Okay chewing gum I can somewhat agree, it gets extremely irritating when you kena gum on your shoes, hands, hair, buttocks, etc. It is still nevertheless embarrassing that our country banned it.
Now, like how your parents forced you to wear them big plastic nerd glasses to school because they don't want to buy you cool ones, the nation's politicians has once again embarrassed me by banning Shisha. Really... Shisha... Why on earth? Is it because you can't find a way to tax it?
Yes, Shisha may provide a different array of heath hazards and aren't a healthier replacement from cigarettes, so why don't you ban both if you want locals to be healthy? In fact, why not just tax Shisha tobacco, it's what you're good at, taxing all the fun and decadent stuff in Singapore. Have the nation's politicians gone the way of 'Murica and decided to ban Shisha so that cigarette tobacco companies can maintain their obscene profits? You know, the way major corps rub shoulders with politicians because that's where you can bend policies to your favour. That may be quite unlikely, us going the way of American politics, but it's not one to rule out. One can speculate since our government is hardly transparent with us.
Every so often, in between telling us that we are so much better off then our communistic or religiously oppressive Asian counterparts, you smoke us with epic-thousand-face-palms worthy announcements. Let me list down some thoughts I have about Singapore when you were making the decision to ban Shisha:
The issues of astronomical health care costs and insufficient hospital beds aren't resolved yet. But you ban Shisha.
The lower income and disabled welfare pay outs are still meagre. But you ban Shisha.
AWARE needs encouragement to update their gender biased no-men-allowed rule and should realise that one of the more formidable methods of abolishing females being discriminated and objectified would be through fathers guiding their sons. But you ban Shisha.
How about that horrid sexuality education workshop that slipped past MOE's eye, but god forbid we put a gay penguin book in the library? We need to address outdated mentalities and encompass diversity; male and female roles have evolved. But you ban Shisha.
Business owners need positive reinforcement on providing more for their staff in terms of salaries and benefits. But you ban Shisha.
The massive issue on the influx of Filipino and China's Chinese workers that even reduced the pay scale of our Malaysian counterparts is still floating around. But you ban Shisha.
The potential to become Asia's Switzerland through educating a culturally, emotionally, and intellectually wholesome society is not unattainable as long as we just start to dare to try. Yes, just a start, to dare to try, we could do so many things. But. You ban. Shisha.
Instead of progressing and updating your policies, trusting your people, granting autonomy to voters on matters of national agendas, promoting a healthier work life balance to enhance the living standards of already disgruntled Singaporeans, or preventing the disturbing growth in the number of keyboard warriors, you come up with something like banning Shisha simply because it's as unhealthy as all the other things we Singaporeans have been gorging on.
You know what else is embarrassing? Chan Chun Seng saying single mothers enjoy the same benefits as married mothers when they clearly don't. To name a few differences, single mothers do not receive baby bonuses and they are only entitled to half the maternity leave. See? Another issue that urgently needs addressing.
But what do you do? You go ban Shisha.
Arra's World
*The author blogs at http://arrarity.blogspot.sg