Dear Amit Nagpal,
I bid you a warm welcome to our shores and finding our country a
nice place to stay and work, very much different from yours.
The security you enjoyed in our country is provided by hundred
thousands of young citizens in various military and civilian units
on a daily basis, with much sacrifice and paid, maintained and much
honoured by all citizens appreciatively and with pride. But we do
not ask that you, a PR to partake in it, yet we will
provide you with equal security as a fellow citizen.
The excellent and comfortable transportation, intelligent
civil service and laws, as well as our national public
infrastructure, had been paid and maintained by our previous
generations as well as current generations, by blood, sweat and
toil. But we do not seek that you, a PR, pay a premium over what
other fellow citizens would pay.
I am a chinese, and had shared many a beer and a packet of curry
rice and tom yam soup with our foriegn workers at their places
of recreation, share a song or two with guitar
playing filipinoes in our parks, offered offered many a cup of
coffee to China, Thai, Viet young women over their sob stories to
find opportunity in Spore, partake in welcoming parties of PR
neighbours, and find them no different from me, with only a common
aim - to work for prosperity and live in peace within our
shores.
The only difference between you and me is that I was born
in this land of my forefathers, who had toil hard to give me what i
enjoyed today. Their taxes and votes contributed and ensured
that i would have a house over my head, education to have a job,
and facillities that would ensure peace and prosperity to our
country.
Their foresighted efforts ensured that my fellow citizens,
espacially the young whom would start their own families, would not
be without a roof over their heads, even when the price of
properties escalates as it would on our little red dot island, and
their funds would be use to help offset such rises, for this
generation and the next to come.
To offer you, a PR, their funds, would be a sacrilege to the
memory of their honour. You might have contributed to our growth
and success, but you are paid for what you agreed to perform, and
hold another passport, the son of an ancient civilisation, of
heroes and much blood spilt for your continuity over a 4000
year history, yet you chosed to leave the land of your birth to
offer what you had benefitted from those heros to another
land. This tells much of your allegience to your homeland and your
committment to your fellow citizens.
Your passport entails you to leave anytime and anywhere, but i
carry no other passport. I either sink or swim in this land. My
committment to this country is total and absolute in every way of
my life, as foresworned with honour in our pledge,
created by our founding fathers to be sworn with each
successive generations. A thousand may leave each year, but
29,000 each year chosed to stay and honour their pledge and
contribute to our fellow citizens.
Give up your passport and swear to our flag, and you will be
entitled to the full rights of our citizenship. We make no
difference to whether you are black or white, rich or poor, 1st
generation sporean or 101st generation sporean. You will be equal
in our eyes and our laws, sworn and taken in
honour.
