Anyway, since I am in a special state in the relationship, I'm going to try and talk about something else so that anyone who reads this blog won't kill themselves out of sheer boredom. I mean there is nothing so repulsive to the general reader as soppy news and nothing quite as enjoyable as disgusting news. So, where can I start except the topic of National Service and foreign talent.
For me, National Service was probably one of the most interesting periods of my life. It was, as they say, the first time I got to know the "real" Singapore as opposed to the happy glam glam world that my parents lived in. I suddenly realised that Singapore had yobs, spoke it's own unique language and was despite the best efforts of the government, wonderfully interesting.
Even if you were to remove the tragedy of Exercise Swift Lion from the two and a half years I spent, National Service was emotionally traumatic. I mean, there I was, the son of a fairly well to-do man from a preppy British Public School being thrown in to run around with the grunts - what else could I feel but quite disorientated.
At the same time, it was the most exhilarating experience and I say this including the experience of Swift Lion. If losing two people did anything for us, it made the friendships that were made all the more precious. As I write this blog entry, I can tell you with all honesty that the best friends I have ever made come from this period of my life. It's as simple as this, you never know who your friends really are until the chips are down (as they often are in the army) and I'm blessed with the handful of friends that I made in those moments.
If you ask me what I think of National Service, my answer is probably two-fold. I loathed the idea of reservist because I'm way out of the routine I had and when you're self-employed, you have to live with the fear of losing client relationships and business opportunities, which are crucial to your livelihood.If you ask me if I could go back and not go through those two and a half years, the answer is no - I'd still go through them because if I hadn't I my life would be poorer for it - lacking in the friendship that I made.
I can't call myself a die-hard patriot but I believe that National Service is an important institution in Singapore. In a society which segregates people as a matter of necessity, National Service exists to unite people and that, I believe is something that has become all the more necessary. For all the complaints about Singapore, it's still a good place to be. Life is comfortable especially when compared to many of our neighbours. However, while there are privileges to citizenship, there must also be responsibilities and for a Singaporean man, national service is one of them.
So you can imagine why I get peeved by the government's policy of exempting groups from this institution. The mantra is "We need foreigners to keep things moving," and the government is so desperate for immigrants into Singapore that it actually rolls out the red carpet and creates a situation where the ordinary citizen feels that it's better to be a foreigner living in Singapore than a Singaporean.
For the record, despite my rants about various groups of expatriates, I am not anti-foreigner. No society can afford to be isolated from the flows of human migration. I am sympathetic to migrants. Singapore was built by the sheer energy of migrant labour and it will continue to be built by migrant labour.
I also believe that we must accept that not everyone wants to settle in Singapore. There are people who come here to work, make a contribution and then go back home. Like it or not, the expatriate labourer is a fact of life in just about every modern society. As my mother once reminded me - "We were expats too." (Back in the days when Lee was being transfered round Europe)
What I find hard to swallow is the idea that it is so necessary to attract certain groups of people to make Singapore home that we must give them special privileges. One of these comes from the exemption of National Service. According to the Prime Minister in a report in the Today Newspaper on 16 September, 2009, it is.
He described the necessity to such exemptions by saying, "We would not get the people we wanted," and then had to say that such people were the "Spice in the Singapore Mix." This former Brigadier General (yes, he was CO of 23 SA, where I spent the better part of my National Service) said that he would "not want to be their platoon commander."
This is interesting because it raises several questions about the type of society that we want to live in and the way we want things to go. What for example does the Prime Minister mean when he talks about "The people we want."?
Does he mean high-net worth individuals? Is he trying to make Singapore into a playground for the world's well-to-do ala Monaco? This is a possibility. Singapore is a centre for Private Banking and we're now building two casinos, where hopefully the world's high-rollers will lose enough money.
But how exactly does exempting them of their children from National Service help Singapore? The ultra-rich have always been very mobile and besides, all you want them to do is to park some of their money here and spend a little. Singapore is already doing this for ultra-rich in Indonesia - just walk into any private hospital and you'll realise that Singapore would have no private healthcare industry without Indonesian Chinese.
Is the Prime Minister trying to talk to professional classes? It's not reasonable for him to want to attract them into becoming Singaporeans. Professional people may not have a gazillion dollars to park there at once but over time can bring in vast value.
But aren't we already extracting our value out of the transient expats? And besides, how many of the professional classes would take up citizenship? As an American citizen said,"I keep my US Passport because the US government has extraction capabilities which Singapore does not." That sentiment is not just echoed amongst the expats from Western countries. Many of the Indian IT workers take up permanent residency here but few if any I know take up citizenship - India is an up and coming force in the world - Singapore is not.
So who exactly is it so necessary to attract that we have to exempt them from National Service? If you want to go down the social ladder, there are plenty of poor Chinese, Bangladeshi and Filipinos who would gladly spend two-years being indoctrinated in the Singapore system - so who exactly are the groups that we need so desperately that we have to exempt them and their children from National Service?
Then there's the point of loyalty. A few years ago, another Prime Minister asked,"Are you a stayer or a quitter?" The message was clear - leave Singapore forever - Bad, Come back - Good. The point here is, surely those who serve National Service are more likely to be stayers rather than quitters once they invest a portion of their lives in Singapore.
So let's put the question to the Prime Minster, do we want stayers or quitters? If you roll out the red carpet and shower a person with privileges and then you tell him or her that they have to commit a certain number of years to Singapore and they run away - they are surely quitters. You need his or her loyalty more than they need your citizenship - hence this should be a question of the value of citizenship. Wouldn't it be better to have someone who is so desperate to be Singaporean they're willing to serve National Service and then enjoy the privileges of citizenship. Surely, these stayers are more valuable - the type of people you want to command in a platoon.
If you ask me, this sounds like the government is grasping for a policy here but thankfully not all of us are grasping about the question of identity. I remember an ophthalmologist I know who was asked, "Are you a Singaporean?" To which he replied,"Are you asking me if I have served National Service - Yes I have."
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