I still am angry at the removal of Literature just for the mere reason that it is difficult to score As... kns.
Okay, let's see what's happening. Essentially the divide between rich and poor is growing wider and wider in Singapore. And some Singaporeans are getting left far, far behind.
What's the government's proposed solution? Basically their idea is to encourage the people to help the people (God forbid that the government actually be expected to help the people). In other words, the government has decided to rely on charitable organisations, NGOs, voluntary welfare organisations and the like.
And from recent government pronouncements, it seems that the government is expecting these organisations to do something quick, in a very big way.
I am very skeptical of this model. I don't think it can work in Singapore. In fact I think that failure would be likely in most other countries as well, but particularly likely in Singapore.
We simply don't have the culture and the mindset for this. Just look at our PAP leaders. They stand up in Parliament and without any shame, they loudly say that if we don't pay them the world's highest ministerial salaries, they will quit for the private sector. Either that, or they will feel compelled to become corrupt and start robbing the nation's coffers.
Like it or not, the PAP has been in overwhelming power for decades. Their mindset necessarily reflects something about the mindset of the people. Face it, folks - we're a selfish people. Just like our leaders, we're competitive, pragmatic, kiasu and greedy. The vast majority of us are not going to waste our time on charity work.
Years ago, we even scrapped subjects like Bible Knowledge and Buddhist Studies from our school syllabus, because they were economically useless subjects. Now suddenly we expect Singaporeans to brim with love, kindness and charitable instincts?
We're so hard-headed that many of our schools even scrapped Literature from the syllabus because statistics show that it is harder to score an A in Literature. Now Dr Vivian poetically refers to "the milk of human kindness" in his speech, but I bet most young Singaporeans don't even know that the line came from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
The other thing is that Dr Vivian is basically calling on the VWOs to be much more active, and pro-active, than they've ever been before. He's asking VWOs to step up their efforts in a massive way. But Singapore is not a place where civil society organisations thrive. This nation does not like people with a sense of mission. It's often suspicious of people who even have an opinion (remember that proposal to license all bloggers?). If you wanted to hold a public charity event for the blind and homeless, you'd have to get police approval.
That's how this nation has been, for a long time. Consequently most Singaporeans have been conditioned to think and behave in a certain manner. That manner is just not consistent with mass voluntarism. No, we do not brim with the milk of human kindness. Unless it can help us to score an A, but then we already scrapped Literature.
Besides, there won't be that many old, poor Singaporeans to care for. The government already has plans to export them.
http://commentarysingapore.blogspot...-skeptical.html
No comments:
Post a Comment