“Lee Kuan Yew Review, Part Three: Race, Language, and Uncomfortable Questions”, TracingWoodgrains2019-07-30 (economics, sociology)⁠:

Here’s a tricky governing problem for you.

Imagine your country had historically encouraged a minority group to segregate into lower income communities with poor living conditions.

Picture, too, that that minority group had historically underperformed in school compared to others.

Say that your country had faced large-scale riots in the 1960s over concerns about perceived government discrimination and oppression.

To spice things up, let’s add that they’re the country’s indigenous people, and that they speak a different language and practice a different faith than everybody else in the country.

…and that initially, they formed the vast majority of the military and the police force, and the majority in your much larger neighbor country. It’s hardly going to mirror other countries exactly, after all.⁽¹²⁾

How do you ensure justice for them and for all citizens?

Singapore has its advantages over other countries, true. It’s… what was the quote?… “a single city with a beautiful natural harbor right smack in the middle of a fantastic chokepoint in one of the biggest trade routes in the world.”¹

But demographically, it’s complicated, to say the least.