/and the world slides from my side
The whole issue about stability being synonymous with the growth of a country ? At this point, rather than enlisting Singapore as a stable country, it would be more suited to compare it to a computer with the government as the central power. Errors are erased and fallbacks are eliminated. Stability on the population front can mean that the government is given the liberty to perform without having to face any internal conflicts. Their work is made easier for them on several levels. Even in the odd situation when an turmoil rises, ministers and members of parliament alike are bolstered by the wholesome support of the PAP. The rise and falls of one political party, political upheavals - unheard of in Singapore. Its hard to argue that Singapore is not stable when the singular party ruling throughout the years is enough to flaunt the country’s stagnant political front. This 'stability' would be applaudable had it been cultured by working with the people on similar interests on an indifferent vision. Unfortunately rather than partake in the tediousness of this collaboration, the government has opted for another way.
The government has over the years practiced a way of suppressing the public voices into little influence. Opinions are either to be made over public avenues and such opinions are either slammed or ignored. Very rarely has any public opinion been accepted and been able to inflict change on a present government policy or has it been able to improve or prevent the implementation of a not so perfect policy. Is the government’s pride marring it from being able to provide a better governance for the people? Does it feel that its achievements have made it immune to committing any errors?
“First the Government having made a major policy decision, throws it open for public discussion, allowing, even encouraging the people to voice their views freely through the permitted channels such as the forum pages of the newspapers and the face to face feedback sessions with their Members of Parliament. The people according respond, often with much spirit and candour.The Government next waits for the noise to reach a certain level, then steps in to say, with business-like briskness: “Enough,. Let’s get back to work:, Following which, the media duly wraps up the debate, and the people withdraw and return once more to the concerns of their busy lives,”- Straits Times, 26/8/06 PAP & The People: A Return of Disaffection by Catherine LimIt seems the government is rarely willing to accept public criticism. While the avenues for this feedback is readily made available, whether the government is accepting the feedback with a open view or the mindset that its policy is flawless is in suspicion. So in nation decision making where is the part of the people then? The policies made for these people are finalized in the confined walls of the parliament house and the minds of these ministers. How efficient are these policies then, when some of these ministers with high paid salaries and comforts have never been put through the daily struggles of a middle class family or a breadwinner making a monthly income less than $700. These well to do (whom some might accuse of being politically elite) ministers are unable to create policies which will benefit these people simply because they are unaware of what these people need and go through. The policies then concocted are made and perfected not by the observation of the real problem but by a pramatic analysis of the issue. The government has to realise its dealing with people whom can neither be analysed nor handled. Now with the ignorance of feedback and criticism from the public, the policies remain highly imperfect and filled with loopholes - loopholes which the government refuses to recognise.
Working with itself and only itself has made this government's work easier on several levels. Firstly, it is not compelled to please all parties.A collaboration with the people with require the need to craft policies which the people are wholly satisfactory with. Disagreements on the policies will make governance a greater struggle for ministers. Now with the suppression of public voices the government finds no need to adapt itself to suit the needs of the people. Instead it encourages, or rather compels its citizens to recognise the capacity and vulnerability of Singapore and shift their expectations henceforth.
While the government has its work cut out, the disadvantages persist. In countries such as liberal America, the parliment is forced to rethink its policies in several situations when public protests begin in the form of strikes or lambasts from news publishers. Policies go through several levels where they are modified and improved till the public or atleast the majority is happy with them. In Singapore, these modifications are processed in the parliment level only. Feedback from the public towards improvements on these government decisions are either unheeded or debated thoroughly until the issue is made forgotten. Issues laid quietly to rest include those related to the levy of foreign maids, the exclusion of single unmarried mothers from ownership of government subsidised flats, and the most recent issue of ministrial pay rise.
A system of governance which crushes political dissent is bad for Singapore. By adopting a more open approach to public and press criticism and feeback, not only can flaws in the government policies be rectified to be more effective and suitable, but the ministers would also be sharpened by the experience of managing and curbing public dissent. This experience would prove valuable as it is necessary to strengthen ’vulnerable’ Singapore’s leaders to meet global issues and competitiors in the international playing field.
“The people’s need to be heard must neither be intimidated nor seduced by material rewards. Instead of crushing it, the Government should engage it, for only through engagement and debate can our national and political convictions be strengthened, and strong leaders created. These conditions have in the past created a Singapore visionary and fighter- Mr Lee Kuan Yew. The alternative to this is a system which churns out copies of uncreative and unimaginative leaders who cannot cope with the stiff competition Singapore faces from more robust competitors in the globalized world. Singaporeans become too dependent on the Government deciding and thinking for us, and so used to our comfort zone that any major challenges will be viewed with alarm and helplessness. We will be highly vulnerable to the predations of international competitors.” - Catherine Lim, January 12 2006 adapted from www. little speck.com/SpecialReport/special rpt - catherine - 060120.htmHowever, now with the participation of the public becoming gradually severed in major government decisions and the fracture between the ruler and the ruled increasing with the government’s failure to listen any more, it remains to be seen whether Singapore is a country made up of only the select parliament or the population of 4 million this parliament is reluctant to acknowledge.
And similarly to the computer deleted information never gets lost and while the government can currently squirm its way through the loopholes its well practiced process of managing public dissent, these functional flaws it is committing will one day inflict a stronger blow on the country as a whole.
On the other hand, a quote from PM Lee: "On top of that, he (a minister) goes out and deals with constituency issues and hugs babies from time to time. It's all part of the job" as part of his arguement on justifying the ministrial pay rise. And here we were thinking how ministers mingled among the public and 'hugged babies' as part of their concern and participation in the lives of Singaporeans. And turns out its all part of the job (which he is being paid more than a million annually for) where their little display of care (whether sincere or otherwise) instills a surge of pride in the common Singaporean at how ground to earth his minister is. Political campaign perhaps?
So remember, naive Singaporean every time your friendly minster hugs your baby he is being paid a near hundred thousand dollars a month to do it.Disclaimer; The final quote was
NOT intended to instill monetary value on the sincere social work of a minister but instead chiefly to highlight the negative interpretation one might assume the Prime Minster's word to be. Its also a plea to the minster to put less pragmatism to the job of the minster which might result in it sounding crude and insincere
8:31 AM
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
/of numbers and numerical whims
I can't do Maths.
whywhywhy Someone should comfort me and tell me that impotency in Mathematics is a natural phenomenon which everyone meanders through and me being pathetically incapable in stringing two equations together is not deviating from normality.
8:05 AM
/hear the wren sing and the falling cease
Daddy But the pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through
-Sylvia Plath
Industrial Revolution is making my eyes spin in my head like sugar. Of mills, factories, limbs snapped like twigs and children and their futures choked in fog and death like plague. Literature was the therapy, however chosing Path was the irony.
6:30 AM
/of a masterpiece in self-effacy
I have been too busy to blog, or rather alternating between variant states of health
issues which have been attacking me with a vigour which shatters my bruised immune system to the ground. My immunity, as I have come to realise is merely sufficient to wheeze its way through a handful of commmon flu bugs before
slambam. My dependency on pills has resulted in the dedication of a wholesome cabinet in my room to the life-sustaining of K. whose physical state is of such deploration I would have sublimed into unviable matter if not for the supplements my mother shoves down my throat every odd hour.
I would blog about school or atleast about the exceptional teachers I have been willed with except for I realise I do not have the patience to fabricate drama to churn out sufficient blog content. Because it is boring. Its not a flaw per se and some students find it a synonym of common association which they might appreciate (after all it supplies them with a reason to prolong their sleep time); for me though its an acquired taste I have yet to acquire. Like mushrooms. But don't take this comparison too seriously, because in all seriousness, I have no intention of degrading any teacher to the level of fungi, even if the lessons you hold tend towards the stale and mouldy.
On the other hand, Chemistry SPA was an absolute nightmare. I must have obliterated every possible lab safety existant and I would methodically list my impotency with labwor except that I don't have a decade or two to spare. The bunsen burner was jabbed frequently, my gas pipe reeked and my chemistry knowledge (or rather the appalling lack of it) was the excarbation of the whole affair. I didn't even try to bubble calcium hydroxide because with my coordination of a drunken primate I would have imploded my test tube. Then again, I have screwed up so much it is logically unquantifiable to have done any worse.
9:02 AM
