There have been a lot of kpkb by the more vocal citizens about bad policies or policies they do not want to go along. The 6.9m PWP, the complaints about the influx of ‘foreign talents’ to displace local PMETs, the demand to return the people’s CPF savings at 55, the high property prices, the anger about throwing public money at foreign students, offering them scholarships and precious spaces in the local universities, etc etc. How did the govt respond to these challenges?
One simple straight forward tactic is not to talk about it, just remain silence and pretend there is no problem or they did not hear anything. Are any of these topics discussed in the Natcon? Other than the unavoidable issue of CPF linked to MediShield Life and the Hong Lim Protest, are any of the issues raised in Parliament? Let the anger and energy dissipate with time and soon the people would be too tired or even forget about the problems. People have short memories and are not persistent enough to fight for what they think is right or to stop what is detrimental to their good and did not want to continue. As unorganized groups, they soon lost themselves; the issue lost steam, and give up on their cause.
Another way to handle public anger or disapproval is to side track the issue or pretends to be working on it but on a different issue. The people are angry when good jobs are given to foreigners in the name of foreign talents. Does anyone notice that the govt is not saying anything about the continued influx of foreign talents but focused on reducing the intake of foreign workers instead? There seems to be no meeting of minds, the people talking about FTs and the govt talking about FWs. Is this an intentional diversion from the main issue, ie foreign talents, pretending or ignoring them but working on reducing the FW intakes that the people knew are jobs that the locals did not want to take up? They did not understand what the people are kpkb about, the FTs and not the FWs?
Maybe it is about good communications or selective communications, talk only on topics that they chose to talk about and keep quiet on issues that they did not want to talk about. And there is no need to bother about a meeting of the minds. The meeting of the minds, if there is any, will be in the Natcon on select topics with the converts talking to the converts of the same religion.
Chua Chin Leng aka redbean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com