Why Malay agents at SIN?
 

Did anyone notice the disproportion number of Malay agents manning Changi Airport? This includes immigration and security checks.

Is there a good reason for this? Or some randomly biased selection process?

There is no racial prejudice in Singapore. You're Singaporean, Malaysian, Indonesian, that's it. You're hired that's it.

FYI Singapore's national language is MALAY and not English as some of you might not know. The national anthem is sung in what language?

Funny how I never notice the racial differences when I go home? I never seem to have any problems mixing with people of any race in Singapore because it truly is a multicultural society with FOUR offical languages.

Malays in Singapore have slight privileges unbeknowst to many including tetiary education. They are after all the original inhabitants of SINGAPURA.



[This message has been edited by Guy Betsy (edited 12-22-2002).]

you'll find fewer malays in the military, and hence a greater proportion are funneled into the police force and other uniformed services, including the immigration service.

Out of respect for its three main ethnic communities, Singapore has adopted Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil, along with English, as its official languages.

English, however, is the functional language. I quote Lee Kuan Yew, who was speaking in the United States last October: "We needed a common language. English is not any group's mother tongue, so no one gained any advantage. We have not forced or pressure cooked a national identity. We aimed for integration, not assimilation."

And, by the way, the Malays weren't the "original" inhabitants of Singapura. Indigenous peoples lived there thousands of years before the Indo-Malay people (migrating southward from primarily southern China) showed up.

[This message has been edited by crazycrab955 (edited 12-22-2002).]

What about singlish? Isn't that the de facto national language ?

I think what the original question referred to before incurring completely pointless assertions of non-existent Singaporean racial equality and an outburst of recycled propaganda, was, that indeed in many professions, including staff of SIA and the airport grounds staff, the Western eye spots much more darker skin than a decade or two ago. I think the answer is simple and has very little to do with egregious policies, it is simple a fact of a formerly discriminated and thus undereducated class moving up the social ladder and filling the posts that (whiter) Chinese are leaving as they move up to the echelons formerly dominated by whites. All in all, it's a sign of progress and the associated social shifts, and I don’t think it's a special airport policy to prepare the airport for Mahatir’s next state visit.

Malays, in Singapore at least, are often relegated to the secondary jobs (e.g doorman, bellboy, my cleaning lady when I was living in SIN) . There is a huge gap between Malays and Chinese in Singapore economically (mainly because there are not many of them to begin with)

The Chinese being the majority often have better jobs and education. If you go to the PPS center at the paragon, you will notice that most of them are chinese (by sharp contrast to the agents at SIN or the security people)

This is of course different once you step in to Johore Bharu in Malaysia where the Malays are the majority (with the exception of Penang, which is predominantly Chinese, like Sinagpore)

Some of them (the Malays) do very well in Singapore, but they are few and far between.

Of course they may be a reason other than what I mentioned. I've always wondered why a lot of the security and immigration people at LHR were Punjabi.

[deleted because post was pretty irrelevant to FT]

[This message has been edited by fimo (edited 12-29-2002).]

Pls don't get me wrong. I wasn't coming from an angle of racial discrimination. I was just curious of what I saw. I think mhtaipei and meFirst's responses made sense. Originally I was thinking whether racially based corruption was an issue. I think I over-estimated. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

So what does Malays got to do with krisFlyer ?

Talking about Sinapore/Malaysia, how are two getting along, read a news story about water and going to war over it? IS true?

WAR?

Do you even know what the story is about?

I saw it some the S'pore newspaper, StraitTimes, see the link for the story, about possible war with Malaysia:

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/sin...18340,00.html?

Don't you believe it...

The government of both countries may dislike each other for various reasons, but a "war" will be very unlikely!

Just read some of the crappiest replies on this topic from surprisingly people who have lived in this part of the world - Asia.

Let me try to put some issues into perspective. Someone's rant about the "whites" (Chinese) holding higher profile jobs in Singapore, while the Malays are relegated to often 'lower menial' jobs being the result of Singapore's efforts to discriminate the Malays is laughable.

The Malays in Singapore were never discriminated against, in fact they have a slight advantage over many of the Chinese and Indians in that there are actually quotas set by the various tertiary institutions in Singapore (similar to what is done in Malaysia).

Singapore is also a meritocratic society whereby the best jobs go to those with the best credentials. Education has always been a priority for many Chinese and Indian families. The Malays have other priorities in life. It is therefore not surprising that the Chinese and Indian population in Singapore do better in school, and eventually in the job market than the Malays.

Please don't bring in discrimination as a means to justify a race's non-performance.