Agents of Empire Representation of Race in Singapore’s 19th Century English Newspapers
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.”6 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.7
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.8 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.9
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.10
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”.11 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.12 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.13 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.14 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.15 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.16
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.17 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.18
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.19
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”.20
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”.21 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.22 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.23
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].24
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.25 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”.26 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”.27
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.28
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”.29 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.”30
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.31
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.32In 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.33
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.34
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.35 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.36 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.37
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.38
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”.39
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.40 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?”41
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.42 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].43
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”.44
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”.45
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’”.46 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.47
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.48 Occasionally, calls were made to replace “outlandish” native road names with “decent ones”.49
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”,50 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.51
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.52
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”.53 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.54 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.55 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.56
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.57
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.58
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.59 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.60
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”.61
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.62
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”.63 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.”64
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”.65Closer 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.66 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.67
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.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
Cameron, John. Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India: Being a Descriptive Account of Singapore, Penang, Province Wellesley and Malacca: Their Peoples, Products, Commerce and Government. Facsimile reprint, 2015. London: Smith Elder and Co., 1865. (From National Library Online; Call no. RRARE 959.5 CAM; Accession no. B29032445G)
Crawfurd, John. “On the Physical and Mental Characteristics of the European and Asiatic Races of Man.” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, 5 (1866): 58–81. (From EBSCOhost via NLB’s eResources website)
Makepeace, Walter. “Institutions and Clubs.” In One Hundred Years of Singapore: Being Some Account of the Capital of the Straits Settlements From Its Foundation by Sir Stamford Raffles on the 6th February 1819 to the 6th February 1919, vol. 2, edited by Walter Makepeace, Gilbert E. Brooke and Roland St. J. Braddell. Facsimile reprint, 2016. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1921. (Call no. RSING 959.57 ONE-[HIS])
Weld, Frederick A. “The Straits Settlements and British Malaya.” Transcript of speech given to the Royal Colonial Institute in London, 23 June 1884. (From BookSG; Call no. RRARE 959.503 WEL-[JSB]; Accession no. B29268823G)
Newspaper Articles (From NewspaperSG)
Daily Advertiser. “The Land Sports.” 3 January 1893, 3.
Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1835–1869). “The Free Press.” 23 December 1853, 2.
Straits Budget. “The Lady Phrenologist.” 25 February 1898, 10.
Straits Eurasian Advocate. “Extracts.” 17 March 1888, 4.
—. “Stray Notes.” 17 March 1888, 5.
—. “Random Shots by Our Facetious Correspondent.” 31 March 1888, 6.
—. “The Domestic Servants Ordinance.” 31 March 1888, 2.
—. “Untitled.” 31 March 1888, 3.
—. “Local and General.” 31 March 1888, 5.
—. “Untitled.” 7 April 1888, 4.
—. “Local and General.” 12 April 1888, 5.
—. “Random Shots by Our Facetious Correspondent.” 12 April 1888, 4.
—. “Local and General.” 14 April 1888, 4.
—. “Correspondence.” 21 April 1888, 3.
—. “Untitled.” 30 June 1888, 3.
Straits Observer (Singapore). “Untitled.” 5 November 1875, 2.
—. “Untitled.” 12 November 1875, 2.
—. “Volunteers to the Front.” 19 November 1875, 2.
—. “The Perak War.” 14 December 1875, 2.
—. “The Perak Expedition.” 14 December 1875, 24.
—. “The Perak War.” 14 December 1875, 24.
—. “Untitled.” 28 December 1875, 2.
—. “The Perak Expedition.” 31 December 1875, 2.
—. “New Year’s Day.” 2 January 1875, 2.
—. “Where, and Oh Where, Are Our Island Laddies Gone!” 13 January 1876, 3.
—. “Untitled.” 7 April 1876, 2.
Straits Times. “Untitled.” 15 July 1845, 2.
—. “New Year’s Day.” 2 January 1875, 3.
—. “The New Year Sports.” 2 January 1895, 2.
—. “The New Year Sports.” 2 January 1897, 3.
—. “The New Year.” 3 January 1899, 3.
Straits Times Overland Journal. “What Shall We Do With It.” 13 January 1876, 2.
—. “Outside Opinion on Perak.” 24 February 1876, 3.
Straits Times Weekly Issue. “The Tyersall Hounds.” 5 March 1883, 11.
—. “A Complaint.” 29 June 1887, 11.
Secondary Sources
Alatas, Syed Hussein. The Myth of the Lazy Native: A Study of the Image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th Century and Its Function in the Ideology of Colonial Capitalism. New York: Routledge, 2010. (Call no. RSING 305.800959 ALA)
Cheah, Boon Kheng. “Malay Politics and the Murder of J. W-W. Birch, British Resident in Perak, in 1875: The Humiliation and Revenge of the Maharaja Lela.” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 71, no. 1 (1998): 74–105. (From JSTOR via NLB’s eResources website)
Cohn, Bernard S. Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. (Call no. R 954 COH)
Cornelius, Vernon. “Singapore Chronicle.” Singapore Infopedia, published 2017.
Hirschman, Charles. “The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology.” Sociological Forum 1, no. 2 (Spring 1986): 330–61. (From JSTOR via NLB’s eResources website)
—. “The Meaning and Measurement of Ethnicity in Malaysia.” The Journal of Asian Studies 46, no. 3 (1987): 555–82. (From ProQuest Central via NLB’s eResources website)
Kaul, Chandrika. Reporting the Raj: The British Press and India, c. 1880–1922. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.
Lee, Edwin. The British as Rulers Governing Multi-Racial Singapore 1867–1914. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1991. (Call no. RSING 959.57022 LEE-[HIS])
Luyt, Brendan. “The Importance of Fiction to the Raffles Library, Singapore, During the Long Nineteenth-Century.” Library & Information History 25, no. 2 (2009): 117–31.
Nakrani, Sachin. “Groundbreaking Report Reveals Racial Bias in English Football Commentary.” The Guardian, 29 June 2020.
Noor, Farish. “Money-Making Bodies: Prostitution in Colonial Southeast Asia.” BiblioAsia 11, no. 3 (2015).
Pan, Jie. “A Brief, Dark History of ‘Lepak One Corner’.” Rice Media, 23 July 2018.
Pillai, Manu. False Allies: India’s Maharajas in the Age of Ravi Verma. New Delhi: Juggernaut, 2021.
Potter, Simon. “Webs, Networks, and Systems: Globalization and the Mass Media in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Empire.” Journal of British Studies 46, no. 3 (2007): 621–46. (From JSTOR via NLB’s eResources website)
Rai, Rajesh. “The 1857 Panic and the Fabrication of an Indian ‘Menace’ in Singapore.” Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 2 (2013): 365–405. (From EBSCOhost via NLB’s eResources website)
Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin, 2003. (Call no. 950.07 SAI)
Seeley, John Robert. The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883.
NOTES
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Vernon Cornelius, “Singapore Chronicle,” Singapore Infopedia, published 2017. ↩
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John Cameron, Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India: Being a Descriptive Account of Singapore, Penang, Province Wellesley and Malacca: Their Peoples, Products, Commerce and Government (London: Smith Elder and Co., 1865), 297. (From BookSG; Call no. RRARE 959.5 CAM; Accession no. B29032445G) ↩
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John Robert Seeley, The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883), 8. ↩
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Edwin Lee, The British as Rulers Governing Multi-Racial Singapore 1867–1914 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1991), 281. (Call no. RSING 959.57022 LEE-[HIS]) ↩
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Ellen C. Cangi, “Civilizing the People of Southeast Asia: Sir Stamford Raffles’ Town Plan for Singapore, 1819–23,” Planning Perspectives 8, no. 2 (1993): 167. ↩
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Frederick A. Weld, “The Straits Settlements and British Malaya,” transcript of speech given to the Royal Colonial Institute in London, 1884. (From National Library Online; Call no. RRARE 959.503 WEL-[JSB]; Accession no. B29268823G) ↩
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Weld, “Straits Settlements and British Malaya.” ↩
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“The Free Press,” Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 23 December 1853, 2; “Page 3 Advertisements Column 2,” Mid-Day Herald, 19 February 1898, 3 (From NewspaperSG). In addition, the visit was advertised in the Straits Times and Straits Budget. The latter’s correspondent was convinced “there was something more in phrenology than is generally credited by the great unbelieving mass of humanity”. For more details, see “The Lady Phrenologist,” Straits Budget, 25 February 1898, 10. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“People in a Native State,” Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 2 December 1893, 3. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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Chandrika Kaul, Reporting the Raj: The British Press and India, c. 1880–1922 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), 258. ↩
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Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 2003), 41. (Call no. 950.07 SAI) ↩
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Charles Hirschman, “The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology,” Sociological Forum 1, no. 2 (Spring 1986): 347. (From JSTOR via NLB’s eResources website) ↩
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Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 111–12. (Call no. R 954 COH) ↩
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Brendan Luyt, “The Importance of Fiction to the Raffles Library, Singapore, During the Long Nineteenth-Century,” Library & Information History 25, no. 2 (2009): 130. ↩
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Horse riders would gallop behind hounds in pursuit of an artificially laid scent. The Straits Times Weekly Issue of 5 March 1883 reported on one such drag hunt spanning Balestier Road, Bukit Timah Road, Grange Road and Tyersall Avenue. For details, see “The Tyersall Hounds,” Straits Times Weekly Issue, 5 March 1883, 11. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“In Colonial Settlements, far removed from the mother country, much of the spirit of nationality is apt to be lost or forgotten, arising, in most cases, from different associations which other circumstances than those to which we have become accustomed are wont to engender, as well as from the influence which removal from the place of their constant exercise occasions.” “Untitled,” Straits Times, 15 July 1845, 2. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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Simon Potter, “Webs, Networks, and Systems: Globalization and the Mass Media in the Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century British Empire,” Journal of British Studies 46, no. 3 (2007): 624. (From JSTOR via NLB’s eResources website) ↩
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The NewspaperSG site is a virtually inexhaustible treasure trove of information about early colonial Singapore. Forming an almost unbroken chain of information that depicts mores, norms and social the origins of some of its deepest fissures. No scholar hoping to understand modern-day Singapore can afford to ignore this vital resource. attitudes from the 1820s to the current era, it provides a deep insight into the country’s evolution and ↩
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“The Land Sports,” Daily Advertiser, 3 January 1893, 3. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“The New Year Sports,” Straits Times, 2 January 1897, 3. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“New Year’s Day,” Straits Times, 2 January 1875, 3. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“New Year’s Day.” ↩
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“The New Year Sports,” Straits Times, 2 January 1895, 2. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“New Year Sports.” ↩
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The Indian historian Manu Pillai makes the same point in the context of how the English treated the subcontinent’s Bacchanalian royalty. “As with stereotypes generally,” he says, “while there was a measure of truth to this talk of excess, its circulation also served more insidious purposes. For the British, it conveniently infantilized Indian rulers and cemented the claim that natives were simply incapable of serious government.” For details, see Manu Pillai, False Allies: India’s Maharajas in the Age of Ravi Verma (New Delhi: Juggernaut, 2021). ↩
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“Local and General,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 12 April 1888, 5. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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This gradually started to change towards the end of the century when some winners were named – Eusop Patel for the one-lap race, Tan Heng Moh and Lim Yan Choa for the two-lap. For details, see “The New Year,” Straits Times, 3 January 1899, 3. Determining whether this was an anomaly or the beginning of a new trend of naming some native winners will require further study of early 20th-century papers. ↩
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“New Year’s Day,” Straits Times, 2 January 1875, 2. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“The New Year.” ↩
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“Extracts,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 17 March 1888, 4. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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The SCC would open its gates to other ethnicities in early 1950s, almost a decade before the SRC. ↩
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“A Complaint,” Straits Times Weekly Issue, 29 June 1887, 11. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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Farish Noor, “Money-Making Bodies: Prostitution in Colonial Southeast Asia,” BiblioAsia 11, no. 3 (2015). ↩
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The first newspaper by the Eurasians was Straits Intelligence. It was started by a piano tuner named John Hansen in the early 1870s and sank rather swiftly. Walter Makepeace, “Institutions and Clubs,” in One Hundred Years of Singapore, vol. 2, ed. Walter Makepeace, Gilbert E. Brooke and Roland St. J. Braddell, facsimile reprint 2016 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1921), 294. (Call no. RSING 959.57 ONE-[HIS]) ↩
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An interesting exchange occurred between the SEA and a correspondent who took objection to the paper naming meritorious Eurasians in its pages. The correspondent claimed that some of those named may have wanted to hide the fact that they were Eurasian “for reasons best known to themselves”. It is not difficult to guess what those reasons would have been. The paper’s spirited response was that “we do not hold any very exalted view of the man who is ashamed of his origin”. For the full discussion, see Untitled, Straits Eurasian Advocate, 31 March 1888, 3. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“Untitled,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 7 April 1888, 4. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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Makepeace, Brooke and Braddell, One Hundred Years of Singapore, 294. ↩
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“Stray Notes,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 17 March 1888, 5. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“Random Shots by Our Facetious Correspondent,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 12 April 1888, 4. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“Random Shots by Our Facetious Correspondent,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 31 March 1888, 6. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“Local and General,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 14 April 1888, 4. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“The Domestic Servants Ordinance,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 31 March 1888, 2. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“Extracts,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 17 March 1888, 4. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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Untitled, Straits Eurasian Advocate, 30 June 1888, 3. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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Local and General,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 31 March 1888, 5. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“Correspondence,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 21 April 1888, 3. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“The Word ‘Eurasian’,” Straits Eurasian Advocate, 31 March, 1888, 3. (From NewspaperSG). ↩
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“The Perak War,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 14 December 1875, 24. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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The 1857 Indian Rebellion, for example, caused the Europeans to become inordinately afraid of the Indians in Singapore, so much so that the Straits Settlements began agitating against Indian convicts being transported to the island. This fear may have worsened relations between the broader European and Indian communities and contributed to lower migration rates of the latter to Singapore in the subsequent decades. For a detailed discussion on this, see Rajesh Rai, “The 1857 Panic and the Fabrication of an Indian ‘Menace’ in Singapore,” Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 2 (2013): 365–405. (From EBSCOhost via NLB’s eResources website) ↩
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Weld, “Straits Settlements and British Malaya.” ↩
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A comprehensive analysis is Cheah Boon Kheng, “Malay Politics and the Murder of J. W-W. Birch, British Resident in Perak, in 1875: The Humiliation and Revenge of the Maharaja Lela,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 71, no. 1 (1998): 74–105. (From JSTOR via NLB’s eResources website) ↩
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“Untitled,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 12 November 1875, 2. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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Untitled,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 5 November 1875, 2 (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“Untitled,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 12 November 1875, 2; “Volunteers to the Front,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 19 November 1875, 2; “Where, and Oh Where, Are Our Island Laddies Gone!” Straits Observer (Singapore), 19 November 1875, 3 January 1876, 3. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“The Perak Expedition,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 14 December 1875, 24 (From NewspaperSG). Syed Hussein Alatas deals extensively with why the Malays did not “work” the land. Simply put, they did not need to. For this excellent discussion, see Syed Hussein Alatas, The Myth of the Lazy Native: A Study of the Image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th Century and Its Function in the Ideology of Colonial Capitalism (New York: Routledge, 2010). (Call no. RSING 305.800959 ALA) ↩
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Sir Harry Ord was Governor from 1867 to 1871, during which time he tried to abide by the policy of non-intervention in native states – a legacy of the 1857 Indian Mutiny. Sir Andrew Clarke’s gradual reversal of this policy culminated in the Pangkor Treaty of 1874; propelled by mercantile fervour and angered by Birch’s assassination, Clarke’s successor Sir William Jervois was even more forceful in his thrust up and into the Peninsula. ↩
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“The Perak War,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 14 December 1875, 2. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“Untitled,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 7 April 1876, 2. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“The Perak Expedition,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 31 December 1875, 2. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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“What Shall We Do with It,” Straits Times Overland Journal (Singapore), 13 January 1876, 2; “Untitled,” Straits Observer (Singapore), 28 December 1875, 2; “Outside Opinion on Perak,” Straits Times Overland Journal, 24 February 1876, 3. (From NewspaperSG) ↩
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Charles Hirschman, “The Meaning and Measurement of Ethnicity in Malaysia,” Journal of Asian Studies 46, no. 3 (August 1987): 568. (From ProQuest Central via NLB’s eResources website) ↩
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Sachin Nakrani, “Groundbreaking Report Reveals Racial Bias in English Football Commentary,” The Guardian, 29 June 2020. ↩
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Pan Jie, “A Brief, Dark History of ‘Lepak One Corner’,” Rice Media, 23 July 2018. ↩
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A more comprehensive research project would contrast the English media’s representations of race with early Chinese, Tamil and Malay media, and examine how the ruled viewed the rulers and how newspapers created an imagined imperial community. ↩