[jessaustin]

Yeah I wondered if that was connected. God damn, what the Malaysian Chinese have to put up with. Every single organization in the nation, public and private, is completely run by Chinese managers, with a few bumiputra cronies as figureheads and a workforce packed with other laid-back Malays. Nothing in that country (and it's a lovely country, one of my favorite to visit) would ever get done without the Chinese. Yet many Malaysians' burning envy of Singapore seems to find its only outlet in abusing their own Chinese, either directly, through the rhetoric of politicians like Mahathir, or through the entrenched quota system. It's been over a decade since I was in the region, but I'll always have sympathy for the Chinese in Malaysia.

Not that Singapore is any shining beacon of freedom. I can certainly imagine the "Happy Ramadan" stunt drawing a stiff fine there. I doubt, though, that any minority in Singapore would need to speak "truth" to power in this way.