Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Singaporeans are able to see beyond racial lines

Friday, January 01, 2010

Singaporeans are able to see beyond racial lines

Dear MR TAN KIN LIAN

I like to share with you a hearty observation about Singapore Idol competition results. This competition showed that Singaporeans are able to see beyond racial lines, when choosing their singing idol.

In the Singapore Idol competition, we saw Malay topped the competition consecutively from Season 1 in year 2006 to Season 3 in Y2009. This is a 100% winning streak for Malay singers, who won by on-line polling. This is despite the fact that Malays are minority in Singapore. This shows that Singaporeans have grown beyond racial line. Nobody entered the competition with preferential treatment. No single race is protected by any preferential arrangement”. Yet, our Malay fellow brothers won in three clean sweeps.

This showed that Singaporeans will vote for you if you are good and continue to improve.

I think this is another example Singapore Government should seriously consider setting a timeline to eliminate GRC for general election. In the future, it may be even difficult to define who is an Indians, for example. I see many inter-racial marriages in Singapore today.

** Record of winners for Singapore Idols **
Singapore Idol 1 (Y2004) Taufik Batisah beat Sylvester Sim.
Singapore Idol 2 (Y2006) Hady Mirza beat Jonathan Leong
Singapore Idol 3 (Y2009) Sezairi Sezali beat Sylvia Ratonel

CASHEW NUT

16 comments:

Anonymous said...: Dear Cashew Nut
I agree with you. Only our Great Leader still think along racial lines.
GCT; January 01, 2010 5:39 PM
Anonymous said...: what about the percentage of chinese, malay and indians who call in to vote?

Will this make any difference?; January 01, 2010 6:44 PM
Anonymous said...: I disagree.

The fact is that only the Malays are willing to part with their money to support their Malay Idol.

How many Chinese or Indian is willing to spend money this way to support their own race?

Many are like me.... complained that Sylvia should have won but never even make a single call to vote for her.; January 01, 2010 8:16 PM
Anonymous said...: I don't think the Singapore Idol show (season 3) is a good example to illustrate the point that S'poreans can see beyond racial lines.

Mainstream media all noted the fact that all 3 winners are Malay guys, so perhaps the unspoken statement is that they received multiple votes from teenage female Malay fans.

Although Malays are a minority here, multiple voting by the same fan just 2 to 5 times can exceed other votes for Sylvia Ratonel who perhaps suffered from being female as not all males will bother to vote even if they like her.

End of the day, unless voters can be traced by their race, we can even conclude the opposite : that Singaporeans did not see beyond racial lines in Season 3 of Singapore Idol.; January 02, 2010 12:40 AM
Anonymous said...: On the contrary, this could suggest the following:
- a large percentage of malays watch Singapore Idol
- most if not all of the malay voted for their own race

The results only shows that other races does not vote along racial lines, but it doesn't show anything about malay voting pattern.

In general, I know that chinese people would vote for who they like not so much of race, but malay population have a higher tendency to vote for their own race.

Kelvin Wong; January 02, 2010 1:13 AM
Parka said...: I would see "beyond racial lines" as Malay voting for Chinese or Chinese voting for Malay.; January 02, 2010 10:12 AM
Anonymous said...: Drinking too much whisky makes you drunk.

Whisky contains alcohol and water.

So drinking too much water makes you drunk.

How's this logic?; January 02, 2010 11:50 AM
Unknown said...: WHAT KELVIN WONG SAID IS CORRECT

MALAYS VOTE FOR MALAYS

OTHER RACES VOTE FOR WHAQT THEY FEEL IS THE BETTER SINGER; January 02, 2010 1:30 PM
Anonymous said...: Other races don't bother about such event.; January 02, 2010 6:44 PM
Chinese said...: When I say Malay vote for Malay, I am not being racist. It is their culture that look after their own race; their own kind. As for Chinese, we are not so cohesive.... :(; January 02, 2010 8:41 PM
Anonymous said...: I would say most Chinese and some Indian teens are/will be focusing MORE on other more "meaningful" things/activities, than this Idol worship contest... Morever, I am sure their parents would not endorse them getting too heavily involved in this contest anyway. Just my feeling... and maybe to some extent, a fact.; January 03, 2010 4:37 AM
Anonymous said...: absolutely majority Chinese would not part their money on idol voting unlike majority Malays. In a way it is also their way to help their fellow community to improve :); January 03, 2010 9:58 AM
Anonymous said...: I'm so sorry to see many people here who, by their comments, themselves could not see beyond racial lines.

If we look at the Singapore Idol the way Mr Tan does, and believe Ken's words as a judge, maybe we can one day proudly call ourselves Singaporeans.

If not, we will forever be a bunch of sceptics............and then we would ask: Why are we so racist? Why are we so disunited?

It all begins with us : You and Me.; January 03, 2010 11:47 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Reply to 11:47 AM

The views are expressed by Cashew Nut, but I agree with them.

Many Singaporeans tend to be sceptical and negative. It is the way that we were brought up in a competitive environment. We tend to see what is bad, rather than what is good.

I hope that more Singaporeans can learn to be positive and generous in their views.; January 03, 2010 12:02 PM
Anonymous said...: This is the flaw of such voting popularity contest. I personally feel that Singapore idol voting should be toll free much like American Idol and each phone line limited to one vote.; January 03, 2010 11:39 PM
Anonymous said...: This is the flaw of such voting popularity contest. I personally feel that Singapore idol voting should be toll free much like American Idol and each phone line limited to one vote.

yeah they should be more transparent

yeah they should let more people vote and for free; January 06, 2010 5:41 PM