happy national day
Strangely, watching the NDP this evening stirred up some unusally strong patriotic feelings within me, and caused, as a result, an extreme dislike to singaporeans who spend their useless energy dissing about the government without having experienced a worse alternative. Granted, lacking the "all-encompassing" NS life may give me a disadvantage to experiencing just how inefficient and ineffectual the freedom-robbing system can be, but let me just stage my penny's worth of opinions.The charges against Singapore are common: overly-restrictive, lack of independent expression, lack of opportunities to pursue seemingly impractical careers, dirty politics, etc. Without taking sides, I would just like to implore these people to take a deeper look into these issues and see how history had a hand in shaping these well-known characteristics. Have they gone through war? Do they know what worrying about the next meal is like? Do they know what keeping alive means? Do they understand the pain of being separated from loved ones? What does instability mean? Are riots real? Poverty, what’s that? To these people who have no concept of what hardship is, whose small-mindedness only teach them to vex over academic results, social life, money to go out, stop for a while and think about the extenuating reasons behind our country’s mannerisms. I personally think it’s the constant fear that we may regress into our former unruly state that pushes our leaders to control every tiny part of Singapore. It is a patriachial fear, no doubt, but at least it exists.
Like a child responding to his/her parents’ ways, I’m certainly not saying I agree with everything the government does. There are, of course, flaws in the management of the country. But I earnestly beseech the dissatisfied bunch to consider the existence of the other side of the coin instead of lambasting it with only a one-sided view. Perhaps the way things are done may not be as excellent as we like them to be, but I like to think that the intentions behind them are good and genuine enough. The government is not perfect – that is to be established. But it is certainly not as dismaying as the pop culture make it out to be.
Happy birthday Singapore. Thank you for coming this far.
posted by solitude @ 11:26 PM
Comments: 1
