In other words, to borrow somebody elses analogy, our current
system is looking for wild cats that are willing to work hard and
cheap without any welfare strings attached, as opposed to the local
tame cats that always point out to life beyond the immediate
economic realities.
The weak link in all this is that, the system expects that the
imported wild cats will keep all their imported habits and stay for
good- in other words, keep contributing all the wild cat benefits
until the day they die.
Unfortunately few wild cats actually see things this way, being
wild in nature, many are shrewd enough to realize that such an
arrangement is not advantageous. After all few wild cats want to
keep working until the day they die in the wild cat environment. At
the end of the day, most cats, wild or not still want to have a
life outside the economic circle.
While Singapore is a good spot for wild cats to come and make a
living, ultimately its not the kind of place the wild cat wants to
live in. Its very factors and policies that make it attractive to
the wild cats as a feeding ground are ironically, make it extremely
unattractive to be a place for cats to stay.
Its like how cats will hunt rats in the drains and sewers, but
ultimately not sleep or even stay there once they have taken their
fill. And is Singapore becoming such a drain or sewer?
At the same time, some of the so called tame cats realize that they
dont need to live in a place that is becoming a sewer or drain,
and hence opt out of the rat race. Unfortunately for the system
to be lucrative it requires the input of tame cats to do some
things that wild cats cannot
for example, only local cats are
trusted to guard and defend the territory, and in fact many of the
factors that made the place so attractive to the wild cats could
only be maintained by selling the tame local cats short. The
local cats are told to put up with turning the place into a sewer
to attract the wild cats, as well as expected to die and defend the
place in times of trouble.
At the end of the day the local cat asks whats in it for me?,
and of course most of the wild cats make it a point never to let
itself or its offspring become a local cat if they can help it.
While some wild cats are really sincere in wanting to become a part
of the local society, some others are also equally mercenary and
opportunistic in their motives for coming to the place and making
the most out of it. The system however doesnt bother in
distinguishing the two as long as both types of wild cats (sincere
or mercenary), earn as much money for it.
Are rats our only attraction and merit to the wild cat? If so then
we are in trouble.
