Dear fellow beloved Singaporeans,
Chances are that you haven’t heard of me, much less ever meet me in this lifetime. But I hope you have the opportunity to read this, to catch a glimpse of my heart and a peek into my mind.
First and foremost, I implore you to forgive my lack of eloquence in my writing for I was brought up in the heartlands, growing up with my dialect and Chinese speaking grandmother, and never had any form of tuition or supplements in English. This letter will be extremely long and as mentioned, so pardon my untrained mind and my lack of eloquence. I hope you are able to follow this letter.
The point of this extremely long letter is to try and bridge between the masses and the government. Who am I to do this I hear you asking? This isn’t about me or my past. Who I am doesn’t matter more than what I have to say to you… All I want you to know is that I am as heartland as the majority of you are and I grew up more often than not with plastic spoons from packed vegetable rice than with a silver one and I understand your plight, your anger and your frustrations.
I am someone who have walked the line between having no money for bus fares and walking home in the rain during my primary school days and someone who is starting work in an MNC and earning a relatively good income now. I may not be politician but I hope that I can bridge this divide through this letter, being the voice of reason of the masses to a Government that no longer hears the heartbeat of the commoners.
To my beloved Singaporean brethren, I am not Pro – PAP, Pro – WP or Pro any form of political government. I am not even interested in politics. All I am interested in is the welfare of my fellow Singaporeans. That I am, a Pro-Singaporean so read my letter with this mind set. You can disagree with me but I want you to know that I am on your side at the end of this letter, that I am one of you.
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To the Government I say this,
You have done a beautiful job, an excellent job in providing us with the financial aspect, the standard of living where we can walk the streets at 3am and not fear rape, violence or fear of guns. Of creating an education system that provides many with the opportunity. You are my like my parents that protect us to the best of your ability when we were young and when we were infants, shielding us from many of the ugly truths about life, of controlling us and telling us when to sleep, when to study, when to be home by and working the hardest that you can to provide us with economic security.
But don’t you see now that we have now grown up? We are no longer the child that you thought we once were. Your archaic methods of the stick and the carrot no longer works to the youth and budding adult that we are now. You have to change with time and that we will no longer be suppressed by threats and punishment. We can simply pack up and leave. Fly the coop as you will and visit you occasionally while you fill this empty void with friends (foreigners & PRs) and other hedonistic items.
But we are your children, your family. The only thing you have in this world who will fight tooth and nail for you against other countries, who will gladly lay down our lives as soldiers to make sure that you are free. Don’t you see that we are so suppressed and tired of living live by your rules that the only way is but away?
Don’t you also see that this family have diverged so far from the path that the respected founding fathers have stood for? That the government is for the people, by the people, chosen amongst the people whose heart bled the most for Singapore?
I am not saying that the Singaporean Government is a mafia or a gangster so forgive me for alluding to the show “Godfather”. The initial Don was chosen because he cared the most about the family and not just economic growth of his cartel. He cared about his family members and would not partake in any form that may jeopardized his family’s long term future.
But the Singapore as we know it now, the Singaporeans that are still in your family simply feel that we have become nothing but pawns on the chess board, cogs in the wheels, rats in the race. Not part of the family but simply, a foot solider to achieve the means to an end. How can we then continue to be loyal when we feel that we are no longer part of the family but made used off?
Did you watch les miserable? Did you hear how the people were crying out to be heard but were simply silence? Do we have to start revolution to be seen? I am not threatening the Singaporean Government and I am sorry if you take it negatively. I am the son who does not want to see this family falling apart and I am happy with my family, the family that it was and that is the last thing that I would like to ever see fall apart with in fighting.
Also, please spend more time with your family (Singaporeans) and less time your business. Start to understand how miserable some of them are with their $2000 median income and try to improve it, try to improve those 1 room and 1 hall individuals who have nothing left but are still part of your family. Try to understand the needs of a Single who needs his/her own HDB to grow up away from his family and gain some responsibilities in life.
Your role as a Parent is to ultimately watch your children grow up and experience life and make themselves useful members to society and to outshine you, not control them and make them be something that you want them to be. You can be there to guide them, to teach them and to soften the fall but you need to let us be who we are. To shape our own path.
I am not teaching you how to run things because I know that you honestly hire people way more intelligent than me but please be more open and stop having such a siege mentality. Away from the view that the elders are always right because it may not always be the truth. New blood, fresh blood brings new idea to the table.
If it must be, please try to live life on a $3000 median income for 1 or 2 months of the year, to squeeze in the train on a weekday morning and bid for a house that costs 100x your monthly salary. I’m sure we will respect you for that and then you can also see the problems that we face and come up with policies for us. I know this is not very practical but at least try to make your scholars and future leaders experience this.
I honestly think that all future leaders should experience this for at least 1 – 2 months every year, not just for “slumming” purposes but to truly understand. I know that you have to keep up with your business and with your daily lives. But don’t you see that this will help to improve your business because after all, your business is to make our lives better. I don’t agree with the statement that the Government should not be involved in such trivial stuff because experiencing the plight of the people is not trivial at all.
My beloved Government, understanding from your books and listening to others is not the same as experiencing and empathizing. I hope you consider this.
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To my beloved Singaporeans,
Stop. Stop your anger, your hatred which draws opportunists and populist individuals who do not think of the longer term consequences to come up with half-baked ideas to whet your appetite. Let us be rationale and not succumbed to the herd mentality and madness of the crowd.
“A man cannot have a clear mind to take the best option when it is clouded by bias-ness, anger and irrationality.”
Let us not scream and shout like kids and prove to the Government, our parents that we are better than that. Let us have proper discourse and arguments that ultimately benefits everyone and not merely agree with anything that illustrates some form of superior education and analysis that is against the Government who after all did the best that they could in accordance with their abilities.
It is not easy to handle so many lives, so many people and so many hopes and dreams while growing our country in such a short time. Stop acting like plebs and grow up. Stop pointing fingers at each other, stop this distrust and stop blaming the whole world for your problems. You want the freedom of an adult, now grow up and show that you are adults.
It may be that the foreigners are invading our space, jacking up the price of our living, treating us like dirt. But let us prove to them, to help each other out that we are better than that and we can overcome and still succeed despite all adversity because we are family.
What is important is to always have that desire and hunger to improve ourselves, to be better than our foreign competitors and when we succeed, to remember that there are other fellow Singaporeans down there in the dumps, to land them a helping hand and give them a leg up when they need it. To know that whatever we earn is ours to keep (Capitalist model) but yet, it is our duty to give back to society (Socialist) because everyone at the end of the day, “under this heaven, we are all the same, human beings” and we are in it together. For better or for worse.
Life is already hard as we know it. Some of you may have experienced it more than this 25 years old boy have. Some of you may think that I am ranting and stating the obvious. But can’t you see that getting angry and ranting doesn’t aid our credentials and that it doesn’t improve anything? That throwing out the PAP isn’t the answer?
It’s about changing the mind-set. That we are no longer children, that we have changed and the Government needs to know us better while at the same time, prove to them that we are better and help one another through proper discourse and at the same time, getting them to change their mind set and work with us on this.
I sincerely hope that whoever comes into power, whether it is the PAP or WP or whoever, please take this into consideration. Because we are in this together, for better or for worse. This is my country, this is my Singapore and I am not about to let it go to ruins.
I don’t know if anyone will read this,
I don’t know if anyone will ever care to consider this or even stop and think about it from my perspective. But even if it changes one Singaporean for better, than the hours that I spent writing this letter was well worth it.
D - Singaporean and damn proud of it
TRS Contributor