The Anton Casey saga that raged across Singapore over 6 days ending in the Briton leaving Singapore for Perth with his family, demonstrated the awesome power of the Internet. Not only did Anton leave Singapore, “fearing for his life” citing death threats but he also parted ways with his employer, wealth management company, Crossinvest (Asia).
For the benefit of those unaware of the biggest story both in cyberspace and our print newspapers over the past week, Anton Casey’s descent into self-immolation first began with his offensive Facebook post about public transport users (MRT), referring to them as “poor people” and saying he “needed to wash the stench of public transport off me”.
Enraged netizens slammed him for his remarks and some of them decided to become cyber-vigilantes and exposed details of his wife, former Miss Singapore Universe beauty queen, Bernice Wong and his Gilstead Road home address, mobile phone numbers and place of work.
In less than a week, the resulting firestorm which also attracted comments from a Singapore minister and calls for calm and restraint from an official from the Singapore Kindness Movement, parched Anton Casey’s initial bravado and he finally succumbed to the searing online vitriol and public scorn by fleeing Singapore for the safer clime of Perth.
Given the ongoing debate regarding the burgeoning number of foreigners in Singapore and the resulting keener competition for limited resources in Singapore, the Anton saga would work into the hands of those who have been calling for not only reducing the number of foreigners but also clearer differentiation between Singapore citizens and temporary residents through benefits and privileges.
Its interesting to juxtapose this local saga with what a Time correspondent described as a developing phenomenon in the United States. Suketu Mehta in her article The Superiority Complex, says there is a new strain of racism that is emerging cloaked in the protective armour of cultural pride.
Mehta cites a book recently published by “Tiger Mom”, Amy Chua and her husband Jed Rubenfeld, entitled The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America.
Chua and Rubenfeld propose 3 factors as to why Chinese, Indians, Jews, Cubans, Nigerians, Mormons, Iranians and Lebanese are superior when it comes to succeeding in America:
a) a superiority complex
b) insecurity
c) impulse control
aka the Triple Package.
Those lacking this Triple Package include African Americans, Appalachians and Wasps.
So the Chinese and Indians in America (new immigrants) are doing well because they think they are superior to others, have a nagging sense of insecurity that forces them never to be satisfied and are able to control their impulses or resist temptation to quit in the face of adversity.
This proposition does not, from the outset, carry the usual racist slurs or diatribe, perhaps because it is presented as an intelligent piece of research work and also because the authors say that it pertains not to race or IQ but to ethnicity.
But Mehta views it otherwise calling it the “new American racism” and a “pernicious line of thought”.
Her chief criticism of the book is that it fails to take into account factors other than ethnicity, like historical, political and social realities.
So the new “racism” is now parading as cultural or class superiority. This seems to be evident from Anton’s ill-willed Facebook posts where he pours scorn on the “poor people” who take public transport. The new age “racists” do not appear to be attacking a particular race anymore but it seems to be targeting a particular class of people or culture. In Anton’s case, it is even less comprehensible, as he is married to a Chinese Singaporean and the term “racist” will be a misnomer where he is concerned or so it seems.
Singapore has to be vigilant about this new strain of social disease and should stamp it out and not give it room to grow or take root.
Our new immigrants and temporary residents must learn to assimilate into our Singapore culture and respect our diversity of races, religions and cultures. Both Singaporeans and foreigners must acknowledge that there are different perspectives of what we define as success and that different classes of people and indeed different ethnic groups, may have vastly different life goals and expectations of what a good life should afford them.
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