Failed: Singapore’s historical conscience

It is appalling how people can forget how our own countrymen suffered in days gone by, and mortifying that we can inflict the same sort of inhumanity on others who share those similar conditions today.

We’ve read about maid abuses, how they were brutally tortured with scalding water and the like, and these were bad enough. Such cases may have been isolated examples, but they show how quickly we forget.

In the 28th June issue of TODAY, there was an article titled “Firm fined for housing staff in toilet” (p4). They cooked, ate, and slept in a public toilet, which makes one wonder: isn’t that even worse than being in prison? At least jailbirds get to eat healthy sanitarily-prepared food in a proper dining room.

These foreign workers have come seeking a better life. They contribute to our society doing jobs Singaporeans find degrading. And we treat them like this, without dignity or any semblance of humanity.

Remember the years gone by, the years of colonialism? Remember how our forefathers were like them too, foreign workers seeking a better life. They toiled much harder during those days for paltry wages, and lived in crammed dormitories. As many as 5 families could be housed in one such facility, sharing a communal toilet and kitchen. Have we forgotten their struggles? Are they just part of our students’ textbooks now? Why do we do to our foreign workers what the Colonial Masters did to us so many years ago?

Look at how some of us treat our foreign workers now. Firms like the aforementioned one cram them into “toilet prisons”, an act which would nauseate any person with a shred of humanity and compassion. Why do we do to them what the British did to us before? Has the profit motive distorted our human conscience and compassion to such a despicable degree?

Perhaps not totally. Many people still treat their foreign workers well, and their humanity needs to be spread to counter the oppression of those who do mistreat their foreign workers. As a society, as a post colonial country, we must speak out and slam such mistreatment. A punitive fine obviously isn’t enough, for the article points out that 116 other firms had likewise failed to provide acceptable accommodations for their foreign workers.

During the recent Pre-University Seminar, guest speaker, RAdm Lui Tuck Yew, told us to expect that the number of foreign workers in Singapore will rise over the next few years. In all humanity, compassion and historical conscience, we can’t allow them to suffer similar conditions. Perhaps it's time a Foreign Workers’ Union is created to ensure that our foreign friends do not fall victim to our capitalist neo-colonial economy.

Singaporeans need to remember our history of toil and hardship. Foreign workers are not “just workers”, they are human too – fellow human beings who are living similar lives as our grandfathers and great-grandfathers did so many years ago.

Compassion and humanity go beyond race, religion, social strata and nationality. Remember that.

By Benjamin Low