Multiple Realities: Reconsidering Multiracialism In Singapore

How has Singapore's multiracialism policy evolved, and how has it impacted on ethnic relations and nation-building in a secure, yet perpetually vulnerable, Singapore? This important book addresses these important questions through a critical analysis of ethnic markers in key facets of Singaporean life, such as elections and race quotas in public housing, national service, ethnic self-help groups, the rise of “Chineseness” and increased religious piety. The author challenges the conventional wisdom that multiracialism in Singapore is unequivocally race-blind or nonethnic in its approach. Instead, he argues that Singapore is an ethnic-conscious state wherein race, culture and language are instrumentally mobilized as key resources in nation-building and political governance. This could have potentially ethnic/racial enhancing or polarizing effects, thus undermining the stability of the multiracial framework in Singapore.