Opinion: S’poreans should be more open about S’porean identity

Max Maeder and the Singaporean identity

This piece is part of MS Speaks, a segment in which MS News reporters share their honest views on current affairs and trending topics.

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On 9 Aug, coincidentally Singapore’s National Day, 17-year-old Max Maeder won a bronze medal in Men’s Kite at the Paris Olympics.

It’s Singapore’s only medal from the world’s leading sporting event, and the first medal since Joseph Schooling won gold in swimming in 2016.

While many were happy about Maeder’s perfectly timed gift for Singapore, some detractors expressed their dissatisfaction with his bronze medal.

Most surprising were those who pointed out the athlete’s biracial identity, being born to a Swiss dad and a Chinese-Singaporean mum.

They had made troubling remarks such as “foreigner”, “not a real Singaporean”, and “ang moh” — the colloquial term used to describe Caucasian people in Singapore.

Are these people trying to say that Max is less Singaporean simply because he’s not fully Chinese?

The last time I checked, Singaporean is a nationality, not a race.

As someone born to a Chinese-Singaporean father and Filipino mother, I was put off by these comments and began to wonder: “How is being Singaporean even measured?”

What makes a Singaporean?

Ethnically, Singapore is made up primarily of people of Chinese, Malay and Indian descent. There are also Eurasians whose ancestors have also called the country their home for generations.

That said, they all still identify as Singaporean citizens — regardless of their racial or ethnic groups.

SG101, a Singapore government website detailing the Singapore story and identity, even goes to say:

Singapore’s common values transcend race, language or religion.

Then, there are also people of other ethnicities who left their home countries in hopes of a better future and have built homes for their families in Singapore.

One of my old friends, a full-Filipino guy whose parents worked in Singapore, came into the country in his teens and did National Service, much to my surprise.

I later learned that this is a way to acquire citizenship, which goes to show that the title “Singaporean” is something that can be acquired and is not based solely on ethnicity.

The Singaporean identity as a set of shared traits

I tried to look up what the Singaporean identity is, but no matter how much digging I do on the Internet, there seems to be no definitive answer.

On Reddit, one thread titled “What is the Singaporean identity, if it even exists at all?” sums up the dilemma to a T.

Under this thread, people listed various positive and negative traits they believe Singaporeans share, including our inexplicable inclination for queueing, proving that being Singaporean is not about belonging to one particular ethnicity at all.

What’s more, the Singaporean identity is “constantly evolving”, according to the aforementioned SG101 article.

It is influenced by “the country’s changing demographics, generational shifts, and renewed mindsets about our values and aspirations”.

With the rise of “inter-ethnic and transnational marriages”, future Singaporeans are expected to be so multicultural that the “Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others” (CMIO) categorisation may likely not apply in the future, SG101 states.

However, this should not be treated as a threat to national identity.

The Government itself acknowledges that with the nation’s ageing population and low total fertility rate, “Singapore has to keep its doors open to achieve further growth”.

Besides, multiculturalism is not only what makes up modern-day Singapore, but what started it as a whole.

Does Singlish make a Singaporean?

Some comments directed to Maeder also questioned whether the Swiss-Singaporean athlete speaks Singlish, as many people also believe this to be a measure of Singaporean-ness.

As a case study on Singlish being part of the Singaporean identity puts it:

Some Singaporeans have also begun to use Singlish as a test of Singaporean-ness, resulting in Singlish becoming a discriminating force and gatekeeping mechanism, rather than source of solidarity. Those who were unable to speak Singlish “properly” are labelled ‘fake’ Singaporeans…

This got me curious, so I watched some of Maeder’s interviews and found that he can speak English with both British and Singaporean accents and also speaks fluent Mandarin, but that’s besides the point.

I think Singlish having been adapted from Singapore’s four major languages to make a language uniquely Singaporean exemplifies the essence of being Singaporean — to adapt.

Adapting is what brought about Singapore. It is what our ancestors had to do to build life anew when they came from different regions in Asia.

In turn, it is what we ought to do to ensure the continuity of our unique Singaporean culture.

Singapore becoming increasingly multicultural

With the Singaporean identity being complex, and one that is not tied to race, who is to say that people who are mixed race, and migrants who assimilate into the culture and get the elusive Singaporean citizenship are not Singaporean?

Aren’t majority of the first Singaporeans not migrants themselves?

In his 2019 National Day Rally speech in Mandarin, former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore’s forefathers, who arrived as sojourners, only came to identify themselves as Singaporeans after many decades.

The creation of a Singaporean identity is something that happens over time.

We must acknowledge that Singapore itself is like a multiracial child trying to figure out who it really is, trying to fit itself into boxes but ultimately failing to, because it’s more than that.

Its identity is not a ternary and it’s what makes us unique.

As for Max Maeder, and relatively, Joseph Schooling, I hope people acknowledge that they waved Singapore’s flag on the global stage and brought home medals, despite not being as Singaporean as some people want them to be.

Note: The views expressed within this article are the author’s own.

Also read: Commentary: Uproar over Samsui woman mural — didn’t Lee Hsien Loong say we must be a more robust society?

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Featured image adapted from @worldsailingofficial on Instagram.