December 28, 2020

On the 20^th of December each year, International Human Solidarity Day is observed to celebrate diversity, to encourage ways to promote solidarity towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and to continue to uphold global partnerships and international agreements.

In the article “Multiculturalism and the Problem of Solidarity” (Management of Success, 2018) Associate Professor Daniel P.S. Goh (NUS Sociology) examines the ambivalent success of Singapore’s multiculturalism. His article thus aims to make sense of Singapore’s multiracialism, in which public racial harmony exists with a foreboding sense of imminent collapse into ethnic conflict.

The article explains multiculturalism’s emergence from two major policy phases: the first, the melting pot policy formed after decolonization, aimed at positive social engineering towards a singular Singaporean identity through efforts such as resettling the population into new housing estates, uniform national education and the use of English as the medium of instruction. The second, the mosaic policy, sought to protect and enhance the cultural integrity of each ascribed racial group separately from one another. The result of this saw the superimposition of the CMIO (Chinese Malay Indian Others) grid that created hyphenated Singaporeans, whose racial identification became fixed to the national identity, and the coalescence of separate racial identifications that required constant work to hold together.

A/P Goh uses the term “mechanical” solidarity to describe the two multicultural policies, asserting its failure to create national solidarity. Mechanical solidarity, the article defines, refers to the collective sentiment and affection that arise from shared rituals and common practices. This is in contrast to organic solidarity founded on the recognition for interdependence for collective and individual survival. Here, A/P Goh critiques the two multicultural policies for their over-reliance on the cultivation of short-term mechanical solidarities at the cost of organic solidarity. Some of the issues the article surfaces are the Malay exception to the melting pot policy that reduced the community’s economic and cultural capital, and the mosaic policy’s privileging of a strong Chinese identity that reinforced insularity among the Chinese.

The article argues for organic solidarity as a solution to national unity. This means not settling for sentimental affections for other cultures or communal intercultural policing, but going further to achieve intercultural understanding by working together and solving social problems through genuine interracial and inter-religious dialogues. A/P Goh uses the kampung spirit of gotong royong (mutual aid or communal helping) as one such example.

Read the article here.