The Singapore Riots
A large oriental city, such as Singapore, which contains a popu- lation of mixed and often antagonistic races, is always liable to explode in rioting on an apparently trivial excuse. The excuse for this week's riots in Singapore is connected with religion, and there- fore the authorities can never have bad any excuse for regarding it as trivial. To the Moslem mob, which has been indulging in two days of arson and murder, the case is simple ; a Moslem girl has been abducted from her parents and husband and forced to change her religion. The fact that her Malayan parents are legally, only her foster-parents, that the girl is Dutch and that her marriage is. of doubtful validity, are not arguments to influence an excited orowd. Nor, it must be admitted, does much effort appear to have been made to prevent the case from being turned into a simple duel between Islam and Christianity, which, in the circumstances, has inevitably converted it into a duel between rulers and ruled. But, while the stages by which the present crisis has Come about are clear enough, it is difficult not to feel that the dispute (which is surely one of the most inessential in the whole of our colonial history) could have been avoided. The British, who are now suffering most of the opprobrium, are not in any way a direct party to the dispute, which concerns a Dutch and a Malayan family. The ultimate decision as to whether the girl is to spend her life in the East or in the West must be made by the girl herself. This is universally admitted. The only question at issue is where the girl is to spend her time until she has made up her mind, and this is hardly worth the shedding of blood. Perhaps the most unsatisfactory part about the whole incident is that the recent court order settles nothing finally. The whole case is apparently likely to come up again in March on appeal, when, unless energetic measures are taken to prevent it, the trouble will start up again, Maria Hertogh, poor child, is on the way to becoming as much of a nuisance as Helen of Troy.
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