Xenophobia or mindless hatred? Why not both?

I remember back in mid-September this year when I moved to London. It being Central London made the cost of living extremely high (rent, especially). Together with my parents I had to figure everything out on my own- where to get my necessities, how to set up my bank account, making friends etc. They eventually left as my school term began and I had to experience life in London on my own. 

It was not easy to be accepted into the society being both a foreigner and of a minority race. To begin with, I am being patronised every store I walk into. Store owners speak to me with hostility and condescension because they assumed English was not my first language. The only people I could ever talk to or associate with were my fellow Singaporean students. 

I felt rather sidelined by the Brits, but it didn't matter because I was relatively free during the first few weeks of school. I spent most of my time reading stuff online, stuff written by the British on social media- what I saw on the Internet shocked me. I didn't know the Brits referred to foreigners as "FTs"? Obviously by "FT" they meant Foreign Trash, as opposed to Foreign Talent- what the abbreviation was initially supposed to mean. In fact, they spoke of us "FTs" with such hatred. Apparently, we steal their jobs. We steal top spots in schools. We bring our smelly pork dumplings into the country. We eat shit-flavoured pastries (also known as Durian Cake to Singaporeans). 

I also discovered that a few years back, a national announcement that one of the old school buildings in Inner London would soon be converted to a school dorm for foreign students. It received severe backlash from the public, saying that they did not want us to be in their proximity, destroying their social fabric. Anyway, I spent the past 2 months in London as a foreign student feeling like I didn't really belong, and received little or no support from the school community because I was well, a foreigner. Right as I am typing this, news broke that a couple of foreign students are rioting in Camden Town over a traffic accident. The police force has been activated and about 20 of them are injured. The Brits are angry people. Xenophobic and racist remarks are spewing up everywhere. Some demanded that all of us be sent home. I will wake up the next morning and it will no longer be safe to be a foreigner in London.

The story above was obviously fictitious and a spoof of the Little India riots back home in Singapore. Honestly, after having been in the UK for 2.5 months, I have grown to love London. The Brits are friendly and accepting regardless of my nationality (though I highly doubt everyone knows where Singapore is). I also grew up with a relatively liberal mindset (I am both feminist and pro-gay rights, though I'd hardly say being feminist counts as liberal) so naturally, I'm more inclined towards British culture.

I could give a hundred and one comparisons between the British people's attitudes towards foreigners and that of Singaporeans', but that is not what I'm going to do today.

I do not know what it is like to be a blue-collared worker in Singapore with no minimum wage to protect my standard of living. I do not have ailing parents to feed at the age of 21. Neither do I know what it feels like to be stranded on a foreign land, fate completely surrendered to a dubious employer, having no language in common with the locals and living in shitty quarters for years.

I'm probably not qualified to speak for either side. But I do want to say my piece for all my foreign-born friends who have been targets of xenophobia or racism in Singapore.

Speaking as a Singaporean, I do not condone that level of violence in our country. I don't find it acceptable that they are endangering the lives of our citizens and policemen. 10 servicemen are injured. I understand that foreign workers do feel unjust and marginalised within our society but let us not make the rioters out to be some sympathetic victims, shall we? After all, they inflicted violence upon us.

That said, I know some (some, not all) Singaporeans have their ammunition ready when the news of the riots broke out. Be it towards the foreign workers in Singapore or towards the government for letting these people in- some locals are in a hurry to pin blame on someone. Someone needs to be hanged for the riots that broke out today- who better to blame than the PAP? Vote them out in 2016! Send the FTs (Foreign Trash) back home!

I know these people are merely expressing their anger. However, there are certain things you cannot just "express anger" at and call it day. The riots can be a one-off issue but certain attitudes can sow a dangerous seed, which will grow and come back to strangle us as a society the day we least expect it.

If anything, I feel the riots should be a wake up call to us to examine what exactly has been wrong in the system all along. It is time to change certain attitudes and policies, and give the foreign workers some form of financial or psychological support during their work duration here. At a time of imminent threat to our society, we cannot afford to all behave like irrational monkeys making noise and solving nothing. You may not be able to contribute in your capacity but at the very least, do your country a favour and stop messing us up from within. At least, acknowledge that there are foreign workers who are really just here to make a decent living and show them some basic human respect.

I do have friends who were born in a foreign country, but grew up in Singapore and love the country as their home. All I ask is acceptance towards them. As foreigners, they are not granted certain scholarships and they pay more school fees. There are certain jobs they are not eligible for. When I was a temp staff working at Recruit Express, the company's practice was to discard all applications coming from non-Singaporeans/PRs.

Maybe if you're a poor construction worker who has to live on a small wage because of the foreign workers here, I can understand where this dissent is coming from. For the rest of you Singaporeans who can afford a flat, three square meals and are doing decently well in life, in colloquial language, "Complain what complain?" Some of these people who complain are secondary school kids even!

Please, let us not sow seeds that may lead this one off event to bigger, more dangerous incidents in future.

Finally, I'd like to end off with a presentation of "genius" remarks made by Singaporeans.

(Edit: I have actually screenshot another person's remarks from The Real Singapore here, but it turned out he admitted to be trolling and he wasn't THAT nasty, so I deleted it.)

In response to this post: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=653241498061493&set=a.376721469046832.100117.100001269463487&type=1&theater

This was a string of comments that ensued after a friend's friend shared someone's reflections about the riot- basically saying appreciation for our SPF and SCDF is more important than spewing hatred towards any nationality right now. Val Goh deems it unworthy of reading because you know, anything without paragraphs means nothing.

The day prior to this, I shared a status update made by her which went something along the lines of "Obi lor...open the doors wide for foreigners to come in...this is what you get!" She has since deleted it (something to hide?) but she says she "stands by her (deleted) statement". She also said this in response to the govt's banning of alcohol:

I suppose this is what happens when from the very first minute, your intention is to direct hate. Nothing makes sense to these people because it is more important to tell the world how stupid you think the government/other people are rather than give constructive opinions to tackle the issue.

Anyway, my sincere thanks to the men and women of the SPF/SCDF for working hard to maintain peace and order in our country. Salute!