I would like to wish all our Muslim friends a happy Hari Raya Adilfitri. I was quite literally woken up today by the prayers of the Imam at the mosque not 200m away, but I do not mind that, once a year. It should be a wonderful day of celebration, and great food.

I was chatting with one of my Malay friend in reservist about Ramadan and fasting, and he said that every evening, after the breaking of the fast, the first thing he thinks about is a cigarette, not food or water. He is also fully aware that if he can “quit” smoking for the daylight duration of one month a year, he should be able to quit completely. Oh well.

Religious celebrations in Singapore almost inevitably leads to illegal parking around places of worship. They not just around Mosques on Fridays, they are around Churches on Sundays, and Temples on the 15th and the end of the lunar months.

I am quite sure that many non-Malays have, at some point in time, attributed the reason why Muslim drivers do not get parking tickets when illegal parking near Mosque, to the fact that the majority of Traffic Police and parking attendants are Malay.

The preference by different communities to different types of jobs is one stereotype that very strong in Singapore. I am quite sure that perhaps in the past, it might very well be true that most Traffic Police and parking attendants are Malay. I do not think that they have that large a majority now, especially in view of the privatisation of parking attendants.

Even if it was true that the majority of the people on the ground in those Traffic departments are Malay, it is more than likely, in Singapore’s unique social pact, that the people in charged on top, are Chinese.

I personally do not feel that racial bias is the reason, otherwise you’ll see Traffic Police and parking attendants diligently giving parking tickets to Church and Temple goers. The main reason is, of course, racial harmony. I see the result of this when I am attending a funeral in the void deck of a HDB estate. The parking attendants do not issue tickets to cars parked there during this sensitive period.

For all the value of racial harmony, it still does not solve the traffic conjestion problem around places of worship. There is a Catholic Church at the end of my friend’s street, and on Sundays, he has difficulty driving out of his own house. I also have a friend living just behind Bright Hill Temple, I sympathise with his traffic condition during Qing Ming.

It is quite a simple legislation issue, right? Put the onus on the organisation, to survey on how many visitors and cars they are expecting, and provide the adequate parking space. Shopping malls and convention centres spend millions of dollars to build adequate parking for their customers. Why should other organisations not do the same?

This is probably too big a burden for smaller places of worship to handle. While there are Mega-Churches, and huge Temples and Mosques that go some way to providing parking, most places of worship are small. Many historical ones are in the city, where few can afford to build parking.

I have realised who would suffer the most if the government implemented a policy putting the onus on organisations to provide adequate parking for their visitors. It would be the myriad of government agencies themselves. While we only see a traffic issue with places of worship on specific days of the week, many government agencies have inadequate parking on a daily basis.

Enjoy the holiday and celebrations, be careful when crossing the road between two parked cars.