n thinking about the United States’
enduring racial divide, I found my-
self intrigued by lessons from an un-
likely source: Singapore. To help
prepare for a trip there next week (as
a guest of the National University of Singa-
pore), I asked the country’s deputy prime
minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam,
what he regarded as the country’s biggest
success. I imagined that he would talk
about economics, since the city-state’s per
capita GDP now outstrips that of the
United States, Japan and Hong Kong. He
spoke instead about social harmony.
“We were a nation that was not meant
to be,” Shanmugaratnam said. The
swamp-ridden island, expelled from
Malaysia in 1965, had a polyglot popula-
tion of migrants with myriad religions, cul-
tures and belief systems.
“What’s interesting and unique about
Singapore, more than economics, are our
social strategies.We respected peoples’
differences yet melded a nation and made
an advantage out of diversity,” he said in
an interview, echoing remarks he made at
the St. Gallen Symposium last month in
Switzerland.
How did Singapore do it? By mandating
ethnic diversity in all of its neighborhoods.
More than 80 percent of Singaporeans live
in public housing (all of it is well regarded,
some of it very upmarket). Every block,
precinct and enclave has ethnic quotas.
This is what people mean when they
talk about Singapore’s “nanny state,” and
the minister readily admits it. “The most
intrusive social policy in Singapore has
turned out to be the most important,” he
says.
“It turns out that when you ensure
every neighborhood is mixed, people do
everyday things together, become com-
fortable with each other, and most impor-
tantly, their kids go to the same schools.
When the kids grow up together, they
begin to share a future together.”
This belief was at the heart of many of
the efforts of the U.S. federal government
in the 1950s and 1960s to desegregate
schools and integrate neighborhoods –
through court orders, housing laws and
executive action.
Those efforts were largely abandoned
by the 1980s and, since then, the data
show a United States that remains strik-
ingly segregated.
In Boston, 43.5 percent of the white
population lives in areas that are at least
90 percent white and have a median in-
come that is four times the poverty level,
University of Minnesota researchers
found.
In St. Louis, that share of the white pop-
ulation is 54.4 percent. (Both figures come
from an April article in the Atlantic.) This
residential segregation has translated into
unequal access to security, basic health
care and, crucially, education.
Despite the fact that the Supreme Court
ordered school desegregation 61 years ago,
schools have become more homogenous
in the past two decades.
An investigation by ProPublica found
that the number of schools that were less
than 1 percent white grew from 2,762 in
1988 to 6,727 in 2011. A UCLA study last
year described what a classroom looks like
for the typical white student in the United
States. Of 30 students, 22 are white, two are
black, four Latino, one Asian and one
“Other.”
The study also pointed out that many
black and Latino students “face almost
total isolation not only fromwhite and
Asian students but also frommiddle-class
peers as well.”
Education Secretary Arne Duncan says
that today “only 14 percent of white stu-
dents attend schools that you could con-
sider multicultural.”
These findings would not surprise Sin-
gaporeans. “The natural workings of soci-
ety rarely lead to diverse and integrated
communities, not in Singapore nor any-
where else,” Shanmugaratnam said. “They
more likely lead to mistrust, self-segrega-
tion and even bigotry – which we see in
abundance in so many countries today.”
He pointed out that in Britain, half the
Muslim population lives in the bottom 10
percent of its neighborhoods (by income).
“Did that happen by chance?” he asks.
“Let’s be honest. Human beings aren’t per-
fect. Everyone has biases, a liking for some
and distrust of others. But that’s why there
is a role for government.”
Singapore is an unusual case. It is a
small city-state. It has its critics, who point
to a quasi-authoritarian system, one that
impedes free expression and makes oppo-
sition parties face severe handicaps. Singa-
pore can do thingsWestern democracies
cannot.
It also has had its own racial problems.
All that said, I believe that Singapore is an
example of a diverse society that has been
able to live in harmony and that we could
learn something from. (To be sure, Singa-
pore could learn some lessons fromWest-
ern democracies as well.)
“You cannot simply assume that the
natural workings of the market or of soci-
ety will produce social harmony or equal
opportunity. They won’t,” Shanmugarat-
nam said.
“Government – an elected govern-
ment – has a role to play. And it’s not about
speeches and symbols. It’s about specific
mechanisms and programs to achieve the
outcomes we all seek.”
Something to consider as the United
States, in the wake of the tragedy in South
Carolina, debates flags and symbols.
I
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Racial IntegrationTips FromSingapore
Singapore is an example of a diverse society that has been able to live in harmony
and that we could learn something from
Opinion
3
News India Times
July 17, 2015
he leaders of the BRICS geopoliti-
cal bloc are meeting yet again, this
time in the Russian city of Ufa. The
meeting brings together dynamic
and important emerging
economies (Brazil, India, China and South
Africa) and Russia (less dynamic and cer-
tainly not “emerging”).
First dreamed up as a hypothetical
acronym by a Goldman Sachs economist,
the BRICS bloc has become an influential
player on the world stage, and a byword for
the shifting balance of power in the 21st
century. The BRICS governments are now
ironing out details about a new BRICS
bank, which is being billed as an alternative
to theWorld Bank, headquartered inWash-
ington.
But it’s not all about grand politics. On
the sidelines of the meeting, Russian Presi-
dent Vladimir Putin told Indian Prime Min-
ister Narendra Modi that he would consider
embracing his counterpart’s passion for
yoga.
“I’ve tried so many things, but I haven’t
tried yoga, though it is certainly appealing,”
Putin told Modi, according to Agence
France-Presse.
“I’ll see what I am able to do based on
my physical aptitude,” the Russian leader
added. “When we see [a] real yogi, it seems
impossible to reach such perfection, and
that’s what stops people.”
Given Putin’s well-documented athletic
prowess, his expressed timidity in yoga
comes as a bit of a surprise.
The former KGB officer recently earned
his eighth degree as a black belt in judo. He
scores loads of goals in ice hockey, likes to
ride horses, flies alongside migratory birds,
dives for ancient artifacts and chases after
exotic sea creatures.
Now perhaps Putin can learn downward
dog.
Modi, for his part, has been a huge pro-
ponent of yoga. The Indian prime minister
is said to rise every day at 5 a.m. to practice
yogic stretches and breathing exercises.
Under Modi’s watch, the Indian govern-
ment pushed for the world’s first Interna-
tional Yoga Day, which was held June 21.
Russia’s PutinMayFinallyTryYoga
T
By Ishaan
Tharoor
