On 26 Jul, in ST Saturday Special, Philip Jeyaretnam was interviewed and said this: Today, Singapore has so many people other than the traditional Singaporean communities, and that in itself has brought us to this stage - where one of the issues for our own sense of ourselves is: Do we see ourselves first and foremost as a global city like London or New York? Or do we have some other conception of ourselves? For me, when we consider this question, we shouldnt just think back to the 1970s, which I think tends to lead people into a sense of angst; theyre worried because it seems so different from what things were like then. But if you think back to the 1930s, further back to the 1890s, in many ways Singapore was already a global city. You had many people from different places coming to Singapore - people such as Sun Yat Sen and Ho Chi Minh. These revolutionaries would have come to Singapore and found it a welcoming place because it was open. When we think about what Singapore is, what Singapore is meant to be, if you think about Singapore in this longer period of time, it actually does make cultural sense for us to be a global city. On the other hand, his brother, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, had this to say on FB concerning an MSM article about secondary schools being merged: A triumph of PAP policy? Now the birth rate has fallen so low as a result of the lack of financial support for families they can start cutting back on education spending. After all its cheaper to import already trained labour from abroad. What a brotherly contrast.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 23:07:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015