There are 4 official languages in Singapore. English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. The National language of Singapore is actually Malay. English is a medium for business communication and a common language for the different races in Singapore to communicate. Singaporeans also study their mother, Chinese as a second language or first language. In the 1980s, the emphasis on speak Chinese campaign, is to unite the Chinese, encourage them to speak Mandarin instead of dialects.
The choice of English as the common language for all ethnic groups in Singapore was much, much earlier than the Chinese language learning experience of Mr. Lee. He was a staunch anti-communist and clamped down on the Socialist party “Barisal Socialis”, jailing the opposition leader using the British Colonial Internal Security Act. The movement of encouraging the citizens to learn Mandarin started only in the late 1980s. Before this, the prevalent Chinese dialects were Hokies and Cantonese.
I wonder which nationality does the creator of this video belongs to? And on what basis are the statements being made? First of all, English is NEVER the only official language for Singapore. 打从新加坡独立时,英语、华语、马来语和淡米尔语就是新加坡的四个官方语言,另外马来语也根据地理环境的影响成为了国家语言。In additional, the policy of bilingualism (双语政策) was adopted by the ruling government since they took power in 1959, even before the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命) took place in China. Do sincerely hope that the creator is able to correct the misfacts in the video.
As a 66 year old Singaporean whose mother tongue is Cantonese, your explanation of why Singapore chose English as it's Official Language shows that you are totally ignorant of Singapore and how it came to develop it's language and social integration policy, and how simplistic your arguments are, and there are zero factual basis, historical evidences and scholarly studies and research, to support your views. In the first place,there are four official languages and English is one of them. Secondly, Bahasa is our National language. Our national anthem, Children's songs, and military commands are in Bahasa (Malay). Thirdly, English took more than twenty years to evolve to its prominence since mid 1960s, when Singapore started to set forth it's education, language, social integration policy. Bahasa was given priority then because of it's commercial link to Malaysia, which was a much developed economy, compared to Singapore. Also, there were Malay Chauvinist and the Singapore government wanted to show fairness, to promote social cohesion. In contrast, the Indians were less sensitive to language issues. English came into prominence primarily because of bread and butter issues. Many multinationals were building factories in Singapore. To be employable, Singaporean parents sent their Children to English medium schools. Chinese medium died because of very low admission. My siblings and friends went through all these sufferings, because they can't speak English, have poor jobs, and blame our parents. You don't know anything about Singapore. Also, Western soft power through media, TVs, Films, scientific advancement, prosperity & others, were influencing Singapore. In contrast, China was very backward. Not only that, they sent money and arms to attack Singapore through the Communist terrorist. These Communist bombed Singapore and killed innocent young children. People hated China. Gradually, people spoke Cantonese because of Hong Kong TVs, and Holmien, mianan Dialect if Fujian, because of Taiwan TVs. Also, Hokkien had always been spoken in Singapore from 1930s to the early.1990s in the shops, streets, markets. It is the Lingua Franca of Chinese. Even the Malays and Indians can speak Hokkien (Mianan Dialect). Even Lee Kuan Yew spoke Hokkien although he is Hakka but he couldn't speak Hakka or Chinese. All these change when the government banned all Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew programmes beginning 1990s. The government "forced" the Chinese to speak Chinese and not other sub Chinese language groups. The reason is not because of China's ascension as many young ignorant Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwan Media commentators said. As one Hong Kong born professor, who became a Singapore citizen in 1980s told a China media person, Lee and others realized that the Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, Fuzhou, etc were interfering with the leaning of Chinese. We learned English, Chinese and Hokkien and our mother tongue, which maybe Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka. Lee KY said this was impossible. Except English, our Chinese became average. But when China became very powerful, the government Sang a different tune and said learning Chinese helped us to connect with China. LeeHL said so in our National Day speech, and so was Wong, our new PM. The real reason is actually a lot more complicated. As someone remarked, China was watching Singapore and the new Prime minister, so in a sense, Mr Wong was trying to be nice to China. But besides Chinese, Singapore wants to promote Malay and Indian language. The official reason was to promote our own culture, to promote inclusiveness and social integration. The more practical reason is that India is the next economic power, and Indonesia is a big power in ASEAN, both in GDP and politics. We cannot offend Indonesia.The bottom line is that using English or any language in Singapore is a very complicated social economic tool. China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are predominantly Chinese, no need to take care minorities interest, where these minorities are a very huge powerful population outside their country, had long history, mostly mono cultural, mono linguistics, majority are Buddhists, Taoist traditions. What do these China, Taiwan and Hong Ky knew about Singapore???? How do they like if we talk about them from our perspectives? These frogs from the well insult us, called us names, look down on our size, our language, our culture and our way of life. Why because they are big, 3,000 - 4000 years of recorded history (5000 if based on legends) and we're not southern barbarians (Nan Man) or kun lun slaves (Kunlun Nu). So please, this is a poor reflection of you and your country, when you don't even understand the basics of analysis and commentary. Don't just spill salivas. Do research. Use verifiable facts. Talk to older Singaporean intellects in their 60s and 70s years old. Thanks.