TR EMERITUS

SM Lee missed the point when he said that we should help immigrants and foreign workers integrate and guard against xenophobia.

The larger point is that Singaporeans are not replacing themselves; at 0.97 child per woman when the replacement rate is 2.1, born-and-bred Singaporeans will be extinct soon.

But it is understandable why he brought up the sub-point rather than the main point; namely, that he can shift the blame to the people and that new citizens almost always vote the incumbent in their first election.

But reproduction is the supreme mission of any living thing; that Singaporeans are not doing that clearly indicates that something is fundamentally wrong with our society, and his party played a major role, which, he rather forget - in addition to having made Singapore into one of the most expensive city in the world, and thus has become too costly for many to bring up a child; his party has also taken away the essence of human life by systematically conditioning our behavior, and worse, our thoughts, - which is evil as it dehumanizes; it is no coincidence we also have the highest suicide rate in South-East Asia.

The fact is that Singapore will always have a manpower problem if the government places profits ahead of human dignity because businesses will always want more workers to drive down labour cost and to expand; and ironically, the harder we chase profits, the lower will be the fertility rate.

But as the government, his party should remember that the development of Singaporeans to their fullest potential is the ultimate goal, not profits. As a developed country, we should now move on to the next phase, which is to develop human potential and human dignity, and not be stuck in the same old rut chasing material wants.

Foong Swee Fong