Err wonder if MM minds if I buy his latest book instead of being willing to die “for each other”?
Seriously, why should I be willing to die for Malaysian Chinese who live here for yonks, profess to hate M’sia but refuse to become citizens?
Or for light-skinned Aryan PRs or citizens who call my fellow S’poreans, “low caste Hindus”.
Or an Indian FT telling me and a policeman (Tamil S’porean) that S’pore laws didn’t apply to her. She was Indian.
Or for new citizens from Pakistan who say they only became S’poreans because they wanted the S’pore passport: less likely to be quizzed at immigration for being terrorists.
MM should remember why British soldiers had a reputation for not willing to admit that they were beaten. They served in regiments from a particular region or sometimes same occupation (In WWI, there was a regiment of artists, I kid you not). The soldiers belonged to a community and were filling to die for one another.
With a third (going to a half) of the population being foreigners, is there a community of S’poreans in S’pore? One was forming (with the active encouragement of the government) until the government (thinking they could get away with community and low wages) decided to let the foreigners in.