Quora Answer: Is Singapore Shirking Its International Responsibilities by Refusing to Take in Refugees?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Singapore is shirking its international responsibilities by refusing to take in a single refugee, people who are in dire need of protection and refuge.  What does this say about Singapore?” 

Nothing.  Firstly, we need to consider the facts.  Singapore has a population of around 6 million, including transients.  Singapore has a land area of around 730 km².  That means a population density of almost 8,000 per square kilometre.  This makes Singapore one of the most densely populated nations in the world.  There is not a lot of space to simply take in refugees, and facilities to put them up while they are processed. 

Secondly, Singapore is not obliged to take in refugees from faraway nations, when it was not party to the unfortunate circumstances that made them refugees.  The last time Singapore did take in refugees, was at the end of the Vietnam War.  Saigon fell the North Vietnamese in 1975.  Boat people were still coming in 1984, and by then, we had economic refugees, not political refugees.  Countries that had claimed they would take in those refugees, such as the US and Australia, who actually fought in that war, eventually reneged on that promise.  There were riots, criminal activities, hunger strikes and other unsavoury events.  It was 1996 before the last refugee camp was closed, 21 years after the end of the Vietnam War. 

Considering the cost, the administrative nightmare of dealing with various nations and the UNHCR, the human suffering we were inadvertently party to, and some of the moral compromises that had to be made in those unfortunate circumstances, no on in the Singapore government, familiar with this, will want to go through that again.  This is one reason why we did not take in any Arakanese refugees from Myanmar. 

Thirdly, the unfortunate fact about the refugee business that no one wants to really acknowledge is that not all refugees are equal.  Refugees who are wealthy can buy their way out.  Refugees who have professional skills such as doctors, engineers and accountants, are first pick by settler nations.  That is what the Germany and Denmark were looking for when they opened up to Syrian refugees.  By the time a conflict has dragged on, the majority of the people who are displaced, those who had to take the slow route out, are the lower socioeconomic classes of little economic value. 

The other consideration is the settlement period.  Consider this: when East and West Germany reunited again, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was more than a decade of conflict because in that half a century, the two sets of Germans had different cultures, different enough that there was discrimination and prejudice.  Imagine the challenge of having an entire neighbourhood of poor foreigners in parts of a city state like Singapore.  Singapore practices a form of ethnic quota to prevent the formation of racial enclaves.  That is not possible immediately were we to take in hundreds or thousands of refugees.  The logistics of housing and feeding that many would preclude it.  There will inevitably be law and order problems.  Singapore has not been around long enough to survive that sort of racial conflict. 

Considering security, it should be noted that many of these refugees come from places where they are known to practice a form of Wahhabi-influenced Islam, or a exclusivist cultural interpretation of the religion.  They are not going to fit in a cosmopolitan nation state.  The last thing we would tolerate is a Taliban-lite enclave anywhere in this city state.  We are in a neighbourhood where groups such as Jemaah Islamiyya operate, where there were the Bali bombings and other recent acts of terror.  I would not dare imagine if such an attack were to happen in Orchard Road, or worse, in the fourth largest oil refinery complex in the world. 

In light of all these factors, it would make more sense for us to support other nations, and help them deal with the refugee problem closer to home.  This is why Singapore sends doctors, food, medicine and supplies to refugee camps near the war zone.  In the case of Myanmar, severe diplomatic pressure was exerted across a broad front.  The intent is to contain the problem closer to the source.  None of these measures are as newsworthy as opening our border to refugees, but it equally important to help people go home.