The Duke of Bukit Timah

After 45 years of history, our political development is taking on the image of medieval Europe when society was divided into the ruling class, the gentry, the landowners and the farmers. We have unwittingly developed a similar ruling class, a gentry class, landlords and of course the worker class that do all the working today to feed the ruling class. The ruling class and gentry are those that have contributed to the success story of this island and it is timely that they should be honoured by the peasants and workers. As a republic, titles like kings and princes may be a bit too much to stomach. Perhaps something less grandeur, like Dukes and Duchess, Counts and Countess, Barons and Baroness would sound quite pleasing. They would also remind the people of our rich colonial past without being seen as subjects of an empire if we were to use titles like Sir or Datuk. The Duke of Bukit Timah, the Count of Toa Payoh, the Baron of Sengkang, etc etc, nice right? And the families of such title holders be entitled to a life pension, I mean stipend, to befit their nobility. Such titles will be better than trying to reinvent the wheel, like Emeritus Ministers or things like dat. And when there is a wedding among these nobilities, we can make it real big, and sell souvenir T shirts, cups and glasses as well. Good for tourism and tourist dollars. The Europeans still have their kings and royalties, the Indians have their Maharajahs, we can have out very own nobilities. And Catherine Lim can write books about the exploits and adventures of Dukes, Counts and Baroness instead of about bind foot maids, so unattractive subjects.