Quora Answer: Are Malaysian & Singapore Ties Thicker Than Water?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Are Malaysian and Singapore ties thicker than water?”

Although Malaysia and Singapore were once one country, that was half a century ago.  We have taken divergent paths politically and economically.  Whilst many Singaporeans, including myself, have relatives in Malaysia, as time goes by, those ties seem increasingly distant.  As a Singaporean, I have great distaste for the apartheid system that is their bumiputera policy.  I have no emotional connection to that foreign land across the Causeway.  The childish antics of their politicians, their overt Islamofascism and racism are at best, mildly amusing, and at worst, a cautionary tale of how we do not want our country to be.  Muslim hate preachers like Zakir Abdul Karim Naik, who are banned from giving talks here, are given citizenship there.

The previous Malaysian government was a kleptocracy, and the current one is a populist idiocracy.  Mahathir bin Mohamad is still governing as if the geopolitics of the region was in the 1990s, and trying to pick a fight with Singapore to detract from their failure to fulfill electoral promises.  Singapore has far better political ties with Indonesia and Thailand than with Malaysia.  And as both countries continue to pursue their divergent paths, less and less Singaporeans, except perhaps the Malay community, would feel any ties with people across the Causeway.