Connecting the young

I have been contemplating whether I should write this note for quite a while, not until I read these Facebook posts.

I had read this interesting read from my friend's wall post, 90 reasons why you secretly fancy Mr Lee Kuan Yew,  (http://mothership.sg/2013/09/90-reasons-fancy-lee-kuan-yew/).  While there are a few insignificant snapshots about the man, there are important historical timeline that most of the younger Singaporeans would not know.  At the same time, there is this post surfaced on "The Real Singapore", I have lost my respect for Lee Kuan Yew (http://therealsingapore.com/content/i-have-lost-my-respect-lee-kuan-yew).  This lady premises her “anger” on his draconian style and argues that his policies had left people behind as the nation progresses.

Emeritus MM Lee celebrated his big 90th birthday on 16 Sep 2013.  The two stories above are definitely one of the many mixed responses you can read from the internet, especially from Facebook; ranging from sending him well wishes to taking pot shots at unpopular policies he had made during his time as premier.  More importantly, from these “trolls”, are people still connected to reality? After spending more than half of this year reading more on geo-political issues, our nation’s vulnerability and dependency on global success became more pronounced to me. I observed. There is a growing trend of young people, typically under age 20, make nasty remarks about our political leaders, criticising policies and appears less sensitive and aware of our vulnerabilities. One example: I came across a post sometime back on one young lady remarking that our low fertility was a result of senior Lee’s policy mis-calculation in the 1960s; stop at two. I asked myself if this is indeed valid. Going back in time, Singapore was undergoing a turbulent period after independence; facing tremendous pressure to feed her people, get her people jobs through industrialisation. We have no water, no food, no natural resources and not even a hinterland we could lean on. Could we be sure that an empty Singapore be an attractive place for companies to base in? Can we cope with rapid population growth with economic uncertainty? Are we prepared to cope with high unemployment? Stop at two policy sounds absolute reasonable at that snapshot.

The disconnection amongst the young is an issue and an important one. More importantly, the deeper question is how we arrived to such state. It may be a random snapshot from social media that represent the minority, for many would argue that the unhappy group are most vocal. But, to be connected, one needs to be informed. Thus, the vocal noise has the potential to sway the uninformed. Propaganda one may call, educating the next generation from young is important. I applaud the move to remove entrance fees for local museums for us as parents and seniors to educate the young through feel and touch. Our Singapore Conversation (OSC) serving as a viable avenue to reach out to the people, although only to the willing ones. Whether through educational institutions or public engagement, our people especially the young would need to be more aware and sensitive to our vulnerabilities. For sure, they must not grow up thinking that water is a given, job is a given and peace is a given. It is therefore onus on us, ordinary citizens, to do our part to understand the challenges, keeping abreast with the global threats and opportunities, share truthful perspectives to counter falsified trolls, and keeping our young aware and informed.

 

 

Picture from Straits Times, Jimmy Chan

Our Singapore Conversation… Is it??

Picture from www.oursgconversation.sg

 

Re: PSLE tweaks among impending policy changes as OSC ends

The government had recently concluded the year-long Our Singapore Conversation (OSC).   The 5 main ‘distilled’ concerns from OSC are

(1) “Opportunities” in a competitive economy

(2) “Assurance” that housing and affordable healthcare will always be within reach

(3) “Purpose” in lives that celebrate achievements beyond the economic, and that value shared memories and heritage spaces

(4) “Spirit” in communities that organise ground-up initiatives and take care of their most disadvantaged; and

(5) “Trust” between the Government and the people, as well as among Singaporeans.

 

The more intriguing question is that was these not in the mind of the government prior to 2011 elections?  How inclusive is this conversation actually? And many disgruntled commoners voice their tone?

 

While it is easy for armchair critics to question the fundamentals behind this, at least the government had done post-election mortem and has taken active steps to “hear” us.  Ain’t this what democracy is all about?  Unfortunately, armchair critics does not seemed satisfied with this effort and continue their trolls on social media platforms.  I have heard “this is just a show”, “they aint listening even with OSC”, “Why would I need to spend time participating in OS when they are paid millions?”.  I wonder..  On one hand, people are disgruntled with the government for not listening to us, going for economic growth at all cost, rising costs and not paying enough attention to the less fortunate families. On the other hand, they refused participate in OSC to voice their alternate opinions and trashed OSC as a PR effort.  So what is good?  Free roofs, free meal vouchers at luxurious restaurants, executive jobs with no specific skill set required may be the only solution to keep these trolls quiet. 

 

It is disturbing to read posts on FB, especially therealsingapore (Sometimes I really question if they are indeed the real Singapore), rudely abusing politicians.  I am no big fan of any political party, but pragmatically, this is our country, our nation. And, it does not serve any good to nation building with trolls tearing the harmony that we had painstakingly built apart.

48 years of miracle

We depends on others for food. We depends on other for water. We depends on others for sand. But yet, even as we depends on others on more simple but yet important resources, we have made our nation vibrant, relevant and successful for the past 48 miracle years.

We could have been maids. We could have been construction workers. We could have been factory line workers. We could have been depending on the success of other countries to feed our family and find simple happiness in life. But yet, we find ourselves earning more than a lot more countries who are far richer in resources for the past 48 miracle years.

We could have been fighting among races. We could have been growing ourselves in a single race society. We could have adopted the old British model of one race superiority. But yet, we chose to give all equal opportunity regardless of race, language or religion for the past 48 miracle years.

Today, we must not forget how we as a nation arrive to what we are today; how we grew from immigrants to a multi-racial society; how our visionary leaders brought us from a third world country to first within one generation; how we prospered to a model that many other countries wished to learn from.

So today, let us come together to celebrate our success, our happiness, our prosperity and our 48 years of miracle. Happy 48th National Day!!'

Post Punggol By Elections

And the voters of Punggol East has made their choice.  Expectedly, WP expanded their presence and undoubtedly established themselves as the main threat to the ruling party.  What is unexpected is the margin that WP won over PAP.  It was expected to be a close fight, but it turns out otherwise; WP thrashed PAP by a good 10.5% votes. 

I was pondering why the voters would choose a MP with a humble background as a private trainer over a Surgeon who has a long list of accolades colouring his medical career. Perhaps, or my strong beliefs from the results is not about the voters electing Ms Lee Li Lian to be their MP but WP to be their voice in parliament.  The branding of WP has grown tremendously under the stewardship of Mr Low Thia Khiang; seen as a calm, logical and sincere person. Also, the outspoken ex-law lecturer Ms Sylvia Lim and Harvard graduate Mr Chen Shao Mao further strengthens WP brand of intelligent political conversation. But, are these solely sufficient to warrant this incredible feat? I was reading Yahoo news and saw this interesting perspective and readily agree with the author on the national erosion, but perhaps over the last decade.

“It is not just about demographics but a national erosion of support sustained over the last four elections. The trends indicate that the PAP is in deep trouble – it’s efforts to win over the electorate are not working,” said Welsh, who is from Singapore Management University’s Political Science faculty.
“This is more than a wake-up call, it’s a fire alarm.” WP’s margin of victory ‘devastating’ for PAP: analysts

The erosion in my opinion is a result of various factors centering on tough livelihood of ordinary Singaporeans. 

(1) Rising cost of living that accelerate beyond the means of average Singaporean families. The wage of low income families fails to move in tandem with the rising cost and made living a pain on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, with the declining birth rate over the last few decades, more young families would have to cope with sustaining both their families and their elderly parents. Even though it appears that more middle aged working professional are getting fatter pay packets, the increased cost of raising their families and huge medical bills that their elderly folks require when they fall ill, makes their monthly income look small.

(2) While I do not need to compete with foreigners for jobs, I understand from conversations that the competition for jobs got incredible intense over the last decade.  The rapid influx of foreigners, which account for third of our workforce, increases the competition for job for a lower pay.  While our unemployment rate score one of the lowest in the world, our people felt squeezed out by cheaper labour and increased competition.

(3) Policies disharmony between the Ministries.  It is somehow appears that the Ministries failed to harmonise their policies that results in high immigrations beyond our political and societal digestion. This is further aggravated by the fact that our transportation infrastructure appeared not able to cope with increased human traffic and thus breaks down on a regular basis; thus directly affected our daily commuters and deepen their anger with the government.

(4) Social Media allows better and faster information connectivity amongst netizens. While information sped to social media user, the anonymity also allows minority voices to amplify louder than before; regardless whether the information is factually accurate.  Negativity will naturally resonates with people who are suffering “hardship” and these people will “assist” in the proliferation through their groans and complains.

(5) Our younger electorate getting disconnected with the tough growing years.  A product of our own education system and culture, younger electorate generally are used to pampered upbringing, fails to understand the importance of political stability (one of the factors that draws investors; thus creating jobs) in a resource-less country and expects government to do everything for them.  DPM Teo’s episode with the young undergraduate of profanity goes to show how much they expect the answers from government.

(6) Stronger opposition candidates with better credentials comparing to those in the 90s and early 2000s. People will be more willing to put their stake on opposition and worry less that these will eventually become clowns of the parliament.

(7) Lastly, scare tactics of the past.  Tactics like using upgrading as a carrot, the ward becoming a slum does not work well with the bolder younger electorates.  In fact, judging from social media like FB (TRS), the more the ruling party uses scare tactics, the stronger the people retaliates.

The government is already trying their best to put the Singaporeans first, but results takes time.  I hope that the electorate would understand this and come 2016, we would not “accidentally” throw out the government and destabilised our political arena.

First start to year long student journey..

Today marks the first day to the yearlong course. 41 weeks for me to seek reflection on my career thus far, a time to learn strategic thinking, art of war and more importantly, making new friends and enjoy the journey with my family. After spending the last 6 weeks largely hibernating, today seems a cold start to the course. I hope that feeling will wears off and my engine of learning will pick up with time. Only time will tell…