Joseph Nathan: HAS THE PAP FAILED OUR MUSLIM COMMUNITY?

HAS THE PAP FAILED OUR MUSLIM COMMUNITY?
As Singapore gears towards GE2025, at a time when our economy is being plagued by one “crisis of a generation” after another, the PAP-led government is starting to feel the heat as more Singaporeans, especial the younger voters, are getting to be more vocal and frustrated by the lack of good employment opportunities after their parents had spent years pouring out their “sweat & blood” to pay for their education.
There are also the failures of the 4G PAP in mitigating issues such as the high Cost-of-Living, unaffordable public housing, increase risks of retrenchment for mid-career PMETs, high COE, transportation cost & utilities charges that are hurting local SMEs & start-ups.
Unlike their parents and grandparents who had voted blindly for the PAP over the past 60 years, younger voters know that if they were to vote against the PAP in this upcoming General Election, which needs to be held by 23 November this year, then there is a high chance that their concerns and well-being will be addressed more holistically, should the PAP-led government lose their parliamentary majority and be forced to humbly seek the support of the opposition parties.
This reflects a new political reality; our younger voters are not naïve but very pragmatic in using their votes more wisely, having witness how the PAP has failed their parents and grand-parents by failing to deliver the promised Swiss Standard of Living and a better future for their children.
But if Singaporeans in general think that they got it bad, then I do not know what to say for a particular minority group of Singaporeans that has been disproportionately misrepresented in all the wrong places for the longest of time.
THE HARD TRUTHS:
In a Straits Times article dated 4 July 2022 (Govt careful with disclosing racial data of prison inmates, criminals as minorities are over-represented: Shanmugam), where K. Shanmugam, the Minister for Home Affairs, confirms that “people from a minority races are disproportionately represented in Singapore’s prison inmate population as well as crime statistics, and the Government is careful about disclosing the racial composition of such figures as it might further entrench stereotypes.”
What kind of excuse is that really?
Is the Home Affairs Minister not aware that ex-prisoners are being released almost daily and they echo the many social discrepancies that are happening behind the walls of prison and drug detention centre once they are released?
Why then does he acknowledge that a minority race is disproportionately represented and yet does not want to tell us just how bad the situation really is?
So who exactly is Shanmugan trying to protect - the interests of the minority group or his fellow PAP politicians?
As the Minister for Home Affairs, he ought to be “telling the whole truth” by providing the official data of racial and religious composition of prisoners and inmates in our prisons, drug detention centres and those awaiting capital punishment as these statistics formed part of his report card, so that we can know if he has been doing a good job or a bad job all these years, no?
Just out of curiosity, can Singaporeans from this community, who are from his constituency, go see him in his “Meet-The-People” session to ask for these data or to discreetly find out more about these social-economic discrepancies?
WHERE IS THE ACCOUNTABILITY?
To be fair, all these failures cannot just rest on the shoulder of the Minister of Home Affairs alone as this particular group also has a dedicated Minister for Muslim Affairs since 1977, a reserved minority-President from 2017 to 2023 that is supposed to help her community to improve their lives economically and socially, and at every General Election since 1988, some GRCs must have a minority candidate from this community so that when elected, these parliamentarians can and are supposed to help their community to improve their lives.
This begets a fundamental question - are all these “minority-empowerment” initiatives of the PAP really for the community or are they deployed to help the PAP stay in power?
Just think about it.
If those dedicated Minister for Muslim Affairs have been working diligently for their community since 1977, there is no way that the community can fall so badly unless they are either very incompetent or have been placed there to serve some implicit political agenda of the PAP-led government.
If the reserved minority-President has been diligently playing her part to help her community from 2017 to 2023, how can she not be able to help her community reverse these troubling discrepancies, unless she has been put there to help the PAP-led government deprive Dr Tan Cheng Bock from contesting in the PE2017, no?
If all those minority Parliamentarians of the PAP-led government have kept to their constitutionally enshrined function of serving the interests of their community, how on earth can they not see the plights of their community unless there are there for other agenda, like staying obedient to the party-politicking of the PAP so that they can enjoy the privileges and monetary rewards of being an elected parliamentarians, no?
So are all these empowerments that were championed by the PAP government a political plot to keep themselves in power but at the cost of this community?
If true, isn’t the party politics of the PAP undermining the interests of this community and the wider interests of Singapore as a nation?
Have all these PAP’s politicians, past and present, no sense of shame or fear of God in watching their community slide down such a slippery slope to the abyss of hell?
HOME-BASED ELECTRONIC TAGGING:
In 2020, Muslim constitutes about 15.6% of the resident community and this translates to about 539,251 out of the 3,459,000 of resident Singaporeans.
And if Changi Prison has a capacity for 23,000 inmates, and if half of them are from this community, then we are looking at a staggering 12,500 inmates alone from this community, no counting those in the drug detention centres and those who are electronically-tagged for home-based detention as Changi Prison does not have the capacity to house all prisoners currently.
Remember S. Iswaran case where he was electronically-tagged and transferred from prison to home-based detention to serve out his jail sentence?
LIST OF DISPROPORTIONATE MISREPRESENTATIONS:
But the disproportionate misrepresentation by this minority group goes further than prison and drug detention centres as they are also grossly misrepresented when it comes to public rental housing, in the Orthopaedic amputation of hands & limbs, and in the low income segment of our population?
Yes, there are a large proportion of Orthopaedic amputees from this community due to poorly managed Diabetes, Obesity and the poor nutrient values in their diets and without a more holistic and calibrated healthcare and dietary programme for this community, the economic viability of those affected will also be adversely compromised needlessly.
I had to disagree with some of the pro-establishment's critics who claimed that financial poverty is the roots of their problems as this community is not poor as they have massive financial assets and funds that are being held in trust by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS).
MUIS, VWO & SELF-HELP GROUPS:
Warees Investment, a wholly owned subsidiary of MUIS that is responsible for managing the Wakaf and Mosque assets on behalf of MUIS, is supposedly to have a staggering S$700-million worth of assets under its management.
In FY2022, MUIS collected $65-million in income from Fitrah and Zakat contributions against a disbursement of $60.9-million, making FY2022 a cash positive year for MUIS.
As information on what other assets MUIS has and what is the real book value of the assets that are under its management when marked to market are not clearly stated in its financial reports, the total value of fund and asset under management as such is most likely to be much greater than those currently stated in their annual reports.
Surely the senior executives and Board of Directors at MUIS must have the official data and statistic of these troubling misrepresentations of their community but why have they not been able to do something to turn things around for them all these years despite having so much resources at its disposal?
Likewise, with much more financial resources and assets at their disposal, how on earth can the Minister for Muslim Affairs, a reserved minority President and so many PAP parliamentarians from this community all ended up failing their community so badly?
Can VWOs and self-help groups like the Association for Muslim Professionals “AMP”, United Indian Muslim Association “UIMA”, PERDAUS, Club HEAL, PERTAPIS, Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry “SMCCI”, Muslim Counseling Service “MCS” and the many more Muslim-centric groups be the answer to help the community move forward more positively or are they just another entity of the government, placed into the community to promote the government’s propaganda?
Seriously, what more can be done to truly help this community move up the social-economic structure of our society without the political burdens & constraints of the PAP?
POTENTIAL SWING VOTERS:
It is worthwhile to mention that as this community has a sizeable vote share of more than 15.6% of the 2.75-million of eligible voters for GE2025, and if nothing is done to help them move forward by the time the election is called by Lawrence Wong, then the PAP may well have to be prepared for a massive vote swing against them should the community decided to give the majority of their votes to the opposition, as envisaged by the late Lee Kuan Yew that such a day may come should the PAP lose the trust of the people.
As such, being disproportionately misrepresented in all the wrong places does not mean that this community can be neglected in GE2025 as their youths have shown greater sense of social activism and purpose than their parents, and just like the wider Singaporean youths, they are not afraid of the strong-arm tactics of the PAP used to silence their critics.
That is why it is imperative for voters from this community to start asking their Muslim PAP parliamentarians objectively if the disproportionate misrepresentation is a result of bad policies from the PAP-led government or have those who are entrusted with helping their community failed them?
ONE STUPIDITY AFTER ANOTHER:
With this in mind, maybe Lawrence Wong should ask Maliki Osman if he, as a Muslim politician, has an “East Coast Plan” that can help improve the lives of the Malay Muslim and not waste time poking fun at the Workers’ Party.
But when Calvin Cheng, a former pro-establishment NMP, who posted an insensitive offer on his Facebook to buy the two Malay ladies who had tried engaging Shanmugam at his MTPS a one-way ticket to Gaza, and when both Vivian Balakrishnan and Tan Kiat How went on to antagonize Muslims who are against the Gaza’s conflict by liking Calvin’s insensitive FB post, we can see that something is terribly wrong with the biases of some of the 4G PAP politicians when it comes to addressing the concerns of the Muslim community.
If Tan Kiat How, who is the Chairman of REACH, the PAP government feedback unit, can be so insensitive to the Muslim community, how on earth then can he still be trusted to chair the outreach programmes that REACH is planning for its 40th anniversary celebration this year that include engaging “civil society leaders on difficult issues such as race and religion, social mobility and the impact of rapid technological changes” as promised by Lawrence Wong?
As a police report has been lodged against Calvin Cheng for his insensitive and racist post, I hope that Shanmugam will take a firmer stance against such insensitivity that “stereotype” and mocked the Muslim community so needlessly.
As GE2025 approaches, we must remember that every community in Singapore matters, regardless of their race or religion, and how we can use our votes more wisely to effect more positive changes in Singapore.
Let us all stand patriotically as “One United People” to help our fellow Singaporeans who are in need if we still believe that Singapore deserves better…
A blessed Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim friends, God bless…

Knn these malays are so entitled.
All welfare and jobs are left for you in civil service. When you don't have enough, medaki steps in and give thorough welfare

Malay prisoners inside prison can’t vote
So no issue there

Orthopedic amputation is probably caused by inferior genes and/or lifestyle choices.

Life goes on unless the head gets amputated.

congo9 said:

Knn these malays are so entitled.
All welfare and jobs are left for you in civil service. When you don't have enough, medaki steps in and give thorough welfare

Click to expand...

That's because only grab ( ex Malaysian) and multinationals will employ them. Chinese businesses won't.

Give Malays their land back which PAP seized and used it to house more non malay immigrants in hdb's and dispersed them from having any majority constituency and true voice in Parliament.

syed putra said:

Give Malays their land back which PAP seized and used it to house more non malay immigrants in hdb's and dispersed them from having any majority constituency and true voice in Parliament.

Click to expand...

Malay land sold to british by agung. You ask agung to demand back. To be a malay, you must be a muslim first...

no lah ... where got fail them .... still now they say National Language is Malai which non-malai sinkies cannot speak or write with .... and still Malai sinkies are treated with benefits above other taxpaying sinkies as Aboriginals .... where got fail them? they only fail the non-malai sinkie voters that had been paying taxes

Same analogy ... has Malaysia failed its minority ... especially ethnic Indians.

Easy to blame others due to your own failure.

Race and IQ

Malay are no longer "relax-one-corner" ... they have higher education & many have succeeded in Life.
Notice there are many Malay drivers, Mercs/BMW on the road ... Condo staying Malay families
SG is fair for everyone, if they achieve higher education, they can work better jobs, better income
Or at least, if you roll up your sleeves, work hard, you can also make it in Life

duluxe said:

where K. Shanmugam, the Minister for Home Affairs, confirms that “people from a minority races are disproportionately represented in Singapore’s prison inmate population as well as crime statistics, and the Government is careful about disclosing the racial composition of such figures as it might further entrench stereotypes.”
What kind of excuse is that really?
Is the Home Affairs Minister not aware that ex-prisoners are being released almost daily and they echo the many social discrepancies that are happening behind the walls of prison and drug detention centre once they are released?

Click to expand...

Of course Muuds will always be "disproportionately represented in Singapore’s prison", else then we worry.

Muuds have Aboriginal Austronesian genes, known to be lazy, low IQ, druggies and yet greedy and want to brag, how not to go into prison you tell me?

In fact the Gov has already done a good job to reduce their numbers in prison. So instead of being grateful, this farker twist and turn wanting to ask for more, LOL.

searcher1 said:

Malay are no longer "relax-one-corner" ... they have higher education & many have succeeded in Life.
Notice there are many Malay drivers, Mercs/BMW on the road ... Condo staying Malay families
SG is fair for everyone, if they achieve higher education, they can work better jobs, better income
Or at least, if you roll up your sleeves, work hard, you can also make it in Life

Click to expand...

This one is one in a million Muud case, rest all relak one korner.

Fuck lah. Failed everyone not just m&ds.

True Believer said:

Syed Putra also wants all the non-Malays in SG to give up their land to the Malays and return to China and India. LOL!

Click to expand...

No need all non-Malays. Once all Chinese left, Singapore will become like East Timor, LOL:

The evidence is for all to see once Muuds with Austronesian genes become the majority population - Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Borneo, Timor, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar etc., LMAO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timor-Leste#Economy

Singapore race priority (in declining order) - 5-eye Angmo, Indians, Malaysians, other Angmo, Chinese, other Asians, local upper-caste Indians, local Chinese, local Angmo, local Malays, local lower-caste Indians

Boliao said:

Singapore race priority (in declining order) - 5-eye Angmo, Indians, Malaysians, other Angmo, Chinese, other Asians, local upper-caste Indians, local Chinese, local Angmo, local Malays, local lower-caste Indians

Click to expand...

your priority do not match the Cost of Living, Income and Benefits here in reality .... how much is Nasi Padang and Halal food compared to all other race .... daily food price (in declining order) is Halal Food, Western Food, Indian Food, AT Chinese food, local chinese food ....