Subject:
The hidden ugly side of Singapore
This article shed some light into why
my visitors from Singapore very often
remarked that "Malaysians can't starve"
whenever they see the vibrancy of
the self employed small businessman in
a shop lot or the kerbside and flea
market vendors that are ubiquitous in
all housing areas in Malaysia. They
[my visitors] always qualified their
remarks by saying "anyone who loses his
job can find viable means to support
oneself".
The full import of what my visitors
remarked hit home today when I read the
article below which seems to say that
self-help for the poor is near
impossible in Singapore because the
author wrote "those who can't earn".
Singapore is indeed a country of
employees, with very little opportunity for
self-employment and entrepreneurs. They
invariably needs the help of the
government which is not always
sympathetic.
Even in New
York you find street vendors on the sidewalk
particularly
numerous going uptown towards
Harlem selling all kinds of
things as self
help in times of difficulty. There is
the iconic New York hot dog vendors
among others. There are even mechanics
that will service your car by the
kerbside. The police tolerate them. (I
have a NYTimes article that wrote on
the ubiquity of such mechanics) And
then there are the soup kitchens and the
homeless shelters that provide a sort
of safety net. But Singapore frowns on
all of these.
Food for thought.
Rgds
PS This article in written by an Indian
gentleman which would imply that his
host/landlord is Indian too. But this
fact does not reduce the significance
of the situation, but perhaps even
accentuate it.
* <http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/107799>*
*The hidden ugly side of Singapore*
Vijay
Kumar Jul 3, 09 6:48pm
In between the glamorous buildings and
shoppings complexes of this city
state, there is huge suffering that the
world has never seen. Something that
the Singapore government or media will
try to hide from the rest of the
world. And this is the lives of 80
percent of 'true' Singaporeans who live
in the republic's Housing Development
Board (low cost) flats.
I, like many young youths, went looking
for a better future in this Lion
City of opportunity, After four years
of working experience in Kuala Lumpur.
It was my first experience outside
Malaysia and I was very happy to be
offered a job in Singapore with a basic
salary of S$3,500.
Then, with huge hopes, I started
looking for a master bedroom to rent being
single. I finally got a master bedroom
in Clementi for S$700 a month but
only after being rejected by many other
landlords for being Indian. The
ensuing eight- month ordeal that I
spent in this HDB flat really opened my
mind to what Singapore is for those who
can't earn.
It made me ask if this is the type of
development that I ever wanted in my
country Malaysia. This is the first
time that I felt gifted to be born in
Malaysia. Anyway, I lived with a family
of three (husband, wife with one
daughter) who rented out their master
bedroom to me while they slept in the
common room.
It was a three-room flat (but unlike in
Malaysia, a three-room flat has only
two bedrooms). I did not believe it was
the master bedroom that I was
staying in until I went into the other
room and saw that there is no
attached bathroom there. I was given a
bed and a mattress and also two fans.
Then I noticed that the couple with
their daughter sleeping on the floor
with a thin mattress in the other room.
Not even a fan in that room.
Both husband and wife are born
Singaporeans and were employed. It was after
one month that I realised that the
daughter was not going to school
regularly and most of the time there
would be a quarrel in the early morning
between the father and daughter as
there was not enough money to pay for the
bus to go to school.
There were times when the daughter was
very sick and father had no money to
take her to see a doctor. It was a real
pain in the heart to hear a small
girl suffering through the thin walls
of this HDB flat. It was unbelievable
for me to see this happening in this
ultra-modern city. It took me another
two months to realise that what was
happening in this flat was not an
isolated case of urban poverty in
Singapore.
It was every where in those HDB flats.
There was a Chinese neighbour (an
elderly man) and his son had no money
to get a taxi to send his father to
the clinic for daily diabetic
wound-dressing. I soon understood that poverty
in Singapore transcends racial
boundaries. The whole family of my landlord
got a shock that I own a car in
Malaysia.
My landlord would keep pestering me
every time I come back to Malaysia to
bring my car over so that his whole
family could go sightseeing in
Singapore. In all my life, I never
believed people in a developed country
like Singapore would ever consider car
ownership a privelege.
Three months later, one fine day, I
came back home and realised that there
was no electricity in the house. This
time, my landlord did not have the
money to pay for the utility bills. I
was back in the Stone Age, using
candles. This lasted for days until
finally he borrowed money from somewhere
and settled the bills.
My landlord as a person I have known
during that period never come back
drunk or looked like a gambler. He had
to pay for his mother's medical
expenses, that much I know. This was
the time in my life when I learned what
is was like to live in that poor
quality HDB flat, drying clothes in the
rooms and listening to what the couple
talked about in the next room via the
thin walls.
It was this time in life that made me
to think, 'Is this what I want
Malaysia to be? For those who talk
great or look up to Singapore's success,
have they ever come and lived in
Singapore like I how I did? Have you seen a
HDB flat and how it looks like?
Bring your whole family for a dinner
using public transport and then rush to
catch the last bus. Is this what a 10%
growth rate a year is about that we
want boast? Does this growth figures
mean anything in the first place? Do we
want to open our country to expats so
that they can progress at the expense
of our own Malaysians?
Do we want to 'progress' to a level
that even our children can't buy a house
in our own land? Last, I ask myself. Do
we Malaysians look at GDP growth as
the only measure to choose our
government or are we much more matured than
that? Achievement at whose
expense?
