Malays in the SAF: is everyone called up?
STRAITS TIMES FEB 11 1999 MINISTER-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Abdullah Tarmugi led Malay political leaders here yesterday in hitting back at Indonesian President B.J. Habibie for remarks about the position of Malays in Singapore. The Indonesian leader had told Taiwanese journalists that Singapore was a country of "real racists", where Malays could never be military officers. Mr Abdullah said that those remarks, coming at a time when Singapore was trying hard to foster racial and religious harmony, were unfortunate, hurtful and baseless. It was also not helpful to the Malay community here, he said, adding that Dr Habibie should do as he had suggested to Taiwanese journalists and check out the situation in Singapore. "He will, contrary to his view, see that there are Malay officers in the Singapore Armed Forces," said Mr Abdullah, who is the Community Development Minister. He said he believed that the Indonesian leader was either misinformed or really did not know what was happening in the Republic. Dr Habibie told Taiwanese journalists in Jakarta last Saturday that there was no discrimination against ethnic Chinese in Indonesia as the country had abolished racist policies. He added: "In fact, the situation in Singapore is worse. In Singapore, if you are a Malay, you can never become a military officer. They are the real racists, not here. You can go and check it out." Five Malay parliamentarians yesterday slammed Dr Habibie for those remarks saying, among other things, that he should not use Singapore as the bogeyman in trying to win support for his policies. MPs Ibrahim Othman, Ahmad Magad, Harun Abdul Ghani and Yatiman Yusof and Nominated MP Zulkifli Baharudin also urged Singaporeans to stay united and not be divided by outrageous remarks by outsiders who have their own personal agendas. Referring to the progress made by Malays in the SAF, Mr Zulkifli noted that all Malay Singaporeans who were physically fit were called up for national service. "Most of them are happy to be in the SAF because they want to contribute like everybody else," he said, stressing that the door was open for them to become SAF officers. The Straits Times (Singapore) August 9, 1996 THERE is a phrase in the Malay language that stirs my English-educated soul whenever I hear it -tanah tumpah darah ku. Translated literally, it means "the land where I spilt my blood". It does sound clumsy put that way. But to the Malay ear, the original is a passionate, hauntingly beautiful expression of nationalism. The words evoke an image of a place where blood was spilled for you at birth, a place you first called home, and which you will defend with blood to keep calling your own.This perhaps explains why the national service issue hurts. Some non-Malays do not understand why Malays who are not called up to train for combat with the Singapore Armed Forces do not shout for joy. You are spared two years of punishment, they say, as if in a bid to console you. But consider how often NS is mentioned as one of those great unifying, levelling Singaporean experiences, like living in HDB estates or using Singlish. In one breath, society tells all Singaporeans that those two or 2-1/2 years of NS earn a man his badge of belonging, and in the next breath concedes that not all can wear it. To justify its stand, society asks, what if you were confronted with an enemy who shared your language and religion? Could you really pull the trigger? Is that a fair question? The one that society forgets to ask is, is it easy to pull the trigger when confronted with any human being? One need not be Malay or Muslim to hesitate at the horror of the thought; and one must have a heart of darkness to react with glee to the hypothetical opportunity to take a human life. I am glad most Malay Singaporeans have chosen to react to such issues with maturity and tolerance, opting to work for gradual change rather than politicising them. Many of their sons may not go into SAF combat vocations, but at least they are enlisted to do some form of NS. It is all right. It is a lot better than not being called up at all, Malay parents and their sons I know say. It is just one of those things that come with the territory, of being in the minority in a country whose two larger neighbours have majorities that look and sound like you.
[Ed: I previously entitled this cutting "Malay in the military: than and now." However, Patski2 convinced me that it should be changed to the present title "Malays in the SAF: is everyone called up?" He made an important point that I think should be share with our readers, so here is an extract from his email: "...the header is a little misleading implying that in the two and a half years since the 1996 commentary, there has been a major shift in the NS policies towards Malays.... I used to think that this was a "sensitive" issue and should not be brought up, but then I read the LKY excerpts and realised that we were thrown out of Malaysia because someone was not afraid then to speak up about "discrimination". Yesterday's report that less than 1% of the senior officers (the famous fifteen) in the SAF are Malay (presumably including Arabs and Indian moslems) was even more discouraging."] ------------------------------------------------------- Edmund Chia: This is written in response to the recent appearance of race-related articles on Sintercom. Well, well, well, we seem to unearth new conspiracies in Singapore every other day. The latest is the apparent racist conspiracy to keep our Malay citizens out of the Singapore military and out of a combat role. Since we are reminded that we should not be afraid to talk about sensitive issues like race and discrimination (and I can see by past exchanges on usenet and in election speeches and in the 'kopi-tiams' how we must have been afraid to do so), I am heartened to join in the discourse. I guess the first issue that strikes me is the observation that less than 1% of our senior officers in the SAF are Malay (the observer suggests that the military has classified Arab and Indian Muslim Singaporeans to be Malay - are Chinese Muslims considered 'Malay' too?). Bearing in mind the article which suggested that in the spirit of 'tanah tumpah darah ku', Malay Singaporeans are far more likely than any other Singaporean ethnic group to sign up for the armed forces, that must imply that hundreds, if not thousands, of qualified Malay Singaporeans have applied for and have been rejected by that racist institution, MINDEF. To rectify this great wrong in Singapore, we must immediately seek out these hundreds of applicants rejected on the basis of their race and install them as senior officers in our armed forces. The second issue that struck me is the career path of a military officer. Assuming that suspicions against Singapore Malay Singaporeans subsided as we became more firmly established as an independent nation, that should mean that Singaporean Malay's, enlisting in the early 80s as a private should have had plenty of time to make rank as Brigadier General. The fact that they have not achieved this clearly points to the racist attitudes within the SAF. Clearly we must look at the service record of all Malay NCOs and promote all those hitherto working as cooks or mechanics to make up the racial quota required for Malay senior officers. The third issue that struck me is the allegation made that Malay Singaporeans enlisted in NS have been 'forced' into non combat vocations, yet another black mark against the racist institution of the Singaporean military. It is clear that the non racist thing to do would be to put all Malay Singaporeans into front line combat units where they can be killed off for the glory of the cause, as they have been in non racist institutions like the Union army of the United States or in Vietnam. Naturally, military institutions are about filling racial quotas, and in time, the Singapore military would be able to serve as a model for a politically correct world with every battalion home to a few gays, 15% Malay, a few blonde hair blue eyed Caucasians, maybe a Jew or two, some women, and a few senior citizens. The fourth issue that struck me is the fact that some unscrupulous sneaky and racist military minds might actually suggest that positions in the military were being filled on the basis of need and ability. Naturally, this is nonsense and a racist excuse to keep Malay Singaporeans out of senior positions in the military. The practice of recruiting high flying SAF scholars (and than filling senior staff positions with those scholars) and the fact that all 'direct entry' senior officers these days have to be graduates are clearly racist ploys to exclude Malay Singaporeans from the military. Wait, the conspiracy goes deeper, a visit to the University suggests that less than 15% of the student body are Malay. Clearly the government must be lying when it says that it is attempting to address the imbalance and that this situation is allowed to persist because it disqualifies many Malay Singaporeans from senior ranks in the military. Obviously, the fact that few Malays achieve the grades required to win SAF scholarships is evidence that exam papers for Malay students are intentionally made more difficult by the Ministry of Education (who are in on the conspiracy) because there is nothing a bright Malay straight-A student wants more (out of the enormous range of options open to him) than to sign up for an SAF scholarship and join the army. I regret to think that I had been so naïve to think that so many Malay Singaporeans are happy in their professions as lawyers, engineers and architects when it is clear now that they turned to these professions because they were rejected by a racist military in their first choice of careers. My eyes have been opened and everywhere I look, there is racism in Singapore. Why are there so few Malay judges and justices? Hmm, why are there so many Indian judges/justices (and in legal profession in general). Clearly, this suggests racial discrimination where Indian Singaporeans have cheated their Malay brothers of their rightful place on the bench in Courts. Why are there so many Chinese in high finance and so few Malays? Could this be another example of racism and racial discrimination. I used to think that history and social inertia had something to do with the slow rate of change in Singapore towards a society where every profession and vocation and other activity is characterised by the proportionate presence of Singaporeans from different ethnic groups. Now I see that the real reason is a conspiracy to keep ethnic Malays downtrodden and out of the military in Singapore. That explains everything so neatly. The discrimination can not be allowed to persist. Just as insightful minds managed to increase jobs for ethnic minorities fourfold and reduce discrimination by that same amount within the space of a week by applying political pressure to remove job ads stating that suggest a racial/ethnic preference, so too can a similar depth of social analysis and critical insight be applied to the issue of Malays in the Military. We need another 210 Malay senior officers (and no Indian Muslims, Arabs, Filipinos, etc please) in order to satisfy the demands of our multiracial ideals - immediately. We can not afford to heed Abdullah Tarmugi and all the other 'Malays' who suggested that the Singapore military is not racist - what do they know - they are obviously willing conspirators in this racist plot against Malays or stupid dupes of a racist regime (maybe they are not even really Malay but Chinese in disguise, like Gurmit 'Singh'). The people who know the real story are those whose Malays whose application for a career in the military have been rejected and who have been denied their rightful place in a combat unit as commanding officer. It is clear that Singaporeans must continue to do their best to convince other Singaporeans of what a god awful racist country Singapore was, is and continues to be. Edmund Who is now convinced Allen Teh: It seems to me that a lot of Singaporeans are very engrossed about statistics; some are even willing to bend and extract any figures (possibly isolated) just to prove their point of view, which to me, seems a little inadequate. My personal opinion is that we can only be able to form a more accurate understanding of the issue by exposing ourselves to a variety of indepth statistics; comparing ratios of Malay Officers in other defense forces as well. From what I know of, about 50% of police officers are Malays - a very encouraging figure to prove the point that one should look at issues from a broader perspective. This clearly reflects the exceptional competence of the Malay men in our local community. In the Civil Defence, our fellow Malay Singaporeans dominate the force with a heaping 3/4 ratio. Another distinctive count of their expertise. It evidently appears that the Malay men in our community excel in these two defense forces and that such trend should be encouraged to continue. Patski2: This is in response to a rather dubious racial conspiracy theory floating around the web on Sg daily. When I first read it, my first response was to produce a fact filled "demolition" (to use a LKY word) of those condescending and arrogant arguments. But then again, I thought, why get upset, I shall reply in a similar vein........... I would like to proposed an even better alternative conspiracy: That Singapore is a perfectly multi-racial, "meritocratic" society in which the perfect measurement for measuring "merit" has been found and that everybody is in his/her place because of his/her efforts. Nobody has had any extra obstacles to overcome, there is no racism and we all start those scrupulously fair situational tests and exams from exactly the same starting point regardless whether our parents are million dollar ministers or retrenched clerical workers who happen to be the wrong colour for the job ads in the Straits Times. In fact, Singapore is such a perfect society compared to the rest of the world in general (but in particular to our neighbours, Rwanda, the antebellum South and other similar comparable societies), that the only place which appears to be segregated is the senior ranks of the military. This of course is an illusion and the only reason for this appearance of discrimination is the strange preference of Malay Singaporeans for enlisting in the Civil Defense Force. This conspiracy theory has reached the highest levels. Some time ago, DPM BG Lee appeared to be immune when he admitted that Singapore had a problem with discimination in the Armed Forces and said that we would work at it gradually. Since then, we have had one token Malay transport pilot. I hope that the proponents of the other outdated conspiracy have better lawyers than Tang Liang Hong if they want to call BG Lee a liar for saying that the SAF needs to work on its problem with discrimination...... I suppose there must have been "hundreds or thousands" of non-Malay Singaporeans who tried to get onto Kent Ridge to for Singapore's last stand in February 1942 but too bad, they were prevented by this conspiracy and it was Lt Adnan Saidi who was strung up in a gunny sack and bayonetted for Singapore. Maybe all those non-Malays were whisked away mysteriously so they could not "let the Japanese see the whites of their bones before the whites of their eyes" like the Malay Regiment. Of course, the numerous senior Malay officers who served Singapore nobly during the Konfrontasi of 1963-65 against the Indonesian (coincidentally of the same religion) foe do not count because as the conspiracy theory goes, Singapore since 1959, has always been a perfect society and they were really Chinese disguised as Malays....... In fact, this conspiracy theory demands that the history books be re-written to show that the "National Service riots" against participating in the defence of Singapore took place not only in the Chinese schools, but also in some mythical Malay schools...... In fact, although 1SIR and 2SIR were more than 30% Malay in 1965-66, this mysterious conspiracy caused Malay Singaporeans to suddenly lose interest in military life after Singapore became independent. Maybe all those Malay Singaporeans abruptly decided because Singapore stood for "multi-racialism" unlike our neighbours, they should en masse stop serving in the SAF, allowing those still serving to retire and encouraging the younger generation to serve in the much more prestigious vocation of firemen............. The second issue that struck me was the career path of the few Malay Singaporeans who were not tempted by the lure of the fire engines...... I wonder when in the 1980s was it decided by proponents of the other conspiracy theory that Malay Singaporeans were equal to other Singaporeans?? Maybe it was after the "arms build-up" in the late 80s when Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore all started modernizing their Armed Forces. Maybe it was after China through Deng Xiaopeng decided to officially stop destabilizing Singapore and Malaysia. If we take that as the start date (1980), then that still gives us 19 years. Remember, in meritocratic Singapore, it takes barely 14 years to make BG from LTA (ref: BG Lee, BG Yeo). Of course, I forgot about this conspiracy which dictates that Malays should sign up as privates in order to become generals unlike all the other generals in the SAF because Singapore and the SAF represent the perfect society which does not need any improvement. The same conspiracy has conspired to make Malay Singaporeans who have an A level attainment rate 10% below Chinese and Indian Singaporeans dream of becoming firemen so much so that their presence in the senior officer corps is way more than 80% below Chinese and Indian Singaporeans. Of course, the real conspiracy has shown us that Singaporean Malays really, really want to be firemen. So while the Singapore Armed Forces has gays, Caucasians, Jews in rough proportion to their representation to the population ( I have been in units with gays, Caucasians and Jews outnumbering Malays!), Malays are represented in the SAF as a whole at barely one sixth of their population strength and even smaller numbers in the senior officer corps. This conspiracy has caused some to throw in smoke about the US army which has a far less enlightened policy towards homosexuals than the SAF. In fact, a citizens army unlike a volunteer army usually represents the population distribution. The lure of climbing up and down ladders for Malay Singaporeans which has caused them to willfully distort the otherwise good representation of races, religions and sexual orientations in the SAF is a powerful testimony to the validity of this alternative conspiracy theory. Fourthly, in this perfect and multi-racial land of equal opportunity, the job of SAF general or non-PDF COL is so complex that not a single Malay Singaporean is capable of the job. They are only capable of lesser jobs such as lawyer, engineer or architechts. This conspiracy is so powerful that all the Malay Singaporeans who filled the ranks of 1 and 2 SIR in the 1960s, suddenly decided that they and their talented children should become doctors and lawyers instead of soldiers. This is probably because of their profound sense of charity and when they realised that careers in the SAF were going to be routes to advancement in the civil service and society, they decided to step aside and work in the private sector so they could enjoy discriminatory advertising instead of in the meritocratic armed forces...... In this perfectly multi-racial equal opportunity land where Malay Singaporeans have won in recent years First Class Honours from Cambridge (the first ever from Magdalen College in History by anyone - white,black, brown or yellow), the Angus Ross Prize in Literature, the Valedictorian award in the NUS Medical School, purely by chance, none of these or other similarly talented Malay Singaporeans have chosen the SAF scholarship. It is clear that this spirit of selflessness or pursuit of the fire service is at the heart of the exclusion of these and other talented Malay Singaporeans from the senior officer corps...... Indeed, in purely egalitarian, multi-cultural societies, people go into fields purely because of their love for the field and not because other doors are closed to them. For example, in our similarly scrupulously multi-racial neighbour to the south, Indonesian Chinese had plenty of opportunities to go into politics or religion, but they loved business, so they chose to work in business. Indian Singaporeans had plenty of opportunities in all those hundreds of companies which advertise for "Indians only", but they chose to go into the law because of a love for justice. Similarly, Malay Singaporeans really and truly do love those grey SCDF uniforms or else they would have seized all those opportunities offered to them by the SAF............... It is clear that a racist country like Malaysia has a Chinese Christian as HEAD of its Army Aviation wing while a multi-racial meritocratic country has a token Malay transport pilot. Of course, this conspiracy has infected people who can only see things in black and white. If we have a token transport pilot, we are perfectly non-racist and do not have any improving to do. Some of the rest of us think that we can do better... Ten years ago, when this issue was first brought up, we had no Malay pilots and most of the Malay SAF senior officers had retired. Now this issue has come up again, we have improved more than 1000%, we have one Malay pilot and a couple of Indian Muslim LTCs. I guess that should please the Serbian proponents of other X-files theories (you know, as they say, Arabs and Indian Muslims are Malays, so obviously Singaporeans living in Tasmania must be Serbs) People who are not infected by the conspiracy (meaning myself :-))think that Singapore is by no means the worst country in the region in terms of discrimination, but that it is not the best and we have room for improvement. We take hope from statements by "Chinese intellectuals" dismissing the calls for a racially segmented cultural elite. We rejoice in PM Goh's affirmation that "you do not need to be Chinese to succeed in business in China". We remember BG Lee's statements on the RSAF's need to work on its policies with regards to Malay pilots...... We are glad that there are people who are doing something about discrimination in Singapore without dismissing past and present injustice and insulting our fellow Singaporeans.