TR EMERITUS

Dear Straits Times, I refer to your 12 Sept 2010 editorial. You said the government successfully turned Singapore from third world to first world in a breathtakingly short time. Lim Kim San sat on the SPH chair for as long as anyone could remember. Did Lim Kim San take Straits Times from a third world newspaper to a first world newspaper in a breathtakingly short time? More likely than not, it didn't matter if it was Lim Kim San or anybody else who sat on the coveted chair, Straits Times progressed just the same. Similarly, it didn't matter if it was the PAP or the British who ruled Singapore, Singapore progressed just the same. Hong Kong is a very clear example of the fate that would have befallen Singapore had Singapore continued to be ruled by the British and not the PAP. We would have been different but just as prosperous. The government has not been delivering on its promises of late. It has in fact forgotten some of its promises. It took three years of relentless property price sky rocketing and many letters before the government finally decided to wake up and do something about it. It has allowed a top terrorist to slip away under its watchful eyes. It has allowed Orchard Road to be flooded like never before. It is not that citizens expect perfection from the government. It is the government which has always insisted they are the best but yet they are far from it. You said New Yorkers who stayed on the outskirts take a long time to commute into the city but they don't complain. But that's perfectly understandable. Just like people from JB who travels to Singapore everyday to work doesn't complain. Imagine if New Yokers who stayed within the metropolis also took a long time to commute to work. That would be reason for complaint. Yet, New York subways are far from as crowded as ours. That's why they don't complain. Yes, Singaporeans should do something about things that make them unhappy. Airing their views and making their unhappiness known is one such thing to do. We don't call it 'gripe', we call it 'enlightening the unenlightened'. Thank you   Ng Kok Lim  Read More →

The desperate attempts of the increasingly unpopular PAP regime to reach out to young Singaporeans by starting yet another Facebook launched in person this time by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong appeared to have backfired spectacularly again. Despite the extensive publicity given to it by the mainstream media, the Ang Mo Kio-Yio Chu Kang Facebook has garnered only 160 fans so far, the majority of whom are PAP critics who took the opportunity to take pot shots at the PAP and to promote the Temasek Review:   PM Lee started the ball rolling with a one-liner on the Facebook: "Hope you will all participate actively, and post on our wall!" His call was heeded by anti-PAP netizens who flocked to post on the Facebook. Kojakbt wrote: "Dear PM Lee, I just hope that you are magnanimous enough to take any negative criticisms to PAP and PAP policies in stride. Don't just look at the praises and be blinded by them. Read the negative comments too so as to better understand the problems below. Those criticise because they care for Singapore. The day that th...ey stop criticising is when they have all given up on Singapore. Don't behave like Minister Lim Swee Say who said in parliament: "we are deaf to all criticisms". Alex Tan added: "PM Lee your irrational support for the influx of Foreigners is putting Singaporeans out of job and depressing wages. our elderly are taking to the streets and picking up tin cans and recyclable materials to sell for a living each day. what is the PAP government doing? Are you serving Singaporeans or the Foreigners? We want Change, vote the PAP out." There was also an interesting exchange between a PAP grassroots leader Robin Chua and PAP critics: Netizens should be extra vigilant when posting critical comments of the PAP regime on the Ang Mo Kio Facebook as some PAP members and grassroots leaders may misinterpret them as "criminal defamation" or "inciting violence and public disorder" and lodge a police report which the Singapore police will definitely take action immediately as in the case of YOG critic Abdul Malik who was arrested "automatically" by the police for criticizing PAP minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Facebook without the latter making a formal police report. The PAP regime is never interested in engaging young Singaporeans who should not be deceived by its latest pathetic "wayang" to score cheap brownie points with the post-1965 generation.     Related articles: >> PM Lee invites netizens to post comments on Ang Mo Kio Facebook   Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us.  Read More →

This is exactly the kind of policy I have been dreading for a while, and now it’s finally here. Singapore with regards to this latest immigration policy: You’re doing it wrong. This is no different from setting an ultimatum to permanent residents saying “join us or leave”. Such a policy is already setting off alarm bells. One, what if the permanent residents do not want to give up their original citizenship? Should Singapore simply give up on these people and watch the ‘foreign talent’ she has been harping on finally leave? Two, what happens if these reluctant permanent residents such as the French national in the above article finally decide to relent and take up Singapore citizenship? Are these new citizens the same as the ones born and bred in Singapore? Will they possess the same nationalistic pride as the so-called ‘native’ Singaporeans? Or perhaps the lack thereof, indeed just like their native counterparts? If the SM’s remark is ever to be introduced as a future policy, then it would join the ranks of other previous policies that had only served to exacerbate Singapore’s increasing migrant problems. One obvious policy would be the increasingly more relaxed immigration controls over the decades in order to accommodate the economy’s transition from manufacturing to service and financial sectors in the 1980s, and finally to IT and R&D in the 1990s. Between 1990 and 2000 the number of permanent residents and non-resident foreigners doubled, a significant increase compared to the relatively small rise in citizen population. As the government has always said, migration is crucial to Singapore’s economic growth, and as much as many Singaporeans would like to refute this, migration is an important by-product of globalisation that drives a capitalist economy like Singapore. However, uncontrolled immigration is a different story altogether. My family applied for the PR status for the first time around the early 2000s. My father belongs to the blue-collared skilled worker level, but a tax-paying, CPF-contributing worker nonetheless; my mother a housewife and both their children in relatively higher educational levels in the national system. It took us about fivetimes of application before we were finally granted our request in 2007. Nowadays, it is no longer a surprise for newly arrived foreigners of the same level in the workforce to receive the PR status after merely 6 months of stay in Singapore. Such lax immigration policies would only serve to inflame local discontent simmering at ground level as well as hinder any progress at integration for new citizens. That said, the dilemma faced by Singapore is understandable and in fact, not limited to only Singapore. Migration issues remain a problem even in countries with centuries of established history and sense of nationalism. In Germany there is currently a huge controversial discussion over the migration policies of the government. A renowned politician and economist recently remarked that “Germany Is Abolishing Itself” with the increasing migrant population. Sarrazin’s comment that the significant Turkish population would decrease the average intelligence of the German people has been compared to Hitler’s application of racial genomics, but surprisingly there has been a lot of responses in the affirmative from ethnic Germans in the media, highlighting the problems faced and brought about by Turkish immigrants in Germany, who are much more integrated in German society in comparison to permanent residents and foreigners in Singapore. Personally, I give props to the government for considering such a bold policy with good intentions of confronting migration issues (I shall pretend not to see the political motivations of such a move) but I feel that the Singapore is missing the point of what citizenship really is. To me, it seems that they perceive the material things to be the sole determinant of a migrant’s decision to take up Singapore citizenship. Sure, a comfortable lifestyle, more affordable housing, better education system and overall social benefits that cannot be found in their homeland country are prerequisites of attracting new citizens. But whatever happened to sense of belonging? Singapore should ask herself: What is a citizen, really? How long does it take before a migrant becomes a native? For me, being a citizen means not only do you have property and financialinvestment in the country, but also emotional investment in the form of intangible connections and relationships to the society itself. Being a citizen means you have the desire to improve the societyyou’re living in and actively try to act on this desire. And I believe that Singapore should aim to attract such kind of citizens, not people with a symbiotic business relationship of convenience with the nation and who use Singapore merely as a stepping-stone rather than earth to sink roots in. The first step is confronting the issues surrounding migration problems at the ground level. A look at some local political websites online reveals alarmingly backward xenophobic sentiments among the netizen community. I’m sure this is a close enough representation of Singaporeans’ view towards the increasing foreign population in the country. It is probably useful to ask ourselves why there is even such a sentiment. I believe it has less to do with ethnocentric tendencies but more to do with economic discontent. A common grouse among Singaporean workers is the general feeling of discrimination in the workforce to the disadvantage of locals. Personally I think there should be major obvious distinctions in socio-economic benefits between citizens and non-citizens. According to the social contract, the state should give the citizens benefits in exchange for the latter’s loyalty and patriotism. But herein lies the dilemma of reconciling the social contract with the spirit of meritocracy, which is one of the cornerstones of Singapore’s success. Making such a distinction between citizens and non-citizens is a double-edged sword. Foreigners may feel discriminated and leave the country altogether, or they may be enticed to take up citizenship and contribute to the society permanently. However, it seems necessary at this point in order to allay locals’ feelings of being neglected by their own government. Government policies aside, we must also remember that it is the employers who decide whothey want to employ, not the government. Why do employers insist on discriminating against employing local Singaporeans? Capitalist employers would choose foreign labour who are willing to work longer hours and be paid cheaper wages, that is understandable. But what about white- collared discrimination against Singaporean workers – is this a case of colonial hangover? In 2006, skilled workers and professionals accounted for 13.4 percent (about 90,000) of Singapore's total non-resident population. Most of them are from Malaysia, China and India, not the typical ‘whites’ portrayed in Jack Neo films. Is this a reflection of Singapore’s changing mentality that anything foreign is better? What of Singapore’s pride as an economic success then? Language is also another barrier that prevents acceptance of foreigners by local residents. However, I might say that language is not so much a problem in Singapore as in Germany. A large population of ethnically foreign long-term permanent residents in Germany still does not have the basic grasp of the German language, necessitating the need for integration courses at local town offices. The difference lies in that the majority of Singapore’s migrants still hail from the same countries the ancestors of the local residents did, namely Malaysia, China and India. The foreigners from countries besides these three are forced to pick up the official language, English, in order to function in Singaporean society, whereas Turkish is a second language in Germany, therefore the same need does not exist for the major migrant population. Which brings me to the point that the migrants themselves should share some blame for the immigration problems of the country. There are two types of immigrants: first, the immigrant who clings onto their native culture and assimilate into the host country (this is usually the first generation immigrants); second, the immigrant who is more emotionally attached to the cultureof the host country than his ‘native culture’ and therefore more integrated in the host country(this is usually the second generation onwards). Learning the language is one of the actions thatshow willingness to integrate into the host society, a reader commented in Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper regarding immigrants in Germany. Of course, ethnic groups will always congregate to their own kind naturally, but there must be some effort on the migrant population’s part towards integration. There is a common misperception that an increasing migrant population automatically increases the crime rates of the country. Since 1986, the year of the infamous amnesty for illegal immigrants, the U.S. murder rate has plunged by 37 percent. Nevertheless, there is still some correlation between crime and migration. But at the root of the high tendency of migrants committing crime are the problems faced by the migrants themselves in society. We have heard too many horror stories of employers withholding migrant workers’ pay, uninhabitable accommodation such 10- 20 construction workers squeezing into a 30sqm container. Many residents with recent immigrant roots also face a glass ceiling in the education system, brought about by the disparity of their socio-economic background in comparison to the natives, and other problems with integration. Thus, majority of the children of immigrants go into the workforce equipped with very low or no educational qualifications to help them assimilate into the economic job market. And it has been proven that high unemployment rates lead to increased tendencies to commit crime. Admittedly, it is not easy to solve all the problems with one fell swoop of a miracle national immigration policy. But forcing PRs to take up citizenship reduces citizenship to a mere piece of paper. The concerns of the local Singaporeans should be first and foremost addressed, such as the forgotten poor minority living on the fringes of society, and the seemingly contrived grouses of thenatives, namely National Service (which seems to be viewed as a downside of citizenship ratherthan expression of patriotism), foreign benefits like scholarships granted to foreigners, rising costs of living which prevent young Singaporean couples from getting married and starting their families early. Lastly, I believe the CMIO model is starting to be irrelevant in today’s Singaporean society. Not only does it overemphasise the racial differences among the people, it is an obstacle to integration for new citizens. I, for one, should know how alienating it feels to be an “Other” for my whole stay in Singapore. In 2007, 16.4% of all marriages in Singapore were inter-ethnic. That’s one in five marriages. Ethnically mixed children should be allowed to choose their race. Would the people forget their racial identity if it is no longer stated on their Identity Cards? I doubt so. Migration would remain a point of contention for government policies and for the people in Singapore for years to come. Singapore achieved its success through globalisation, and that same unstoppable force would continue to penetrate the society. Instead of closing its doors to outsideinfluence a la North Korea out of xenophobic sentiments, or taking extreme ‘forceful’ policies like setting an ultimatum on foreigners, Singapore should aim to attract and develop citizens who willingly take the up the responsibilities of citizenship. Otherwise the concept of nationhood is merely just a pragmatic legacy of history that no longer holds the intangible sentiments and passion it is supposed to invoke in the people. K. Reyes  Read More →