Riot in Singapore

News of the first riot here in forty years no doubt reached the In Brief columns world-wide. A week later the charge sheets have mounted to 33 men after a reported four hundred were involved following a traffic fatality. Briefly, it seems a young Indian man who was intoxicated had tried to enter a private bus ferrying foreign workers through Little India. The driver, a Chinese, had denied entry, closing the doors on the man. A stumble led to a fall and with the bus taking off the man somehow was crushed beneath. No real cause for a riot of four hundred on the face of it.
         Yesterday in Dunlop Street, Little India, Ari at the regular Internet place added the detail doing the rounds thereabouts that the anger was provoked when the police and ambulance arrived and all the attention was directed to the threatened Chinese driver. Taking the man to safety perceived as the first priority, at the expense of the compatriot trapped under the vehicle. One might assume extracting the man could not have been straightforward; however the unfortunate impression was conveyed.
         After two and one half years on the territory observing the foreign workers here, both at leisure and at their work sites, the PM's reassurances in the newspaper this morning that there is no "evidence riot reflects workers' unhappiness", as the page one headline proclaimed, can be dismissed.
         Four hundred men quickly joining a riot, stoning police and service personnel, over-turning and torching vehicles and the rest suggests otherwise.

         Anyone reading these pages regularly knows the lamentable conditions endured by the foreign workers here—foreign workers of course in most parts of the globe. Somewhat more rare in the First World perhaps. In an enormously, ostentatiously rich country like Singapore, where the current-day elite are the heirs of coolies themselves, the harshness of labour relations and conditions are all the more striking.
         Aside from the arrests and charges, measures thus far implemented include a 1.1 square kilometre ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol in the particular area concerned. Authorities have urged foreign worker dormitory operators to "keep men within their living quarters and provide recreational activities." (15 Dec 2013 Straits Times.)

         This alone gives some indication of the regime and prevailing attitudes.

         Meanwhile increased police patrols throughout Little India, where traders complain of the vacancy and severe downturn in business. During a brief teh in Dunlop Street yesterday numerous passes witnessed, including the large red 123X wagons standing a couple of storeys high.

         To deal with the riot on the night the Gurkhas were called out from their barracks for their first active engagement in more than a generation. (Not seen on the streets since Will and Kate graced these shores of the former dominion.)
         One of the reports from here in the Jakarta Post mentioned foreign worker dormitories in outlying parts of the island housing 8,000 young men. Desperate for their Sunday afternoon liberty amongst their friends one could safely assume.

         A friend has reported sightings of large groups of men in ramshackle accommodation in forest clearings with clothes hung in trees for drying. Even on a tiny little island such as this rich and poor can be quarantined and separated entirely from each other.
         The poor man and his family back in India. Unmarried Ari has word. Spontaneous collections underway by the good citizens of this country. (Sometimes government and business offerings can be rather miserable in compensation cases here.)