Dear TRS Readers,
The recent spate of events our dear friend Anton Casey has brought to our island has shown us one thing; the foreign talent here needs to start being sensitive to our culture. Not just the caucasians, but the mainlanders and the indians as well.
I currently work in the media industry, in a firm made up of a lot of foreign talent. There are fewer Singaporeans than foreign talent in the company and a lot of these jobs my counterparts are doing can be easily done by competent Singaporeans out there. Being the minority race of the company (how ironic), i find it important to let my colleagues know about some policies the government has laid down to it's people.
Recently, i was sharing with a colleague about my time in national service and reservist. As i was explaining to he, he started giggling and laughing at the thought of me in a uniform, carrying a rifle. He just kept coming on to me, asking me if my job was to be a cook in the army. I am pretty small in stature, so, I get it, it's easy to brush me off as a weakling. Nevermind that he brushed me off. While i kept my cool and continued to explain about national service and used the phrase "In times of war, Singapore will be ready", he made a huge laugh and stopped me. Asked me when has Singapore ever been to war and kept using the Little India Riots as an example of how Singaporeans would categorise that as war. As I walked off from the conversation, he followed me, and said, "In times of war, i would want you by my side, so I can take that SAR-21 or whatever you call that of yours, and protect you instead". He then went to one of the heads of the company, who happened to be a foreign talent as well (no surprises), and told him about what i said about Singaporean men serving the nation. The head of the company just turned around, sniggered and said, "you guys are just paranoid".
Nevermind that this company obviously looks after their own foreign talent. Nevermind that this company is seeing a high number of resignations from singaporeans and is turning a blind eye toward it. But it disappoints me when foreign "talent" like these take lightly of our country's sovereignty.
I am sure Singaporean men all have experiences like that. Meeting imbeciles who think that Singapore is a just a place to them. But Singaporeans are bigger that. I remember an Indonesian minister once said we are but just a small dot on the map. That small dot later activated its armed forces to aid in a couple of natural disasters that country experienced. That's what we are. We are bigger than all these ignorant comments made by foreigners about us.
I call on all singaporeans to unite together. Not to be against the government, or foreign talent.
I call on Singaporeans to start loving our country. Start having a sense of pride when you tell your your friends about singapore and it's beauty. We may not agree with some policies of our government, but this is still our home. We may complain about national service and reservist. We hate it. We hate it when the phone rings and reminds us to acknowledge our upcoming ICT trainings. We hate it when we spend a good two week in camp while our friends are enjoying freedom out there. But deep in our hearts, we know that we are protecting the sovereignty of our country. And that we have to. Forget the racial differences ethnic singaporeans have toward each other, when we wear our uniform, being green/blue is our race. Our soldiers stay equipped with the field knowledge. Our policemen keep the streets safe. Our civil defence answer every call of distress. Thats how we as singaporeans are ready for war.
I sign off with a lame but very real quote my buddy used when i was a OCS cadet which we used to laugh at:
"When we don that uniform, that word SINGAPORE is on the left side of our uniform. That is to signify that Singapore will always be close to our hearts"
:) Singapore Patriot
TRS Contributor