Literature Review

On the basis of executed analysis it has been observed that the Poverty has come up as one of the biggest problem and a global issue which have adverse impacts and as the problem of poverty is global issue and hence it is considered as a high level issue (Chong and seilhamer, 2014). The below executed analysis is a literature review that is made focused on the problems faced by Malay in Singapore. Malays in Singapore can be classified as a group of people in transition from the state of “mechanical solidarity” to “organic solidarity”. The below presented research paper is developed after analyzing the notion of the Malay problems in Singapore through the lenses in 19^th Century. This problem was in limelight for many years as it was considered as a global issue and various researchers and sociologist executed research on this problem for providing solutions to the people so as to fight back. Majorly the demonstrated literature is focused on Malays problems and which is segmented in the two empirical arguments that are blaming the state or blaming the Malays themselves. Furthermore the research paper will also be presenting the argument that I order to understand the “Malay Problem” in all its difficulties, an individual will have to take a more nuanced perception, that is, to reveal certain shades of social reality and not get involved in essentializing (Nasir, 2016). It will be established that in actuality, the “Malay Problem” is somewhere in between the two points of arguments presented as above.

According to Li, (2018), the Malay problem in Singapore can be summarized as the community in evolution from the state of “organic solidarity” to “mechanical solidarity”. In this research paper, author has analyzed the notion of ‘Malay Problem’ in Singapore through the lenses of 19^th century under which French sociologist intellectual tools and Emile Durkheim that the author has developed. Malay Problem tends to be polarized along with the two main arguments that blaming the state and blaming the Malays themselves. Malay Problem was initially used by the Malay leaders in order to describe the problem. This problem was initially started in 1971 in the Malay Community and the major part of this problem are drug abuse, educational underachievement, disadvantaged families, unskilled Malay workers and poor-socio economic standing of the Malay community (Poon, 2016). In relevance with these issues, this research paper’s aim is to describe the collaboration between Malay leaders and the Singapore government to deal with the challenges within the context of Malay problem.

The study carried out by the author and is made focus on changes in the attitude of underprivileged minority which is combining with the support from society which has helped to close the gap of achievement. The study carried out by the author has also described certain similarities between Malay problem and the ‘Rome Issue’ in Hungary. From the initial days of 1960s, Rome was facing the same challenges as Singapore is facing Malay problem and there is no major difference between both of these problems except the extent to the problem. Malay minority carried 7% of the Singapore in 1970s whereas Hungry carried nearly 2.7 to 3.7% of Roma. Malay problem started from the colonial history and the internal inertia of the problem is Malay Community as well. Deprivation of the Malays considered the big problem through which prosperity and affluence of the non-Malays grown up (Ng, Malhotra, Lai, Tai & Østbye, 2015). When Singapore was ruled by British Military Administration, they seek for their profits rather focusing on issues and challenges of the Malays. Due to this, Malay got backward in terms of education and this led the community unaware regarding the knowledge for modern business and other commercial activities. With the effect of this, socio-economic gap between non-Malays and Malays gets increase and various other challenges and problems originated.

Analysis of the Malay Problem in Singapore

As Malay problem term was mainly used by the Malay leaders and in relation with this, this term mainly describes drug abuse, educational underachievement, poor socio-economic standing and various other challenges. Malay problem is also considered as the economic one and with regards to this, major focus was imposed on the education because Malay leader view this as the impetus for overcoming with the issues described in the term Malay Problem (Abdullah, 2015). Since, Malay Community was facing these issues from a long time; a seminar was conducted as ‘Malay Participation in the National Development of Singapore’ which was held in May 1971. Main objective of this seminar was to discuss the problems faced by the Singapore Malays and it was considered as the multi-racial in terms of composition. In the seminar, organizers realized that the problems faced by the Malay community in Singapore are not racial in character or communal but still, they are considered as the national problem. It was required for the non-Malays communities to help the Malays in order to solve the issues faced by them. This is necessary because Malay carries approximately 7% of the Singapore and for the good sake of nation, it is necessary to focus on all aspects and all communities.

In order to resolve the issues and challenges faced by the Malays community,, several steps were taken by the government of Singapore and other communities of the Singapore in terms of improving the education system along with originating occupations for them (Mohamad, 2014). During 1980 to 2005, Singaporean government took various initiatives for closing the gap between the other communities and Malay community for the objective of attaining overall development and sustainable growth from the country’s perspective. Singapore government implemented economic policy strategy for reducing the gap between Malay community and other communities and this helped the organization to provide employment opportunities to the Malay people. Till the beginning of 1980s, employment in Singapore has been very low but there was a crisis for five-year and this also held at the beginning of 1980s and this crisis was treated as an exception where unemployment rate increased between 9 and 13.5% (Ang 2017). Apart from this, male aged 25 to 64 has considered as the highest employment rate. These rates have been considered as the highest employment rate internationally i.e. 86 to 89% in the period of 2006 and 2008. Along with this, activity rate in the nation is also considered as high and it constantly increased from 58% in the 1980s to 75% in 2008.

In order to improve the educational conditions in Malay community, educational policy was introduced for meeting the laborers’ requirements and demands (Soon & Koh, 2017). With regards to this, social benefit system was introduced which is a state managed system and funded by the central government. This system’s main motive was carrying out defined contribution system with very small re-distribution effects which are beneficial for the poor and thee inactive. Singaporean government also introduced schemes for controlling population. With regards to this, government introduced Stop at Two program for promoting two children families and sterilization (Koh 2018). This campaign’s primary motive was to target low-educated and low-income women by providing them high economic incentives and it was introduced in the late 1960s. This system helped the government to control the population and but after 1987, several amendments were made in the policy which states that Singaporeans could have three or more children but only when they have enough disposable income to afford more number of children.

The Collaborative Efforts to Deal with the Challenges

Malay leaders and government both focused on educational factor as their primary focus in order to reduce the problems faced by the Malay community. This is because education is capable enough to deal with numerous issues and this is also considered as an effective task for broadening public’s mind (Statestimesreview 2016). With regards to this, collaboration between government of Singapore and Malay leaders focused for introducing different educational programs in terms of providing them sufficient information for enhancing their living standard. In the initial period, subjects like Mathematics, English and Science were considered as the primary subjects for spreading awareness amongst the minorities in Singapore in between 1990 and 2005. Along with encouraging education, Malay leaders also promoted religion and equality amongst the whole community for motivating Malay parents and the children at the same time to treat all the religions equally to avoid disputes and conflicts because this type of disputes and conflicts affects the development of nation.

The People Action’s Party (PAP) was elected in 1959 and since then, this party has remained in the power till now (Hoon, 2016). At that time, this party took initiatives to positively discriminate the Malay aboriginals along with this; Malay language was chosen as the official language of Singapore. This enhances the confidence of Malay community along with building their positive image amongst the other communities and since then, Malay language has been considered as the national language of Singapore till now. This has also helped the Singaporeans to believe in equality because Malay community was considered as the minority caste. With regards to this, problems faced by the Malay community in relation with the unemployment, living standards, etc. gets reduced. Government of Singapore adopted several policies such as bursaries, free secondary and tertiary education in order to establish pro-Malay policies (Chew, 2018). Singapore got independence in 1965 and this helped the city to become a new era in the minority policy along with equality as guiding principle. This lead to the beginning of meritocracy along with positive discrimination of Malays as aboriginals ceased.

Further, Malay challenges and issues were continued and to resolve those issues, various Malay organizations request participation from their government (Ye, 2016). These attempts were not affecting the policies of minority and as per the Malay leaders, they have originated their own way to deal with the problems and this led the Malay leaders to establish self-help concept. With regards to this, Malay leaders and the politicians formed self-help organizations under which some participation from government was also involved and this led to combat the Malay communities’ internal inertia. Efforts of each community and organization were uncoordinated because every organization ad group used to work independent and the widespread view of resolving the issues financial support and the education system played the effective role and in relation to this, Malay leaders various short term plans (Ye & Yeoh, 2018).    

The further analysis is focused on solving the Malays problem in Singapore since the duration of 1960’s. According to Tan, (2014) the research paper shows Malays’ advancements and developments in education level and occupation somewhere in the duration of 1980 and 2005 and this should be included, that this change isn’t just the result of the accomplishment gap shutting endeavors yet in addition the general advancement of the Singaporean economy and the well-thoroughly considered and actualized monetary approach methodology. Joblessness in Singapore has been low (under 3%) since the start of the 1980s except for a five-year emergency period toward the start of the 1980s when joblessness was somewhere in the range of 9 and 13.5%. Singapore guys (matured 25 to 64) have among the most astounding work rate globally (86 to 89% somewhere in the range of 2006 and 2008), and add up to action rate is likewise high (reliably expanded from 58% in the 1980s to 75% out of 2008) (source: Singapore Statistics). The instruction strategy was methodically wanted to take care of the work demand, while the social advantage framework is a state oversaw, completely subsidized, characterized commitment (DC) framework with little redistribution impacts that advantages poor people and the inactive (Abdullah, 2016). The fertility rate was constrained around strict monetary measures as the Stop at Two program advanced two-kid families and sanitization (fundamentally focusing on low-instructed and low-salary ladies with high financial motivations) since the late 1960s. Since 1987, in any case, the anti-natalist arrangement was supplanted by the pro-natalist Have Three or More (on the off chance that you can bear the cost of it) strategy.

Initiatives Taken by the Government

As accentuation was put on instruction to tackle the Malay issue from the earliest starting point, it is critical to take note of the related improvements of the Singaporean training framework. The Singaporean instruction framework achieved its next level of advancement in 1979 with the presentation of the ‘New Education System’. A standout amongst the most essential advances was the presentation of gushing in 1984. Spilling basically positions understudies after the fourth year of school into more homogeneous classes in light of the understudies’ aptitudes and capacities (Website of National Library Singapore. Obviously with this new framework, the greater part of Malay understudies were being gushed into the weaker scholastic courses. At the outset, there was no invasion between the streams, and as a result, Malay understudies’ scholarly advancement was basically pre-decided

After conducting a detailed research it has been analyzed that the Malay region in Singapore is going through various severe problems such as poverty, a very low literacy rate (Tan, 2016), On the basis of the research it has been analyzed that the Malay population is the unhealthiest in Singapore. Most recent insights from the national malady library uncover that an unbalanced number of diabetics and patients with kidney disappointment, heart assaults and strokes originate from this gathering. In spite of the fact that Malays represent 13.5 for each penny of the populace, they make up 24.4 for every penny of individuals on dialysis (Khalik 2014). Once determined to have end-arrange renal infection, patients require either a transplant or dialysis for whatever remains of their lives. The extent of Malays who have had kidney transplants ascended from 8.5 for each penny in 2003 to 10.1 for each penny a year ago. Malays – the two men and lady – are likewise at essentially higher danger of torment a stroke than individuals of different races. Malay men are 1.5 times more inclined to endure one contrasted with Chinese men for example. Age-institutionalized stroke rates for each 100,000 men a year ago was 296 for Malays, 199 for Indians and 184 for Chinese. For ladies, it was 195 for Malays, 131 for Indians and 105 for Chinese. Age-institutionalization evacuates the impact of age dispersion in each gathering and takes into consideration a reasonable examination. Malays are likewise more inclined to endure heart assaults. Since 2010, they have flooded past Indians as the ethnic gathering with the most noteworthy rate of heart assaults (Khalik 2014). The report stated: “The higher occurrence of intense myocardial localized necrosis among Malays is probably going to be because of their higher extents of hypertension and elevated cholesterol contrasted with the other ethnic gatherings.” It included that most Malays are uninformed of their conditions contrasted with individuals of different races (Tan, 2016). The main significant disease which the Malay populace isn’t the well on the way to get is growth. This is most unmistakable among the Chinese. Previous vendor Mohamad Raihan Yaakub, 68, experiences diabetes, hypertension and elevated cholesterol. He infrequently practices however has chopped down from one pack of cigarettes daily to one each three days. The jobless man began dialysis four years back and lost his more seasoned sibling to kidney disappointment.

1. Which are the prime factors of the problems of Malays in Singapore?
2. Which are the major problems of population in the Malay region in Singapore?
3. Which are the associations or the organizations that are indulged in solving the problems of the problems of the Malay community?
4. Provide some recommendations over solving the problems in the Malay region?

Initiatives Taken by Other Communities

The above presented literature review is majorly focused on the problems and issues that are faced by the Malay community in Singapore. The research has been executed in a detailed manner so as to analyze the problems and challenges in the mentioned region.  Detailed research comprise of the varied range of challenges faced by the Malay community, the issues were related to poverty, low level of literacy etc. As the research was in detailed manner each and every point of the research was clear and which aided in developing the research questions.

Conclusion:

After analyzing the various research papers it has been concluded that the mentioned region is facing various problems and same should be resolved on priority basis. Resolving the issues faced by the minority community will be on priority; this was stated by the president of the Singapore Malay National Organization (PKMS), Mr. Abu Mohamed (Kelly, S.N. (2015).  Moreover, pooling the research and statistics that the associations such as Mendaki and Association of Muslim Professionals have attained will enable the communities in making identification of the solution in a more effective manner for the social problems faced by the communities. The two mentioned associations are doing really well but it is not at all enough, however the president also wants to raise the problems for the Singaporean community as a whole specially in the monarchy of education. According to the president, an individual whose highest academic attainment is GCE A-level which is a very average education background, for them the president is expecting to develop pathways towards lifelong learning.

The president also mentioned that he is from a basic family and educational background, this aided him in developing connections with the lower and middle class Singaporeans. Development of such educational system should done which should be flexible and should also be able of adapting the various needs of Singaporeans. Moreover, adding the focus over the academic performance has forced to make compromise other aspects such as soft skils and moral education.

References:

Abdullah, F. Z. (2015) Singapore Malays: Being ethnic minority and Muslim in a global city-state. Intellectual Discourse, 23(1), 148.

Abdullah, W. J. (2016) Managing minorities in competitive authoritarian states: multiracialism and the hijab issue in Singapore. Indonesia and the Malay World, 44(129), 211-228.

Ang, A. (2017) Singapore Malay MPs clash over Malay-Muslim issues in Parliament, [Online]. Retrieved from: https://observer.news/politics/mp-faisal-manaps-concerns-divisive-not-relevant/.

Chew, P. K. (2018) Racism in Singapore: A Review and Recommendations for Future Research. Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 12.

Chong, E. and seilhamer, M. (2014) Young people, Malay and English in multilingual Singapore. World Englishes, 33(3), pp.363-377.

Hoon, H. T. (2016). Whither Singapore’s unemployment rate?. In SINGAPORE 2065: Leading Insights on Economy and Environment from 50 Singapore Icons and Beyond ,93-96.

Kelly, S.N. (2015) Tackling problems within Malay community, lifelong learning among priorities, [Online]. Retrieved from: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/tackling-problems-within-malay-community-lifelong-learning-among-priorities.

Khalik. S. (2014) Malay population the most unhealthy group in Singapore, [Online]. Retrieved from: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/malay-population-the-most-unhealthy-group-in-singapore.

Koh, F. (2018) Are Singaporean Malay the poorest community in Singapore? [Online0. Retrieved from: https://www.quora.com/Are-Singaporean-Malays-the-poorest-community-in-Singapore.

Li, T. M. (2018) Constituting capitalist culture: The Singapore Malay problem and entrepreneurship reconsidered. In Market Cultures (147-172). New York: Routledge.

Lim, M, W. (2017) What are the problems facing Singapore in 2017? [Online]. Retrieved from: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-problems-facing-Singapore-in-2017.

Mohamad, M. (2014) Singapore Malays: Being Ethnic Minority and Muslim in a Global City-State. Pacific Affairs, 87(2), 385-387.

Nasir, K.M. (2016) Antipodal tattooing: Muslim youth in Chinese gangs. Deviant Behavior, 37(8), pp.952-961.

Ng, L. W. C., Malhotra, R., Lai, D., Tai, E. S., & Østbye, T. (2015) Perceived Barriers to and Ideas for Weight Control Interventions in Malay Homemakers: Results From Focus Groups. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health, 27(2), NP552-NP561.

Poon, A. (2016) Writing Home: Alfian Sa’at and the Politics of Malay Muslim Belonging in Global Multiracial Singapore. Interventions, 18(4), 498-511.

Soon, C., & Koh, G. (Eds.). (2017) Civil society and the state in Singapore. World Scientific.

Statestimesreview, (2016) Malay Singaporeans living in poverty doubled in past 10 years, [Online]. Retrieved from: https://statestimesreview.com/2016/05/11/malay-singaporeans-living-in-poverty-doubled-in-past-10-years/.

Tan, E. K. (2016) Soft Law and the Development of Norms and Trust in Countering the Terrorist Threat: Engaging the Faith Communities in Post–9/11 Singapore. Journal of Church and State, 59(2), 226-255.

Tan, M. C. C. (2016) Performative silence: Race, riot and the end of multiculturalism. Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, 1(1), 9-22.

Tan, N. (2014) Ethnic quotas and unintended effects on women’s political representation in Singapore. International Political Science Review, 35(1), 27-40.

Ye, J. (2016) Spatialising the politics of coexistence: gui ju (??) in Singapore. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41(1), 91-103.

Ye, J., & Yeoh, B. S. (2018) Disciplining deserving subjects through social assistance: migration and the diversification of precarity in Singapore. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108(2), 478-485.