Our system is one where a bigot has decided to use big-banner
assumptions to run the whole country irrespective of right or wrong
or consequences such big-banner assumptions of dubious effect might
produce just to get by.
No one for the past 40 plus years have quite succeeded in
questioning or nailing down the biases of all these big-banner
assumptions, like talents, leadership, meritocracy, pragmatism,
rule-of-law, foreign-talents-create-jobs which were all looking
good as big banner but on closer examination produce more problems
for the citizens.
How to choose a talent? Is he a talent because he befits the
criteria of the selector. What are in those list of criteria.
Loyalty, conformity, education, relevance, independence of thought,
creativity, entrepreneurship, morality, sense of duty, etc
etc.
Meritocracy has been used as a way to allow leaders too to select
people of their own choice without reference to certain objective
criteria acceptable to citizens in both determination of criteria
and manner of implementation.
Foreign talent sounds good as the name suggests. But when it comes
to implementation, the cheapest unskilled worker of certain
undefined values or objective measured against government's social
and economic and moral duty to citizens are completely excluded in
implementation for expediency or pragmatism another big banner
without meaning in relation to goodness of government to original
principle.
Yet sad to say despite the good-looking big banner assumptions of
goodness of policies many of the policies adopted for years have
been misunded to suit the convenience of leaders and government to
serve their own narrow purposes of handing up a self-glorifying
report card for themselves without deep-down benefits to
citizens.
Will such leaders last long and get away with all claims of
success? So far none including Dr. Catherine Lim, Ngiam Tong Dow,
JBJ, CSJ, LTK, Gopalan have been able to challenge of validity or
assumed rightness of such big banner assumptions. Only time will
tell perhaps.