Even if it means being fingered "once-in-and-once-out" by FTrash thereafter?
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Sep 7, 2008
VIEWPOINT
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Why I did not sign the petition
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Lydia Lim
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->My neighbours are nice people, really.
That is why it has not been easy fending off their requests to join them in signing a petition against the conversion of an unused school in our neighbourhood into a dormitory for foreign workers.
I've lived in Serangoon Gardens for most of my life, in a small terrace house a five-minute walk from the roundabout we residents call 'the circus' and a hawker centre named Chomp Chomp that seems to draw diners from all corners of the island like bees to a honeypot.
I admit that when I first heard of plans to turn the former Serangoon Gardens Technical School in Burghley Drive into housing for 1,000 or more foreign workers, I did not exactly relish such an influx of newcomers into our peaceful, comfortably middle-class estate.
That a one-page petition opposing the move as one that will 'create security and social problems and spoil the ambience of the estate' has received wholehearted support from many, comes as no surprise.
Some 1,400 households out of a total of 7,000 in the estate have reportedly signed it.
But when my neighbour popped by my house last Sunday morning with a sign-up sheet in hand, I found I could not ink it. It just felt wrong.
When another neighbour asked me the next day, I again said no.
In the past few days, I have read the reasons that others have for being against the move: concern for the safety of the young and the old, congestion, strain on the estate's infrastructure, theft, loitering, alcoholism, hook-ups between the foreign workers and maids, and a dip in the value of million-dollar properties in the vicinity.
Those are all perfectly rational, pragmatic reasons for not wanting 1,000 foreign workers housed in our backyard.
But here is my reason for refusing to go along with such thinking.
I have maintained in this newspaper and elsewhere that foreign workers are human beings, no less so than I am.
And human beings need places to live.
=> And humans need sex too? This running bitch would volunteer to be the comfort woman for the FTrash?
That all persons are equal in dignity is a value I hold dear.
I am not about to repudiate that just because its implications are proving to be an inconvenience.
Police statistics do not bear out the belief that foreigners are more prone to committing crime than Singaporeans.
As for congestion, having a famous hawker centre like Chomp Chomp in our midst also causes congestion, but I have yet to see residents up in arms over that.
All of us have neighbours whose habits do not exactly enthuse us. But we learn to live with them.
That is also what I will need to do if some of the people who help build our homes and offices, and clean up after us, come to live in my estate.
[email protected]
Are you, like Lydia Lim, a Serangoon Gardens resident who will not sign the petition? Send your comments to [email protected]
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Sep 7, 2008
VIEWPOINT
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Why I did not sign the petition
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Lydia Lim
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->My neighbours are nice people, really.
That is why it has not been easy fending off their requests to join them in signing a petition against the conversion of an unused school in our neighbourhood into a dormitory for foreign workers.
I've lived in Serangoon Gardens for most of my life, in a small terrace house a five-minute walk from the roundabout we residents call 'the circus' and a hawker centre named Chomp Chomp that seems to draw diners from all corners of the island like bees to a honeypot.
I admit that when I first heard of plans to turn the former Serangoon Gardens Technical School in Burghley Drive into housing for 1,000 or more foreign workers, I did not exactly relish such an influx of newcomers into our peaceful, comfortably middle-class estate.
That a one-page petition opposing the move as one that will 'create security and social problems and spoil the ambience of the estate' has received wholehearted support from many, comes as no surprise.
Some 1,400 households out of a total of 7,000 in the estate have reportedly signed it.
But when my neighbour popped by my house last Sunday morning with a sign-up sheet in hand, I found I could not ink it. It just felt wrong.
When another neighbour asked me the next day, I again said no.
In the past few days, I have read the reasons that others have for being against the move: concern for the safety of the young and the old, congestion, strain on the estate's infrastructure, theft, loitering, alcoholism, hook-ups between the foreign workers and maids, and a dip in the value of million-dollar properties in the vicinity.
Those are all perfectly rational, pragmatic reasons for not wanting 1,000 foreign workers housed in our backyard.
But here is my reason for refusing to go along with such thinking.
I have maintained in this newspaper and elsewhere that foreign workers are human beings, no less so than I am.
And human beings need places to live.
=> And humans need sex too? This running bitch would volunteer to be the comfort woman for the FTrash?
That all persons are equal in dignity is a value I hold dear.
I am not about to repudiate that just because its implications are proving to be an inconvenience.
Police statistics do not bear out the belief that foreigners are more prone to committing crime than Singaporeans.
As for congestion, having a famous hawker centre like Chomp Chomp in our midst also causes congestion, but I have yet to see residents up in arms over that.
All of us have neighbours whose habits do not exactly enthuse us. But we learn to live with them.
That is also what I will need to do if some of the people who help build our homes and offices, and clean up after us, come to live in my estate.
[email protected]
Are you, like Lydia Lim, a Serangoon Gardens resident who will not sign the petition? Send your comments to [email protected]
