Total Defence is meaningless when not knowing what to defend

SINGAPORE: In Singapore, Total Defence Day is commemorated on Feb 15 – the day that Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942. Besides being a date of historical significance, Total Defence Day reminds Singaporeans of our collective responsibility to defend our sovereignty and way of life.

Against the current backdrop of a weakening international rules-based order, Singapore’s territorial integrity cannot be taken for granted. Middle powers and small states should invest in their collective resilience – which has been a fundamental cornerstone of Total Defence for more than 40 years....

Besides hardware and infrastructure, a country’s resilience depends greatly on its people’s readiness....Collective resilience also includes looking out for one another in times of crisis and disruption....Singapore has shown a willingness to take legal action against potential malign actors, signalling that coordinated foreign interference in Singapore’s domestic politics will not be tolerated. CNA

What is Total Defence? What are we defending, and defending who, defending against who? The words, Total Defence, are coming out from the mouth of many people, quite freely, like a medicine for the good of all. When Singapore was taken by the Brits, no one was calling for defence of the island. When the Japanese invaded Singapore, no one was calling for the defence of Singapore. In the first instance, Singapore was not a country. The concept of nation state was alien to the inhabitants of the islands. In the second instance, Singapore was a colony of the British Empire. The inhabitants were not citizens. Singapore belong to the Brits. It was meaningless for the inhabitants to be defending the island for the Brits.

Then came self rule, then became a part of Malaysia and Confrontasi. Indonesia wanted Singapore as part of Indonesia. The war was against Malaysia. What was the status of the inhabitants in the island? The incident happened at a time, a brief moment in history that the people in the island were still rubbing their eyes about Malaysia and their being Malaysian citizens. Only when Singapore became an independent nation state that the idea and concept of nationhood started to take on meaning to Singaporeans who then became citizens of the island.

National Service was introduced in 1967. We have a nation called our own to defend. Yes, we finally owned a piece of land, a bit small though, but it was ours, it belonged to Singaporeans. This is something worth defending for, to defend against the island being taken over by foreigners. This concept seemed simple enough. Now we are bringing in foreigners to be Singaporeans so freely. There are now more foreigners ie new citizens than the original Singaporeans. We are sharing our little island with foreigners that we once thought we must keep out, to protect our little piece of land. All Singaporeans are co owners of this island. But did anyone ask the Singaporeans if they are happy, agreeable, to let so many foreigners to come and take a share of their island?

What is the difference between foreigners taking over our island with our consent and foreigners wanting to take over our island by force, without our consent? If we are so glad to share our island, our national reserves, our way of life with so many foreigners, the question of defending our island becomes fussy? Hypothetically, we can let 10 million foreigners in to share our little island without knowing that we are giving our little island and everything to foreigners.

There is no longer the need for foreigners to interfere with our affairs from outside. They can officially interfere with our affairs by waving a pink IC and do what they please. It becomes their right to interfere with our domestic and national affairs? Think about it! Think about the long term consequences further from the tip of your nose.

What about Total Defence? What is so Total about Defence? Defending our land, our way of life, our hard and soft asset? As mentioned above, there is no need to defend our land when we are serving it on a silver platter to foreigners. What about our way of life? The academics can write tomes of books about this topic. Simply put, our way of life must be the way we lived, 'we' meaning the original Singaporeans. Now we have more foreigners than the original Singaporeans, and our teh or kopi is now teh susu or kopi susu of various shades, definitely not the same as before. We are being adulterated or to put it crudely, bastardised, to be more like foreigners than ourselves, if the number of foreigners is greater than us. This is simple math.

Our hardware and infrastructure are something similar to our land, physical assets. What about our software, the soft assets? With so many foreigners in the system, in critical operations and top management, with so many unknowns among the foreigners, some could be wildlife, some could be poison that could destroy whatever we have built, sleepers waiting to do damage to us, Total Defence is going to be a creepy subject. How to defend a henhouse when wolves and foxes are welcomed to live among the hens? When wolves and foxes are invited to share the henhouse, to partake and consume what they want, what is there to defend?

Total Defence is supposed to be a very comprehensive, complex and thorough concept, to be awared, to know that many things need to be protected, everyone must be on the lookout for the good of Singaporeans. When there is no difference between We and Them, when We means them and us, the naive and innocent Singaporeans never question the foreigners if they are with us or still them, does Total Defence still makes any sense? When there are so many foreigners being regarded as us, without Singaporeans having a clue of their intent, presuming they are all good, like one of us, Total Defence is sitting on a very thin and fragile line, amounting to being fiction or fatuous. When our enemies are living with us, among us, working alongside Singaporeans, being treated as one of us, and presumed to be harmless, and we are talking about Total Defence so freely, like real. The enemies that Singapore welcomed in as new citizens or PRs will not have horns on their foreheads. They will all look very sweet, very polite, very likeable, like angels.

When the We and Them no longer exist, blurred, where are the enemies to look out for, to defend against? We no longer have enemies or potential enemies. Every foreigner is our friend, our potential citizens. We are now so hard up for more citizens that taking every worm, insect and predator into our island, into our homes, praying that all will be well...is the new mantra for survival.

What do you think? Are you thinking? Or others are doing the thinking for you?