The Wanganui Chronicle. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1950. THE SINGAPORE RIOTS

Wanganui Chronicle, 26 December 1950, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1950. THE SINGAPORE RIOTS

yiiE speed with which the riots in Singapore developed can prima facie be attributed to two causes; the intention of the organisers to make trouble and the weakness of the police authorities in not taking action quickly enough. The cause of the riots or rather the ostensible cause was the desire of a Mohammedan woman to maintain a Dutch girl in her adopted environment. This went so far as to result in a marriage between the girl in question although very much a minor and a native teacher. The parents of the girl were Dutch and desired to repossess themselves of their daughter. There are, nevertheless, some intersting features in this ease. The girl in question after living with a native woman for eight formative years had formed an attachment for her foster-mother which rebounds to the credit of the latter. The youngster of thirteen years of age was well cared for during the Japanese occupation and was evidently treated with great kindness by her protectors who had for her a genuine affection which went very deep. The depth of this affection prompted the foster mother to endeavour to deprive the parents of their child the former claiming that the girl had been given in adoption. This belief may have been quite a genuine affection on her part which prompted the course of events which followed. The situation was complicated enough when politics entered into the field. Here much more inflammable material was brought to the already smouldering fire. The nature of this political note seems to have been based on the idea that here was an instance when the European was indicating an assumed superiority.- The sense of holding an inferior status is the mainstring of much political ferment in the Orient today. This is understandable for no one willingly concedes his or her own inferibrity. The political agitation which followed set the community afire and very soon a race riot of considerable proportions had developed. The terrible aspect of a race riot is that it is without reason. There is no purpose in appealing to the sense of fair play nor to reasonable action, nor is there any intention on the part of those whose minds are inflamed with a racial antipathy to reek out their wrongdoers. Colour alone determines the line of demarcation. Wherever the colour line exists it loads community association with dynamite. It is not easy for peoples of varying stages of civilisation, or even of differing civilisations to meet on equal terms. Personal habits only too often stand in the way of communal living. The segregation which is the natural result ot such cultural conditions makes for cleavages in other directions and wherever cleavages occur in any community they tend to widen. . . „ , It follows that in every mixed community a conscious ettort should be made to bridge the gaps between the different sections of society and to expand the common ground as speedily as possible. Actually there is no real racial barrier dividing men from each other. Colour is very soon forgotten when the assoc ation is close and sufficiently continuous and the personal habits are common to all sections.