Anti-foreignism in Singapore, and the Bukit Batok Water Festival

A Facebook invitation to an event called “Gatecrash Water Festival” has been circulating around, inviting Singaporeans to “gatecrash” an event that seeks to welcome new citizens to Singapore, and help them integrate. To quote its page:

Dear Singapore Citizens,

Bukit Batok Grassroots Organisation (GRO) is organising a Water Festival specially to welcome the New Year in Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos.

The funds used to host the event are likely to come from the mega $10-million dollar Community Integration Fund unveiled by the Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports (MCYS) last year to make the foreigners feel accepted and happy in Singapore.

I hope that those who are not supportive of the government wasting taxpayers’ money on foreigners to turn up in BLACK on that day.

I must admit that xenophobia (anti-foreignism) is possibly one of the easiest impulses to give in to. When I was back in Singapore during the summer, it was difficult not to feel that way, trying to squeeze onto an MRT train after work. Yet as a foreigner in America I can see why, to an extent, foreigners are necessary. The riches of Silicon Valley were as much built by Americans as by the scores of immigrants.

The same is beginning to be so for Singapore- when I visited the incubators in NUS last year, I found that more than 2/3 of the entrepreneurs were foreigners. Arguably, they will be the key creators on jobs in the future, as Singapore moves toward a start-up/innovation driven economy. Of course, the crucial question is always how much (and what type of) immigration is the right amount of immigration (has there been too much?)- and the debate should rightly focus on that.

Yet this event scares me. In their effort to make their point to policymakers (which is not wrong), they choose a method of doing so (gatecrashing the event) that might unknowingly/knowingly seek to intimidate foreigners. Worse, the only ones who would care about such a message are ironically the ones Singapore needs the most (the highly skilled entrepreneurs with lots of other options), even though we hate to admit it. The lower-skilled ones with few other options will not care at all whether or not you like them- and will come anyway.

Let’s not do things that way. I’m in no position to say this- I am a 20 year old who took a government scholarship 2 years ago. I have never lost out on a job to a foreigner, nor been retrenched because of one. Yet the little learning I’ve done has taught me to look a bit further into the future than the mere present, and think about the issues beyond the emotion. And I’ll put this out there, just in case my voice makes a little bit of difference.

PS: Had this idea while I was typing- that everyone on that day wear black (organizers, foreigners included)… see how that works?

Update: There’s now a counter-gatecrash group, which you can find here. Not sure whether its legitimate, though… (the founder only has 5 friends…?)