What has politics to do with this? What has race itself has to
do w/ it?
Other countries maybe nothing to make a fuss about.
But this is Singapore where local chinese culture has been under
assault for decades. This is the difference. There are forces in
this country that want to systemically destroy the culture of
local chinese.
This is the main difference.
Non-English speaking Singaporeans, including Chinese, Malays and
Indians have, he says, been discriminated against unnecessarily
under the PAP policies, particularly, for example the
Chinese-educated, the Buddhists, the Taoists, the Hindus and the
Muslims.
The discrimination, he says, takes various forms:
Nanyang University was restructured; there is no Chinese-language
business paper; there is discrimination in the intake of university
students, in the engagement of university lecturers and school
teachers, in the manning of positions in the army and police
forces, and an absence of representation of the
non-English-speaking Singaporeans in the decision-making process
and in many top government posts.
These are just a few examples.
Lee did
not agree with your decision to pick
Goh.
No, he did not
disagree. He said he would leave it to us.
His own first choice was Tony
Tan. Goh Chok Tong was his second
choice.
I was his third choice because he
said my English was not good
enough.
http://www.singapore-window.org/sw00/000310a4.htm
an absence of representation of the
non-English-speaking Singaporeans in the decision-making process
and in many top government posts.
http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?60782-Why-no-state-funeral-for-ex-president-ong-teng-cheong
Dialects have
no value, neither culturally nor economically;
Mandarin is linked to a 5000-year old history, rich in culture and
bears immense economic potential with the opening up of China’s
market. Lee Kwan Yew stressed that unlike Mandarin which “has
cultural value and will also have economic value twenty years
later,” dialects “have no economic value in Singapore.
Their cultural
value is also very low” (ST, 17 October 1980).
Dialects
represent the past and are primitive; Mandarin is
the future. Lee Kwan Yew in a television forum argued, “Mandarin is
a developing language; on the other hand, dialect is a stagnant
language” (ST, 10 January 1980).
http://www.oocities.org/eugene_esther/section4.htm
