Have we completely
left our colonial days behind? williamcho
Get rid of that colonial mindset please
SINGAPORE – Go anywhere in Singapore and mingle
with the crowd. Chances are that you will come across someone
speaking in a non-local accent. An observation that Singapore is
colonized by individuals from a myriad of nationalities is spot on.
Before you get an impression that we are xenophobic, please don’t
get us wrong. It is not in our interest to advocate xenophobia, but
rather to analyze the circumstances surrounding the current state
of affairs and its ramifications on our national development.
In the beginning of August this year, Singapore will celebrate
its 44th birthday. And one question that Singaporeans may want to
ask themselves is – how far Singapore has progressed ever since it
emerged from its colonial past in terms of national development?
Sadly, the answer is very little. It seems that the colonial
mindset is still pervading throughout our establishment, and
manifesting in various forms.
Take our sports scene for instance, and let’s start off with a
rhetorical question – is there a Singaporean essence in the silver
medal winning exploits of our female table tennis team? One can be
forgiven if he thinks that it was China team A versus China team B
in the Finals. No one is disputing the usefulness of some foreign
athletes who possess greater talent than our local sportsmen but it
seems that the current system of fast-tracking the former to
Singapore citizenship so that they can represent us is flawed.
Supposingly, these foreign athletes are brought in to provide
healthy competition for our local athletes, which will raise our
sporting standards. No one is denying that proposition. But if they
are brought in with the intention of raising our sporting
standards, they can be sparring partners for our local sportsmen to
give the latter a competitive edge. There is absolutely no need to
fast-track these foreigners to Singapore citizenship.
On a national front, when the foreign talent policy was mooted
years ago, the explanation was that these talents were brought in
to provide jobs for the locals. One may get the impression that
“foreign talents” is synonymous with “foreign direct investments”,
because it is the latter that will provide jobs for the locals, not
so much of individual foreign talents. And the usual cynics will
question why there wasn’t any effort on the part of our
establishment to encourage the growth of small medium enterprises?
After all, Singapore’s economy is centrally planned with our
government having a certain penchant to earmark a particular
industry as a target for future growth. Is there any signs that our
government will loosen its grip of the economy and allow small
medium enterprises to proliferate? Not at all. After all, such
enterprises will be the ones employing our locals. Thus, it should
have been our enterprising local set ups hiring locals instead of
foreign talents providing jobs.
And on the technology front, especially pertaining to our pet
topic of Life Sciences, who could ever forget Mr Philip Yeo’s
famous reasoning behind his capture of big name foreign scientists
to Singapore:”They are whales brought in to train our guppies.” No
one is doubting the ability of these foreign stars to transfer
their knowledge to locals, but is it necessary to bring whales, a
mammal who lives in the salt water of the vast ocean into the
freshwater of Singapore? One local scientist cynically
remarked:”Why spend all the money to bring all these foreign stars
here when we could send our best to learn from their side, who will
then bring back whatever they have learnt and transfer their
knowledge to other locals?” And it is difficult to disagree with
him because what we ultimately want is knowledge transfer from
these luminaries and that can be achieved without getting them to
come here.
Thus, it seems that this colonial mindset will ultimately hinder
our development. The first step to the development of any nascent
nation is the need to instill national pride. And such can only be
instilled with the continued support of local endeavors. The
hindrance by this colonial mindset is analogous to a sickly patient
always in need of continuous foreign blood transfusion. Thus,
wouldn’t our constant fielding of foreign sportsmen give an
impression that we are a nation of couch potatoes who do not do
sports, and need others to do it for us? And wouldn’t our so-called
need to rely on foreign talents (according to the government) to
give us employment reflect badly on our lack of attention to the
development of local small medium enterprises?
I admire my Japanese counterparts a lot. There is a strong
national pride about them, and this is reflected in their
patronization of products manufactured by their own countrymen.
Despite the encroachment of world famous brand names from the west,
they still remain proud owners of local brands such as Sony,
Mitshubishi, Toyota , Toshiba and countless others. We Singaporeans
on the other hand have only one Creative ZEN to turn to.
Therefore, it is a setback for our national development if we
are always told that we are not good enough, and thus, we
constantly need foreign infusion. In doing so, we fail to instill
national pride, which is the seed of our national development. When
will be the day that our establishment rids itself of this rather
unhealthy colonial mindset?
