A national identity is a person's identity and sense of belonging to a state or to a nation, a feeling which one shares with a group of people, regardless of one's citizenship status. It is a sense of emotional attachment and as feelings are something that cannot be forced and created by the state but instead must be what an individual truly feels. Hence, as the sense of attachment is created by the people and not the state, I disagree that the Singapore National Identity is created by the state.
To create a national identity for Singapore, policies had been imposed by the government, an example of which is the education policy. The education policy ensures that everyone, regardless of race and religion, has the same curriculum. This policy is the effort made by the government to ensure that everyone is banded together by a common item regardless of the multiracial society, starting from as young as toddler age, when parents start sending their kids to classes. The government has also enforced the ethnic quota in HDBs such that there would be interaction between different ethnic groups, whereby everyone would be bound together by something similar and not just according to race or religion.
The government has also allocated funds for national celebrations such as Chinggay and National Day to instill in Singaporeans a sense of pride. Singaporeans are also engaged to participate in the mass dances organised at those events and interact with fellow Singaporeans to further create a sense of belonging. While the government provides the place for interaction, the people are the ones who have to make an initiative to break the boundary between the different ethnic groups for the government’s effort to not be in vain as well as to craft out an unique national identity for themselves. An example of such a national identity that depends on the