Vocal activist Sangeetha Thanapal has been given a stern warning by the police over a Facebook post that they say promotes feelings of ill will and hostility between the races.
Ms Thanapal, originally from Singapore, now lives in Melbourne where she works as a researcher. The police confirmed to the Straits Times (ST) that they investigated her earlier this month when she returned to Singapore on 2 Jan. She was investigated for her remarks made on a Facebook post in which she claimed Chinese Singaporean were racists towards other races.
In consultation with the Attorney-General’s Chambers, police issued her a stern warning on Jan 16, “for an offence of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race” under Section 298A of the Penal Code.
Known for coining the term “Chinese privilege”, Ms Thanapal’s post was about the Hollywood film Chinese Rich Asians that has been praised as a big win for representation of Asian people on the silver screen. However, the film has received just as much criticism for it’s lack of representation of the minorities in Singapore where the film is set. Ms Thanapal’s voice is among those who slammed the film’s monochromatic representation of ‘Asians’.
In her post published in April 2018, Ms Thanapal called Singapore “a terribly racist country” that “embarked on a form of eugenics in the 1980s meant to displace its indigenous population and replace it with settler colonial Chinese people”.
Ms Thanapal said that minorities in Singapore have difficulty gaining employment and highlighted the government’s policy which limits certain civil service jobs from hijab-wearing Muslim women.
She also went on to give other examples of discrimination against minorities in Singapore from stereotypical representations of Indians by the Chinese who do ‘brown face’, the use of slurs on minorities on a daily basis, and Chinese-only schools funded by taxpayers.
She said, “the Chinese supremacist state of Singapore constantly tells us that the Chinese are what makes Singapore successful, that Malays are lazy, that Indians are violent and that only Chinese people can save Singapore.”
In her post, Ms Thanapal said she had to “run away” to Australia after being threatened by the Singapore state for being vocal about race in Singapore.
She then goes on to talk about how the film is not as ‘progressive’ as it is made out to be, especially since the film neglected to show any Singaporean minority. (The one scene that featured a couple of Sikh guards was awful, playing that stereotype that turban-wearing Sikh’s are scary).
Ms Thanapal said, “seeing post after post on what an achievement this movie is really difficult for us because you’re doing what Singaporean Chinese have done to us our whole lives-erase us, talk over us and dismiss us.”
While she was in Singapore, it appears that Ms Thanapal didn’t post anything on her Facebook page. However, once she was back in Melbourne, she wrote in another Facebook post that she had a “very traumatizing experience” while she was here. She described Singapore as being “a country that is unsafe for activists, intellectuals, writers and a whole host of anyone who dares to think and speak differently.”
She added that her experience prompted her to “shut down” her Facebook page for a while “as anything we say on the internet is often used against activists.”
TOC understands that she was detained for a short period by the police when she returned to Singapore from Australia.
Now that she’s back in Melbourne, Ms Thanapal says she is recuperating and focusing on other things in her life. She also said she will not be talking about what happened to her in Singapore until she’s certain that she “can’t be threatened by the long arm of the Singapore state again”.
This isn’t the first time Ms Thanapal has found herself grappling with the administration. In 2015, she was in a pickle when Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugan said his comments were misrepresented by her.
At a talk he was giving at the Singapore Press Club, Mr Shanmugam spoke about growing polarisation in Malaysia with mainstream school ‘becoming more and more Malay and Islamic’, referring to the challenges that poses when it comes to integration of different races. However, Ms Thanapal in a Facebook post had suggested that Mr Shanmugam made the comments because he considered Malay-Muslims a threat.
In turn, Mr Shanmugam called Ms Thanapal’s post ‘inaccurate and seditious’, and added that he intended to file a police report against her. He eventually decided against it after meeting Ms Thanapal who took down the post and apologised for her words. Mr Shamugam said at the time that he didn’t think she had intentions of stirring ill will among the races with her comments.
Regarding Ms Thanapal’s most recent brush with the authorities, a police spokesman said they take a stern view of actions that can threaten social harmony in Singapore.
“Such irresponsible comments can promote feelings of ill will or hostility between different races, and are unacceptable in Singapore’s multiracial and multi-religious society,” he added.
To be perfectly honest, the stern warning issued to Ms Thanapal doesn’t come as a surprise considering the strong comments she made and the antagonistic nature of her post. That said, I also don’t think she intended to stir up any ill will between races with her post. She’s made some valid points about but perhaps a gentler approach would better foster constructive debates about race relations in Singapore.
