The nearly doubling of the population, the hospital bed crunch, the housing shortage, the employment problems of PMETs, the jams on the roads, the overloading of the trains, the crowds of restless foreigners on weekends, are not things that happened like the flash of lightning. They are built up day by day over a long period of time, and often with known policies and intention. All you need is a calculator, no need a computer, to tell you that all these will happen if the population keeps growing at this pace by letting in immigrants. Why is it so difficult to see these things happening? There is only one reason why all these can be missed. That reason is the sampan mentality. If one keeps thinking that one is in a sampan, one would think that there are only so many people in the sampan and no need to think too much. Everything will be manageable. The problem comes when the reality is more than a sampan. The sampan is ten times overloaded and you dunno meh? Still thinking you are in a sampan when there are more than 5m people in it and could be exceeding 6m if all the transit visitors are included you will be in trouble.
How many people are still stuck with this sampan mentality and going about merrily that the sampan can carry so many people without any problems?
If one refuses to break out from the sampan mentality and think is no problem like before, everything can be seen within arms length, how to anticipate the problems of a population that has outgrown even a cruise ship?
On one hand keeps thinking small but on the other hand keeps having megalomaniac dreams. The two dreams just won’t match. It is like dreaming big and thinking small. The sampan is simply too small and the problems too big.
Please get rid of the sampan mentality. We need an ocean going ship and the space to hold all the people and all the associated problems of a big population in a limited space. We have outgrown our sampan. Don’t believe ya?
PS. Do you know what they do in a sampan? There is always someone with a tin in his hand to scope up water creeping into the sampan and throw it out. Small problem, simple solution. The sampan mentality
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/