Must it really be “Us vs Them”?

Looking at some of the responses towards Fricker’s sentencing, I find that of those who are for the caning, the sentiment generally goes like this:

“Yes, cane him soundly! We can’t let all these foreigners think they can do whatever they want in our country!”

“Cane him more! Don’t give him face just because he is a foreigner! He should have more strokes!”

“Bloody FTs, they come here and think they can get off easy when locals are getting the full punishment, WHACK HIM MORE!”

To which I must say this (and I have said this time and again): I am not opposed to caning him because he is a FOREIGNER, or because he is WHITE. I am opposed to caning him because he is a PERSON, and caning ANYONE is barbaric.

I am using Fricker’s case to express my horror and dismay at judicial corporal punishment because it is a case that has attracted widespread local and international media attention. Everyone knows of this case now, and therefore it makes more sense to speak out about caning using this context, instead of referring to some other case that no one might have heard of or be able to relate to. (Of course, the question of why we are not hearing more of these other cases – cases of migrant workers and of locals – is also a very good one, and a question that needs to be posed to the mainstream media of Singapore ASAP.)

I am just as annoyed about the government flinging the doors wide open to Foreign Talent as the next Singaporean. We might need some of them, but we certainly don’t need ALL of them. We shouldn’t forget that our responsibility is to take care of our own, because no other country is going to be nice to Singaporeans if Singapore doesn’t even give a crap about its own citizens. Most countries in the world are about “local jobs for locals”, while here in Singapore we seem to be falling over ourselves to employ foreigners. And it might mean that I am “small-minded”, but I simply don’t see our ping-pong team as “real Singaporeans”, sorry.

But at the same time we need to be careful that we don’t start seeing everything as a “Them vs Us” issue, because that will do nothing but breed resentment and hatred. The argument goes both ways: are you really calling for Fricker’s blood because you believe he deserves it for the crime he committed, or because you don’t want to show mercy to a foreigner? If it was a Singaporean who broke into the depot and graffiti-ed the train, would you also insist on more strokes of the cane, or would you want leniency? Is it still about the crime committed, or are we now fixated on who the criminal is – or, more specifically, where he’s from?

We should treat people like we would like to be treated, not pull them down so they can be treated as badly as we treat our own. Instead of asking for Fricker to be caned as much as a local, we should ask for NO ONE to be caned, foreigner or local. If Singapore wants to be a First World country, it is high time we begin acting like one. It is not enough to be First World in terms of business and economics; we need to recognise the importance of human rights as well to deserve the term.