May Day Protest Rally – Why?

Many of you have attended the first protest rally in February. And a sequel is being arranged for May Day. What curious me, and perhaps Gilbert, would be the motivation of the people who made it a point to be there. Many were there for different reasons. They all went home feeling recharged with an old emotion of a past when they were Singaporeans. It seemed that that was a long forgotten feeling that was lost and found again in Hong Lim on Feb 16. Many cried, as simple as that. Many were emotional. This is what being a people united is all about. Something connected them, something clicked.

The people in the Govt may also want to know what was that strange emotion felt by everyone present in Hong Lim. There was something out there that bonded the people. Gilbert too would want to know. It will make his second effort more meaningful.

Many of you reading this were there at Hong Lim. It would be good to share with us here why you were there, why you went. And it would also be good to tell us why you would want to go again, to bring more people along to share that special moment of being Singaporeans. And there will be many of you who would want to be there this time round. Why?

Where should this movement go from here? What is it that you want or what is it that you want Gilbert and his team to do? There is still some time to talk about this and help Gilbert to work out something, like the speakers and the speeches that you want to see and hear.

Please use this platform to share your thoughts. Just a reminder, the 6.9m is the goal if the circular that is going around asking the people to suggest ways to make 6.9m less of a squeeze in the island is real. Everyone knows that the big squeeze is on the way, not just physical squeeze but squeeze in everything, from housing, infrastructure, schools, facilities, jobs etc etc. Everything must be downsize to feel comfortable. Is this what the people want? No need to ask the Govt.

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Weekly page views of mysingaporenews. The US has overtaken Singapore with the most viewerships of mysingaporenews blog. It has 14,161 weekly pageviews against Singapore’s 14069. Third is the UK and followed closely by France and Germany. Quite an achievement for a small little blog of Singaporean bloggers.

Well done guys. You are international.

Redbean

Programming how Asians think

The West, with its monopoly of English language media and the English literate feeding on it, has been very successful in programming how Asians think. MacDonald, of junk food status, is a fad in many Asian countries, simply by repeatedly telling the Asians how cool it is to eat at MacDonald. But this is merely commercial advertisement.

More serious and deadly, and insulting, is the programming of Asians to hate another country, particularly Iran and North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil. China used to be the number One target, including Myanmar. Today it is all Iran and North Korea.

The daily provocations by the Americans and South Koreans against the North Koreans are turned around to condemn the North Koreans as the provocative one. Major war games simulating a landing and invasion of North Korea on the borders of that country, flying stealth bombers that are nuclear capable, and now stealth fighters in the Korean peninsula were claimed to be normal acts and non aggressive. From the North Korean’s point of view, these are intense and aggravated acts of provocation and acts of hostility.

Then there is this constant barrage of western articles repeating western dismissive fantasies against the North Koreans being written and published almost daily to paint the North Koreans as mad, insane and unpredictable and war like people. Another article appeared in the ST today that said nothing new or good about the North Koreans but with the purpose of reinforcing the message that the West have been painting about North Korea for the innocent and unthinking Asians to read and to sink into their subconscious mind. North Korea is bad, North Koreans are mad…. The repetition of such a one sided distorted message, over time, will programme the Asians to utter without thinking, to regurgitate what the West want them to think and say about North Korea. And many Asian media are accomplices to this act, blindly aiding the West to make fellow Asians think stupid, Asians to hate Asians because the West wants them to do so.

How then could so many Asians hating the North Koreans without knowing who they are and have had nothing to do with them?

Xenophobia a badge of honour?

When one scans the social media today, there is an unmistaken trend developing, a trend that no one could foresee will ever happen in this migrant society, open and international. We are a very open society and people, very cosmopolitan and liberal, some even called themselves international citizens. How could there be a rise of xenophobia or racism? Some angry Singaporeans are claiming that it is a right to be xenophobic, to be racist in a way, against the intrusion of so many foreigners in their midst. On the other hand, the Govt is planning to have more foreigners to reduce the citizen core to 40% in order to strengthen the core. Believe it? I cannot understand the logic when the people are showing their objection openly. So I must be daft.

Singaporeans are familiar with the annotation of CMIO or Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others as the official racial groups of the island. Everyone is one of these four different racial groupings. How then can Singaporeans be racist when they have embraced different races as one of them and living in harmony for years, the envy of many countries? Racial conflicts or riots are things of the past.

Is it racism or xenophobia, is it nationalism or patriotism, or is it simply about the rights and privileges of being citizens, being owners of this island? The rising anger and trend got to do with a little of each and a combination of all. What is the root cause of this ugly development? Many books can be written by the sociologists or political scientists but I will try to put them simply in one sentence and leaving all the big theoretical jargons to the academics. The problem of xenophobia is due to the Govt’s thoughtless policy of flooding the island with foreigners to compete with the citizens for good jobs, housing, cars, schools, facilities, space and a seat in the train.

There are just too many foreigners around and competing with the citizens in many unfair ways with citizens being displaced from top and middle management jobs, being priced out of good housing, being deprived of car ownership, compromising the good life they used to have. The latest revelation that foreigners are ganging up to discriminate and victimise citizens in employment and work place is just about the last thing that the citizens can stomach. There is anger and more anger against foreigners. And the foreigners did not help but add to the burning fire with callous behaviour and talking down on the locals.

In the face of such gross infringement of foreigners everywhere, with the local citizens calling themselves true blue and bred Singaporeans feeling the pressure, the Govt’s White Paper of increasing the population further by bringing in more foreigners was just the breaking point. The rage is unrestrained among the more vocal citizens. The Govt is seen as uncaring and aloof, totally disconnected from the feelings of the common Singaporeans. It is like two persons in the same bed but having different dreams, going separate ways.

How is the Govt going to contain this anger of the people? Or is the Govt going to do something positive to appease the unhappiness of the people? If the Govt fails to rein in the growing anti foreigner tension, the social fabric is up for a bitter test in tolerance. The main media, like the Govt, is telling the angry citizens to be more tolerant of foreigners. Would the affected Singaporeans listen and be swayed? T shirts are being printed to ‘down with the 6.9m population’ and a May Day protest is on the way. Would Singaporeans end up wearing the racist badge as an honour to defend their basic interests as citizens of this island? A point to note is that much of the anger is actually directed at the Govt for its pro foreigner policies and not directly at foreigners per se.

Spend more to win election

On 28 Mar, the ST ran an article ‘Lee Li Lian is by election’s top spender’. It was reported that she spent $65,227 against Koh Poh Koon’s $62,991. The details of what is included in these numbers and what are not would be another area of contention. And she held three rallies instead of the latter’s two. No wonder she won the by election. She must have worked harder and willing to spend more money, altogether $2,236 more than Koh. And her votes won were 16,045 while Koh got 12,875.

Just analysing the statistics will simply say that spending more and working harder is the formula for success. Can we expect all the political parties to be spending more and working harder in the next GE? I think many parties would have problem achieving both as they may be able to work harder, but many would not have the money to do so. Fortunately Li Lian was able to come up with more money on the table. This is quite strange as the PAP was never short of money. Or is it that they thought spending nearly $63k would be hard to beat as the WP, being a workers’ party, would not be able to match the rich elitist party with many millionaires and multi millionaires in their ranks.

This must be WP’s secret weapon, got plenty of money to campaign for election, and must be a big surprise to the PAP. Maybe it was because it was only a by election and its resources were focused on one event. If the WP would to contest in a GE then they may not have enough money to spread around. Fielding so many candidates and running so many rallies would be very very costly. No wonder in GE the PAP always sure win.

If the PAP thinks that the WP only got enough money for a by election by putting all in, then it should not present much problem with $63k per candidate in the GE. With 87 seats, this will cost the PAP at least $5.5m on the average to fight the next GE. If the WP were to contest half the seats, it will be 43 x $65k or $2.8m. Can the WP afford this kind of money?

What if both want to up the stake by adding another $10k or so per candidate, it will be very much more to put on the table. The rest of the smaller parties would have to think twice whether to follow or to fold their cards. Very likely they would only be able to do well by concentrating their limited resources to a few candidates. Winning an election definitely cost money and the stake is getting higher and higher. Do not rule out higher deposits for the candidates.

The higher cost of fielding a candidate is expected as the rewards are also quite handsome. For $63k to $65k, the return at $16k per month for 5 years is $960k, quite close to a million. And then there is the big bonus of becoming an office holder, with a top prize of several millions annually. Spending $60+k is really cheap when compare to the returns. Not a bad investment looking at the odds and the monetary winnings.