Dear The Real Singapore,
This article is dedicated to Singaporeans who do not see where our country is headed because I have been getting increasingly depressed and irate after seeing Facebook comments made by “educated” university graduates who are my peers.
I have been receiving comments from them telling me that online "complaints" are destructive "noises" and people should be more appreciative of what we have. Yes, we can be appreciative but we cannot be blind and unquestioning.
These “blind believers” have nothing to back their argument up except repeat “but our government helped develop Singapore from a fishing village into a thriving city”.
What they fail to see is that Singapore is past that.
If you really love your nation as what you proclaim on Facebook, I really do not see you doing your part in developing Singapore into the country that you want it to be. Let me remind you of our pledge: “To build a democratic society, based on justice and equality, so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation”.
If you ask them whether they have actually taken the time to analyze our government policies or actually spoken to citizens who are suffering, the answer will be no because they are in their own little bubble and really don’t give a damn.
How can we progress if citizens (even “educated” ones) walking amongst us do not understand what democracy means, even though they have been saying the pledge for at least 10 years of their lives - for this, we have our education system to thank for as our schools do not develop political awareness amongst our young (and we wonder why it’s rare to find local Singaporeans who are good enough and care enough to lead our nation?)
Returning to our subject, one of the fundamentals of democracy is the freedom to express and exchange ideas through active debate. Only when people know what they want can they choose leaders who promise to lead the nation according to the representative beliefs and values of our society.
But the opposite is happening. We have given too much power to our government such that our rights to freely express our thoughts online are encroached with fear of persecution. Not only that, information is not freely available to citizens for an active, healthy and open debate to occur.
If we can no longer openly talk about how we feel and think about issues and policies that affect our lives and that of our loved ones/fellow citizens, how can we have a democratic society? How will our government know what the people wants and it’s ironic that we elected them to serve us in the first place!
I’m quite sure this article is unlikely to have an impact on those who are blind because they do not see. They probably lost interest at paragraph 5 when rebuttal is made against them.
I really really wonder what will make these people “wake up” and understand why so many of their fellow citizens are unhappy and sullen. When that happens, it might be too late.
Let this article surface in the future as a “slap” to those who were too blind to see now and suffered because they were too blind to do anything about it.
Anonymous Uni Graduate
TRS Contributor