Just last week, I had a major argument with someone close to me – and I do not know who I can trust nowadays as the government has planted many spies around me – I told her that I am very tired. People aren’t fighting. I told her, I do not know if Singaporeans know what they want. Many Singaporeans are urging me to continue to fight. But at the end of the day, what do Singaporeans want to achieve? Some want their CPF returned to them. Some want the PAP denied two-thirds of the seats in parliament. However, you have to know that as long as the PAP is the government, there is no incentive for them to return your CPF to you. They’ve been taking your CPF as their own money to use for at least the past 30 years, if not the past 50 years. Why would having just a few more opposition seats change things? All they need to do is to prevent the opposition from running in the next general election. The truth is that the only way when the CPF system will change, and in fact the only way that the government will finally learn to take care of Singaporeans is when the government changes and when the PAP is no longer the government. But how many of you are ready for this? Or how many of you have thought through this? So, the person close to me told me: but you know, I have to take care of my family, I have to take care of my children, so I can’t fight. You do not have a family or a partner, so you can fight. But do you know that by fighting, I have lost my job and pretty much my life in Singapore? I haven’t been able to find a partner too because how many people would date a person being sued by the prime minister, no matter how unjust his action is? I will only be able to get my life back in Singapore, when the government changes and the PAP is no longer the government. But still, I fought. Not because I have nothing to lose but because I knew that if I don’t fight now, later on down the road, when things get worse, it will be too late to do something about it. So I told the person close to me: no, you fear. Don’t come out with these excuses. You fear. And you have allowed the PAP’s propaganda to control you. Look at Hong Kong. The people there would say, for my family, for my children, I will fight. But look at Singapore. But you don’t understand, Singapore is better off, she said. Rubbish, I shot back. Singapore is worse than Hong Kong. Poverty in Singapore is an estimated 30%. It is 19.6% in Hong Kong and this is already considered bad for a developed city. 30% of Singaporeans cannot earn enough to spend on basic necessities and the next 30% cannot earn enough to save. You are talking about two-thirds of Singaporeans who are not able to adequately earn to survive in Singapore. And it is going to get worse. In 2000, poverty was an estimated 15%. It has gone up to 30% today. And at the rate it is going, in another 10 years, the number of Singaporeans living in poverty will hit 40%. Singapore went from Third World to First World but it is going back to Third World again. Amidst the facade of the tall and new buildings, Singaporeans are actually languishing back into Third World livelihoods. But how many of us are willing to acknowledge that? It even took me a while to see that even as people around me started talking about it. But it had to take people who have to loose their jobs and their homes, and people who cannot afford to pay their hospital bills or take their CPF out to have the veil taken off their eyes, to see what is really going on in Singapore. Does it also means that you would have to lose your job or your home, or when you finally need to go for a major operation and can’t pay for it or when you want to retire but cannot do so, before you can also finally see the truth? But many other Singaporeans I have spoken to have come out with excuses like she did. Because we allow fear to overcome us. Because we fear, we would rather not fight now no matter how bad lives are today.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 12:27:24 +0000
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