A good proportion of us stayed up late Sunday night to catch the live bites and feeds that the mainstream media was feeding us with. I stayed up till 3am to digest the police press conference at 1:30am and to make sense of all the jigsaw pieces.
Another good majority of the secular nation-state woke up to a rude shock. Little India Riot.
Five police cars, one ambulance, several private cars damaged; 400 involved, 27 nabbed, 1 dead. Flipped vehicles, projectiles, violence. All these were so unheard of locally except from footage shown on BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera, usually on riots overseas. Never, Singapore.
Remember one of our National Day songs, We are Singapore? We are Singapore, We are Singapore, We're a nation strong and free and forevermore.
We cannot take the freedom we achieved painstakingly through the years of nation building for granted. We need to leverage on social responsibility. Else, where is the forevermore?
A nation is not without its people, and yet, everybody has a story to tell. Can we learn to be more sensitive and respectful mutually? I beseech so. We tear at touching video of a white baby hugging a black baby and say that it there is no racism at the root of our hearts. Is there? No, yet we can't practice it. Let's face it, if the bus driver was a Chinese, would there be even stronger reactions in our society?
We need not be perfect, as long as we try to do what is right to us. We need not sweet talk anyone, but do not hurt anyone with our words. I do not think that finger-pointing is appropriate. It might have happened in Little India, it might have involved a large amount of foreign workers, but end of the day they are here for the development of Singapore, and they have left their family behind to endure the hardship here almost alone. If we treated them by their colours, and not their contributions, I am ashamed and sorry.
This riot, we should not dwell in it as the nation's worst riot in 40 years. We should focus, not only on clearing the aftermath. but also to look into providing support both physically and emotionally to our migrant workers. The spade of events recently definitely sounds the alarm. The bus drivers, the man on crane, and this.
And then, there's the people busy typing away on their keyboards criticising our Special Operations Command, saying that our Red Car reversed and backed off cowardly. Our police, military, paramedics, they are the true heroes. Not the keyboard warriors. Of course they wouldn't have time to retaliate the groundless 'coward' accusations as they braved the front line and did what was right to protect both the protesters and themselves. A decision that is not easily balanced in most cases, but they did it right that night. Not a single round was fired, no fatalities from the riot.
All in all, I must say it was definitely a vibrant hell of a night on my social media feed as various posts of different nature streamed in. Part analytic, part racist, part insensitive, part appreciative of whatsoever things, part joining-in-the-fun, part stirring shit. As a then mass communications student, ethics is important to me. Ethics, and media ethics. One thing that I appreciated throughout the night is the call by various sensible actors to stop speculation and to stop the spread of un-verified information. It is our social responsibility to protect the fundamental of society. This instinct should be a born nature, called maturity.
Tonight, life is as usual, except with a little more respect. Respect towards everyone who have played a part in our nation building, peace and harmony. Friends and family, our military, our migrant workers, everyone. I salute you.
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