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September 8, 2026

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Commentary: ‘Shameful’ racist comments after Nepal disaster should never become normal in Singapore

Most Singaporeans reject the idea that race decides who belongs. But hateful views held by a minority become dangerous the moment the majority stops objecting to them, say Mathew Mathews, Teo Kay Key and Melvin Tay from the Institute of Policy Studies.

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Mathew Mathews

Teo Kay Key

Melvin Tay

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SINGAPORE: There can hardly be a worse time to ask whether someone is “really Singaporean”.

As families waited desperately for news of nine Singaporeans reported missing after the Nepal floods, some people online scrutinised their names and photographs and asked exactly that. Others questioned why Singapore should help them at all. Some said things far more callous.

Minister of State for Manpower and Culture, Community and Youth Dinesh Vasu Dash and Member of Parliament Alex Yam were among the first to call these comments out. Using someone’s name, race or appearance to question whether that person is truly Singaporean is racism, Mr Dinesh said. The nine “are our own”.

Senior Minister K Shanmugam went further. On Saturday (Sep 5), he called some of the comments “shameful, nasty and totally unacceptable”, and said the police were looking into them. But he also stressed that those responsible were a small group who should not be allowed to “poison the entire well” of community relations. His larger worry was that such language, left unchallenged, could become normalised and eventually shape public and political discourse.

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Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong and other political officeholders have added their voices, urging Singaporeans to reject such hateful views rather than allow them to take root.

Both points matter. We should not mistake the most offensive voices on social media for the voice of Singapore. But neither should we dismiss what they say simply because they are a minority.

WHAT MOST SINGAPOREANS BELIEVE

Polling by the Institute of Policy Studies gives good reason to say that the racism on display during this disaster is not representative.

Across our years of studies of national identity, race relations, immigration and social cohesion, the pattern is consistent. Most Singaporeans accept multiracialism as a defining feature of the country, are comfortable living and working with people of other races, and do not conceive of “Singaporeanness” as the property of one ancestral group. Endorsing multiracialism does not mean respondents hold no prejudices or stereotypes. But the principle itself commands wide assent.

In the 2025 IPS-CNA Survey on National Identity, we asked an open-ended question: What does it mean to be Singaporean?

The most common theme was pride in, or a sense of belonging to, Singapore (24.5 per cent), followed closely by embracing multiculturalism or multiracialism (23.8 per cent). Being born and residing here came third, at 17.2 per cent.

Birthplace clearly matters to some Singaporeans, and understandably so: Schooling, shared experiences and family history produce deep attachment. But it was not the dominant definition. Left to describe their identity spontaneously, Singaporeans reached first for belonging and multiculturalism.

Our other surveys found that a large majority agreed Singapore could learn from the cultures brought here by people of different nationalities. In the 2024 IPS Survey of Race, Religion and Language nearly three-quarters said they liked meeting and getting to know new migrants. At the same time, many felt immigrants needed to do more to integrate.

In the Making Identity Count in Singapore study conducted in 2021, more than nine in 10 respondents regarded being multicultural and living peacefully with people of all races and nationalities as a positive aspect of Singaporean identity. Asked what newcomers needed to embrace in order to integrate, respondents ranked top on the list respect for the law, tolerance, multiracialism and equality.

These attitudes are not contradictory. Singaporeans can be open to diversity while expecting newcomers to make a genuine effort.

There are legitimate questions about the pace and scale of immigration, employment competition, housing and infrastructure, workplace fairness, integration and the effects of demographic change on national identity. Our research shows that some Singaporeans worry foreigners and new citizens might dilute that identity. Dismissing such concerns does nothing for social cohesion.

But there is a categorical difference between debating how immigration should be managed and questioning an individual’s citizenship because of his or her race. No one who looks Indian should have to answer for someone else’s dissatisfaction with immigration from India.

WHEN “SINGAPOREANNESS” BECOMES CONDITIONAL

What is most troubling about the comments on the missing Singaporeans is what they reveal: Citizenship can be formally conferred by the state yet socially withheld by fellow citizens.

The husband of one of the missing, Ms Shalinny Deavy Elan Sozan, felt compelled to point out that he and his wife are third-generation Singaporeans, that both have spent years in public service, and that she has also done grassroots work.

These facts decisively rebut the assumptions made about her. But they should never have been necessary.

The deeper problem was that a name and a photograph was deemed enough by some online to make those false assumptions at all. Some Singaporeans are presumed to belong. Others are periodically required to prove it.

We saw the same dynamic during the COVID-19 pandemic. As variants associated with India became a focus of anxiety in 2021, Singaporeans and residents of Indian background became targets of racial hostility, including a Singaporean Indian woman who was racially abused and attacked while exercising.

Very different people – an Indian citizen, a migrant worker, a foreign-born professional, a newly naturalised citizen and a Singaporean Indian whose family has been here for generations – are collapsed into a single racial category.

They are then taken to represent something else: immigration, job competition, a virus, or India itself.

Members of Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs crisis response team work in Kathmandu, Nepal, as efforts continue to locate nine Singaporeans missing after the devastating Aug 26 flood. (Photo: CNA/Jack Board)

Mr Shanmugam’s remarks suggest this tendency is very much alive. He cited not only the comments over the missing Singaporeans in Nepal but also racial attacks on Temasek chief executive Dilhan Pillay over Air India’s reported effort to raise capital. The insinuation was that his ethnicity somehow determined where his loyalties lay.

Again, the individual disappears into the category. That is perhaps the most corrosive thing about racism: It denies people the right to be encountered as individuals.

THE MAJORITY MUST BE AUDIBLE

Our research should therefore offer some reassurance. The Singapore of the ugliest comments online is not the Singapore in our surveys.

But the comments section is not disconnected from Singapore either. It amplifies prejudices that remain latent in parts of society.

That is why the warning about normalisation matters. The danger is not in the number of people expressing these views today. It is what happens if everyone else grows accustomed to hearing them.

Social norms hold because people take cues about permissible conduct from one another. What begins as unacceptable can, through repetition and silence, become merely controversial, and then ordinary. No multiracial compact can be sustained by legislation alone. It is sustained when the majority makes its norms visible.

That does not require moral panic every time someone posts something offensive. It does require that political leaders, community organisations, institutions and ordinary Singaporeans – especially those who are not themselves the target – say plainly, and early, that this is not the society we accept.

There are simple ways of doing this in everyday life. When a racial generalisation is made in conversation, we should be ready to challenge it and not let silence be taken as agreement. We should be more careful about what we forward or amplify, especially when an individual incident is used to make claims about an entire racial or national group.

And we should be able to separate legitimate concerns about immigration from attacks on people simply because of how they look or where we imagine they come from. Just as importantly, when someone is targeted, others should not leave that person to carry the burden of responding alone.

Perhaps the real test of “Singaporeanness” in this episode is what the rest of us do when the boundaries of belonging are drawn more narrowly.

If this is not who we are, then we have to demonstrate it repeatedly.

Mathew Mathews is Principal Research Fellow and head of the Social Lab at the Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore. Teo Kay Key is Senior Research Fellow and Melvin Tay is Research Fellow at the same institute.

Source: CNA/ch

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