Singapore went through racial riots between Malays and Chinese over two five-day periods beginning on 21 July and 2 September 1964. These riots, the worst and most prolonged in Singapore's history, erupted after Singapore merged with Malaysia. There were 22 people dead and 461 injured.
Events
When Singapore merged with Malaysia, many among the Malay minority expected that they would also benefit from the special rights for Malays enshrined in the 1957 Federation of Malaya Constitution. There was deep resentment when it became clear that this was not possible and would never be agreed upon by any government of Singapore.
19 July 1964 - More than 1,000 Malay non-political leaders from different organisations met Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the Prime Minister of Singapore and Encik Othman Wok, the Minister for Social Affairs to clarify this issue.
At the meeting, Mr Lee promised that while effort would be made by the government to train Malays for top positions in competition with the non-Malays, the government would not allow a quota system for jobs nor special licences and land reservations for Malays. He insisted that all Singaporean citizens had equal rights, regardless of their race.
Meanwhile, more than reported 25,000 Muslims in Singapore would participate in a giant rally at the Padang the next day to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad.
20 July 1964 - In response to Mr Lee, the Singapore UMNO Action Committee called on him to use his time in controlling the secret society menace instead of splitting up the Malay community. Committee leader claimed that that meeting was an insult to the Malays. He counter-charged that Mr Lee was trying to break the harmony and peace between Malays and Chinese.
21 July 1964 - Rioting broke out on the eve of the massive celebrations for Prophet Muhammad's birthday when a protest demonstration by Malays rose from a verbal war of taunts and insults with Chinese bystanders. The violence which continued for five days, left 22 people dead and over 400 injured. Curfew hours were brought in to restore law and order.
2 September 1964 - Racial tensions sparked once again when a Malay trishaw rider was stabbed to death at night. Rioting erupted and continued for another five days with 12 people killed, 100 injured and over 1,200 people arrested for rioting and breaking curfew. The curfew was then lifted on 11 September when the situation was finally controlled.
Significance and Consequences
The racial riots were, by far, the worst and most prolonged in Singapore's history. A number of factors contributed to the violence:
1) Enforcing the police of Confrontation with the newly merged country, some Indonesian activists infiltrated into Singapore in order to arouse the religious fervour of the Malays.
2) Chinese Secret Society gangs took the opportunity to create more violence and disturbance
3) Inflammatory reportings which provoked and disturbed racial emotions
Therefore, the Deputy Premier Dr Toh Chin Chye suggested a legislation which was introduced to prohibit newspapers from publishing anything which would incite communal strife.
Both leaders of the Governments of Singapore and Malaysia gave firm assurances that the population "has a place under the Malaysian sun and all will be looked after without discrimination."
The Maria Hertogh Riots, otherwise known as Nadrah Riots took place on 11 December 1950 in Singapore. It consisted of both outraged Muslims who resented the court's decision to give the custody of Maria Hertogh(Then age 13) back to her biological Catholic Dutch parents even though she was raised as a Muslim under the care of Aminah Bte Mohamed, whom she regarded as her own mother. This court order had a lot of media coverage and therefore were featured in many newspapers.
The court also annulled Maria's marriage to a Muslim teacher even though she was a willing party and photos of Maria in a Christian Convent sparked off even more anger among the Muslim community.
Therefore, Muslims were unhappy with the court as they thought the judges were biased against them. This also highlighted the fact that the crowd felt that the British were treating the locals unfairly, being more biased to the European and Eurasian communities which sparked off this riot.
The riots lasted until noon on 13 December with 18 killed, 173 injured and many properties damaged - The worst incident of its kind in Singapore.
This incident shows that racial riots are very easy to start, but there are dire consequences involved. We should not take what we have for granted and we should all work together to promote a peaceful country.
We the citizens of Singapore
Pledge ourselves as one united people
Regardless of race, language or religion
To build a democratic society
Based on justice and equality
So as to achieve happiness, prosperity
And progress for our nation
We say the pledge every day in school, we hear the National song on television before and after they start casting shows, but do we really mean what we say?
What does it mean to be a citizen of Singapore?
A citizen is a person who owes loyalty to, and is entitled by birth or by choice to the protection of a nation, or a stage. The truth is, many youths are not loyal to their nation due to not having enough patroitism in their hearts. This is further fueled by local talents migrating to other countries due to better opportunities offered.
This will then lead to a lack of local talent and foreign talents would then have to be employed. Citizens of Singapore will then complain about foreign talents "taking their places". This is the result of a lack of loyalty to the nation.
Because of a lack of "unity", citizens are not able to accept foreigners into our community, even if there are social consequences such as fewer employment opportunities for the locals.
This is one of the many reasons why our generation is not "united" enough.
Do we stand together regardless of our differences, such as our race, language or religions?
In ancient times, there was no such thing as "race". People accepted each other regardless of their skin colour or physical differences, but rather their languages, religions and cultures. For example, if you have a big nose, you are not automatically considered as a person from the Middle East. However in Germany during World War II, people with big noses were persecuted because they "looked like someone from the Middle East, therefore they are Jews". This is an obvious flaw in their perception of people and this is actually a modern idea, with the incident happening less than a century ago.
What about our religion? We came from all over the place, so there are bound to be different beliefs coming together in Singapore. How do we live together without offending each others' religions? (Covered in 2nd post)
As our pledge suggests, as long as our society is democratic, just and equal, we can all strive for a successful multi-racial society!!