Quora Answer: Can Malaysia & Singapore Reunite?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Can or will Malaysia and Singapore reunite?”

I see no benefit in such a union in any form.  Singapore is successful because we are not part of Malaysia, and we have no interest in their apartheid, Malay-supremacist system that subsumes the sciences to religious fundamentalism.

Singapore got where it is by the promotion of pure meritocracy.  As long as someone is qualified, and can do the job, we will take him, regardless of his socioeconomic background, his religion, his ethnicity or even his country of origin.  We actively recruit the best and hungriest.  Being part of Malaysia means implementing the bumiputera policy, which means racial quotas.  People are given preference and promoted by virtue of the lottery of birth.  This creates a system of feudal patronage and corruption; it feeds entitlement and division.

Singapore is a secular state, which is important in a multicultural context.  Of all the major religions, Muslim majorities have proven to be the most intolerant of minority religions, or even minorities within their religion.  Malaysia is the only country to ban Shi’ah Islam, something even Wahhabi Saudi Arabia does not.  And it is a concern to us in Singapore that Malaysia’s Muslims clerics and politicians are increasingly pandering to the extremist fringe, giving refuge to extremist preachers Singapore has banned, giving a platform to racist firebrands like Zakir Naik, and inciting religious and racial hatred in the name of defending Islam.

For Singapore to unite with Malaysia, we will first have to lose our soul and reject the very values that brought us to developed status in less than a century.  If there is one thing, we should thank Lee Kuan Yew, it is his refusal to give in to people like Tengku Abdul Rahman bin Abdul Hamid Halim Shah, and Syed Jaafar bin Syed Hassan Albar, and elevate the Malays at the expense of the other races.