The govt is asking, ‘What is the cause of this riot’

My view is that anyone who has a little brain and asking this question does not deserve an answer. You don’t need a super talent to know the answer. You don’t need to start an inquiry to know the answer. When you do that, it is an indication that you do not want to know the truth, you do not want to know the answer.

We have something like half a million foreign workers here. And one can agree that many of them are decent workers out here to do a decent job, to earn a decent living to feed their family. But with half a million, you only need to have 1% that is unhappy for whatever reasons, you can stare into a horde of 5 thousand potential rioters. This is a big number game, big data.

Let’s not kid ourselves that you can’t find 1% that will be trouble makers for the right or wrong reasons. And given the conditions and terms of their employment, many of them, maybe 50% or more would have problems and grudges and difficulties earning a decent living because of exploitations. And who is the biggest beneficiary to this scam? No prizes for guessing. And when they gathered together in tens of thousands or a hundred thousand, you think every will be peaceful forever, no trouble will come from these nice people? Are you born yesterday?

Have we learnt our lesson after this event? Do we sincerely believe that everything is alright, do a little cosmetic changes, don’t sell liquor, more police patrol, etc etc will avoid another riot? You can’t be so naïve right?

The root of the problem is still there. Half a million of exploited workers, underpaid, over worked and living and working in unsatisfactory conditions are tinder waiting to be set alight. And don’t forget, these are simple folks from the villages, uneducated, callous, boorish, with no social graces, and will turn foul and wild at the slightest provocation, no matter how decent and nice they are?

Have we not built enough flats to stop bringing in more of such nice people here? Boon Wan at one time threatened that he would not have the workers to build the flats for Sinkies. Now his happy problem is that he is slowing down his building programme. So?

Is this an opportune time to take our winnings and walk away unhurt? What had happened could be very much worse, and the worst is still out there waiting to happen. Have a little wisdom, or count the probabilities, stop the greed, start to unwind and reduce the presence of these very nice and simple folks here. Let them go, stop exploiting them for their cheap labour. Do a bit of charity, do some good deeds by not ensnaring so many of them here. The consequences of the next incident could be one that we cannot afford to pay for.

Take this as a lesson, a reminder, like the owl, that things can go awfully wrong and we will regret to continue down this path. Or shall we continue to bring more of them here, refuse to listen, be like deaf frogs, no ‘hew’, and believe that we can get away with it a second time like this one, with minimum casualties and damages to properties.

Do we want to see Singapore burning before calling it off? Do we really not understand what this whole incident is all about, we do not know how it came about?

Who’s kidding? Remember a picnic on East Coast Park could cause a riot? Here we have a mob in a hundred thousand every weekend, foreigners, single men, hungry, new to our way of life, exploited and all in debt. You have a perfect concoction to go on a rampage. You mean you dunno?

After the riot, what’s next?

The riot last night is a reminder that Singapore has not done enough in integrating the foreigners to our way of life. This kind of thing, a traffic accident, may cause some distraught to the victims and family members, if they are Sinkies, and it would be looked upon as an accident just like accidents in NS. The affected would get angry but no rioting. To the foreigners, rioting is part of their DNA. No kidding, they just demonstrated how it works. It is just how they would react in their home countries.
 
So? Instead of putting all the blames wrongly, let’s sit back and see what we have not done right and what we could do better. One thing I think we have not done well is the integration process. We have not taught them enough of our way of life. We need to put in more effort in this area.
 
Let’s appoint a minister that has a passion and tender loving care for foreigners here to organize another integration campaign to make the foreigners become more like us. Then allocate another $10m for it. Maybe $10m is not enough since this was the sum allocated to the last campaign. Let’s be more generous since we have plenty of money in the kitty. How about $50m, will it work? $50m or $100m, it will be money well spent and no more rioting and no more burning of police cars and injuries to our men in blue.
It is something that needs to be done. Let’s do it. Let’s take the fight to the foreigners, with flowers and good food and a lot of tender loving kindness.
 
What do you think?

PAP, check!

We are now in the end game. The first check move has been made. How many moves will it take to a checkmate? I think it is a bit too late to read ‘How to play Chess by Karpov’ and to adopt new strategy and change tactics.
 
In the end game it is all forced moves. And the defender can only react while the attacker dictates the game and waiting for the final move…checkmate.

Rioting in Little India

This is real, not an exercise. 400 people rioted and 18 casualties, including 10 police officers and four from the Civil Defence. 5 vehicles were overturned – 3 from the Police and one SCDF ambulance and a motor cycle. 300 police officers were deployed from the Special Operations Command and the Gurkha Contingent. 27 Asians were arrested at press time.
 
The incident happened around 9.30pm last night when a private coach knocked down and killed a pedestrian. A press conference was held at 2am by Chee Hean, Shanmugam and Police Chief Teo Joo Hee.
The situation is now under control and things have calmed down for the moment. Police are still investigating and more arrests are coming. How this would lead to is anyone’s guess.
 
After 50 years, we finally have a communal riot right in the heart of Singapore. The timing was surreal. Channel 5 just concluded its screening of ‘There was a time’ with a lot of emphasis on the riots in the past. Boon Wan was worried about the foreigners forming enclaves in HDB estates. And the PAP just concluded a major exercise to refocus on what it done wrong and how to get things right again. Now we have this rude reminder that rioting can easily erupt with the slightest incident, a road accident.
The lessons of the past did not seem to be a lesson at all. No on take heed to the enclaves that are forming, and worse, by hundreds of thousands of foreigners congregating at a particular spot. Like George Yeo said, everything looks so perfect. Now the ugliness is raring its head. All the idealism on paper is now torn to pieces by the hard realities on the ground.
 
A lot of soul searching needs to take place after this. Many policies need to be reviewed immediately and the complacency of nothing will go wrong is stark. This is no joking matter. Back to the drawing board, and is anyone still thinking that 6.9m is a good idea? Is there any enclave forming in Little India and other parts of the island? Bitter fruit for thought, surely.
 
We were so lucky to get away with just a few casualties. Little India could be burning and the safety of those residents living in the area could be jeopardized. My God, it is happening. Did anyone see this coming?

Fandi - Welcome home

Ever since the madness about FTs extended to our little pond of sports, I have given up following what was happening to the national football team. All I heard was that the standard has gone from bad to worse despite the silly money being paid to all the foreign players and coaches. So much money wasted, so much time wasted and so many local talents wasted, all for some naïve bugger’s fetish craze for foreigners.

This morning the news reported that Fandi has been appointed as the coach for the Lions XII, taken over from Sundramoorthy. I can only presume that this is the national team. I can only say it is high time we put the screws in our heads back in their proper place and stop coveting other people’s fallen talents. We need to spend our money on our children, our very own talents. We need to nurture our talents, support them and give them pride to be Singaporeans and not be despised as not good enough by FTs. The devious and demeaning thinking and attitude of our silly leaders must be given a good shaking and get the stench of foreigners off them.

To be frank, what we have is a team of potatoes. And no matter who is brought in to coach them, they will play like potatoes, maybe a little better or a little worse. To turn potatoes into world champions cannot be done by simply hiring a foreign coach or a few ‘has been’ foreign footballers. We have to be realistic in our expectations. We must have our own pride. No, Fandi is not going to turn our potato footballers into world champions. And please, do not blame him for not being able to do that. No foreign coaches can do that either. It has been proven.

What Fandi can do is to do us proud as Singaporeans again, kicking the ball in the field and running around for Singapore by Singaporeans. We need to look inward and rely on ourselves, our own children, to bring us glory. We have done that in the past, all on our own, local coaches and local footballers. We must know out limitations and be content that we are regional champions. Forget about the World Cup. Oh, you want to spend our millions to buy the world’s best coach and the best players, go ahead. Make sure it is your own money.

We have had our flirtations with foreign coaches and foreign players and we know what we could get after throwing away good money that could go to our boys. We have Sundramoorthy who did just as good as the foreign coaches. Now we have Fandi back, our very own international football star. Let’s give him the fullest support and let him do us proud. But don’t have delusionary wet dreams that he must bring us the World Cup. Fandi would do his best with the potato footballers we have and they will gel around him as a national team. We can then cheer ‘Fandi’ instead of some queer names from dunno where. Shouting them would not mean anything to anyone of us.

Let’s hear Fandi’s name in everyone’s lips once again. Let our boys grow with him and for every Singaporean to feel really proud when the boys bring home a trophy, no matter how small. They are our own talents, not some FTs from God knows where.