Saturday, September 8, 2012

Resolve unfairness felt by Singaporeans first before integrating foreigners

It has been almost 2 years ago since I last posted on the sensitive foreigner issue in Singapore. Sensitive topics are best to be avoided. However, when they pose great risks to the nation's future, we have to talk about it openly, freely but fairly. Singapore will be finished if 60% of the population cannot get along with the remaining 40%. This is really a serious problem.

I try my best to give my thoughts on this issue without giving offense by making unfair remarks. Unfortunately, some people will be unhappy if a proposed solution ends up making them losers. If this group of people are displeased as they surely will be, it should be for fair and rational reasons.

Credit should be given to the post-2011GE government. The government now is not only more open to direct feedback from Singaporeans but they actually actively seek out our feedback as can be seen from Ministers using social media to reach out to the people directly. On this count, they have earned many Singaporeans' respect, including mine.

No rational Singaporean can argue with the policy of bringing in foreigners. As a magnet of talented minds from all over the world, the United States remains the global technology leader despite lagging behind in math and science education. Unfortunately, good and sound policies can be badly executed leading to extreme damage to our country. No policy illustrate this point better than our foreign immigration policy.

Although our government is right in calling upon Singaporeans to be more big-hearted and less narrow-minded in accepting foreigners, this sensible message is not going to go down well with Singaporeans unless the government accepts its fair share of blame for its terrible execution of the immigration policy. My subsequent paragraphs will sound critical to the government but I am not criticizing for the sake of letting off steam. I sincerely feel Singaporeans' support for the government's sensible messages is vital to solve the foreigner problem. However, the government has to earn back our trust and the admission of their own mistakes is a first step to doing that.

The massive excessive influx of foreigners in a short time has created serious social divides within the Chinese and Indian segments of the population. The Malays feel alienated or even threatened as their numbers become fewer due to the influx. The Chinese segment is now divided between native Chinese Singaporeans and PRC foreigners/new citizens/PRs. The Indian segment is now divided between native Tamil Singaporeans and the non-Tamil non-native Indians. The problem may be worse for the Indians as some fair-skinned Indian foreigners may not have totally shed ancient notions of the Caste system and still carry a sense of superiority over our darker-skinned fellow Tamil Singaporeans. I am not an Indian. Can a fellow Indian Singaporean comment on my worry?

The infrastructure is bursting at the seams with the massive influx. This is obvious to people who take public transport. These are technical problems which can be more easily solved. Given the competitive remuneration commanded by our civil service, we should have no lack of competent staff in the government to solve technical problems. I have full confidence in their technical ability. I think it is the social human aspect that pose the greatest risk to our country. We cannot solve this problem without talking what angers Singaporeans and resolving the unfairness between Singaporeans and foreigners that prevails today.

Behind the anger that affects even the more reasonable fair-minded Singaporeans are government policies that gives foreigners an unfair advantage over Singaporeans. Nobody doubts that all the policies are well-intentioned but if the unintended consequences are not, I think our government should reconsider tweaking the policies. Notable policies are National Service and scholarships to foreigners (which this article is not going to talk about).

In an earlier article, I talked about native Singaporeans being discriminated in the job market due to their military duties while foreigners gain an edge from the very sacrifice we make to the defense of our country. Singaporeans should not begrudge foreigners for coming here to take advantage of  Singapore's good economic conditions or even loopholes in policies to make a living because we would have done the same thing if we were in their shoes. However, it is not fair to expect Singaporeans to sacrifice ourselves to defend the nation and increasingly the foreigners as they buy up our properties while at the same time, we are penalized for our very act of sacrifice.

During my time, no matter how much we dislike National Service, none of us including the least educated Pai-Kia ever questioned the need for NS. It is a different case today. With foreigners taking up close to 40% of the population and buying up our properties, our youngsters are beginning to question the whole purpose of NS - "Why should I do NS to defend the interests of foreigners?" This can even be verified by foreigners themselves. If you are a Malaysian PR with a son going to or doing NS, please check out the sentiment with your own son. If your own flesh and blood is questioning the need to defend the interests of foreigners (a group which includes their own father), you can see how serious this problem has become. Indeed, a NTU student told former PM Goh Chok Tong that with the excessive influx of foreigners, he does not know what he is defending anymore.

It is a pure waste of taxpayers' money to allocate vast sums of money on our Defense budget when our greatest weakness are demoralized soldiers and citizens who have lost their sense of belonging and loyalty caused by massive influx of foreigners and unfair treatment. When soldiers and citizens do not feel like fighting for the country, every war becomes a potential Vietnam war. What do I mean by that? It means that even though Singapore spends incredible sums of money to buy superior weaponry, we will still lose the war to technologically inferior countries just like the way United States lost the war to the poorly equipped VietCong in the Vietnam War because the US soldiers/citizens lacked the will to fight. Suppose we win the war despite the Vietnam-War effect. Our country will still be finished when body bags of native Singaporeans start flooding our shores. The grieving orphans, widows, old mothers and fathers from broken families created by the war will belong to native Singaporean males. Those with intact families are the foreigners(if still around) and new citizens who have no NS duties. This will surely split our nation asunder. It will take a very long time to heal the resentment of mourning over a dead family member while seeing new citizens/PRs enjoying time with their own families because they benefited from the sacrifice made by our native Singaporean men and boys(sons of PRs included) who died for the country. If war happens, whatever the outcome, win or lose, Singapore risks being torn apart. The unfairness as of today cannot stand because of the huge risks it pose to losing a war or national unity(if we win) when the casualties come in.

Few things infuriates me more when Singaporeans are told we are getting xenophobic because we are losing out to foreigners who are taking jobs away and that we are whiners because we are losers. Firstly, it is rubbish to say we cannot stand up to foreign competition. Secondly, there is no level playing field in the job market between Singaporeans with NS duties and the rest who don't. My friend toyed with the idea of starting up a business of his own. Patriotic as he is, he reached the unpatriotic but rational conclusion that it does not make economic sense to hire a Singaporean over a foreigner (assuming the foreigner is equally good) because Singaporeans have to go missing in action for weeks sometimes regularly every year to meet his NS obligations, cannot work overtime or have to knock off early to go for remedial training if he fails his fitness test, higher CPF contributions etc. For SMEs with a staff strength of 5-10 people, 1 person missing for weeks is 10%-20% of its human resources gone which inevitably will affect company operations. It is small wonder why SMEs prefer to hire foreigners. People who make customer or vendor visits to SMEs in the course of their work can verify this observation with their own eyes.

10 years ago, job discrimination caused by NS was at a tolerable level because employers did not have much of a choice as the number of foreigners were much fewer then. Today, with the massive influx of foreigners (close to 40% of the total population) with many Singaporeans complaining about being minorities in their workplace, employers have an abundance of foreigners without NS liabilities to choose over native Singaporeans. When livelihoods are threatened, it is impossible to expect one group to cooperate with the competing group. 

Our financially prudent government is preparing the ground to accept higher taxes to pay for higher social spending to build an inclusive society. This is a sensible but hard-to-swallow message. The bitter pill can be more palatable if the bitterness is spread fairly. It is not unfair to suggest that higher taxes be imposed on newcomers/foreigners who made lesser sacrifice than the native Singaporeans in nation-building but expect near equal privileges because they also pay taxes (Singapore tax rates are probably lower than their home countries). Indeed, as pointed out by former PAP MP Maidin Packer (please read his letter. He won my respect), the ancestors of the natives also made huge sacrifices for the country when the Government acquired their land at around $1 psf for economic purposes. I think it is fair to expect newcomers/PRs to pay higher taxes to compensate the natives for their sacrifice in order to deserve similar privileges. "你出钱,我出力" 胜于 “我出力,你收益”.

Going forward, particularly with higher social spending and taxes, granting of citizenship and PRs should be much more selective than the past to avoid rising social spending and taxes. More new citizens/PRs means more people to share the pie of social services. Those who consume social services must be deserving ones so that those who pay are willing to pay. Otherwise, this becomes another source of divisiveness.

Social problems created by unfair policies can be solved by new policies. Given that the civil service takes in the finest minds in Singapore because of the good pay, I am confident they will come up with the solutions as long as they have the courage to admit that problems exist, particularly if the problems are in part caused by past policies of their own doing.

Regrettably, there are problems created by the massive foreigner influx which I doubt even 10 more brilliant senior wranglers like Lee Hsien Loong can solve. The most difficult problems are those that involve changing people's behavior, in a climate when trust has been eroded. 10 years ago, it was easier to integrate foreigners into Singaporean society because they came in small numbers. In the workplace, they had no choice but to integrate. Otherwise, they will have to eat lunch alone everyday. Today, foreigners come in such large numbers that there is absolutely no need for them to integrate. It is human nature to mix around with people of their own kind. All of us are more comfortable to work with people who share the same background, culture or skin color. This by itself is not a serious problem. The worst happens in the workplace where political factions are formed dividing the office between Singaporeans and foreigners. The nature of politics is divisive and politics in the office will whip up anti-foreigner sentiment among Singaporeans. With the workforce population split near the middle between locals and foreigners, the potential for divisive office politics between different nationalities is certainly a concern. People can be nice outside the workplace but once in the workplace where office politics becomes a matter of survival, it is naive to expect cooperation and unity.

Increasingly, there are warning signs that this is happening. One common complaint among Singaporeans is that foreign supervisors prefer to hire candidates from their own country. Just as the electorate vote along racial lines, hiring managers tend to hire along nationalistic lines. This behavior of wanting to work with our own kind is so ingrained in us that it can even happen at a subconscious level. There is no need to collect statistics or conduct surveys to prove or disprove this problem. It is part of our human nature. Even though Tan Chuan Jin and Chan Chun Sing looks like smart people with good hearts, I doubt they can solve this kind of problem even if they work super hard at it. If our government can change people's behavior, we would be having enough babies today. Fellow Singaporeans unfortunate to be on the receiving end of discrimination should take it upon themselves and not rely on government's help by setting up their own companies. Having successful companies of our own is the best way to show to people that they are talking nonsense when they say Singaporean are whiners who cannot beat the foreign competition. Hopefully, by that time, policies that cause Singaporean employers to discriminate against hiring their fellow countrymen will be removed by our government.

I have personally benefited from really talented immigrants in the workplace. They were engineers of substance, doers and not talkers, shared and transferred knowledge of useful technologies to fellow Singaporeans like me. A successful immigration policy should be one that attracts and retains such talented individuals. For the past 5 years before GE2011, it degraded into one that attracts cheap replacement to displace fellow Singaporeans. Instead of them transferring knowledge to us, some of us were expected to dig our own graves by training them up to replace ourselves. I am grateful to the immigrants who taught and guided me. This group of people, most of whom came to Singapore more than 10 year ago, have since become Singapore citizens and I welcome them as fellow Singaporeans. Even as of now, there are a number of such desirable new citizens in my workplace. In a way, I think they are even bigger victims than native Singaporeans as a result of the massive foreigner influx in recent years. Had the influx of foreigners been more calibrated, there would be lesser discrimination in the job market against Singaporeans. We would have felt less unfairly threatened and can even put up with the unfair NS status quo. Singaporeans would not have unwittingly taken out their anger on innocent, desirable real foreign talent or new citizens.

If siblings cannot get along with each other because one of them felt indignant over unfair treatment from the parents, then parents have to share the blame when the family breaks up. It is not effective when parents exhort their flesh and blood to be more big-hearted in accepting their adopted brother for the sake of family unity. It is not fair to expect the flesh-and-blood child to make more sacrifices for the family while the parents grant the same share of the inheritance to the adopted child.

In other words, issues of unfairness between native Singaporeans and foreigners/new citizens must be resolved before social integration efforts can hold any hope of being effective.

PS: I am a native Singaporean. I am naturally biased towards my own kind. I welcome opposing views from other groups because sensitive problems can only be solved through frank exchange. Just be civil. Thank you.

33 comments:

  1. You write very well. Your blog has less than 10 posts but attracted more than 34000 pageviews. Amazing!

    I sent you a private email. Please check.

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  2. Our immigration policy ranks as the worst screw-up ever by our government. While it cannot be helped that we inherited the racial problem, this foreigner problem was entirely of the government's creation. Now, they want to stand on moral high ground by calling upon Singaporeans to be more generous in accepting foreigners. Sure we can but admit your own mistakes first! Singaporeans are not evil people who treat foreigners with disrespect. But when our own livelihoods are affected by excessive influx of foreigners, it is natural that some of us will behave badly. Who wouldn't? It is a survival instinct. The cause of all these problems still comes from the government. PAP screwed up big-time on immigration.

    Can acknowledge your own mistake or not?

    Please lah. You created the problem. Now, you blame us for making noise at the mess. At least win back our trust first.

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  3. The fact that a former PAP MP has to resort to writing an open letter to a PAP PM show that the Party is not listening and any internal feedback mechanism is shut down.That is the worrying sign! The govt is not listening. Their objective is to retain power through massive inport of foriegners and granting citizenship to enable them to vote.The new citizens will, of course, vote for the party that is kind to them.

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    Replies
    1. Those PRs who need to work for someone would be stupid to convert to citizenship because the moment they do so, they will lose their ability to go back to their native country should they lose their job here and at the same time forfeit their ability to draw out all their CPF when they leave Singapore.

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  4. "admission of their own mistakes is a first step". This will never happen as it means opening themselves to more questions and criticisms on their bad policies.

    "social human aspect that pose the greatest risk". If you are weak in something and are willing to work to improve on it, there is always hope. But our govt is not interested in how human beings feel about policies, so no hope that they can resolve social problems.

    "foreign supervisors prefer to hire candidates from their own country". Till today still no legislation to ban such discriminatory practices and locals are asked instead to highlight such cases to MOM for investigation. We have to become vigilantes which begs the question what is the point of having million dollar leaders for?

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  5. I totally agree with you. If the govt wants feedback, (national conversation)this is the feedback that they can take note of. Unfortunately, like most top management they will hear what they want to hear and justify their actions based on their selective hearing.

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  6. I like the way that you emphasizes human nature as the explanation in midst of all this happening. Measurement, survey, etc are sort of statistic gathering tools can never explain human nature. At best they are tuned to obtain certain outcome and result. "Human nature" is obviously NOT taken into consideration for policies that benefits the elite and the party, but taken into consideration when applies to lesser mortals (like gaming the system, greed, exploitation etc, conflict of interest ..). I'm very sure you smart people can notice that.

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  7. 'Social polarization' in our modern society has taken shape...National Dialogue or rather 'National Reconciliation Session' in my term is a drama orchestrated by our think tank, and what makes the 'Session' magically structured is the way it is 'organized and conducted'.

    Uniquely Singapore, indeed!

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  8. Thanks for your good write up. Please do not assume that all foreigners whom I prefer to call them friends from abroad are PR or Citizens. They are our fellow human beings leaving their own homes to serve our us.
    Why call yourself a native Singaporean, this is very dangerous. Thus it means that one must be born in Singapore than consider as a 'pure' Singsporean? I was in Taiwan for 10 years and sad to see that the Taiwanese did not accept those who came from China even the second and third generation. Singapore must avoid this. We must accept the fact that we have Singsporeans from all over the world. It was a big decision for each of them to consider citizenship, at the same time, our Govenment was also very careful in accepting anyone to be PR or citizen. My daughter was born in Taiwan does this make her a second class citizen. We have our pledge and we should treat and love every Singsporean regardless of where they come from. Let us be kind to our fellow human being. Be appreciative and you will be surprised. Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. Actually i disagree, i think that the emphasis on the term "native" singaporean to mean "born and bred in singapore" is crucial to this discussion.

      My father was not a native of Singapore; his family migrated here when he was a young child. And so even though he holds a pink IC, his loyalties deep down are always torn between his very obvious pride as a singaporean and his pride in his hinterland. He has also mentioned multiple times that being born in that country would mean that it would be easier for him to get PR/ citizenship in that country should the Singapore dream fail him.

      As for myself, I am a true blue native Singaporean. Being born and bred in Singapore, my experience is this: in my deepest heart of hearts, there is no other place that i belong. Even if i were to migrate, i would live out my life knowing that i am a foreigner in my adopted country, no matter how much i integrate.

      To put it bluntly, unlike my father, I have nowhere else to go. The world might be my oyster, but Singapore is the soil upon which i was born, and will forever remain the soil which i belong to. Even if i move, even if i migrate, even if i change my citizenship, can never suppress the fact that I a Singaporean. After all, there is truth to the saying:

      What's in a name? that which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet;
      So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,

      And for this issue of individual loyalty and belonging alone, I would feel it fair to differentiate between native and non- native borns.


      Another important thing to consider in differentiating between native and non-native Singaporeans is the issue of shared culture.

      As a Singaporean, i consider fellow Singaporeans as my family. And why shouldn't i when these are the people who grew up in the same living spaces as me, watched the same television as me, speak the same language as me, hold the same values as me. YES this is a very ideal and homogenous picture i am painting of Singapore, but in my defense, please recall that anyone who spends extended periods of time working or traveling overseas will have the experience of *instantly recognising a fellow Singaporean when you meet one*. And along with that, at least for me, comes the mutual love that blossoms for a fellow sibling.

      I cannot stress this more: when i meet a fellow true blue, native-born Singaporean overseas, i feel love towards this person as i would a family member. Our shared values, language, culture, upbringing etc makes us relate to each other in a way that is impossible to achieve with anyone outside of this social family.

      And so it distrubs me to see that not all who hold a red passport are part of this family that i know of as "Singapore". The sense of fellowship i feel towards Singaporeans in general is crushed when i see some of the newly-converted citizens exhibiting crassly un-Singaporean behavior, especially when they continue to embody the stereotypes of their native countries.

      As such, i can completely understand Taiwan's discrimination against first generation immigrants. Fair enough, I say. If i were to move anywhere in the world, i would not expect to be given the same honour accorded to their own native born.

      So while it sounds elitist of me, i still hold to my stand that being Singaporean is like being Cantonese/ Teochew/ Boyan/ Bugis/ Tamil/ Gujarati. It isn't something you can pick and choose. It's something that you are born into.

      Delete
  9. On your basis for taxing foreigners more:- that Singaporeans put in their money (by paying equal taxes) and put in their energy (by serving NS), while foreigners do not perform the latter.

    Perhaps you have failed to appreciate the fact that the distribution of benefits is NOT equal. Singaporeans receive a significantly higher subsidy than foreigners in almost everything:- from housing to education to healthcare.

    Also, by an extension of your argument, should our Singaporean women pay more taxes too?

    If it were true that employers really did place THAT much emphasis on NS liability, we ought to be outnumbered by women in the workplace as well!

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  10. I found your post in TRE and post below:

    “This is one of the best article I’ve read which essentially sums up the feelings of Singaporeans on the ground. Good writing, Think free and far”

    I respectfully disagree with the Editor. This long pieces of shit is meaningless words and does not reflect the feeling from the working poor and the many who had suffer over forties plus years. Has the editor forgotten what LKY said?

    “…WE are in charge. Every government ministry and department is under our control…..I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy.”

    Are we going to talk to a regime that has no interest in talked but to rammed everything down our throats? Now, after the dismayed performances in 2011 GE and by-election, the tides are turning against this regime. This regime best hope is to buy time and talk to select bloggers and “nip” the buds before it becomes a torrent. Wake up and get real. Soon than later this regime will take you (TRE) and all socio-political websites out as they did to oppositions in the past. Dun worry, in spite of my disagreement, I will continue strongly support TRE and the many responsible socio-political websites.

    Finally, I dun have the writing skill. Otherwise, I will rebuttal to “Think free and fair” flaws. This reminds me of the many Democrats or “Obamapoligist” in the USA defending Obama’s crimes and did nothing for the working poor who had voted for him and expected “Change” which are hollow in nature.

    Stupid Old Dog

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  11. I think ex MP Maidin Packer says in his letter is quite true. As the original natives of this island, we shld be treated better than the newbies. Why shld we pamper them? Thks for the article. Well written.

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  12. Gintai,
    Why should PAP pamper them ? To vote and to support PAP , of course. Does not even need million dollar survey by Mercer to find out why. Just ask yourself with regard to human nature. Gratitude is at play.

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  13. Well, it's been this way since 40 years ago. PAP will never give-in no matter how reasonable or sensible our reasons are. And if we are really hungry and fighting really hard for the cake , they will let you and your family eat the smallest possible piece of cake and continue held tightly to the rest. Talking or whatever conversation until the sky fall down will not work.

    Brothers ! Please wake-up , grow-up fast and learn to see the real intention of PAP. Dont remain stupid , let yourself become helpless and be pulled forever like a puppet.

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  14. Well written abd very true.
    I suspect, the dimensions that you have so clearly laid out in your article, are either ignored or had never even occurred to the PAP. The mindset of the govt has always been money, money and more money. They see everything with money in mind, not such 'intangibles' like nurturing a real sense of nationhood in Singaporeans. LKY knows he is guilty of this, that was way he said that we are far from being a nation, because he knows very well what he had been focusing on - developing the $ sign and not the people. He is guilty as hell if the country is torn apart by disunity because of his lopsided policies of developing the real estate at the expense of the people.

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  15. "I talked about native Singaporeans being discriminated in the job market due to their military duties while foreigners gain an edge from the very sacrifice we make to the defense of our country"

    This paragraph above represents the naivety of the average Sporean. Has it ever occured to us that the 2 year NS and the annual ICT is a waste of time and effort. And that the real reason behind NS is to keep the male population docile to the whims of the ruling party.

    If they really cared about the average young person in Spore they would have reduced NS commitment. But they have not. The ease at the way in which they've brought in foreigners at the expense of NS serving citizens speaks volumes. While our young men are slogging it out at NS and ICT the foreigners are happily spending their free time with their families and getting ahead in their jobs and careers. Sporeans need to wake up to this terrible disparity and vote for other parties in 2016

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  16. A very good article. You have articulated what most S'pore male or rather, S'poreans felt the last 8 years. The present team of leaders are a bunch of wannabes who think they can measure up to our pioneer leaders. I would think they are dragging the country down with their self inflated sense of worth.

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  17. Last 6 years or so. More and more companies are not believing in ICT anymore. We can say that's because these are profit oriented all along , but such are never an issue 10 years back or more .

    My guess is because more and more higher management people are FT or people not needed to do NS duties. Imagine 40% foreign population simply means 40% in a company not doing ICT. On top of that some even scorn the need form them to cover work duties. Its not their fault, these people dont have concept of defending their country ,most dont think singapore is's their country or a place to defends to keep their party going.

    I was enthusiastic and positive during my NS days 20 years ago. But today it obvious to me it is really silly to defense a hotel.

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  18. Current PM and his team are the "WORST" in S'pore's history. They are running the country to the ground.....mistakes after mistakes.

    I read somewhere that Wikileaks leaked a cable that the brightest "SOURCED PERSONNEL" to run on the PAP platform (last 2 elections) turned them down. So they have to make do with their 2nd or 3rd choice candidates. It clearly shows now that their performances are; clearly 2nd and 3rd rated.

    To blame and call S'poreans names (while protecting FTs) is the "MOTHER" of all insults. They will NEVER get my VOTE ever in any future Elections or for that matter; for any CAUSE the "THE SCUMS IN WHITE" may want. Screw them for screwing their own citizens.

    Just food for thought this. Heard through many grapevines that when the time comes, these SCUMS will sink their own boat so that future (Opposition) govt will bear the brunt of their misdeeds; whatever those may be. What comes to my mind immediately is KJ and Christopher Baldings constant questions on our reserves?

    Go google search on "Prof Christopher Balding" and "sonofadud" to be enlightened. I and my friends certainly were.

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  19. The biggest culprits in Singapore's history are the CIVIL SERVANTS.

    Most hate but still vote for the ruling party for obvious reasons.

    They are the ones to determine the future for their own children. They are selfish for pursuing their own self gains whilst destroying the future of other Singaporeans.

    Shame on you people!!! Repent and look at yourselves in the mirrors. Shame!!!!

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    Replies
    1. i take offense at this.

      how many civil servants have you actually talked to? Did you poll opposition voters to see what jobs they held? Did you poll the ruling party voters to see what jobs they had?

      From what i know, civil servants are forbidden by contract to air their political views in public. As contract workers, they might also be advised to give certain standard responses when representing the profession.

      So unless you have actually done your research or spied on what happens within a voting booth (i know i havent!), how can you confidently say who voted for what?

      Delete
  20. "However, the government has to earn back our trust and the admission of their own mistakes is a first step to doing that."

    Indeed, the declining and aging Singaporean population we are experiencing now was due to Singapore government's mistaken belief in 70s that we had to control birth rate, policies to STOP AT TWO, to give financial incentives to sterilise, and to penalise those who had more than two children.

    Would you like to hear the government at least acknowledge their role in engineering today problem, and perhaps apologise for their mistake and these mistaken policies?

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  21. Apologies? Remember THE APOLOGY during the last Elections @ Raffles Place? What good did that do? Hollow apologies again? No thank you.

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    Replies
    1. Would you prefer "live and repent" then?

      Delete
    2. Spurs, my dear, spurs, in the hide.

      Delete
  22. "The problem may be worse for the Indians as some fair-skinned Indian foreigners may not have totally shed ancient notions of the Caste system and still carry a sense of superiority over our darker-skinned fellow Tamil Singaporeans. I am not an Indian. Can a fellow Indian Singaporean comment on my worry?"

    This is true lor.. my friend told that its very visible in Little India .. most of the businesses are being bought (wrong money) by north Indians .. routing the native Tamils out. Most of the East coast Condos bought by North Indians..what they do for living...nothin..how so much $$$..they smile. Wake up.

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  23. The company I work is closely linked to government, however., the ratio of Singaporeans employed was being exploited. There are so many foreigns employed at engineer and manager levels but Singaporean mostly support function, like hr, fin, logistic, secretary and etc. has the gov looked into the ratio and ensures that local engineer and managers are taken in. I can see very clearly that it is a failure.

    The company wants to maximise profit, it cares less for the local.

    ReplyDelete
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  25. local Indian tamil community ... would be experiencing the worst of pole shift in coming years. It includes the Language (Tamil to Hindi), Culture (Dravidian to Aryan) and also the caste systems followed by the north Indians.

    ReplyDelete
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  27. "I try my best to give my thoughts on this issue without giving offense by making unfair remarks."

    Unfortunately, you can't, try as you want to: when you try to see it from the point of view of people whose jobs are displaced and replaced with foreigners, you risk being labeled as anti-foreigner; when you argue from the foreigner workers' perspective, you are labeled a pro-PAP lackey.

    Can't please everyone.

    ReplyDelete