44 Asia The EconomistAugust 10th 2019
Y
ou wouldnever guess that Singa-
pore has just celebrated Racial Har-
mony Day. An offensive advert for a
government service has kicked off a
debate here about how ethnic Chinese,
who make up around three-quarters of
the population, treat minorities, most of
whom are of Malay or Indian descent.
The government weighed in after two
ethnic Indians made a racially provoca-
tive music video attacking the advert. Its
heavy-handed response suggests it is not
as unprejudiced as it thinks.
The trouble began with an ad cam-
paign for E-pay, a government e-payment
system. It depicted Dennis Chew, an
ethnic Chinese actor, dressed up as four
people, apparently intended to represent
a cross-section of Singapore’s multi-
ethnic society: a Chinese labourer, a
Malay woman wearing a headscarf, a
fashionable Eurasian woman and an
Indian office-worker. For the latter, Mr
Chew’s face was darkened. Havas, the
agency behind the advert, said this was
intended to convey the idea that “e-
payment is for everyone”.
Preeti Nair and her brother Subhas
saw something else: a Chinese man in
“brownface”. On July 29th the Nairs’
music video, in which they chant “Chi-
nese people always fucking it up”, went
viral. Within hours of being posted on
Facebook it had been viewed more than
40,000 times.
The government’s response was swift.
It ordered YouTube and Facebook to
remove the video and the police to in-
vestigate the Nairs for producing “offen-sive content”. The government has been
wary of ethnic tensions ever since deadly
race riots in the 1960s. In 1992 it became
illegal to promote “enmity between
different groups on the ground of reli-
gion or race”.
As for the advertisement, K. Shanmu-
gam, the law and home affairs minister,
says it is legal. (Havas and Mediacorp,
whose talent agency supplied Mr Chew—
and which is owned by Temasek, a state
investment vehicle—have apologised.)
The discrepancy between the govern-
ment’s responses to Havas and Media-
corp and to the Nairs has dismayed many
Singaporeans. On Facebook Alfian Sa’at,
a playwright, wrote: “We don’t really
have racial harmony in Singapore, what
we have is racist harmony.”Face-off
Race relations in SingaporeSINGAPORE
A furore over an offensive advert reveals the government’s true coloursDennis Chew, as he really looksI
n the1950s Nobusuke Kishi, then Ja-
pan’s prime minister, tried to change the
constitution that America had imposed on
the country in the aftermath of the second
world war. He failed. Now his grandson,
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s current prime minis-
ter, is trying to do the same before he leaves
office by the autumn of 2021.
Mr Abe’s personal history is not the only
reason he is so set on this. For his vocal na-tionalistic base, it is a passionately held
cause. And as one of Japan’s longest-serv-
ing prime ministers (the longest, if he re-
mains in power until mid-November) he
thinks he has the political clout to do it.
There are good reasons to try—despite
China’s mutterings. (Its state news-agency
once said that doing so would be like “re-
leasing the shackles of the nation’s legally
tethered military.”) The constitution is out
of step with reality. Article 9 commits Japan
to pacifism and to abjuring the mainte-
nance of armed forces—which the exis-
tence of the country’s Self-Defence Forces
(sdf) clearly breaches. This is the most
controversial of four areas that Mr Abe’s
Liberal Democratic Party (ldp) addressed
in recent proposals, even though the rec-
ommendation to recognise the existence
of the sdf(rather than, say, allow Japan towage war) is a watered-down version of
what many in the ldpwould like. The other
three areas are upper-house electoral dis-
tricts, the right to free education and emer-
gency powers for the cabinet.
If the Japanese want to change their
constitution, there is no reason why they
shouldn’t. America’s has been altered 27
times since its promulgation in 1788. But
Japanese people are proud of their pacifism
and keen to stay out of other countries’ af-
fairs. A poll in July by nhk, the national
broadcaster, found 29% of people sup-
ported any revision compared to 32% op-
posed to it (the rest were undecided or
failed to respond). The numbers diverge
when the question focuses on Article 9: an
Asahi poll found 33% favourable to amend-
ing it and 59% against.
The opposition is resistant, too. It has
talked about the need to revise parts to im-
prove governance, such as the prime min-
ister’s right to dissolve the lower house, or
to explicitly add new ideas such as a citi-
zen’s “right to know”. But no major party
bar the ldpunreservedly backs changing
Article 9. Even Komeito, the ldp’s coalition
partner, suggests debate is needed first.
That makes it hard to see how Mr Abe is
to get this done. Changing the constitution
requires two-thirds of both the upper and
lower houses of the Diet, followed by a ma-
jority in a referendum. And Mr Abe lost his
coalition’s two-thirds majority in the up-
per house in elections last month.
The political calendar is tight, with the
change of emperor this year and the Olym-
pics in 2020, and the geopolitical environ-
ment is not propitious. America’s calls for
allies to help prevent further seizures of
ships in the Strait of Hormuz are providing
the Japanese with a concrete example of
the sorts of conflicts into which their coun-
try could be dragged should Article 9 be
changed. “The numbers don’t align, voter
interest doesn’t align, and the situation in
the Middle East doesn’t help,” says Yuki
Tatsumi of the Stimson Centre, a think-
tank in Washington.
Mr Abe is moderating his approach. He
may shift the emphasis from Article 9 to
rights and governance issues that appeal to
the opposition, reckons Ms Tatsumi. Yui-
chiro Tamaki, the head of the Democratic
Party for the People, the second-biggest op-
position group, agrees that there needs to
be a debate. Speaking after the elections,
Mr Abe said he hoped for “active discus-
sions”, and emphasised that “constitution-
al revision is not up to the government, but
the Diet”.
He is pragmatic, but he wants a legacy.
Efforts to resolve diplomatic problems left
over from the war, such as with Russia,
have stalled. The economy, which he
pledged to revive, is spluttering. Changing
the constitution is a challenge—but no
tougher than the others he faces. 7TOKYO
Can Shinzo Abe change the country’s
basic law?Japan’s constitutionWhat grandfather
left undone