Singapore's mosaic

SINGAPORE
MORE THAN just an economic powerhouse, Singapore is a petri dish for an experiment in social harmony that is beginning to catch the notice of other nations. Although the country's authoritarian streak isn't easily translated to Europe or elsewhere in the West, Singapore's approach to racial integration is a fascinating case study in identity politics.

With just 4.2 million residents, Singapore is an exotic, polyglot mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and European descendants, living in a carefully-crafted, peaceful coexistence. Less a melting pot than a mosaic, Singapore officially encourages each group to maintain its own language, customs, and religion, while taking tentative steps at defining a larger idea of "Singaporeanism."

It wasn't always the case. Communal violence was present at the birth of Singapore. In 1964, just before it became independent from Malaysia, fighting between mostly Muslim Malay and mostly Buddhist Chinese youths left 23 dead. In 1969 another, more deadly wave targeting Chinese residents in Kuala Lumpur killed nearly 200. The incidents are still very fresh in the memory of this young country, as is the threat of Islamic terrorism; Singapore sits at the edge of a regional tinder box. So the government exerts special effort to contain any expressions of bigotry or ill-will. "Harmony is not a natural state," foreign minister George Yeo told a group of visiting American journalists. "It's something that has to be worked on every day."

Unlike Malaysia, where Islam is the official state religion, Singapore wrote a constitution that is explicitly secular. Lest any group feel marginalized, official national holidays include not just Independence Day (Aug. 9) and Christmas, but Chinese New Year, Deepavali (a Hindu celebration), Vesak Day (Buddhist), and Eid (Muslim). Museums are dedicated to micro-ethnicities. The latest is the Peranakan Museum of Singapore, slated to open later this year, devoted to the culture of the "locally born" mixed Chinese-Malaysian population.

Racial and religious balance is maintained through strict quotas in public housing and education. At the hulking Punggol North housing development, we learned of arcane rules for buying the government-subsidized apartments. Each housing block must maintain an ethnic and religious balance that mirrors the country as a whole: 77 percent Chinese; 14 percent ethnic Malay, and 8 percent Indian, and so on. If an owner of Indian descent, for example, wants to sell his unit, it must go to another Indian family unless a corresponding sale elsewhere in the block could offset the racial imbalance. In the case of intermarriage, the husband's race controls.

This obsessive focus on enforced racial and religious balance is in stark contrast to the "color-blind" philosophy in the United States, which aims to minimize differences across racial lines. The objective is the same - social harmony - but the methods couldn't be more different.

The government of Lee Hsien Loong is also starting to realize that Singapore's ethnic mix is a marketable aspect of the country's image. At a meeting with the Ministry of Information, Culture, and the Arts, officials strained to express their mission to "build a sense of community, national identity and rootedness." Finally, deputy secretary Sim Gim Guam came up with this mouthful for Singapore: "a clean, green, cosmopolitan, multicultural meritocracy."

Comity is of course helped by prosperity; per capita GDP is about $30,000 (US dollars) in Singapore, unemployment is 1.7 percent, and most people feel they are doing better financially than they would be in their country of origin. But representatives of the French government recently toured Singapore's housing blocks to see if some of its social policies could be imported to the poor banlieues in suburban Paris that were engulfed in ethnic riots last year.

The model's application to Western democracies is probably limited. Singapore's infamous censorship laws focus like a laser on content that might stir racial animus - more even than sex or political criticism. Hate speech is strictly monitored and prosecuted. In 2005, three young bloggers were convicted under Singapore's Sedition Act for posting insults to Malay Muslims. Such topics transgress the so-called OB markers for content that is officially "out of bounds." Even the vaguely parodic Speakers Corner, a frequently empty patch of green near Hong Lim Park, requires speakers to register at a nearby police station before they can exercise their right to free expression. Oh, and racial and religious topics are strictly prohibited.

Even westerners who share the goal of promoting diversity through government policy are likely to blanch at the level of state interference in the lives of citizens here. But Singapore officials have good reason to put their thumb on the scale.

In 1998, former Indonesian president B.J. Habibie pointed to a map of the region and dismissed Singapore as "a little red dot" compared to his sprawling nation. This oracular expression has become a point of pride in Singapore: look what the tiny red dot has achieved! But it is also a warning. Singapore's ruling People's Action Party is forever reminding citizens of the nation's vulnerability as a tiny secular nation - "a little red dot surrounded by a sea of green" - green being the traditional color of Islam.

Just last month three so-called home-grown jihadists - suspected terrorists who were not aligned with any formal group - were taken into custody as part of an alleged bomb plot. Few officials missed the chance to drive home the point. To "clean, green, multicultural" and all the rest, Singapore must add "careful."

RENÉE LOTH