2012 - Year of National Integration

By Lionel WIJESIRI

Amidst the fun and celebrations associated with the dawn of the New Year, let us spend a few minutes on sober reflection on what the past year held for us and what is in store for 2012 that has just dawned.Whatever reflections which may cross your mind, the foremost thought should be reserved for the country that is now set on the path of development into a new era of prosperity.

Let us look towards the future at the dawn of this New Year with renewed determination, firm commitment and many positive expectations. Certainly 2012 is bound to be a decisive one for the country that will determine the path it will charter for itself to become a nation to be reckoned with.Let 2012 be the Year of National Integration!

Cherished desire

National integration is the cherished desire of all peace-loving people of Sri Lanka. This country needs unity and integrity for its survival with all peculiarities of differences in itsculture.

In a recent visit to Singapore, I had some time to do research on national integration in Singapore. Their experience is worth studying for whatever we could pick up to fit our own culture.The challenges of national integration in multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multilingual Singapore have always been a primary concern of the Singapore government. National integration hasbeen the focus of housing policy, national service, a mandatory savings policy under the Central Provident Fund, community development programs, and so on. In the Singapore 21 Report, in which the government outlines the nationalist agenda for the next century, a key issue covered is whether or not Singapore will ever become one tribe.Historically, the key to becoming one tribe has been through Singapore's bilingual language policy.

This effort has involved the discursive construction of very particular ideologies about language and about bilingualism, captured in the ideological polarisation of language.

On the one side of this ideological polarisation of language is English. The presence of English has been justified as necessary to meet the instrumental needs of national integration.

In this justification, government leaders hold two key assumptions about the English language: One is that English is the key to economic survival and the second that English is a neutral language.

Assumptions

Let us consider these assumptions more closely. In one of the speeches, a powerful Minister outlines three integrative functions for the English language, drawn on these two assumptions.

In terms of economic integration, he argues that English is the major international language for trade, science, and technology, and proficiency in the language is essential as Singapore becomes a leading financial and banking centre, and a leader in the service and high technology industries.

This suggests a perceived direct relationship between the direction andpossibilities of economic development and English.

According to him, English is the key to the productivity concept.

With increasing modernisation, skilled workers who know English will be in greater demand...... it is the key to acquisition of skills and training and career advancement.

Singapore's leaders frequently point to the fact that the economic advantage Singapore has had over most countries in Southeast and East Asia is this skilled, English-proficient workforce.

These assumptions about the English language also work toward social integration. The argument given by government leaders is that proficiency in English will bring a person and society out of poverty. The English language (and proficiency in English) is thus presented as accessible to all Singaporeans.

When this argument is linked to the notion of meritocracy, itself a powerful discourse in the imagining of Singapore, English also puts everyone on anequal playing field.

As suggested by, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, English is our common working language...... It provides a neutral medium, giving no one any advantage in the competition for knowledge and jobs.

Neutral

Because English is neutral, in that it does not belong to any of the major ethnic communities in Singapore, it can be the language for inter-ethnic communication and racial harmony.

When English "is the common language here, it will enable all Singaporeans regardless of race to communicate with one another. Former education minister Dr. Tony Tan made a similar comment in his speech to parliament, arguing that through English there is a greater understanding among Singaporeans of all races, which has helped substantially to build the peaceful harmonious Singapore that we have today.

Note that these leaders are not suggesting that English can be the language of national identity. They are only saying that English can be the language of cultural integration. While it can be argued that English is the de facto national language, Singapore's leaders have never given English the discursive space of national language.

To do so would mean English could also occupy the space of culture, which has also been systematically denied in the ideological polarisation of language within bilingualism.Underlying both these notions of English is the view that it is possible to separate language, culture, and technology, that it is possible to adopt English for its technological advantageswithout adopting its culture. As Lee Kuan Yew puts it: "I don't think I want to model my life on the Anglo-Saxon. I want to catch up with his material and scientific progress.

I want to pick up and emulate some of his methods of organising society. But I am not accepting as superior his culture or way of life. In fact, I view some of the present day values and practices in [the West]...... as deplorable, [and] which indeed should be strenuously avoided at all cost". This view underscores the notion of the neutrality of the English language.

Mother tongue languages

Mother tongue languages, the leaders have argued, are essential to countering the negative effects that have come with Singaporeans' exposure to the English language.

Because English is a neutral language, it has no cultural value for Singaporeans. Any cultural values it does have are ones seen to be inappropriate for Singapore. As such, if Singaporeans were to learn only English and not their mother tongue languages, they would be in danger ofbecoming "deculturalised."The mother tongue languages have thus been presented as insulating Singaporeans from this kind of deculturalisation.

Unlike English, which supposedly can be separated from culture,the mother tongue languages are embedded in the logic of multi-racialism, captured in the equation "a race = a language = a culture.The analogy of computer programming is often used: through mother tongue education, children would be "inculcated with good Eastern values and cultures.

These values will thus be programmed like a computer in the children and form their basic principles in dealing with society and with problems.

Therefore, the argument goes, each person must have an ethnicity as prescribed by the government, which means he or she has a mother tongue as determined by her or his ethnicity, and which means that she or he then has a culture transmitted by that mother tongue. And with each of the different communities firmly rooted in their cultures, when pulled together, a common Singaporean culture will emerge.

Experience

These are all history. But today, when moving around Singapore and speaking with people, one realises that Singapore's arts and cultural scene bustles with diversity and local flavours.In spite of its cosmopolitan nature, which opens doors to rich and contemporary global influences, the city remains uniquely Asian.

I have dwelt at length on Singapore's experience on National Integration. It is worth giving it some consideration in 2012. It's time we begin to think out of the box!