Sammyboy RSS Feed
07-02-2014, 10:10 PM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
On 28th January 2014, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told the students attending the NTU Students’ Union Ministerial Forum that Singaporeans need to be united and cohesive, with a common purpose and a common goal to make Singapore better. There is nothing profound in this statement and anyone with a bit of commonsense will not disagree with Mr Lee.
There is no doubt the world will change in the next 50 years in ways that we cannot imagine. His reassurances were: “We need to educate our students better, with knowledge and skills for the future, with values and good character to deal with life’s uncertainties.”
“We need to create more opportunities for them in a rapidly changing society — which means growth, which means jobs, which means new investment, which means upgrading. So we want to encourage the bold and enterprising to go forth.”
These are good intentions, but not all good intentions will lead us to heaven.
It does not take a very keen sense of observation to know that it now takes an irritatingly longer time to get from point A to point B whether you take public transport or drive a car.
It doesn’t take an impatient customer, diner or a commuter to encounter slower service or experience being squeezed out in crowded conditions.
We read about train breakdowns and tents being built to house patients because of lack of beds. There are also frequent floods that were supposed to happen only once in every fifty years. There was the sudden and unexpected riot in Little India at the end of last year which ended a peace that had lasted for over fifty years.
These are signs of hairline cracks in our society. When we do not pay attention to a fissure, it is going to become a small slit. When we do not repair a small slit, it is going to grow wider. If we still not take any remedial action, a big crack will soon appear and become so big that collapse becomes inevitable.
A wise man will study the nature of the slit, ruminate over the problem and go to the root cause of the slit so that the right solution can be found. This is the nature of the thing: a fissure can eventually cause even a mountain to cave in.
So far the government’s attitude has not been reassuring. Take the issue of the rich and poor divide. Instead of telling us of the solution his government has in mind, the Prime Minister went on to point out the importance of keeping our society open so that all Singaporeans can interact comfortably with one another. How will this reduce the income gap? I would have been reassured if Mr Lee had come out with a programme of affirmative action for the children of the lower income group so that they would be at the same starting line as the rest on the first day at school.
Instead he went on to mention that the lack of restraint on social media could complicate matters and could lead to “pack behaviour”. He forgot to mention that before the age of social media, the state-controlled media had brain-washed Singaporeans to exhibit “pack behaviour”.
In fact, it is the internet that has now made it possible for the citizens to behave as informed individuals ready to participate in discourse and take ownership of their country, a challenge he had thrown to his young listeners.
Mr Lee wants Singaporeans to be cohesive and united. Generally, Singaporeans who have lived and grown up in this country and performed national service duties have no problem having this feeling of community. They have been conditioned since young to queue, to live with other races and not to litter. We speak Singlish and enjoy curry, durian, teh tarik and rojak.
New immigrants should have no problem adopting these traits over time. However, when new immigrants flock into Singapore in large numbers, they find security in their own community. This makes it harder for them to assimilate and become part of the larger Singapore community. It is even more difficult when, with modern technology and communication, they are still connected by easy travels, internet, and cable TV to the motherland where they had come from.
Moreover, the liberal immigration policies employed by the ruling government over the past decade have caused Singaporeans to be placed in a state of disorientation and fragmentation. With local-bred Singaporeans being pushed into a near minority status, it will soon precipitate a crisis of national identity. Without any clear integration and induction program catered for these new migrants, Singaporeans are beckoned to welcome and aid their integration into our society often at the expense of our way of life. The truth is, decades of nation building efforts have been undone with the liberal influx of immigrants in just the past ten years alone.
Thus, this lack of foresight, rather than social media, is the problem. The social media merely exposes the crack.
Even with our current 5.3 million population, the hairline cracks have appeared. What happens when we have reached the suggested 6.9 million, bringing the average number of persons per sq km to 16,640? So far the government has not given us an optimum number for our small island.
Instead, in the mainstream media not long ago, we had an expert telling us that we should have no problem accommodating up to 8 million. He was obviously trying to tell us 6.9 million is actually very comfortable. There is a Chinese saying 管中窥豹 which means to look at a leopard through a pipe. This is the narrow range of vision of experts. They can only see the leopard’s spots and not the whole animal. His opinion needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Even with 5.3 million, our social behaviour has degenerated. Notice the littering in your carparks? Aggressive behaviour has increased significantly on trains, buses, on the roads and other public places.
What then should citizens expect when Singapore becomes over-populated? We must expect http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=8639
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?174466-Mind-the-cracks-Dr-Wong-Wee-Nam&goto=newpost).
On 28th January 2014, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told the students attending the NTU Students’ Union Ministerial Forum that Singaporeans need to be united and cohesive, with a common purpose and a common goal to make Singapore better. There is nothing profound in this statement and anyone with a bit of commonsense will not disagree with Mr Lee.
There is no doubt the world will change in the next 50 years in ways that we cannot imagine. His reassurances were: “We need to educate our students better, with knowledge and skills for the future, with values and good character to deal with life’s uncertainties.”
“We need to create more opportunities for them in a rapidly changing society — which means growth, which means jobs, which means new investment, which means upgrading. So we want to encourage the bold and enterprising to go forth.”
These are good intentions, but not all good intentions will lead us to heaven.
It does not take a very keen sense of observation to know that it now takes an irritatingly longer time to get from point A to point B whether you take public transport or drive a car.
It doesn’t take an impatient customer, diner or a commuter to encounter slower service or experience being squeezed out in crowded conditions.
We read about train breakdowns and tents being built to house patients because of lack of beds. There are also frequent floods that were supposed to happen only once in every fifty years. There was the sudden and unexpected riot in Little India at the end of last year which ended a peace that had lasted for over fifty years.
These are signs of hairline cracks in our society. When we do not pay attention to a fissure, it is going to become a small slit. When we do not repair a small slit, it is going to grow wider. If we still not take any remedial action, a big crack will soon appear and become so big that collapse becomes inevitable.
A wise man will study the nature of the slit, ruminate over the problem and go to the root cause of the slit so that the right solution can be found. This is the nature of the thing: a fissure can eventually cause even a mountain to cave in.
So far the government’s attitude has not been reassuring. Take the issue of the rich and poor divide. Instead of telling us of the solution his government has in mind, the Prime Minister went on to point out the importance of keeping our society open so that all Singaporeans can interact comfortably with one another. How will this reduce the income gap? I would have been reassured if Mr Lee had come out with a programme of affirmative action for the children of the lower income group so that they would be at the same starting line as the rest on the first day at school.
Instead he went on to mention that the lack of restraint on social media could complicate matters and could lead to “pack behaviour”. He forgot to mention that before the age of social media, the state-controlled media had brain-washed Singaporeans to exhibit “pack behaviour”.
In fact, it is the internet that has now made it possible for the citizens to behave as informed individuals ready to participate in discourse and take ownership of their country, a challenge he had thrown to his young listeners.
Mr Lee wants Singaporeans to be cohesive and united. Generally, Singaporeans who have lived and grown up in this country and performed national service duties have no problem having this feeling of community. They have been conditioned since young to queue, to live with other races and not to litter. We speak Singlish and enjoy curry, durian, teh tarik and rojak.
New immigrants should have no problem adopting these traits over time. However, when new immigrants flock into Singapore in large numbers, they find security in their own community. This makes it harder for them to assimilate and become part of the larger Singapore community. It is even more difficult when, with modern technology and communication, they are still connected by easy travels, internet, and cable TV to the motherland where they had come from.
Moreover, the liberal immigration policies employed by the ruling government over the past decade have caused Singaporeans to be placed in a state of disorientation and fragmentation. With local-bred Singaporeans being pushed into a near minority status, it will soon precipitate a crisis of national identity. Without any clear integration and induction program catered for these new migrants, Singaporeans are beckoned to welcome and aid their integration into our society often at the expense of our way of life. The truth is, decades of nation building efforts have been undone with the liberal influx of immigrants in just the past ten years alone.
Thus, this lack of foresight, rather than social media, is the problem. The social media merely exposes the crack.
Even with our current 5.3 million population, the hairline cracks have appeared. What happens when we have reached the suggested 6.9 million, bringing the average number of persons per sq km to 16,640? So far the government has not given us an optimum number for our small island.
Instead, in the mainstream media not long ago, we had an expert telling us that we should have no problem accommodating up to 8 million. He was obviously trying to tell us 6.9 million is actually very comfortable. There is a Chinese saying 管中窥豹 which means to look at a leopard through a pipe. This is the narrow range of vision of experts. They can only see the leopard’s spots and not the whole animal. His opinion needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Even with 5.3 million, our social behaviour has degenerated. Notice the littering in your carparks? Aggressive behaviour has increased significantly on trains, buses, on the roads and other public places.
What then should citizens expect when Singapore becomes over-populated? We must expect http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=8639
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?174466-Mind-the-cracks-Dr-Wong-Wee-Nam&goto=newpost).