Why netizens are fuming over RGS spokesman’s comments on ‘the ordinary Singaporean’

UPDATE, Oct 25:

RGS has since clarified about the quote with Channel NewsAsia.

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It sure must be tough for Raffles Girls’ School (RGS) students these days. They waved goodbye to their iconic Anderson Road campus located at the fringes of Orchard Road on Oct 22 and would now have to head all the way to Braddell, their new home. 

Which is actually great! Considered by some as an elite school, it’ll shift the students to inhabit an environment that’s not as isolated and sheltered from the regular members of the public. Moving to the heartlands would likely reduce creating a gap between the supposed haves and have-nots. 

But the good intentions were marred when a quote from an RGS spokesperson triggered an outpouring of irate comments from Singaporeans. 

"Moving away from the luxurious condominiums in Orchard Road will allow our girls to reach out more to the ordinary Singaporean," the spokesman stated to The New Paper. 

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That particular passage did not sit well on social media after a Facebook user who goes by Weixiang Schrödinger Lim pointed it out in jest. “Wow can’t make this up,” he wrote in the post, which has since been shared over 760 times as of writing. 

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The anger stems from how the quote appears to be elitist while trying to shed the school’s image of being elitist. To be fair, it is true that RGS students would benefit from having a diverse worldview they might not have gotten in a sequestered part of Singapore filled with well-to-do folks.

But it’s the part where the spokesman uttered “ordinary Singaporean” that blemished whatever good intentions they had. It feels abrasive because it outlines the concept of The Other — as if RGS students are extraordinary while everyone else are just… commoners. 

For us Ordinary Singaporeans, the pains of being typical are hard to rub out.

Let’s take a moment to remember the Wee Shu Min controversy of 2006. Wee, a Raffles Junior College student and daughter of then-Member of Parliament Wee Siew Kim, had dismissed the concerns of a blogger who wrote about how the government could do more to guard against age discrimination in employment.

The teen called the blogger someone who belonged to “the sadder class” and told him to “get out of her elite uncaring face”. 13 years later, we're still getting incensed about elitist sensibilities. 

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Channel NewsAsia got in touch with RGS and as it turns out, the infamous “RGS spokesman” wasn’t even a spokesperson at all. 

RGS informed CNA that the report was based on an “informal conversation” between one of the school’s staff member and a TNP reporter. The man was not even RGS’ spokesperson and had not “identified as such” to the reporter. 

"At no point of time did he say 'ordinary Singaporean'," clarified RGS. 

CNA also reported that the comments made were supposed to be “off-the-record” and that the staffer simply wanted to convey that “the move would allow students to engage more deeply with the local community” considering the new campus’ proximity to the Braddell heartlands. 

ilyas@asiaone.com