ONE PEOPLE

Over in Australia, Mr Kuntz noted that lately, people tend to cite their nationality rather than ethnicity when responding to a question about ancestry.

"Belgian rather than Walloon or Flemish; Bangladeshi rather tahn Bengali; even Singaporean rather than Chinese," he said.

In the 2001 census, there were more than 21 times as many stating Singaporean as an ancestry compared with those who stated themselves as Singapore Chinese, he added.

So, ahead of the 2006 census, Singaporean was classified as an ethnic and cultural group in Australia, with large enough numbers to warrant that recognition.

(Extracted from "The Sunday Times" - Think Section, Jan 24, 2010, "How Countries Classify Race" by Goh Chin Lian)

I like that. I really, really like that.

Even though I will never put "Singaporean" down as my ethnicity (if that was really what the census asked for), but that is only because I am a stickler for accuracy in such situations.

And even though the cynical side of me did question whether the above was a fluke due to the questionable English language standards of Singaporeans in general. But I would like to give my people the benefit of the doubt in this case.

And even as I question the accuracy of the census query itself. If the word "ancestry" was used without other descriptions, it is really rather vague and open to interpretation.

Despite all the "even thoughs", I like what the above implies. It is nice to know that in certain quarters, we have "pledge(d) ourselves as one united people, regardless or race, language or religion."

Oh yes, I like that.