So much falseness in Singapore 8 Aug 05
Like most local media propaganda, NDP website depicts Singaporeans as vibrant, jovial, cheerful and very proud of celebrating their national day.
http://www.ndp.org.sg
NDP is supposed to be made for the citizens to make them feel proud, happy and patriotic for living in their homeland.
But it is very strange, because every year whenever I watch NDP on television, I can never feel the spirit nor the happiness among the spectator's behaviour or faces.
Especially last year's NDP when the camera does a continuous sweep of thousands of spectators in close-up views, one can only see sad, sour, stressed, sarcastic, nonchalant faces all around. Some even have a look as if they had just lost a huge amount betting lotteries.
Smiling faces comes mainly from the celebrities. Even most performers showed a stressed, zombie look.
Most eerie and shameful part is during one of the video sweeping segment, I can only see ONE genuinely cheerful person - A Caucasian women frantically waving her flag so enthusiastically as if Singapore is her homeland. Goodness gracious.
I am sure many of you who watched the show have noticed this as well. For those who have recorded the show and don’t believe what I say can watch it again. Open your eyes, do not be blind.
I felt so sick and ashamed that we need a foreigner, to demonstrate to us what is true pride and joy for the country.
Why is everything so sad, stressed and fakey in Singapore?
Fakey infrastructures with lack of social grace and zombie souls inside, fakey faces on NKF shows, fakey edited smiles on posters and media propagandas to mask the truth of sadness among citizens in Singapore.
One can only think of the main reason is that we can lose our rice bowls anytime, as we have no true social security system and unemployment benefits.
It became more overwhelming since the 1990s when globalisation injected western organisation's culture and thinking into our country that emphasizes on performance and higher degree of multi-tasking. But it is a double-edged sword.
While all these are supposedly bringing more creativity, technology, innovation and entrepreneurial spirits into Singapore, a major problem was overlooked.
The westerners, besides having a dynamic society with cultures that centers on humans rights, freedom and social grace, one main reason they can afford all these antics is because they have unemployment insurance which one can qualify after working for a few years (not applicable to beggars of course, lol). They can afford to word hard in dynamic fashion, protest, argue and push through their ideas while not having to worry that they will starve for the coming months, whereas MAS vehemently banned any such form of insurance. From what I know, the closest insurance scheme that MAS has allowed till now is the pathetic Disability Income, whereby you must satisfy the strict criteria of disability as stipulated in the contract in other to qualify to the income benefits.
Hence, if you are unemployed in Singapore, you must chop off both legs to get some income for instance.
When I was in France for instance, people are so genuinely cheerful and happy, I remembered walking into any pubs in shy and wary manner, but only to see relaxed, friendly faces and anyone can just chat up with you and become your friend with genuine sincerity.
Citizens there lean towards not comparing material achievements, or wanting to compete or win your fellow citizens in a hostile manner, unlike Singapore, whereby a staring incident end up in fights.
On the other hand, even in big stressful cities like New York, yes they are very competitive, but they do not have that over-worrying mentality like pitiful S'poreans because they always have a cushion to fall on, at least they do not starve immediately.
In Singapore, once you are unemployed, you get into overdraft debts immediately. Is this a new democratic theory that our government has formulated to resolve unemployment?
Why is our government always so vague and evasive when answering this issue?
Why must we only get the same old answer that ‘Singapore has no natural resources’ or reply like those from our deputy PM Dr. Tony Tan who says that if such schemes are implemented, he will ‘resign tomorrow’ to get the benefits and end the arguments once and for all.
Is this the way how a senior government minister should reply to a crucial issue? Is there no way that he could have been more sensitive and sincere in his reply?
With such a Pro-state and hostile environment, breadwinners and workers must constantly worry about office politics and wary of anyone who might snatch their rice bowls in the working place.
In theory, this works very well. There is no free lunch, no man is an island, as mentioned by LKY. I do agree to a certain extent of not pampering the citizens so that they can work hard to fend off for themselves, to teach someone to learn how to fish is better than spoon-feeding and all that.
But in reality, we can look around among the commoners, among ourselves, friends and relatives, we can clearly see the huge numbers of citizens who are out of jobs for months of years despite trying very hard to find one but to no avail.
It is only in the light of all these can one then fully understand the reasons behind the sadness, sarcastic and scowling, self-righteous faces you can see everywhere on the streets.
I know that once the authorities read this, they might consider editing the media once again.
It is so strange that what one can only see from the media is either those elite’s success stories, or those extremely rare and tragic instances of poor or sick folks.
Letting people aware of the poorest citizen’s plight is certainly admirable so that we will not take things for granted.
But what happened to the rest of the working commoners, whose real-life problems seemed to have been cleverly swept under the carpet?
It’s such an irony when these people are the majority that voted earnestly for the ruling party, hoping that they will one day solve their problems.
Of course I am aware that Pap has done much to improve Singaporean’s standard of living and the economy and so forth.
But for so many years, what have they done so far to solve this problem? In fact the situation is getting worse.
As our salaries get more stagnant with rising costs, more couples give birth to lesser children or none at all.
To solve the problem on the push for towards achieving critical mass in population to support globalisation, more foreign talents are imported which , while being effective in solving immediate needs, suppressed the wages further too.
With lower salaries, it gives rise to more citizens who either delay marriage or have even lesser children. Then here comes more foreign talents again to solve the problem - creating a vicious cycle.
Probably in the year 2100, the only surviving humans in Singapore are either the elites, foreign workers, PRs and those who have converted their citizenships while the rest of the original groups of Singaporeans have either migrated or passed away.
But is this the right thing to do? So please do not tell me that our government is so entrapped in their policies that they must make citizens unhappy in order to be ‘happy’? For God’s sake, it even bothers on sinfulness. I seriously have no idea why is the government doing this to us.
I know that if the government were to read my statements, they will feel offended and throw it aside as a nuisance.
But for once, I hope they can just shove their pride in high pedestals aside, and learn from Malaysia’s PM Abdullah who mentioned last year that government leaders should take citizen’s curse as a form of blessing and should not always think they are right. Although a bit extreme, there is certainly an underlying truth in his statements.
But if our government wants to be blind to such issues, then I have nothing to say except to be resigned to my fate and more citizens will suffer.
I just hope that our government will seriously consider this reality and put forth sincere efforts to resolve this crucial problem.
Hence, may I borrow a sentence from our ruling party MP who denies any climate of fear here: ‘Get real, this is Singapore’, precisely, lets get real and face the real truth behind all the glittery lights
Is this a tragedy that must continue forever till the day we die?
NON-SCHOLAR ORDINARY FOLK
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