Cosmopolitanism, the Quest for Growth and the Quest for Identity

The influx of foreigners, be it the average low to mid-skilled worker to highly skilled and educated foreign “talent”, has always been a touchy issue for many Singaporeans.

The reactions from Singaporeans have been varied, ranging from outright embrace, to total dismay and anger, to sheer indifference. The arguments thrown around have also been varied, from promoting growth in the long term (that’s the stand of the government too), to the idea of stealing jobs, to the issue of integration.

The problem that we face now, and this is true, is that according to the government, our population is not growing fast enough to maintain the current state of economic growth. We are not even replacing ourselves. The birth rate of Singapore has recently fallen to a new low, making the issue even more imperative.

But let’s think about some issues while the government works on this problem.

First, the first question in my head is this: do we need so many people?

The government said categorically, “Yes!” in fact, the government said that our current population is far from the optimum population level. A population of over 4 million, one-third of which are foreigners, and that’s not enough?

To some extent, the government’s sentiments are understandable. Manpower is an issue for certain aspects of development. For example, large infrastructure projects like the IRs, new sports facilities, etc. Since the new generation of Singaporeans are not willing to take up such menial labour, the only solution is to bring in foreign workers to fill the gap.

The problem is how the government boosts the country’s population at the expense of other national issues. The most critical is that of national identity and social cohesion.

This “growth at all costs” strategy threatens national identity in the following ways:


First, the influx of foreigners introduces tensions in Singapore society, as foreigners have their own cultural predispositions and way of life not always acceptable to Singaporeans. This impedes integration and assimilation.

However, we would then also have to consider whether we as Singapore-born Singaporeans have our own set of cultural predispositions for them to follow, because, come to think of it, we don’t.

Singapore’s not like countries like Japan or Korea where there are clear cultural norms and values. Singapore, being multiracial in nature, maintains a high degree of cultural heterogeneity. Since the cultural values of each ethnicity is maintained, the reasons for foreigners not to retain their own identities do not exist.

The government’s policy of multiracialism is based on the premise that the heterogeneity of races in Singapore is a problem to be carefully managed. The current situation, however, is that the advent of globalisation has made the issue of ethnicity somewhat irrelevant.

It will be unrealistic, for example, to put PRC Chinese in Singapore under the local Chinese category, because their cultural ethos is different. Having lived under different socio-political climates, their values, norms of behaviour are not congruent to local values. Any attempt to integrate foreigners of any ethnicity or nationality would have to put this into consideration.


Second, the influx of foreigners can erode the sense of belonging amongst locals. Locals can feel increasingly marginalised by the influx of foreigners, and the tensions between local and foreigner in terms of relations can generate a strong sense of discontentment amongst the locals. To make things worse, the influx of foreigners in large numbers can complicate the plight of Singaporeans who already face the threat of marginalisation, such as the Malay community, such as the older workers, whose age, type and level of skill puts them at a disadvantage in the job market.

Since these workers are still able to work, and many of them still have to work, because of their families, because of their financial foundations, because the government has repeatedly raised the retirement age, the policy of introducing foreigners, and more importantly, restructuring the economy has to be controlled, and with the concerns of these groups in mind.

The government cannot risk the alienation of locals in the pursuit of economic growth, the results of which are not so easily predictable (referring to the current recession), and more critically, the results of which may not reach everyone (the lower income, who only get worse off given the widening income gap and the digital divide, and the middle class, increasingly subordinated by the super-rich)


The third threat is in the form of identity. It is possible to identify ourselves as cosmopolitan in nature, and nationalism from a primordialist perspective is unrealistic in Singapore’s case, and has the potential for disaster. But if we do not have a set of “shared values” (not the “Shared Values” by then PM, now SM Goh), a set of ideas that define a Singaporean, that what is Singapore?

Just a place people from all over work, study, perhaps play?

If there is a crisis, who’s left to defend Singapore for what it is?

People come during the boom times; they reap the benefits of prosperity, political stability and good governance, but what happens in a crisis? Would they stay? Or would they leave?

If the people responsible for the country’s success leave, will Singapore be the same again when they return, if they return?

Of course, the scenario I’m postulating here is radical, but it has happened to many city-states in history, like Venice.

The conclusion is this. A one-step forward, two steps back approach to national identity renders the quest for national identity difficult, if not self-defeating.

A “growth at all costs” strategy by introducing foreigners at large numbers without considering the socio-political context has a tendency towards unsustainable growth.