Not bad huh? Stomping in at 7th place. So essentially what happened was, Little India, bustling with people, Indian nationals mostly, and a bus knocks down an Indian National and runs over her(?), and in anger and retaliation, some of them decided to SMASH the glass shields and when the police arrives, they couldn't do shit at first. The police car almost got over turned, by this time, we all know shit got serious. On top of getting the car turned, a hospital truck was lit on fire. DRAMAAAA. And the funniest thing was I didn't know about it until I checked my class' whatsapp group. Yes, I know, I'm such a shame to all students in the world studying Mass Communication.
But I really feel bad for Indian community as a whole. Because of this incident, some twitter users just went at it as Indians as a whole, and thanks to this, racism rates are bound to jump to a new high.
Just realised, even Youtube's popular searches were 'Little India', usually, when I type little, usually, popular UK X-factor winner Little Mix would come up, but now?
But if you watched the video, you have to give merit to the one Indian man who was STOPPING a few of the men who were smashing the bus. Picture :
As you can tell, not all Indians are bad, and you have those that really understand that violence is bad, and that it isn't going to solve anything.
But apart from that, I think this incident did signify something. I mean, Indian nationals/race only makes up 8% of our population and even though rioting is wrong, but this shows that even though a minority, when come together, they really do pack a punch, it's a form of unity of a community whether you like it or not, which is a spirit that I feel hasn't been felt for a long long time. The last time the country ever came together for a cause was SARS period back in 2005, 2006? I mean reverse the situation and have the bus hit a Chinese man or more, I can bet that nobody would give a shit and move on in their lives, and stand around and peep and ask 'eh who die who die?' Haven't even die yet and assume that the person died already. The worst is everyone will stand and expect the next person will call the ambulance, and the responsibility just get diffused so badly to the point nobody is doing anything till the point someone actually dies when he/she could be saved. Not convinced? Watch this video, not in Singapore, but the point.
Like that, even though it's in China, but that's what you'll probably see if it happened in Chinatown. The reason why this may happen of course, could be due to the arousel-cost-reward theory, something I learnt in social psychology class, which absolutely makes sense to me, but look at it from a humane way and it is absolutely immoral. If anything, the riot was a reaction, something that we are not seeing very often of. With all sense made, yes, it is wrong of them to set things on fire and turn over cars, but you see, if you zoom out of the picture, it is just a simple case of cause-and-effect. And now that I think about it, using the word riot actually seem quite harsh, it is kind of sad if you look at it, it's almost like a pent up frustration that they have had enough of, and this is just the breaking point. Everyday, Indian nationals are looked down upon and made fun of, by Chinese especially, and if they wanted to, they could've called the authorities and have all of the racist placed behind bars. And after all the mean things that people say to them, they swallow it up and continue on their daily lives, some slaving over and under the scorching sun, making buildings of what you would call offices, home, schools. It's fine if you don't be thankful. But on top of that, they have to take shit from other people. Is it fair?
Whatever it is, the riot shouldn't have happened, but it has, and honestly, I think it did signify something greater than just people setting ambulances on fire and ruining buses.
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