It is my belief that if you replace all the foreigners with Singaporeans, you will still have the same level of unhappiness except that it will be harder to pinpoint a particular segment of the population.
It is the massive artificial increase in population, coupled with the lack of resources and a little more recently, the drastically reduced job opportunities that is the actual cause of the wrath of people. Foreigners' behaviour plays only a small part and it is perceived as a huge problem only because of the numerous foreigners on the island (i.e. you will still be hearing complaints about boorish behaviour if you replace every foreigner with a true-blue Singaporean).
The strategy being pursued now is exactly the same as that more than four decades ago, that is, supplying cheap labour to MNCs. There are some slight differences but by and large, it remains identical in spirit. The major difference is that previously, Singaporeans were the cheap labour. Now, it comes from other countries. Will this strategy continue to work in the future? It depends on who you are. If you are the average Singaporean peasant, I am highly doubtful if your standard of living would improve much henceforth. Even if living standards in countries like China improve tremendously, yours will still remain mired at current levels because the cheap labour will simply be sourced from elsewhere (there will always be some place cheaper).
Opening the floodgates before ensuring that Singaporeans' have a first world mentality has doomed the country to be forever intolerant of foreigners and I can't imagine how it can ever expect to become first world. The FT policy has provided a revolving door where there will constantly be huge numbers of foreigners coming and leaving. There is no way you can even build a cohesive society much less talk about integrating foreigners into the population. Soon (assuming increases in population are mostly due to foreigners arriving), there will be absolutely no difference in behaviour between an average peasant in Singapore and his/her counterpart in some impoverished nation.
It is the massive artificial increase in population, coupled with the lack of resources and a little more recently, the drastically reduced job opportunities that is the actual cause of the wrath of people. Foreigners' behaviour plays only a small part and it is perceived as a huge problem only because of the numerous foreigners on the island (i.e. you will still be hearing complaints about boorish behaviour if you replace every foreigner with a true-blue Singaporean).
The strategy being pursued now is exactly the same as that more than four decades ago, that is, supplying cheap labour to MNCs. There are some slight differences but by and large, it remains identical in spirit. The major difference is that previously, Singaporeans were the cheap labour. Now, it comes from other countries. Will this strategy continue to work in the future? It depends on who you are. If you are the average Singaporean peasant, I am highly doubtful if your standard of living would improve much henceforth. Even if living standards in countries like China improve tremendously, yours will still remain mired at current levels because the cheap labour will simply be sourced from elsewhere (there will always be some place cheaper).
Opening the floodgates before ensuring that Singaporeans' have a first world mentality has doomed the country to be forever intolerant of foreigners and I can't imagine how it can ever expect to become first world. The FT policy has provided a revolving door where there will constantly be huge numbers of foreigners coming and leaving. There is no way you can even build a cohesive society much less talk about integrating foreigners into the population. Soon (assuming increases in population are mostly due to foreigners arriving), there will be absolutely no difference in behaviour between an average peasant in Singapore and his/her counterpart in some impoverished nation.
