I believe it was because some dude started sticking up our MRT
that the government moved in on gum chewing.
Logical solution? Prehaps, but it speaks a lot into the mentality
of our system and how we refuse to take personal responsibility and
instead hand these responsibilities over to the system to do
whatever it wants to solve it.
The reason why we can now buy gum in pharmacies is because the
Yanks made a big deal about it and civil liberities while we were
trying to make the FTA with them, the selling of gum in pharmacies
was an attempt to applease the Yanks by following the idea of
allowing gum in letter, but not in law.
But if you look at the whole issue, I think giving up even such a
little right to have gum sold and chewed here is disturbing, the
way it could simply be implemented and the way the populace simply
took it lying down. Sure it's just gum now, but does it set the
standard for how to deal with more important things in the
future?
Or prehaps when the next time we complain that Singapore is too
boring or controlled, maybe we have to realize that the attitude of
"hey i don't like this/ we got a problem let's choose the simplest
way out of it by letting the system take care of it" is a large
part of it.
And of course, it was a ham-fisted way of dealing with the gum
issue. I for one find it ridiculus- yes our streets are cleaner but
at what cost? The mentality of the people who do such inconsiderate
acts have not changed, just the means of doing so have.
