Anyway, the month of August was National Day month and the usual blast of patriotic songs were thrown at us and the usual grumbly people decided to grumble about all the good cheer. This year, however was different in as much as the fact that we were celebrating our achievements amidst the worst economic downturn in fifty years. It's hard to drink champagne when you know that you might be out of a job the next day.
Which of course, leads to the usual debate of forigners. Does Singapore have too many of them or are we lacking in the necessary talent that we desparately need to import it? The Minister Mentor went as far as making a speech on how our economy would slow to killing point if we didn't have forigners and the usual group of liberals moaned that we had too many of them and Singaporeans were being killed by unfair policies in favour of forigners. Who is right and who is wrong? As with most debates both sides had their points.
It's actually frustrating to be Singaporean at times. Everyday you read government communiques exholing the virtues of the forigner. The message is simple - you need the forigner to do the work that you the local are too incompetent to do and it's not message you like to hear when you live in your own home. For those of us who grew-up elsewhere, it can be particularly irritating - when you live in someone elses country, you're told to expect the other guy to get all the good things because, it's his country not yours. But then when you come home expecting goodies, you get told that the other guy needs to cut your cue because...your country needs him. It is sometimes easy to get exceedingly frustrated as a Singapore citizen. You serve your nation in the military for 2 1/2 years but can only expect to earn something like S$3,500 per month in your working life. Then, some barrow boy comes over here and gets the same job you have but he'd be crazy to work for anything less than $7,000 a month excluding house, car, kids school fees etc.
When you look at things this way, it's pretty easy to get frustrated with Singapore and being a Singaporean. The refrain is simple, I'm better of having another passport but living in Singapore. Having said all of that, I don't think Singapore should shut it's doors to forigners who join our shores.
If there's anything we should think about, it's the fact that baring a few exceptions, Singaporeans are basically migrants. Yes, the PAP government did a fabulous job in delivering the macro-economic goodies but ultimately, Singapore's prosperity comes from the fact that we had a migrants culture. When people move outside of their home lands, they're driven by a powerful urge to create a better life for themselves. Migrants, whether they're economic or social migrants do things like do dirty jobs that the locals shun and they start businesses, probably because they face discrimination in the job market. These are the very factors that drive an economy and society forward.
I take the example of London. I used to pay my British friends the backhanded compliment that, "London only moves because forigners run the place." Thanks to a high influx of migrants, London's services run (which is pretty amazing in itself), you have basic provisions thanks to Pakistani's, the hodge podge of cultures has made London a city of enormous artistic creativity and also entreprenurial activity - the City of London is a World Financial Centre. Migrants have even made British Food (traditionally not known for exciting) - sexy.
Across the Atlantic, the situation is similar. Silicon Valley, that bastion of American technological and entreprenurial genious thrives on Chinese and Indian labour. The Chinese are the engineers, while the Indians handle software.
If this is clear for the UK and the US, surely the same should be true for Singapore, a nation that was founded by migrants who merely wanted a better life. Sometimes, as a native born, I don't really appreciate what it's like to be a Singaporean and so I hang out with my favourite Naan Maker and the Nepalese Community.
For Singaporeans who had plans to emigrate, they'd be surprised by the extent to which many of my favourite Naan Maker's friends and relations will go through just to get a Singapore Permenant Residence and ultimately citizenship. It's something that local borns don't always appreciate but, to the Naan Maker and his clique, being a Singapore citizen is an achievement, it's a step in the right direction.
To me, that's probably the most powerful thing anyone can bring to a new country - namely a desire to be part of that country. This force is more powerful than money or even talent. A rich talented man only stays as long as it suits him to. A man with a desire to be there, will find ways of staying even if you don't want him to.
I'm happy that Singapore has seen an influx of Indian nationals. The Indian Nationals are by and large, middle class, educated professionals. Those in the IT industry do have SKILLS that the economy needs - in short they are what you call TALENT, with a small emphasis on the fact that they're forign. I had the privillege of attending the IIT Alumni association's APEC meeting last year and one would be shocked by how India has produced world-class people en mass. How did they do it? They did because they faced competition - very tough competition. IIT proudly claims that a 98% failure rate is acceptable - that's the percentage of people who fail to get in (And we think NUS is tough.)
So, when you're faced with people who are used to such competition, we, Singaporeans simply need to get better and not run to the government for protection - if anything, the government could do with facing competition from a group of people who are used to competition.
Of course, you do get the Citizens of Caucasia who are FORIGN talents as opposed to forign TALENTS. But then again, if you follow the trend of the good citizens, it actually says hell of allot more about you than them if you entrust them with your life savings. In short, you deserve what you get for not applying basic common sense.
At the other end of the scale, I'm quite OK with the advent of lowly educted Chinamen and China girls coming here. Thanks to the Chinaman, I can get fat and drop dead before my 40th birthday - the Chinaman loves cheap buffets and the island is filling up with affordable bbq buffets - fun but not much good for the heart.
My father would probably prefer if I concentrated on trying to hitch myself a nice girl from China (The last one had a daughter that decided that I was TOO FAT and NOT ENOUGH HAIR to be her stepfather thus bringing my relationship with her mother to an early end). His gripe is that our Singapore girls (particularly the Chinese ones) have flat faces, small tits and huge arses - thus creating a desparate need for greater diversity in the gene pool.
Which leads one to the ultimate argument in favour of having a lose policy on the movement of people. Nature has shown that it's exceedingly unhealthy for a species to be too inbreed. Quite often quacks who don't know anything about genetics tell you that inbreeding means you keep good genes within the family - the truth is, all the genes get screwed up. Hence, the idea of the "Pretty Princes" is something of a misnomer - royalty in Europe got inbreed and so allot of them ended up looking wierd. Princes Diana and Princes Grace changed that for the House of Windsor and Grimaldi because they gave a good dose of fresh genes to the family.
In Singapore, we're quite inbreed. Work in an industry and you'll know everyone there is to know. I'm in PR and I'm running across journalist whom I have to call Auntie cause they all knew my mother - it's not six degrees of separation but three in Singapore. It's kind of cozy for me, but is it health? I think not. It's healthy to have new blood being pumped into the system, whether it's from above as in Indian IT professionals or from below, as in China born workers. Inbreeding screws up living things, including societies.
Geen opmerkingen
Een reactie posten