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Author: Leonard C. Sebastian
Keywords: China, China and Inner Asia, Cultural Studies, Japan, Malaysia, North Korea, Northeast Asia, Singapore, Sociology, South Asia, South Korea, Southeast Asia, World History
How to Cite: C. Sebastian, L. (2016) “What Soccer Means To Me: National Integration through the Prism of Soccer in Singapore”, Education About Asia. 21(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.65959/eaa.1402
For Singaporeans of my generation born in the 1960s, soccer dominates our lives. It’s hard now to imagine an era where children did not have fancy gadgets with bells, lights, and sound effects—let alone television. But that was the reality of growing up in post-Independence Singapore, where poverty was endemic and forms of recreation for children were limited. Yet for me, like so many Singaporean children growing up in the 1970s, our lives revolved around soccer. I started playing soccer at age five and continue to play the game today with my colleagues at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University. Back in the 1970s, soccer enabled me to understand my neighbors and society better. Now, it not only keeps me fit but is an important part of my social interaction with my office colleagues. In the 1970s, the medium of soccer allowed me to form strong social bonds with Singaporeans of other races and religions. This is still the case today, however, with one difference. The university is a microcosm of what Singapore society is now becoming. With large waves of migration over the last fifteen years, Singapore is once again an immigrant society, and soccer matches are an opportunity for me to get to know my colleagues, many of whom are new immigrants, and find out how they are adapting to the Singapore way of life. Considering the importance of soccer to people living in Japan, Korea, China, and the countries of Southeast Asia, it is surprising to me why so few Asian Studies scholars study sports in Asia, considering its usefulness as a topic of academic research. Studying soccer in Asia can provide insights into cultural, historical, political, and social processes whose ramifications go beyond the sporting arena. 1965 was a pivotal year for Singapore, with the threat of revolutionary Communism in Southeast Asia growing. President Lyndon Johnson had just begun the process of escalating the war in Việt Nam. These were testing times, with state- and nation-building processes in a decolonized Southeast Asia starting to unravel. To Singapore’s south, the Indonesian confrontation was at its height, and deepening tensions between the army and Indonesian Communist Party would by the end of September bring about cataclysmic change. Across the causeway an increasingly bitter and intractable crisis within the Federation of Malaysiabetween Singapore and Malaysia’s ruling parties would by August lead to the separation of Malaysia and Singapore. On July 21, 1964—scarcely a year since Singapore became part of the Federation of Malaysia—a scuffle broke out between Malays and Chinese bystanders during a procession to mark Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. The fracas escalated into nationwide violence. When a thirteen-day curfew was lifted, twenty-three people died and 454 people were injured. Later, it became evident that the initial brawl was an orchestrated attempt to stir up racial tensions. Two months later, another riot broke out following allegations that a Malay trishaw rider was killed by a group of Chinese men, resulting in thirteen dead and 106 injured. Fifty years on from those fateful incidents, young Singaporeans live in an environment of relative peace and prosperity. Now, July 21 is commemorated as Racial Harmony Day, when generations of schoolchildren adorn racial garb and are taught the virtues of respecting diversity. Prior to separation and concerned that race relations would be compromized due to growing acrimony between the Malay elite dominating the federal government in Kuala Lumpur and the leadership representing majority Chinese Singapore, sport was used by the government of Singapore as a means of mitigating communal tensions and promoting a multiracial framework for the Federation of Malaysia. This is a little-known story. When opening the 1965 Pesta Sukan, or Festival of Sports, then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in response to the question “Is sport so completely devoid of politics?” gave this answer “Sport is politics—very much politics in a very international way. And sport, I’m sorry to say, is also very much internal politics.” Lee went on to say, “Sport militates toward a noncommunal, multireligious, multilingual approach to life.”1 In describing the objective of Pesta Sukan, Lee stressed that it was about “politics” and was designed by the Ministry of Social Affairs to emphasize the point “that Malaysia’s multiracial society gives out its best in sport and other pursuits … when it makes use of the best in Malaysia” . He went on to add, “If the chap can run faster than you, then you can’t decry the fact that he belongs to a different religion or race, and therefore he is necessarily inferior.” 2 More importantly, soccer at the grassroots or community level can provide a useful way of creating an environment where people can come together to show respect for others and share the common space. Indeed, this was my experience growing up in Singapore in the 1970s. I grew up in a housing estate built in 1960 for civil servants. My abiding memory was the playground in the middle of Windsor Park housing estate where children of all races would meet regularly for a game of soccer. Windsor Park was a cross-section of Singapore society. The smaller houses closer to Upper Thomson Road housed clerks and lower-ranked civil servants. The semidetached homes were I lived were owned by middle-management civil servants. Up at the top of Windsor Park Hill was where people in top leadership positions in the Singapore Civil Service lived, like the late Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin. There was no sense of elitism among young people in those days. Elite schools, the gifted education program, or streaming that shape the attitudes of young people today did not exist. Then, we all were relatively equal. Children got along well and, invariably, soccer was the bridge. Soccer broke down barriers created by race, ethnicity, class, and educational status. I began to realize that it was more than a game and could do more than just provide dirty laundry (which was always a source of consternation for my poor mother during the rainy season). During the school term, we would play soccer in the evenings. School holidays were memorable because we would play all day, every day. The match would start at nine in the morning and last until seven in the evening. Players joined in as and when they liked. There were no other distractions. For those of us privileged enough to own a television set, soccer on Radio and Television Singapore (RTS) was limited to a thirty-minute soccer program from the United Kingdom called Star Soccer, screened on Sundays. With an acute shortage of soccer on television, my life revolved around that playground in Windsor Park. We did not play with a referee, so disputes would break out whenever there were objections over foul play or the legitimacy of a goal. Yet, rather than deepening racial divides, the need to negotiate and find an amicable solution to any dispute on the soccer field with a person of another race gave me deeper insights into secrets of developing solid intercultural relationships. In the course of play, you begin to understand how youth of different racial backgrounds respond to stressful situations. Over time, you learn to adapt and develop greater tolerance for each other. This allowed us to develop not only empathy, but also our own system of fair play, which meant that we did not require the presence of a referee as an arbiter. I have no doubt that my interaction with Chinese, Malay, and Eurasian Singaporeans on the soccer field laid the groundwork for my Singaporean identity. For many of my neighbors, the experience of playing in a diverse soccer setting also led them to become comfortable playing with others whose backgrounds may not resemble their own.