Immigration and its impact on property prices were hot issues at the 2011 general election
By Khalil Adis
Beneath the façade of multi-racial and harmonious Singapore are rising tensions fuelled by years of massive immigration under the government’s plan to welcome “foreign talents” from developing countries.
Race and religion have always been a delicate issue which the government has taken great pains to address during the past 40 over years of nation building.
Memories of race riots post-independence are still fresh in the minds of post baby-boomers with the most notable being the 1969 incident between Malays and Chinese.
To foster greater interaction between the different races that make up Singapore, the government has taken pains to integrate them via a unique housing policy that ensures a well-balanced representation of Malays, Indians, Chinese and Eurasians in the different housing estates.
However, the simmering tension now is rather apparent with a united Singapore voice now feeling increasingly marginalised with the arrival of new immigrants from China, the Philippines, India and Myanmar who now have their own enclaves in the heartlands.
One particular incident caused the Singapore community to rally together when a Chinese resident requested a Singapore Indian family to stop cooking curry after mediation by a government agency.
The news story broke shortly after the general election and went viral on Facebook with Singaporeans asking, “shouldn’t a foreigner learn to integrate with locals instead of the other way round?”
There is also growing perception that locals are losing out to jobs and university placements to foreigners, which were contentious issues during the election. Some of the newly arrived immigrants do not appear to be able to speak proper English but are given a head start in Singapore. This raised questions on the quality of immigrants Singapore is trying to attract.
Sure, the influx of foreign labour has artificially pushed up Singapore’s GDP, making it the envy of many nations. However, this isn’t really solving productivity issues that Singapore as a developed country should already have in the first place.
Singapore’s public transport and housing are already bursting at their seams resulting in frequent fights on the MRT trains and high property prices. Some government leaders are also now questioning the effects of immigration on Singapore’s fabric as a nation.
But the question Singaporeans are asking is “shouldn’t this question be asked before immigration policies were implemented in the first place?”
Source: PropertyReport – 2012 Jul 3
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