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“Are you Indian?”, a staff at the Schipol airport asked.
It was not a conversation-starter. He was trying to get me to join the queue meant for non-biometric passport-holders. I pause for a moment to say that I am a Singaporean. He stares weirdly at my red passport, and then at the information board with the flags of countries and then back at me. Subsequently, he diverts me to the accelerated queue for biometric-passport-holders.
In Singapore, my answer to that question would be an immediate yes. I am ethnic-Indian. In a foreign land, my answer to that question is actually no. When I was younger, I thought of identity as static traits inherited by birth. Something that we have absolutely no control over. I was born in Singapore; I am a Singaporean. My parents are ethnic-Indians; I am ethnic-Indian too. For that reason or so, I have not thought much about it. But this incident had me thinking throughout my 12-hour flight back to a place I call home.
As I looked at the screen showing the flight slowly move along the dotted path toward its destination, I noticed how small Singapore is relative to other countries. It was literally a dot. A superscript dot in a sentence of uppercase words. Most would probably miss it. And they have. There are people who know the existence of Singapore. But if you asked them to describe a Singaporean, you’re definitely not going to have a picture of me. This is every minority’s reality. But it gets a little complicated because Singapore is a land of migrants. Singaporeans don’t look the same. There are Chinese, Malays, Indians and Others. We have been stamped. Check our identity card(NRIC)!
But wait a minute! Indians don’t look the same. There are people with ancestors from North Indian states and others with ancestors from South Indian states like Tamil Nadu. Even then, not everyone with ancestors from Tamil Nadu look the same. They have other factors like caste and social class dividing them further into little unique crumbs. At the end of this breaking down, the truth is that each individual is unique and different from everyone else. Whatever groupings that may exist are arbitrary. Nationality and race are social constructs. Any differences that there might be is owing to culture rather than genetics. In other words, there’s nothing scientific/logical about these groupings. It may seem that everyone who’s part of these groups may share certain characteristics that have been inherited. Something in the genetics. Hence, these groups may seem to unite people. What it really does is divide people and make us think that we’re different. That some are above and others are beneath. That we can’t share spaces, be friends, start a business together or be married to each other without some kind of intervention.
While this groupings may have started off without any scientific basis, repeated differential treatment and discrimination has allowed for some groups to accumulate privileges and others to lack these privileges. It has allowed for stereotypes to strive and grow. Through these shared experiences, a consciousness is born. This consciousness leads us to identifying with a certain group. It enables the system to continue. This system is deeply entrenched in Singapore’s story. Racial harmony and multi-culuralism are our badges of pride. What would we be without it?
Even if no amendments are made to policies, a country that’s rapidly evolving will somehow have policy outcomes different from what was originally intended. Globalisation has had more Singaporeans venturing outside of Singapore and more outsiders venturing into Singapore. Singaporeans consume more global content and Singaporean content becomes more global to catch up and attune itself to the changing tastes of consumers. As we are served something that’s different from what we have been served since we were young, we will have moral conflicts. A dilemma. A questioning mind. When we wake up from that chaos, we are likely to unlearn some stereotypes and realise that some things that happen before our eyes are just not right. That there are better ways of doing things. That despite the differences that have been drilled upon, beneath it all, we’re all the same. Consequently, we are going to have lesser people who identify with their “given race”. We’re going to have more people marry outside of “their race”. We already see it happening*.
Hence, the race that’s reflected on our identity card has become muddled. We can’t simply say that the child of a mixed-race couple will take the father’s race. Neither can we simply let Old McDonald decide if it’s a cow/chicken/pig based on what the animal itself thinks and what other animals within the particular group think. That’s so Orwellian.
An objective discussion of our racial system should also include the benefits that we have reaped. It has inhibited our culture from eroding and our language from dissipating. But the walls that we had built to protect us can end up imprisoning us.
There are other ways to keep our language from dissipating. It’s nothing new; we just have to look at other countries which have managed to preserve languages without giving it the official status. Languages are meant to be spoken and written. They are not meant to be kept in a glass case in the museum with all the authority. It is not meant to be misprinted and mispronounced only to be used as a tool to advance personal agendas. I feel a certain gratitude towards our government which treats Tamil as one of the four official languages. It is heartwarming to see Tamil in public spaces. I feel a slight affinity towards the language that I have inherited.
I can’t say the same about my culture.
Culture: ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular people or society. What if I don’t agree with certain parts of my culture? What if I find certain parts of it regressive? What if I find certain parts of it discriminatory? What if I feel alienated by certain parts of it? I now engage in a culture buffet. I pick certain practices that does not discriminate and eliminate everything else from my space. Does that mean that I am no longer an Indian? Does that mean that I am not Tamil enough?
Some find it easier to just throw and replace the bowl with something else rather than try to fix this broken bowl. I believe in fixing. I believe our culture needs us to reform it for the changing world.
In this process of finding answers and asking questions, I find Kannadasan’s songs to be enlightening. Consider this Kannadasan soup part 2. You can read Kannadasan soup part 1 here.
தெய்வம் தந்த வீடு
தெய்வம் தந்த வீடு வீதியிருக்கு
இந்த ஊரென்ன சொந்த வீடென்ன ஞானப் பெண்ணே
வாழ்வின் பொருளென்ன நீ வந்த கதை என்ன?
நான் கேட்டுத் தாய் தந்தை படைத்தாரா? – இல்லை
என் பிள்ளை எனைக் கேட்டுப் பிறந்தானா?
தெய்வம் செய்த பாபம் இது போடி தங்கச்சீ
கொன்றால் பாபம் தின்றால் போச்சு இதுதான் என் கட்சி
What about this country? What about your own house? Dear enlightened girl
What’s the meaning of life? What’s your story of how you came to be?
Did my parents create me because I asked them to?
Or was my son born after he asked me?
That is God’s sin! Don’t you see it, dear sis?
If you kill, it’s a sin. If you eat, it’s gone. That’s my stance.
Aval oru thodarkathai(1974)
அடி என்னடி உலகம்
சீதை அங்கு நின்றிருந்தால் ராமன் கதை இல்லையே
கோடு வட்டம் என்பதெல்லாம் கடவுள் போட்டதல்லடி
கொள்ளும்போது கொள்ளு
தாண்டிச் செல்லும் போது செல்லடி
If Sita had stood as instructed, we wouldn’t have Rama’s story.
Lines and circles were not drawn by God
Cross when you need to
Aval oru thodarkathai(1974)
கண் போன போக்கிலே
ஊர் பார்த்த உண்மைகள் உனக்காக வாழும்
உணராமல் போவோர்க்கு உதவாமல் போகும்The truths that people have seen will live for you. If you don’t realise this, it will become useless.
Panam Padaithavan(1965)
* In all honesty, I have not taken too well to that. I had been operating on the assumption that everyone should ideally marry within their own group and that any patterns in non-conformity(e.g. Indian men marrying Chinese women) was not just a preference issue but a discrimination issue. It also has to do with identity. I wrote an entire piece on this. I have since updated it to include a bit on toxic masculinity. You can read it here. This is one post that I now am not very proud of. But I thought that I should include it to show how we are not our words. With the world, we change. With the world, we grow. With the world, we evolve. To better versions of ourselves. With better understanding of ourselves.
Till my next post(Final 11), Stay curious.
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