Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen

The following was published in the Sunday Times on 22 April 2007: 

Sunday Times 22 April 2007
Arms, Race and the Man
by Colin Goh

I’m assuming many of you would have liked me to share my experiences at the big Singapore Day event that the Gahmen held in New York yesterday.  My assumption is based on the fact that several dozen of you very kindly sent me email invitations – an act of generosity in respect of which, I’m sure, the possibility of winning a free trip played absolutely no part.

Thanks nonetheless, but unfortunately, my deadline for filing this column falls before Singapore Day is scheduled to happen, so you’ll either have to read about it on my blog, or imagine for yourself what eating too much satay in a skating rink feels like.

But to be honest, at this moment, I’m a little unsure about going.  Mostly because in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, it’s perhaps not the best time in the US to be a geeky Asian male being festive in public.

I remember my heart sinking when it emerged that the shooter was an Asian male.  My immediate assumption was that he would be white.  A post-Columbine study conducted by the New York Times showed that out of the 102 rampage killers in the past 50-plus years, only six were female, 18 were black and 7 Asian – the rest were white males.

But despite the statistics, race somehow becomes more of a factor when the murderer is not Caucasian.  Nobody talked about being white during Columbine, but the media and blogosphere certainly seem to be latching on to the fact that Cho Seung-hui is of South Korean descent, even if he’s been in the US since he was 8.

For instance, over the radio, I heard commentators speculating whether ‘reticent Asian culture’, which ‘values quietness, subservience and face’ might have prevented Cho from receiving psychiatric help earlier.

The gross generalization wasn’t confined to non-Asian communities. A Singaporean friend said to me, “I’m not surprised he’s Korean. Haven’t you watched Korean films?  They’re the masters of bloody violence.  Hong Kong violence is very choreographed, Japanese violence tends to be minimalist, Bollywood violence is cartoony, but no one beats the Koreans for sheer brutality.” As if on cue, the American press latched on to a photograph that Cho had mailed to NBC in New York, showing himself wielding a hammer – an image strikingly similar to a famous sequence in Park Chan Wook’s award-winning film, ‘Old Boy’, where the hero bashes a parade of goons with only a hammer.

The South Korean community in the States are already bracing for what they see is an inevitable backlash, and probably with good reason. Even non-Koreans are concerned about collateral damage.  After all, following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Sikhs were assaulted, because some Americans assumed that their turbans made them Taliban.

I must confess that I was perversely relieved to learn that Cho had killed a Chinese and some Indians too – since it showed he had no racist agenda, which I think would definitely have led to retaliatory violence against Asians.  (Retaliation might still happen, but it would be less justifiable – not that violence is ever justifiable, but… you know what I mean, and you see how much ethnicity complicates things.)

So I keep wondering: should we even bring race or culture into the equation? Cho was a nut-job, and mental illness is not race specific.  By making his ethnicity so much a part of his narrative, it gives licence to the more primitive-minded amongst us to give vent to their prejudices.

On the other hand, raising race may have its usefulness, even if it’s only to provoke outrage that after so long, we still resort to simplistic generalizations about people based on their skin colour or ethnic origin.

I can’t help but reflect on growing up in a multi-racial society like Singapore, and how very often, we shy away from discussing race for fear of stirring sensitivities. This is understandable, but I wonder if perhaps the discomfort of openly discussing controversial and painful issues may in the end be the better option. Because suppression invariably breeds misconceptions, entrenches private prejudices and builds resentment, all of which may some day explode.

As we keep learning, sometimes the quiet guys who keep it all inside are the more dangerous fellows.

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