Agents of Empire Representation of Race in Singapore’s 19th-Century English Newspapers

By Abishek Mehrotra

Introduction

Singapore’s first newspaper, the Singapore Chronicle , was published a mere five years after Stamford Raffles stepped ashore in 1819.¹ Soon, the printed word took such a hold of the public mind that busy merchants in Commercial Square (now Raffles Place) were spending a half hour daily discussing the news, including commodity prices and the arrival and departure of cargo-laden ships.²

A plethora of newspapers were launched during the 19th century, though most sank rather quickly. Some, like the Singapore Free Press, survived well into the 20th century, while the Straits Times is in circulation to this day. Virtually all newspapers then perpetuated ideas of race, civilisation, progress and development that subordinated the native and immigrant populations to white colonisers. This essay will show how they did so, by drawing examples from local English-language newspapers across a quarter of a century – from 1875, when Singapore was still a young Crown Colony following its administrative reconstitution into the Straits Settlements, to the close of the century. The newspapers propped up the imperial edifice, alongside weapons, books, art and other modes of knowledge production that have been so extensively studied by scholars of postcolonialism.

The Sociopolitical Context – Global and Local

By the mid-19th century, the tentacles of British imperialism had reached into the farthest expanses of Asia and Africa through coercion, deception and collaboration with local elites. The brutal suppression of the 1857 revolt in India had been followed by the passing of power into the hands of the Crown under Queen Victoria. The 258-year-old East India Company was out, and the Age of Empire officially dawned. This puzzled the British. How could an island of 17 million establish sovereignty over territories thousands of miles away and many times greater in size and population? The English historian John Robert Seeley captured this sense of disbelief, writing in 1883: “We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.”³ There was no dearth of (pseudo) scientific theories to explain the impossible. Most of these coalesced under social Darwinism. Seizing upon Darwin’s 1838 theory of biological evolution, academics like Herbert Spencer quickly concocted its social counterpart, i.e., survival among individuals competing for limited resources. And given that Europeans in general and the English in particular were winning the competition, the academics concluded that the European civilisation was the apex of human evolution, with others – Hindu, Islamic, Chinese, African, Malay – competing for a distant second place.⁴

Singapore had its fair share of colonial administrators who subscribed to these ideas. Raffles himself, until so recently considered a progressive administrator, believed in a metaphorical racial ladder, the highest rungs of which were occupied by Europeans, followed by those natives who adopted Western modes of behaviour, lifestyle and clothing.⁵

Four decades after leaving Singapore, its second Resident, the inveterate traveller and writer John Crawfurd, observed:

"In understanding, in judgment, in taste, in invention, in reach of imagination, in enterprise, in perseverance, and in the moral sense, the European, placed under equally favourable conditions, is greatly superior to the Asiatic."⁶

Sir Frederick Weld, Governor of the Straits Settlements (1880–87), echoed similar sentiments: “I think that capacity for governing is a characteristic of our race, and it is wonderful to see in a country like the Straits.”⁷ The Chinese, in Weld’s estimation, depended on the British to look after them much as “a groom looks after a horse”, and the Malays were in awe of British probity even in the face of the most alluring temptations.⁸

In the second half of the 19th century, both the opening of the Suez Canal and the long-distance steamship’s increasing dominance of the ocean enabled “scientific” theories concocted in London to quickly make their way to the empire’s outposts, while observations made in far-flung places like Malaya travelled swiftly to the metropole. This created a circle of knowledge that endlessly reproduced the same ideas, tropes and stereotypes until they took on the veneer of truth.

One of the more obvious ways in which newspapers perpetuated racial hierarchies was by giving voice to new-fangled theories and books. In December 1853, for example, the Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser published a report on a phrenology lecture given by a Mr Sargent to a “numerous audience”; decades later, the Mid-Day Herald excitedly announced the arrival of Mrs Josepha North, a sculptor turned renowned phrenologist, on the island’s shores.⁹ Phrenology, a now discredited science, claimed a relationship between various races’ skull shapes and intelligence, and the race it deemed the most intelligent was obvious.

Occasionally, the Free Press printed chapters from new books in serialised form. One chapter titled “The Chinese Towkay” from a book called People in a Native State , published on 2 December 1893, is illustrative:

"Many Towkays I know are perfectly at home with a knife and fork, indeed some of them give capital dinners. As they have educated themselves so far towards civilized society, it is to be hoped that they will continue to progress and thereby in time cultivate a correct palate for champagne and other wines, so that “Comet” and other wonderful but undrinkable beverages may no longer adorn (?) their hospitable tables."¹⁰

But the newspapers’ role extended beyond mere conduits of information; they must be situated within a suitable theoretical framework.

Why Newspapers? “Knowing” the Native and “Creating” the Self

In the late 19th century, the national newspaper, along with the telegraph, was critical to empire and empire-building (and eventually, to those who opposed empire). Various British governments sought to control information flow, shape the interpretation of events and form “symbiotic” relationships with newswires like Reuters for their own political ends.¹¹

Papers in imperial outposts like the Straits Settlements with their insignificant English-reading population could not bring down governments in Britain, but they could certainly have an impact on local policy and affect public estimation of colonial officials on the island. By controlling the flow of information and deciding what to publish and omit, newspapers and their owners became arbiters of public opinion, the gatekeepers who decided what would be discussed in Commercial Square that afternoon or at the Padang that evening. Far from being ephemera, then, newspapers were of a piece with other modes of knowledge production on which the colonial project was predicated.

Reporting on daily humdrum events and highlighting the minutiae of 19th-century Singapore’s daily life allowed newspapers and their subscribers to “know” the native Other (“native” is used here to denote all non- European races in Singapore) as much as the more commonly analysed forms of media, including but not limited to books, travelogues, pamphlets, art, official censuses and catalogues. While these media offered a more big-picture view of native lives and were usually produced for consumption in imperial metropoles, newspapers were printed locally and carried mostly local news for the benefit of the local ruling race, or as was the case with one newspaper that will be analysed later, for the benefit of a race aspiring to join the rulers on their pedestal.

In critiquing colonial knowledge structures, Edward Said defined Orientalism as “a library or archive of information commonly and, in some of its aspects, unanimously held. What bound the archive together was a family of ideas and a unifying set of values proven in various ways to be effective”.¹² English newspapers in 19th-century Singapore belonged to this archive.

An important element in this family of ideas was the colonial power’s imagination of itself. The British saw themselves as superior not just economically and militarily but also politically and ethically – a unique people destined to bring progress to the non-white world.¹³ Superiority was possible only by being separate, by creating an identity distinct from that of the natives. When the British first landed on Indian shores as mere traders, for example, they carved out residential enclaves away from the natives.¹⁴ At home, in offices or out hunting in the field, they maintained a studied aloofness from local customs, traditions and populations. This tendency intensified when they became the dominant political and military force in South and Southeast Asia. By 1867, expression of this separateness had become the norm.

“Don’t admit that you’re living in an Oriental country, live nearly as possible as you would in Europe,” was Roland Braddell’s advice to his countrymen in Singapore.¹⁵ Broadsheets helped in this endeavour by carrying in-depth reports on quintessentially English sports like cricket and drag hunting and by publishing wistful memories of Christmas “back home”, among other things.¹⁶ In fact, in elucidating its aims and objectives, the first-ever issue of the Straits Times indicated a desire to engender British nationalism among the Straits Englishmen who found themselves so far away from home.¹⁷

Such reporting created a variation of Benedict Anderson’s concept of the nation as an “imagined community” – an imagined imperial community that connected one Englishman to another, separate from the traditions of the place that they physically inhabited and superior to the races of the region.¹⁸ News from London, commodity prices, ship arrivals and departures, colonial appointments, births and deaths all connected the empire’s frontiers to its hub. The English were in Singapore, but often not of it.

English newspapers in the 19th century can thus be analysed under the rich theoretical tradition of postcolonial studies. It is to three such newspapers that were published in Singapore that we turn next. The sections below will examine how the Straits Times (ST) depicted native populations in the sports arena from 1875 to 1899, how the Straits Eurasian Advocate (SEA) emphasised Eurasian identity and represented Indian and Chinese immigrants in 1888, and how the Straits Observer (SO) depicted the Malays during a short-lived but acute crisis in Perak in 1876. These papers were accessed via NewspaperSG, the newspaper archive of Singapore’s National Library.¹⁹

How They Make Us Laugh

"In the boxing match, a Chinaman while in the pursuit of defending himself from his antagonist, dropped his nether garment; his hands being bound with his gloves, was at a loss to brush himself up, which caused not a little laughter and merriment."²⁰

The festive season in Singapore – a fortnight that included Christmas and the New Year – usually ended with a full day of sporting activities at the Padang on the first or second day of the year. By all accounts it was a joyous, raucous occasion with thousands lining the carriage track around the ground; men, women and children of all races dressed in their finery to witness the sporting prowess of the best that the island had to offer. It was the one day when the ruling and the ruled occupied the same public space, and enjoyed the same entertainment, albeit with the natives segregated from the Europeans. In a rare instance when the two were forced to mingle, the ST was quick to point out that “it would be better if on a future occasion the arrangements for the comfort of Europeans were amplified. There were many Europeans who were standing all afternoon among the natives, and that is not altogether pleasant”.²¹

Since the English could not afford to be seen being beaten by the locals, the competition was segregated too. What was more, the sports themselves differed. Europeans participated in “foot races and athletic exercises; and in the sack race, three legged race, boxing match, and race with water buckets poised on the head”.²² The natives walked a greasy tongkang boom to pluck a twig or a flag from the end, vied to eat the most number of hard biscuits and dunked their heads into buckets of treacle in search of a half-dollar coin.²³ By the close of the century, “rikisha pulling” – in which Chinese and Indians raced rickshaws carrying a European passenger over a distance of 220 yards – had been introduced to the programme.

Of the biscuit-eating, the ST intoned thus:

"Most of the eaters evidently entered for the sake of the feed, as their leisurely mastication did not suggest that they were in for a prize. Two or three, however, made little beasts [emphasis added] of themselves and were accordingly awarded $2.25 between them."²⁴

Treacle-dipping did not escape the paper’s lampooning either:

"Imagine, good folks at home, enthusiasts for the small sum of fifty cents plunging their heads into a tub of golden syrup – or its prototype – and groping about for the melancholy coin… they ran amok, afterwards, all dripping and half blind with treacle, and the wild stampede of the Asiatics in their Sunday clothes, as each competitor made a beeline for the sea, was probably the most comical part of the business [emphases added]."²⁵

Such reportage reduced the natives to caricature, clowns in a circus conducted by English ringmasters. In Singapore, as elsewhere, infantilisation of the colonised populations was key to perpetuating the notion of English superiority.²⁶ One newspaper gleefully narrated events from Bangalore, India, where “rather a novel mode of amusement has been introduced by the officers of the 21st Hussars”.²⁷ The soldiers pitted their Indian servants – syces (horse carers) against cooks – in a cricket match. Not being familiar with the sport, the servants’ clumsy attempts at playing it caused much merriment among their masters, “more especially at the fielding in which not a few in their eagerness to join in a leather hunt often came into collision and cannoned against each other rather roughly”.²⁸

Overlordship could be justified if one bought into the idea that the wild Asiatic races – uncultured children masquerading as adults – needed a guiding hand, a paterfamilias, to look after their well-being. Depictions of natives as clumsy cartoon figures helped build that image.

Often, what was left out was almost as significant as what was reported. For instance, papers usually listed all the winners of European sports while making no mention whatsoever of those from local sports. The natives were just that – “the natives” – an entertaining agglomeration, the individual members of which did not matter.²⁹

There is remarkable uniformity in how the New Year sports activities were described over the years. In 1875, the ST reported that “among the most amusing of the races was one of a hundred yards with tubs of treacle, which placed on their heads, so besmeared the contestants with the sweet liquid that they were glad to rid themselves by a plunge off the Government pier”.³⁰ A quarter-century later, in 1899, the paper was similarly tickled: “possibly, however, the funniest thing of all [emphasis added] was the treacle dipping competition. The spectacle presented by a number of natives endeavouring to pick up half dollars with their teeth out of tub of treacle is better imagined than described.”³¹

The images of the natives were relentlessly recycled over the years: little Malay ruffians always got themselves a good meal out of the biscuit-eating competition, clueless Chinamen always struggled with the science of boxing, and the Klings were always prone to taking things easy, even in competition.

In sharp contrast to this, European sports were accorded the respect and gravitas in keeping with the colonial power’s opinion of itself. Once the native games were out of the way in the morning, the Europeans took over with fare that was generally “more attractive” than what had preceded it. Distances jumped, heights leaped and race times were reported in admiring terms, closely fought contests were “capital” and participants invariably acquitted themselves creditably. In this way, the newspaper served to degrade the native and enhance the European, further entrenching racial differences.

Native? Who, Me?

"[P]ure natives are as distinct from Eurasians as chalk and cheese, and it is well that this should be known; for owing to this very common mistake, the Eurasian body has suffered considerably."³²

In the late 19th century, the Padang was a curious site: a quasi-democratic venue to which all races descended for New Year festivities, and also a place where racial and class differences were starkly visible thanks to segregated seating areas and competitions. By 1885, these differences had become starker with the erection of the Singapore Recreation Club’s (SRC) pavilion at the other end of the ground from the Singapore Cricket Club (SCC). Founded by a group of miffed Eurasians when they were denied entry to the “pure-white” SCC, the pavilion was a weighty reminder of the extant racial differences.³³In 1887, a peeved reader wrote in to the ST complaining of the treatment meted out to SRC members at an SCC event:

"Some such courtesy might have been shown to the Committee [emphasis in original] of the S.R.C. if not to all the members, and as respectable as any of the S.C.C. members, although not born in Europe. But the usual class distinction prevailed… – a distinction which is as unworthy of those who are responsible for making it, as it is humiliating to those against whom the line is drawn."³⁴

The Eurasians were a deeply insecure community at the time. Ease of transportation had brought not just ideas, but also more and more pure-blooded European men and women to Singapore’s shores. Whatever porosity had existed – it was not uncommon for European men to take up with local women across Malaya, for instance – disappeared; ideas of racial purity became more stringent, and social contact with the locals was increasingly frowned upon.³⁵

The Eurasians found themselves far removed from the upper echelons of European society, lumped with the natives. This insecurity, and its attendant anger, played itself out in various newspapers that emerged to support the Eurasian cause in Singapore. They did so by heaping contempt on the Chinese, Malays and Indians – inflicting on them the same humiliation that they accused the Europeans of perpetrating. The SEA was one such paper.

Started in 1887 as a Saturday weekly by a Eurasian named John Nicholson, the SEA was the community’s second attempt at a propaganda organ when it saw itself “being gradually isolated” from the mainstream life on the island.³⁶ The SEA lasted three years, of which only four months’ issues survive (March–June 1888).

The paper’s fundamental objective was to impress upon its readers that Eurasians were distinct from, and superior to, the native population and as intelligent, meritorious and eminent as their European brethren.³⁷ One of the ways in which it did so was by recasting Eurasians’ native halves as “Aryan”. While the Chinese were Chinese, and the Klings, Klings, the Eurasians were half-European, half-Aryan.

"Do not disparage yourselves because of your Aryan half. Through this half you inherit the intelligence, brain power and chivalry of an ancient civilization, a civilization from which Europe has borrowed its learning, and the best part of its laws and literature and much of its arts and sciences. It is the infusion of Aryan blood that has made the British what it is."³⁸

This semantic sleight of hand helped insecure Eurasians view themselves as part of the ruling race, while allowing wriggle room to shower contempt on those outside it. The Chinese, who by now were immigrating to Singapore in large numbers and whose ways of life were increasingly becoming more Western, found themselves in the crosshairs more often than not.³⁹

Articulating immigration concerns that would continue to echo in Singapore more than a century later, the SEA screeched that “Singapore is being flooded with all sorts of villains from China, and owing to these importations Crime is becoming more and more frequent by the day”, so much so that “nothing short of flogging would make night-disturbers take the right path”.⁴⁰

Jail was pointless, because according to the SEA, it did not serve as a strong-enough deterrent. “They are much too pampered and well-fed” there, with the cost of keeping them in far more than the income they could generate by pursuing various vocations during incarceration.⁴¹ Could not, one SEA reporter wondered, “something more be squeezed [out of the inmates] so as to not allow them to eat the bread of idleness so cheaply?”⁴²

It escaped the SEA that the manpower needed to lug cargo, construct new roads and bridges, look after plantations and ferry Europeans (and undoubtedly some Eurasians) around a rapidly expanding town was drawn from the same pool as the “villains” and “blackguards” causing it so much consternation. Most importantly, this pool contributed to the opium tax that formed the bulk of the colonial government’s revenue. But once again foreshadowing modern-day discussions on the desire for foreign labour to do essential but unsavoury work and yet be invisible, the SEA expressed its distaste at being “jostled by a half-nude Chinaman” pulling a rickshaw or at the sight of Chinese coolies bathing at public wells.⁴³ Any kind of agency by these other races was frowned upon. When the Domestic Servants Registration Ordinance encouraging employers to hire only registered individuals as servants came into force on 1 January 1888, the SEA was vexed:

"The lower classes of Chinese from which we procure our servants would sooner follow the bent of their inclinations and turn rogues and thieves than take service except on their own terms [emphasis added]."⁴⁴

The recommended antidote to this intransigence was to dump them forcefully into “gharries” and drive them to the relevant office to be registered, which the Chinese refused to do “for want of a good kicking”.⁴⁵

Another suggestion was to import servants from India – Calcutta or Madras – who were cheaper, more efficient and more pliable. This was fine as long as the Indians stuck to servitude and did not stuff themselves into trousers and coats, so as to deceive outsiders into thinking that “every black man with a coat is a Eurasian”.⁴⁶

Any non-European who wielded even a modicum of power was to be viewed suspiciously. The Tamil Chettiars, most of whom came to Singapore as money lenders, were to be avoided because their usury practices often trapped unsuspecting Eurasians into a vicious cycle of poverty and debt. The Indian money lender, warned the SEA, was not “behind in his virtues to ‘Shylock’”.⁴⁷ The native constable was nothing but a dummy on the street who needed constant monitoring by his European peers – surprise visits to the area of his beat were highly recommended.⁴⁸

Relative to the Chinese and the Indians, the Malays were far removed from the colonial enterprise and thus from Singapore’s public life. This was reflected in their absence from the SEA’s pages. The few times they did appear, it was as part of gangs that indulged in brutish violence against the Indians and the Chinese and as singers of obscene songs that disturbed the public peace at night.⁴⁹ Occasionally, calls were made to replace “outlandish” native road names with “decent ones”.⁵⁰

The SEA knew where the power lay in Singapore. “Everything in the country is measured by European standard, which obviously does not admit of depreciation of itself,” admitted an insightful editorial. “At present they [the Eurasians] have not the same social and official currency”,⁵¹ and until they did, distinctions between the two communities would continue to be made.

The paper tried to acquire this currency for its audience not just by highlighting their achievements but by using language that debased the native populace’s habits, culture and tradition. It inflicted linguistic violence (half-naked Chinaman; demoniac Malay; Shylock-like Chetty) and advocated physical violence (flogging, harsher conditions in jails) – both of which served to further reify racialised hierarchies in Singapore.

Barbarians, the Lot of Them

"It is absurd that such a wealthy country should be left in the hands of blood-thirsty treacherous savages."⁵²

Times of crisis serve as an interesting counterpoint to the breezy news coverage of the New Year’s Day sports. While the latter painted a picture of child-like native behaviour, the former instigated reportage that represented them in almost bestial terms.

Part of this was down to fear. Singapore’s European population, rapidly though it had grown in the latter half of the 19th century, was small compared to the rest; it rippled with fear at any hint of disquiet among the locals.⁵³

The November 1875 murder of the Perak Resident James Birch was one such crisis that reverberated up and down Malaya. Birch, a long-term colonial officer, was the Straits Settlements’ Colonial Secretary before being transferred to the native state of Perak as its first Resident. The position was in theory an advisory one, but this was, in the words of Frederick Weld, “one of those fictions in which we seem to delight, as not a penny of money can be spent out of the State revenues without the assent of the Governor, and, under him, the military or police force is entirely in the hands of the Resident”.⁵⁴ Birch, invested thus with immense power, was not well liked by the ruling chiefs, who thought him unduly meddlesome. They approached the Straits Settlements’ Governor Andrew Clarke with a petition to prevent Birch from interfering in local customs, including the right to levy taxes on their people and maintain slaves. After receiving a tepid response, a few chiefs conspired to murder the Resident in cold blood. It is beyond the scope of this paper to analyse this incident.⁵⁵ It shall instead focus on local developments in the immediate aftermath of the murder and the reaction the murder elicited in Singapore’s English-language media.

Within days, the Straits Settlements’ Legislative Council, now headed by Governor Sir William Jervois (1875–77), passed a slew of ordinances to curb the chances of any violent outbreak on the island. Sale or purchase of arms, including bayonets, swords, daggers, krisses, spears and all other “weapons of offence”, was immediately banned; they could be procured only when a licence was issued by an officer appointed with the Governor’s sanction.⁵⁶ In discussions over how the crisis should be handled, one member of the Legislative Council invoked his long experience of having dealt with the Malays to suggest that the best way to teach them a lesson would be by hanging them.⁵⁷

As British troops from Singapore, Melaka and Penang left for Perak, a tremor of fear went through the defenceless settlements. The SO called upon the Volunteer Defence Force to band together as one in front of the native public, in case the latter was harbouring any treacherous ideas, and published numerous letters from members of the public who were baffled at the force’s inaction after the troops’ departure.⁵⁸

Meanwhile, the newspaper continued to publish regular, detailed reports of the action unfolding in Perak and surrounding areas. Speaking about one recalcitrant chief’s desire to surrender in the face of the relentless British assault, a correspondent wrote in with a comment that revealed colonial beliefs and desires:

"With the true instinct of the ignoble savage, he wishes to sneak out of the consequences of his treachery as soon as he finds out we are in earnest… There is no equal stretch of land under the tropics so rich in minerals. These the Malays do not work [emphases added] and the Chinaman will sink no money in unless the British occupy it."⁵⁹

The mercantile class in Singapore, Penang and Melaka had been eyeing the fecund Perak land at least since the Straits Settlements became a Crown Colony, run directly from London instead of India. To this end, they had pressured every governor since Harry Ord to entrench British commercial interests in the region, ramping up the pressure after the 1874 Treaty of Pangkor recognised British suzerainty on the Malay Peninsula.⁶⁰ Some had invoked England’s moral duty to civilise the land, others the desire to save the oppressed peasants from feckless chiefs.

Birch’s brutal murder convinced the authorities that action had to be taken. The SO egged them on. In response to a letter expressing rare dissent towards British policy in peninsular Malaya, the paper fumed that “barbarous horde of savages such as these Malays of Perak have proved themselves” deserved no mercy and even if the Straits colonists had to submit to income tax in order to fund the revenge mission, they would do so. The Straits merchants loathed any public expenditure, so this showed the strength of feeling that prevailed in this matter. Of course, the prospect of being able to mine, strip and cultivate Perak was attractive too. Any tax imposed could be recouped, because not only was the region awash in minerals, its soil was also hospitable to cash crops like tea, coffee and tobacco, and its forests rich in timber.⁶¹

Months later, when the war was won and the deposed chief’s regalia put on public display at the Legislative Council, the SO was dismayed at its impoverished nature – “one small gold kris, two passable sword hilts, and a large piece of glass enclosed in filagree work” and other things that looked like they belonged in a pantomime. The paper mourned that if this “be the most we are to get from Perak, that much vaunted country will not be worth annexing”.⁶²

However, there was another, more critical reason for invasion that the paper itself expressed: Britain could not afford to lose face. “British prestige” was paramount, “whatever may be the cause of a dispute” because it would affect their standing among the natives through the entire region. Thus, as the war got bloodier and British losses mounted, venomous frustration spilled over on the SO’s pages.

"There would be a great deal of moral suasion in placing a hobnailed boot on the bare back of a Malay. Another moral suasion project is to have some gun practice. How the Malays would stare to see an extempore butt, a target in mid stream smashed to atoms."⁶³

As the tide began to turn in Britain’s favour, attention switched to what should be done with Perak. Leaving it to the “Chiefs and Chinamen” to fight it out was out of the question. One newspaper thought of installing a “native puppet” whose strings would be in English hands, while the SO suggested that “as we shall have to govern it in any case, we may as well govern it openly, without the inconvenient hypocrisy of using a native speaking-trumpet”.⁶⁴ As it turned out, one such puppet and trumpet by the name of Raja Yusof was installed with a new Resident, Hugh Low, in tow, thus entrenching British dominance in the Malay states for a long time to come.

Conclusion

Newspapers were alchemical agents that repackaged “scientific theories” of racial superiority into nuggets that could be easily internalised. Depending on the context, representations of local races swung between cartoonish and exotic, childish and brutish. Naturally, the native on the sports field was a buffoon; obviously one did not want to associate with a black man just because he had shoved himself into coat and trousers; was there any doubt that the mutinous Malay was nothing but a treacherous savage? By monotonous repetition, newspapers hammered home these ideas until they became as real as the ink in which they were printed.

The same held true for the British self-image. Undeniably, British sports were more attractive and the competition more palatable; of course the British mission was to civilise the locals for their own good. As Charles Hirschman noted, “Racism provided a rationale for the ‘white man’s burden’ of leading, ruling, or conquering peoples at ‘lower evolutionary stages’ throughout the world. This ideology fitted well with the British need to justify its empire.”⁶⁵

The empire casts a long shadow, and old stereotypes continue to infiltrate modern popular culture. A study conducted in 2020 on football commentary concluded that it “hardens the view of black athletes being their ‘God-given’ physical and athletic attributes”.⁶⁶Closer to home, the “lepak Malay guy” is a trope that has endured ever since Malays were characterised as a lazy, uncivilised race for their refusal to be a part of colonial capitalism.⁶⁷ None of this is new, but by making newspapers the foci of analysis, it becomes apparent that 19th-century newspapers that framed their concerns in starkly racial terms foreshadowed the racially tinged immigration debates occurring in Singapore today.⁶⁸

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor Alan Chong of Nanyang Technological University for his unstinting support and guidance in the writing of this paper. The National Library’s Joanna Tan was extremely helpful and prompt in responding to the umpteen enquiries I sent her way. She is the backbone of the Lee Kong Chian Fellowship programme.

About the author

Abhishek Mehrotra is a researcher, editor and writer with more than a decade’s experience covering history, society, culture and sports in South and Southeast Asia. He has been an editor with ESPNstar.com and Newscorp Singapore, and a journalist and history researcher at The Confluence Media, New Delhi. Abhishek holds a master’s degree in international relations from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.