wonder when will the govt respond to the problems? some more
suicides?
Two Singapores
The working class and the elite with a wealth gap thatÂ’s tearing
apart the society.
By Bernard Leong, a Singaporean research scientist.
http://bleongcw.typepad.com/simple_is_the_reason_of_m/2006/10/two_singapores.html
Oct 24, 2006
Recently, two unrelated events happen at the same time. The first
was about a man named Mr. Tan in his forties committing suicide by
jumping off onto the mass rapid transit tracks.
The man in forties was a working class man. He was jobless and had
a family to feed. He left behind nothing now except his wife and
his kids.
The second was about a young and bright student named Wee Shu Min
who wrote an emotive, insensitive and snobbish response to Derek
Wee who was lamenting about the state of affairs in
Singapore.
For her remarks, she was criticised by various bloggers (Aaron,
Ben, Elia, Kitana, Wee Kiat and of course, everyone from Sammyboy
Forums).
Her background as the daughter of a member of parliament and a
student from the top junior college (RJC) has further ignited the
flames. In any case, if everyone takes a step back, the whole
fiasco is just about the misadventures of a young spoilt
brat.
So, why are these two events related? My answer to the question is
what I called the two Singapores.
The first speaks of a land of opportunity and meritocracy where
local and foreign talent can compete in a free market and
meritocratic system to move up the corporate ladder of Singapore
Inc; and the second depicts a divide that splits between an
educated and self-proclaimed enlightened oligarchy and the average
day Joe.
In short, it is the divide between the working class and the elite,
and the wealth gap that is tearing apart the society.
In the first Singapore, you are promised that if you are willing to
pursue your dreams and make your dreams come true subject to the
social compact, you will succeed with the blessings of the
state.
However, the rule is that your dream is defined by the social
contract.
In this contract, you exchange your personal political and social
freedom with security, material wealth and protection from the
state.
By the time you have successfully won the scholarship trophies,
your future is secured no matter what you do in the future unless
you commit a hideous crime. Not everyone might succeed using the
scholarship route.
Ms Wee belongs to the first Singapore, blessed with a well-endowed
background and talent. That success is fermented into arrogance and
a lack of sensitivity towards the working class.
That comes to the definition of the second Singapore.
In this Singapore, if you don't succeed by the age of 18 by
slogging through memorising and mugging in your high school
education, you become part of the working class.
Since you do not make the first cut, you enter into the social
engineering programme, taking the hypes of that era, from IT to
life sciences.
Suddenly, you are transformed into a statistic within a Bell curve
that have to find ways to make ends meet, struggle between the high
and low economic cycles due to external circumstances and live with
the hope that your children will live a better life than you.
The constant cycle of retraining and retrenchment will squeeze you
dry till you find that life is not worth living. That poor Mr. Tan
is part of that Singapore which Ms Wee did not empathise.
She did not feel that there is a need to help that part of the
society.
Our society needs to change, not just in how we deal with each
other, but how we can help each other.
Somehow, the win-win culture seems so far away from us, because
that is eroded away by the rat race that begins from the first day
of school till you step into work in society.
There are other social problems, which we need to be made aware of.
One friend of mine, who works in the grassroots, are trying hard to
champion ways to help the old and helpless in their financial
management in his constituency.
For those who do not know, we have an aging population with no
enough wealth to last them till their deaths. These old and aged
were promised a peaceful retirement with enough wealth from their
central provident fund (CPF).
However, once they retire, they realise that it is not enough to
tide them till death. Inevitably, they have to return to work
again.
If the problem of a poor and desperate working class man is not
enough to make society wake up, it might be better if we take a
microscope and really examine parts of the society that are
suffering from problems masked off.
Perhaps, we should cultivate our young to understand the social
problems, not by providing them textbooks but real examples through
the discourse of social work.
If there is one other thing that we can ever persuade our efficient
and productive civil service, we need to re-examine our scholarship
system, because the system is easily beaten by people who are
endowed with better resources.
I would not even go to the extent by saying that the examinations
for these students are far too easier than those in the past.
Meritocracy is a double-edged sword that can be helpful or be
detrimental to our civil service.
In order to maximise the returns from a student's point of view,
there are times where an individual will exploit the meritocratic
system that will contradict morality, credibility and hard
work.
Our brilliant elite students have now reached the level where it is
easy to beat the system with their resources, and there remains no
means and ways to test their moral fibre in contributing back to
our society as civil servants.
The solution is not one silver bullet but a whole array of
approaches that stretch from the areas of education to healthcare
(and the CPF).
Ultimately, we have learnt that too much of everything is bad.
Finding a middle way between our capitalist and democratic
socialist approaches will be key to repair the rift between the two
Singapores.
Quote of the Day:
"Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One
America that does the work, another that reaps the reward. One
America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax
breaks. One America - middle-class America - whose needs Washington
has long forgotten, another America - narrow-interest America -
whose every wish is Washington's command. One America that is
struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it
wants, even a Congress and a president."
- John Edwards, Vice-Presidential candidate 2004
