Friday, September 12, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Third World Attitudes
To say that Singaporeans have third world attitudes would be to insult the Third World. Travelling through South East Asia, a region still characterised as the Third World, I have seen truly elegant social graces, far more civilised than those that exist in this country! We are supposedly, if you listen to the authorities, the beacon of economic prosperity, in a region mired in political and social chaos. And to a large extent this is true. Why oh why then do we have such abysmal manners and social behaviours. We treat the people who do the jobs that no one else wants to do, the cleaners, the maids, the army of service personnel, the construction workers, as though they are the serf class in an increasingly 20th Century feudal society. We behave as though we are feudal Lords in Castles, employing people on disgraceful wages, forcing them to wake before dawn and to work tirelessly till way past dusk, berating them, abusing them in horrendous ways should they even make a single mistake. Is this what economic prosperity does to human beings? Do we truly believe that it elevates us above our fellow human beings?
This is how we appear to be raising our children...I witnessed a child, a student at a Primary school, barging his way to the front of a queue at the canteen. When chastised by the stall operator, he sneeringly said "My father told me that I don't have to queue because I am rich!"
This is the future of our nation? Then it is a future that I will gladly abandon for a less arrogant society....
This is how we appear to be raising our children...I witnessed a child, a student at a Primary school, barging his way to the front of a queue at the canteen. When chastised by the stall operator, he sneeringly said "My father told me that I don't have to queue because I am rich!"
This is the future of our nation? Then it is a future that I will gladly abandon for a less arrogant society....
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Double Standards?
I am a big fan of the Olympics...even though I'm becoming less and less enamoured of them as the years go by and more athletes are turning professional. I particularly admire paralympians who, more so than regular super fit Olympian have to overcome Herculean odds to achieve sporting victory. So, then...why aren't we getting ANY coverage of the Paralympics on TV? There's nothing at all safe a 1-2 minute segment on the news. What's even worse, is that when Singaporean, native-born Paralympian Laurentia Tan won a bronze in an Equestrian event yesterday, it only warranted a tiny section in the front page and a full page in the sports section. When our foreign bought table tennis players won a silver, it made HEADLINES. So why the discrepancy? After all, isn't this what we were waiting for? A true blue Singaporean winning an Olympic medal?
Here's the bigger question....will our Paralympians be greeted with the same pomp and circumstance as the table tennis players when they return to Singapore? Will the medal winners be granted a National Medal? Will they be feted at NTUC Fairprice events? Will the PM be as effusive in his enthusiastic praise? Let's wait and see....
Here's the bigger question....will our Paralympians be greeted with the same pomp and circumstance as the table tennis players when they return to Singapore? Will the medal winners be granted a National Medal? Will they be feted at NTUC Fairprice events? Will the PM be as effusive in his enthusiastic praise? Let's wait and see....
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Sweeping Assumptions
It seems as though the residents of a middle class neighbourhood in Singapore have made some very big assumptions about the quality of some potential new neighbours. If an unused school is used as a dormitory for about a thousand foreign workers, as the authorities have suggested, then these new neighbours will overwhelm the once quiet, peaceful neighbourhood, swarming for the public buses to transport them to their work sites, invade their personal space, walking around half naked, befriending their maids, staring at them with undisguised greed, waiting to pounce on their properties, children, elderly parents etc
So what are the assumptions then?
1. These are unwashed, unclothed, unskilled labourers who work in construction sites around the island
2. They or at least a large proportion of them, are part of the criminal element that now haunt Singapore
3. They will be destroying the peace of the neighbourhood by blasting their 'boom boxes', congregating in large threatening groups and getting drunk, spitting, littering and generally being a complete nuisance.
So, where are these assumptions coming from? Have any of the petitioners ever lived in close proximity to these assumed 'menaces of the modern world'? Have they witnessed any of the acts they assume will inevitably happen if these 'foreigners' move in or have they been listening to the urban legends of their friends and reading about similar incidents in the media?
It is commendable that they recognize that these foreigners make a contribution to our economy. They in fact, do the jobs that Singaporeans look down their noses at and shun as beneath their dignity and worth. We seem to be victims of our own class prejudices! If we won't stoop to service level jobs...and these include customer service work, nursing, construction work, garbage disposal, cleaning and other 'unworthy' jobs, then can we blame the government for having to bring in people from less fortunate countries than ours to perform these tasks.
With our population, foreign and domestic, burgeoning, space is shrinking in this country.
You are going to have to get used to sharing your neighbourhood with everyone, and not just the people you designate 'worthy' of your space.
It seems that this incident is merely a symptom of what is potentially going to become described as a plague of overcrowding. If you want continued unlimited growth, then expect continued overcrowding. If you believe that this island can sustain a population of six and a half million, than this is merely a taste of what is to come. If you want the life and the nighbourhoods that you enjoy, with peace and quiet and serenity, then you also have to call on a halt or a slow down to growth....will you accept this?
So what are the assumptions then?
1. These are unwashed, unclothed, unskilled labourers who work in construction sites around the island
2. They or at least a large proportion of them, are part of the criminal element that now haunt Singapore
3. They will be destroying the peace of the neighbourhood by blasting their 'boom boxes', congregating in large threatening groups and getting drunk, spitting, littering and generally being a complete nuisance.
So, where are these assumptions coming from? Have any of the petitioners ever lived in close proximity to these assumed 'menaces of the modern world'? Have they witnessed any of the acts they assume will inevitably happen if these 'foreigners' move in or have they been listening to the urban legends of their friends and reading about similar incidents in the media?
It is commendable that they recognize that these foreigners make a contribution to our economy. They in fact, do the jobs that Singaporeans look down their noses at and shun as beneath their dignity and worth. We seem to be victims of our own class prejudices! If we won't stoop to service level jobs...and these include customer service work, nursing, construction work, garbage disposal, cleaning and other 'unworthy' jobs, then can we blame the government for having to bring in people from less fortunate countries than ours to perform these tasks.
With our population, foreign and domestic, burgeoning, space is shrinking in this country.
You are going to have to get used to sharing your neighbourhood with everyone, and not just the people you designate 'worthy' of your space.
It seems that this incident is merely a symptom of what is potentially going to become described as a plague of overcrowding. If you want continued unlimited growth, then expect continued overcrowding. If you believe that this island can sustain a population of six and a half million, than this is merely a taste of what is to come. If you want the life and the nighbourhoods that you enjoy, with peace and quiet and serenity, then you also have to call on a halt or a slow down to growth....will you accept this?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Litter-ati
I read in the Straits Times this morning about our persistent litterbugs...some of whom who are supposedly 'educated' folks who litter without care in cinemas. They believe its even a right to do so...as if they were at The Raffles Longbar and casting peanut shells on the floor was a tradition. Well, its not a bloody tradition to cast your popcorn on the floor of cinema halls, you idiots!! Its just shows your breeding!! An engineer, no less, actually stated that she didnt like to 'take her litter out of the cinema because there were cleaners there to do it for her'. "After all its their job!" she claimed.
Well, Ms Engineer, who tidies up your home I wonder? I propose the following solution. Give the cleaners a week off work on full pay. Then when the cinema halls pile up with garbage so high that you can't see your favourite movie because of the mountain of popcorn blocking your view, maybe THEN you'll do something about it. Or maybe not, because in the time honoured tradition of most Singaporeans, all you'll do is complain that no one cleaned up after you! Just goes to show that we may have a really high literacy rate, we may supposedly have the 'best' education system in the world, it just doesnt seem to produce too many educated people!
Well, Ms Engineer, who tidies up your home I wonder? I propose the following solution. Give the cleaners a week off work on full pay. Then when the cinema halls pile up with garbage so high that you can't see your favourite movie because of the mountain of popcorn blocking your view, maybe THEN you'll do something about it. Or maybe not, because in the time honoured tradition of most Singaporeans, all you'll do is complain that no one cleaned up after you! Just goes to show that we may have a really high literacy rate, we may supposedly have the 'best' education system in the world, it just doesnt seem to produce too many educated people!
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