5/08/2007

The price of instant population

While everyone is falling asleep, or under severe dosage of feeling good pep pills, that everything will be fine, the problems that new immigrants are going to bring along with them here are beginning to simmer. The fault lines are appearing. These new immigrants are very different from the early immigrants of our forefathers who came here desperate, ignorant and illiterate, and will accept anything that the local authorities threw at them, including curtailment of their basic human rights. The modern immigrants are suave, well educated, affluent and demanding. Couple with a swell headed ego that the govt has bestowed upon them as foreign talents to save us from our impending doom, it is not surprising that they are demanding that the island must adapt to their ways of life and their expectations. They will bring along, other than their wealth and talents, their idiosyncracies and peculiar lifestyles, their religions, language and culture, and everything that means something to them but may be odd or make them look like oddballs to what we have built. And they are going to demand, make demands that we give way to them. They will want their own ministers, their mayors or village chiefs, their schools and language, their culture, to be carved into the main stream of our society. We must not kid ourselves that they are going to be very pleasant and compliant. The latter is a virtue of the locals. They are still new and relatively small in numbers today, but all the signs are there of what the locals can expect of them. And given time and numbers, these foreign talents, more articulate, rich, and thinking too highly of themselves, are going to exert a lot of pressure on their poorer, submissive and less talented locals. If we are not careful, we are sowing the seed of future dissents and discords within our society. If we are going to march ahead, filled with delusions that everything will be well managed and controlled, it is prudent that we set out clear guidelines as to how far we are prepared to bend ourselves to meet the demands of new citizens. We must insist now that new immigrants accept the sacred pillars that we used to build our society and nation, the primacy of the English Language and the three other official languages and that no one is allowed to challenge these basic premises. All new citizens must accept what we are and build their lives around them and not to change what we have taken so long to build. These must be the very first conditions explained to them before they take up citizenship. And if they think this is not what they want, they should go somewhere else. We must not reach a stage when new citizens are arrogant enough and have the audacity to tell the local borns to get lost if they are unhappy with their demands. This should be the right of the citizens to demand from potential citizens. If I don't even believe in Him who had sacrificed his son, why should I believe in any ordinary man?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What tripe!

Most cuntries, and S'pore in no exception, are made up of immigrants.

According to anthropological theory, humankind started in Africa. If that is true, then virtually EVERYONE's ancestors were immigrants.

Immigration started long, long ago because man has always been a NOMADIC SPECIES — seeking to improve his condition by seeking out new locations, and possibly new resources for man's survival in those new locations.

All this was happening before proper maps and charts were available, or mankind started drawing "imaginary lines" on those maps — called "borders".

These "borders", while serving positive functions are also the root cause of bigotry, xenophobia, racism and a sort of "barrier to entry" to other humans who may pose a threat to the locals.

Get off the high horse and support OPEN BORDERS lah. Everyone wins. No one should fear "competition".

> If we are not careful, we are sowing the seed of future dissents and discords within our society.

You are sounding like Australia's Pauline Hanson or those alarmist Labour Party politicians of the 40s and 50s who imposed a "White Australia Policy" to discriminate against non-whites.

Careful redbean, your bigoted slip is showing — but hey, don't let me stop you, you are FREE to be a bigot if you so choose!

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

on the contrary, i am never against immigration. i no pauline hanson lah.

and my approach to most issues is moderation and not extremism, not a complete white or black. not open border or stateless. these are idealist states that cannot exist for long. your fundamental premise that men are selfish will turn these states upside down in no time.

we must welcome citizens that can contribute to the country and also be careful that they do not come in to tear it apart.

the australian polics is of racial discrimination. my only discrimination is against those that come it to disrupt what we have built.

Anonymous said...

> my only discrimination is against those that come it to disrupt what we have built.

That is exactly what the Aust racila policies were all about. "Disruption".

IMO, "disruption" is good. It makes everyone try harder, cooperate better and focus on what is important to them.

Singapore society is half asleep, and whinging and complaining even when they have is so good. No lah, shake it up — shake it, and churn it, stir it... that's PROGRESS!

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

we need some shaking up. but it all depends on what kind of shaking up. if the source of the shake up is racial or religious, we are doomed for good.

we are not a big country and cannot absorb too big a crisis and instability. some shakeups are irreparable.

as singaporeans, truly born and bred here, we grew up among the different races and take them for grant as a natural thing. for the white australians, protecting a white australia is their natural thing, though this is changing quite rapidly.

the preservation of australia is a racial thing. in our case, nobody would even think along such lines. it is a done thing, our multi racial and multi legacy. but to keep it going on without overturning the applecart requires a lot of sensitivity.