First thing first. I have Filipino friends such as Orion Pérez D. and I will wish him well as their country celebrate their independence. I will also say do enjoy the festivities and I hope locals share in their joy as Singaporeans enjoyed Songkrang with Thais too, Devali with Indian friends and Hari Raya Puasa with Malay friends. I also enjoy Ozzie Day BBQ with fellow Monashians and with Australian counterparts. Is a celebration of good things. Whats not happy about? The thing is that there is a perceived unfairness in the air. While there are those who are under employed, there is a huge population of workers who took up jobs that locals can do. It let us to wonder is our education system that bad we cant find jobs? Why management keep insisting they couldnt find local workers? What are the causes? Because there is a lack of transparency in these matters of course people will get angry. But the thing now is that the anger is channeled to the wrong target. If our immigration and work place policies are properly in place with good management, I would believe that people would be happy anyone can have a fiesta in Singapore as everyone would feel they are treated fairly in the workplace. But the uproar only shows one thing..it shows anger. No point going about calling Singaporeans trolls or disgraceful. To compare the event to Singapore Day in London is also uncalled for. Honestly, there are Brits who opposed the liberal immigration policy (from our point of view it is actually pretty stringent) and nothing is said about that. Is our PM assuming that the Brits are as open minded? I believe so and from someone who studies in Australia too, I can tell you there are quarters in the population who dont like Asians too. What differs Singapore with Australia and UK is that they are seemed more likely to protect their own citizens rather than opening the borders so liberally. Perception is an evil no doubt. When theres enough people who has the same perception then truth sometimes wont cut it. The Singapore PAP Government may have the truth from their point of view but it wont do them any good if they keep on insisting that the perception is in the minority rather than majority. Fact of the matter is that even an American is saying that the Government is too pro-foreigner and the post was deleted unceremoniously. That says a lot. I can picture a kid blocking his ears with his hands and shout La La La at the top of his voice trying to drown out the surroundings...the other imagery would be the ostrich with its head in the sand. Yes there will be people who are xenophobic as there are those in the older generation who dont take too kindly to indians and malays. I am honest that I have met them and rejected them readily too. I have Malay and Indian friends (you can see them on my friend list). However i̶t̶ if one has an iota of intelligence, it can be easily seen that being xenophobic and being against government policies are two different things. Protesting against the celebration is just playing into the governments hands of labelling those who are fighting for equal employment opportunities as xenophobic. Who wins? Certainly not those who are fighting for the Singaporean workers. In this case, those who seems to be fighting for Singaporeans has instead provided the lightning rod for the PAP to strike against. Lets focus on the right thing to do.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 11:14:13 +0000
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