Time to rethink our expectations of immigrants and where they belong?

A day before India’s Independence Day, Avijit Das Patnaik, a Singapore Permanent Resident (PR) under the employ of DBS bank, posted a picture on the Singapore Indians and Expats Facebook page. The picture showed a T-shirt with a graphic of the Singapore flag being ripped to reveal an Indian flag underneath.

It drew criticisms from many Singaporeans who believed it was offensive and disrespectful.

On Aug 28, DBS said in a statement stating that Mr Patnaik is "no longer with the bank".

The discussion here is not a legal one, but about the sentiment expressed by the image and the caption accompanying it. The caption in Hindi was “Phir bhi dil hai…” which translates to “Yet the heart is…”.

Coupling image and caption, the interpretation of the sentiment expressed crudely by Mr Patnaik is that he remains emotionally attached to India as a PR working in Singapore.

The incident presents an opportunity for us to discuss how immigrants should conduct themselves in Singapore as well as the expectations Singaporeans have of immigrants with regard to their depth of belonging for Singapore.

With regard to conduct, how should immigrants get into the groove of Singaporean life?

While society explicitly informs actions through formal rules, unwritten shared social norms largely guide everyday interactions.

These norms make daily interaction predictable and pleasant.

For example, in the context of Singapore, some norms include showing due respect to elders, keeping some space between the person in front of you in a queue, and knowing that tissue packets placed on tables at hawker centres indicate the seat is reserved.

As such, to avoid at best standing out and at worst admonished, it would be prudent for immigrants to learn norms as quickly as possible.

Mr Patnaik’s situation, for instance, resulted from his failure to observe a norm – the national flag is to be respected.

With regard to possible expectations Singaporeans may have of immigrants and their sense of belonging, three possible expectations may exist.

First, immigrants are expected to identify with Singapore exclusively. Second, immigrants are expected to identify with Singapore and any other nation equally.

Third, immigrants are expected to have varying degrees of identification towards Singapore and any other nation depending on context.

The first expectation is best termed the Tebbit Expectation as it is associated with what is known as the Tebbit or cricket test.

Conceived by Lord Norman Tebbit in 1990, Tebbit maintained that Asian immigrants to Britain should support the English cricket team instead of national sides that they can trace their ancestry to.

A failure to do so would be indicative of their failure to be truly British. Hence, the demand placed here is for immigrants to jettison their past and embrace their present.

The second expectation can be termed the Özil Expectation.

Mesut Özil, a Turkish-German, was a football player for the German national team until he recently withdrew himself from future selection after the recent World Cup.

Prior to the World Cup, he received criticism for taking a picture with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, partly based on the expectation that he cannot identify with both Germany and Turkey equally.

For his critics, his explanation that he has “two hearts, one German and one Turkish” cuts no ice.

The third and final expectation can be dubbed the Cheliah Expectation after Singapore-born MasterChef Australia winner Sashi Cheliah.

In reports of his win, the Singaporean press highlighted the fact he was born and worked in Singapore while bringing to the fore his continued connections to Singapore with both his cooking and love of Singaporean food.

Perhaps Mr Cheliah’s experience indicates how one can identify with different nations depending on context.

In the case of Singapore, which of the three expectations of immigrants is reasonable?

The Tebbit Expectation is too demanding – it treats identity like luggage to be deposited at borders upon the acceptance of a different passport.

The Özil Expectation is unrealistic. Each of us have multiple identities ranging for example from the ethnic, tribal, provincial, and national.

We certainly do not identify with them at the same time equally. Instead, the intensity of feelings for our different identities is contextual.

In some contexts, one can feel more Singaporean while in others one can identify more with one’s ethnicity.

Perhaps the most reasonable expectation then is the Cheliah Expectation. Identifying with another nation does not require the recantation of origins or other alternative identities.

Decent citizens can be expected have a multiplicity of identities. Identification is not consistent as it can alter and shift depending upon context.

A possible riposte to the argument made here is an adaptation of the Tebbit Expectation best termed the Ultimate Sacrifice Expectation.

This expectation goes beyond the expectation for immigrants to support a national cricket team. Instead, it demands they be willing to fight and die for their adopted nation in war.

Yet an assessment of whether this expectation is met is impossible.

It is an easy declaration made in the safe and comfortable confines of peace. One can only know if that declaration is true and the expectation met during the test of war.

Moving forward, the Patnaik incident has learning points for both Singaporeans and immigrants.

On the one hand, locals may need to consider recalibrating their expectations of immigrants.

As identity is contextual, demanding consistent unchanging affiliation may be an unsurmountable ask.

Moreover, as the PR system is conceived as a conveyor belt towards citizenship, the intensity of identification expected from PRs and the newly naturalised cannot reasonably be the same.

On the other hand, immigrants need to immerse themselves in local life in order to be cognisant of social norms quickly as a nation is a community founded on accepted public conduct informed by these norms.

The failure of Mr Patnaik to do so is clear evidence of how important this is.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Norman Vasu is a Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Social Resilience Programme at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.