In The Cold Light Of Day.

As devastating as it is to witness the riot unfold back home, it is even more upsetting to see the many speculative and often inflammatory posts/comments that have sprung up in its wake. Whether they involve derogatory remarks about the SPF or the "foreign imports" (probably one of the least of the many offensive terms out there).

It's hard to stomach Singaporeans' extreme (or at least extremely visible) xenophobia a mere 3/4 generations after our own forebears first arrived on these shores. It's sad that Singaporeans are so eager for a gahmen cock-up that they are willing to start pointing fingers at the national agencies taking the brunt of the events tonight, much (if not all) of it without any rational thought behind it at all.

Nothing but an aimless rage directed at whoever's "responsible" for all the problems Singapore faces today (the PAP, the government, the foreigners, take your pick there's more than enough targets these days).

And we're supposed to be the educated generation?

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I posted this a couple of minutes ago on facebook. Why did I do that? Possibly I was hoping to in some way affect some readers' mindsets, to restore a little sensibility and rationality to the roaring Internet today. But what was it actually? A little distance tells me that it was a knee-jerk reaction to the knee-jerk reactions of others. It was an angry retort to the angry people crowding my newsfeed. And this was done a couple of hours after the actual event.

I have to ask myself, had I been in Singapore, reacting to live updates, what would my reaction have been? Had I been sitting in a coffeeshop, in the midst of an anger slowly building up, would I have been a rational voice prescribing neutrality? I had the benefit of distance, of hearing bits and pieces as it drifted across social media, to formulate my response to a hot mess like this.

It is painful to witness my country go through a period like this from afar. It is painful also to consider that had I been home at this time I could very well have been part of the inflammatory legions seeking to exploit this for some insane.... political means? I'm not even sure, whatever government-bashing/foreign-talent-hating achieves I guess.

I am actually heartbroken. Confused, saddened, angry, frustrated, disappointed, a whole lot of emotions, but the weirdest of that lot has to be the heartbreak. Why? I am heartbroken because the nation that I have chosen to pledge my life in defence of has just witnessed its first riot in years, one that will do irreparable damage to the psyche of a nation just under 50 years old.

I am heartbroken because the chorus of rational, calming voices I half expected did not materialize, or they were crowded out all too easily by waves upon wave of speculation and inflammatory remarks, anti-foreigner sentiments given yet another opportunity to be proclaimed from the rooftops. It is like taking a hard look at one's self and realizing how deficient one truly is. That's what looking at our generation feels like, a generation that was primed to take a nation, the world, forward. But we ended up as a generation of complainers, of entitled blame-ascribing narrow-minded xenophobes who can't look inwards and think that maybe all this hate and bitterness they hold against these "foreign-talents" is one of the reasons they can't integrate into society? That even if we are arguably not the actual problem, we are contributing to it in so many ways which are intangible and unquantifiable? A generation of Singaporeans so full of ourselves we refuse to see how we might actually be a part of the problem, instead of the anti-establishment freedom-fighter human-rights-crusaders we so often seem to think we are.

One of my friends posted something like "Not Singapore, please.." and what a plaintive cry that is. One that I wholeheartedly agree with. But surely we knew the peace would not last? That no group of people, citizen or otherwise, is immune from the raging torrents of the mob mindset, that all it takes is an event capable of triggering it? Full-blooded citizens or not. Having served NS or not. Having had sons serve NS or not. That 50 years is in itself a remarkable achievement, but what do we do when something like this occurs? Point fingers at the government for a response not robust enough, not ready enough, for something it's not had to deal with in 50 years. I'm not defending wholesale what happened, complacency or whatever, but perhaps we have to consider the fact that we enjoyed stability for long enough to experience such complacency. I feel like the idealistic image I had in my mind of Singapore is being eroded now. The peace and stability I pledged to protect no longer actually there. The Singapore I decided to defend no longer the Singapore I thought it was.

What does being Singaporean mean after today? I realize this is quite a melodramatic statement to make but I really think that yes, this riot involving a few hundred people changes things. I wouldn't normally compare but an article on my newsfeed popped up the #hijabuppropet movement in Sweden, where Swedish women of all faiths have taken to wearing the hijab in solidarity with the Islam women who have increasingly become victims of Islamophobic assaults. Cut back to Singapore and you see a people lambasting the government for its lack of response, "why 20 minutes still no one??" etc. It's hard to not compare. I guess a riot is incomparable in so many ways with that, or with a bombing like the one at the Boston Marathon this year, but it seems more and more as if Singaporeans' capacity for good is being outshone by their incredible capacity for small-mindedness and petty behavior. "If this keeps up no work tmr!" "Finally we see the FTs true colours." How do you believe in a nation of such people?

I guess the question I have to ask myself is not "Why then should I still defend Singapore?" as easy as it may be to reach such a conclusion, but this: How can I, in whatever small way I may be capable of, help to mold Singapore into a country worth defending? Into the country I had in mind when I signed on that dotted line?

Because in the cold light of day, when the dust has settled, a few statistics will emerge. A handful killed. More injured, some of them police/SCDF personnel. A number arrested. A couple charged. Few months/years in prison. Et cetera. The numbers game, hard facts. But it will not tell the story. Of how the few hours of this one fateful night served to further polarize a nation reeling from a recent deluge of anti-foreigner sentiments. To fuel more violent xenophobic tendencies (taken to its extreme, although I hope dearly this never happens.) To fracture a racial and societal harmony that on the outside always seemed as if it would hold up.

That will be the untold story of the Little India Riot. But it could also be about how the indifferent majority saw the riot and decided that to not act here, now, possibly one of the most dramatic events in Singapore, would be taking our apathy too far. That to be bystanders after witnessing firsthand - not in our social studies textbooks - something historic, would be too much. Yes, we're probably not going to end up in the textbooks as history makers, but if we can in whatever small ways help to shape our nation's consciousness in the coming weeks, then we will have played our part. Maybe we can even help the next generation to read about the riot in their textbooks with eyes not of bitterness and resentment, but as a turning point, an example of how a nation decided collectively to pick itself up and to move on.

It's up to us to make that difference.