English as dominant language in a non ang moh land has put you
in a disadvantaged position, my friend.
We chinese and other groups have suffered under
this discriminatory policy imposed by a tiny english speaking
elite. 
The great majority of people on this island are not english
speakers. English is an alien language to us. But we are forced to
use it because of the english speaking peranakan elite.
In those british colonial days only a small privileged elite
loyal to british interests had the chance to learn english. They
were mostly drawn from the eurasian, local colonials and peranakan
community in Singapore.
Although the sinkeh dominated Singapore's
population, it was the babas who dominated public
decision-making.
In
effect, a baba minority captured sinkeh Singapore, and that
minority's attitudes were more those of Victorian England than
China.
He followed the conventional career path of a baba and
went to London to study law.
And so Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore became Harry Lee of Fitzwilliam
College, Cambridge.
The ideological promotion of English as a `neutral' language
to all ethnic Asian children
has suppressed this class
dimension.
The position of monolingual Chinese
speakers illustrates this.
Around this time
you were discussing the succession to PM
Lee?
Ong Teng
Cheong: Lee Kuan Yew had been discussing this
since about 1983. At that time, the second echelon was Tony Tan, S.
Dhanabalan, Goh Chok Tong and myself.
Were you a
candidate for the top job?
Ong Teng
Cheong: I was considered as a member of the
group. At that time, we did not know who would be the successor to
Lee. We finally made the decision to pick Goh Chok Tong. He agreed
on condition that I agreed to be his number two. So I was the
second DPM; he was the first DPM. In 1988, Lee asked Goh to take
over, but he was not ready. He said: two more years. So two years
later, he took the job.
Lee did not
agree with your decision to pick Goh.
Ong Teng
Cheong: 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.
He said Dhanabalan was
not right because Singapore was not ready for an Indian prime
minister. That upset the Indian community.
There was quite a bit of adverse reaction to what he said. But he
speaks his mind. He is the only one who can get away with
it.
http://www.singapore-window.org/sw00/000310a4.htm
That
English is a `neutral' language is, of course, an ideological
illusion. Since
Singapore was a British colony for 150 years, English was already a
common language
among the privileged local population who worked for the colonial
administration
and whose children had access to the limited opportunities of
learning the language.
This
included the first generation of political leaders who, as English
speakers, had
access
to British university education immediately after the second world
war.
The ideological promotion of English as a `neutral' language
to all ethnic Asian children
has suppressed
this class dimension.
The political utility of this illusory `neutrality' is that it
enables the state to articulate, in English, its own interests
distinctly, apart from the interests of all racial groups. It
also effects a separation of state/national interests from
those of the racial majority, and prevents state/national interests
from being captured by the racial majority.
The
position of monolingual Chinese
speakers illustrates this.
http://lukdomen.narod.ru/questia-geopol.pdf
What makes Singapore different? The majority of Singapore's
population is ethnically Chinese, but Singapore is largely free of
corruption, has sound institutions and the rule of law dominates.
It's nothing like China.
The
answer lies in a historical division in Singapore's Chinese
community between the babas and the
sinkeh.
The sinkeh, comprising the majority of the city-state's
population, were the recent immigrants from China, or whose parents
were born in China. They spoke Chinese, lived like Chinese and
considered themselves overseas Chinese. In Indonesia, such Chinese
were called the totok.
The
babas, on the other hand, also known as Straits Chinese, were
Chinese more in name than
practice. They were the descendants of
the very early Chinese immigrants (Hokkiens from the Fujian
province) to the straits settlements of Malaya (Penang, Singapore
and Malacca). They
assimilated with both the local Malays and the colonising British,
whom they especially admired. The babas
developed their own culture, cuisine and language - Malay liberally
sprinkled with Hokkien.
The sinkeh were the traders, the coolies and the shophouse
owners.
The
babas became the lawyers, the civil servants and the politicians;
they attended the local English-language schools run in the
tradition of the UK's public schools, and Oxford and
Cambridge.
If the sinkeh received an overseas education at all, it was in
Nanking or another university in China. Although the sinkeh dominated Singapore's
population, it was the babas who dominated public decision-making.
In effect, a baba minority captured sinkeh Singapore, and that
minority's attitudes were more those of Victorian England than
China.
It was the babas who were the framers of Singapore's rules and
institutions. Many of Singapore's most prominent Chinese have had
baba backgrounds.
Lee
Kuan Yew, who became prime minister of Singapore aged just 35, is
the most obvious example.
He claims a Hakka heritage, although his upbringing was that of
a baba: at home, he
spoke English with his parents and baba Malay to his grandparents.
"Mandarin was totally alien to me and unconnected with my life,"
Lee said of his childhood.
For Lee, Chineseness was an acquired skill and later a political
necessity. He was not brought up as a Chinese with a focus on
China, but as
a baba who looked to England.
He followed the conventional career path of a baba and went to
London to study law. And so Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore became Harry
Lee of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
His father had given him and two of his brothers English, as
well as Chinese, names.
Did Lee
run Singapore as a piece of Asia mired in Chinese ways? No. He ran
it in a manner to which a British colonial administrator would have
aspired.
That other great framer of Singapore's institutions, Goh Keng
Swee, who rose to become finance minister and deputy prime
minister, is the epitome of the baba elite. Goh was born in 1918 in
Malacca, the epicentre of baba culture, into a baba family. His
parents were English-oriented Chinese Methodists.
The baba influence is now more subtle, but still there.
Singapore's current prime minister Lee Hsien
Loong has the strongest baba pedigree of any of the country's
leaders.
http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/648273/
English as dominant language in Singapore is a wrong policy. It
is not a correct policy.
It gives unfair advantage to a tiny elite and put the great
majority of non english speakers at a disadvantage.
For example, Limpehkahlikong2011 has suffered under
this discriminatory policy. He couldn't be limo driver since
his ang moh bo ho. He couldn't raise his income because of this
unfair policy.
This policy is incorrect and must be rectified.
What The Fuck????
People asked about limo vs regular TD and you turned this thread
into opportunity to divide our country??
What is your AGENDA????
And yes, I took offence of your posting.
