of the Tamil Programme at SIM University, said that because many names of MRT stations are proper nouns, there is no way one can translate the literal meaning. He added: “The name would have to be translated using transliteration, which is something like writing the words phonetically in another language.”

    Commuter Shervani Nair, 32, an education trainer, said the new names sound phonetically closer to the English ones.

    “For example, Cashew in the old sign had been translated as ‘kay-shee-you’, but in the new sign it is translated as ‘kay-sh-u’, which is much closer,” she said.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com