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[h=2]Why PAP leaders like to disparage Singaporeans in foreign publications?[/h]
October 1st, 2012 |
Author: Contributions
Lee Hsien Loong
“People are not so poor. They think their government is not poor so they expect the government to do more for them,” Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said to The Australian newspaper on 29 September. He was speaking of Singaporeans.
“They’re not poor but they feel less well off relatively than others they can see in society. There is that relative sense that ‘I should get my entitlement’.”
PM Lee’s remarks follow his reply to the paper’s question of whether he “thinks the Western world is suffering a crisis of entitlement spending” and whether there was a lesson in this for Singapore.
His comments about Singaporeans having a “relative sense” of “entitlement” seems to suggest that he feels Singaporeans are being somehow unreasonable or even underserving. One could argue that it is not entitlement which Singaporeans are expecting but that Singaporeans instead expect the Government to deliver on its promises.
But that is another topic for another day. What is interesting about PM Lee’s remarks is that they seem to put-down Singaporeans – and doing so to a foreign publication which cater to a non-Singaporean audience.
It is disconcerting that the leader of our country would speak ill of Singaporeans to foreigners.
It is a charge which the Government itself had laid on opposition members, particularly Dr Chee Soon Juan when Dr Chee criticise the Government on various policies.
In 2009, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew too apparently disparaged Singaporeans to another foreign publication, this time the National Geographic magazine.
In that interview, he was asked:
Q: “What would you say the parents of the second or third generation of Singaporeans and their children are not able to compete with the new people [foreigners]? How do you tell them?”
Mr Lee: “We tell them look they have got to work harder or they’ll become stupid. It’s just that they don’t see the point of it. Why race when you can canter and save your energy and do other things? Art, ballet, sports whereas these new migrants, they spend all their time slogging away in the library or at home.”
Mr Lee also said, referring to Singaporeans’ supposed lack of drive:
“No, I think the spurs are not stuck on your hinds. They are part of the herd, why-go-faster? But when you’re lagging behind, you must go faster to catch up with the herd. I’m quite sure that there are children of the migrants who strive arduously. When they grow up in the same schools as the Singaporeans, the same playing fields, same environment and they begin to adopt Singaporean habits in the ways of living and thinking. So I’m quite sure they’d become like us…”
And in a Facebook note just last week, the founder of the World Toilet Organisation, Jack Sim, slammed People’s Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament (MP), Ms Penny Low, for “going around the world” saying that Mr Sim “is not a real social entrepreneur.”
“She said it to INSEAD, to SCHWAB, to WEFORUM and I wonder why PAP breeds this kind of MP who would smear her own citizens around the world while I am trying my best to do a decent job.”
Ms Low has not replied to Mr Sim’s note which had made the rounds on the Internet.
So, what are we to make of our leaders seemingly putting down Singaporeans to foreigners?
First, we should all condemn this in no uncertain terms.
While Government ministers and MPs do have the duty and responsibility to speak honestly, they should do so with Singaporeans, and not to foreigners, if they perceive we have problems which need to be addressed, and certainly not to disparage Singaporeans in foreign publications which have wide reach.
Secondly, Government ministers themselves have been saying, for quite a few years now, that Singaporeans have higher expectations of their Government. This is rightly so for several reasons, many of which the Government itself has said. Singaporeans are more educated, more well-travelled and exposed to the world, and are relatively well-off too. So, higher expectations are quite a natural progression, and they are not necessarily a bad thing. Having higher expectations perhaps is a sign that we want things to be better.
In any case, Government ministers and MPs themselves have also been heaping lavish praises on themselves for bringing Singapore “from third world to first”, and that to sustain such high performance, there is a need to attract the best talents among us into government. One way to do this was to pay our officials high salaries, the highest in the world.
Should Singaporeans then expect low or lower performance from our leaders?
I think not.
And Singaporeans themselves are no slouches either. We work the most number of hours in a week, in the world.
In 2010, the Business Times reported:
“Beavering away doggedly, Singaporeans may not be aware that they have, for the past two years, overtaken the industrious South Koreans in notching up the highest number of hours worked per year, worldwide.”
The report, based on The Conference Board’s Total Economy Database, said “the average Singaporean surpassed the other East Asians, the most hardworking globally.”
The nest year, Singaporeans again were among the most hardworking.
“Singapore workers are working harder than ever with one in five clocking eleven or more hours daily, according to a survey,” Yahoo Singapore reported in November 2011.
Along with the high number of working hours clocked, Singaporeans too have to juggle family life, the relentless rising cost of living and lately, a more stressful social environment too.
So, when we are described as having a “relative sense” of entitlement, or that we are not working hard enough because “the spurs are not stuck to your hinds”, one wonders if our leaders are not out-of-touch with reality.
Finally, Singaporeans elect their leaders to lead, to solve problems, to come up with new ideas to meet new challenges to bring the country forward.
They did not elect leaders to go speak ill of them to foreigners or to the foreign media.
Perhaps our leaders should remember and remind themselves regularly that they are public servants, there to serve the public and not to lord over them, or to disparage them.
For all that Singaporeans have put in and are putting up with, they deserve a pat on the back – and not brickbats, especially not from their own elected leaders.
.
Andrew Loh
* Andrew helms publichouse.sg as Editor-in-Chief. His writings have been reproduced in other publications, including the Australian Housing Journal in 2010. He was nominated by Yahoo! Singapore as one of Singapore’s most influential media persons in 2011.
Related:
[1] Look who’s bashing Sngaporeans?
[2] Bashing Singaporeans – PAP gets in on the act.
Lee Hsien Loong“People are not so poor. They think their government is not poor so they expect the government to do more for them,” Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said to The Australian newspaper on 29 September. He was speaking of Singaporeans.
“They’re not poor but they feel less well off relatively than others they can see in society. There is that relative sense that ‘I should get my entitlement’.”
PM Lee’s remarks follow his reply to the paper’s question of whether he “thinks the Western world is suffering a crisis of entitlement spending” and whether there was a lesson in this for Singapore.
His comments about Singaporeans having a “relative sense” of “entitlement” seems to suggest that he feels Singaporeans are being somehow unreasonable or even underserving. One could argue that it is not entitlement which Singaporeans are expecting but that Singaporeans instead expect the Government to deliver on its promises.
But that is another topic for another day. What is interesting about PM Lee’s remarks is that they seem to put-down Singaporeans – and doing so to a foreign publication which cater to a non-Singaporean audience.
It is disconcerting that the leader of our country would speak ill of Singaporeans to foreigners.
It is a charge which the Government itself had laid on opposition members, particularly Dr Chee Soon Juan when Dr Chee criticise the Government on various policies.
In 2009, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew too apparently disparaged Singaporeans to another foreign publication, this time the National Geographic magazine.
In that interview, he was asked:
Q: “What would you say the parents of the second or third generation of Singaporeans and their children are not able to compete with the new people [foreigners]? How do you tell them?”
Mr Lee: “We tell them look they have got to work harder or they’ll become stupid. It’s just that they don’t see the point of it. Why race when you can canter and save your energy and do other things? Art, ballet, sports whereas these new migrants, they spend all their time slogging away in the library or at home.”
Mr Lee also said, referring to Singaporeans’ supposed lack of drive:
“No, I think the spurs are not stuck on your hinds. They are part of the herd, why-go-faster? But when you’re lagging behind, you must go faster to catch up with the herd. I’m quite sure that there are children of the migrants who strive arduously. When they grow up in the same schools as the Singaporeans, the same playing fields, same environment and they begin to adopt Singaporean habits in the ways of living and thinking. So I’m quite sure they’d become like us…”
And in a Facebook note just last week, the founder of the World Toilet Organisation, Jack Sim, slammed People’s Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament (MP), Ms Penny Low, for “going around the world” saying that Mr Sim “is not a real social entrepreneur.”
“She said it to INSEAD, to SCHWAB, to WEFORUM and I wonder why PAP breeds this kind of MP who would smear her own citizens around the world while I am trying my best to do a decent job.”
Ms Low has not replied to Mr Sim’s note which had made the rounds on the Internet.
So, what are we to make of our leaders seemingly putting down Singaporeans to foreigners?
First, we should all condemn this in no uncertain terms.
While Government ministers and MPs do have the duty and responsibility to speak honestly, they should do so with Singaporeans, and not to foreigners, if they perceive we have problems which need to be addressed, and certainly not to disparage Singaporeans in foreign publications which have wide reach.
Secondly, Government ministers themselves have been saying, for quite a few years now, that Singaporeans have higher expectations of their Government. This is rightly so for several reasons, many of which the Government itself has said. Singaporeans are more educated, more well-travelled and exposed to the world, and are relatively well-off too. So, higher expectations are quite a natural progression, and they are not necessarily a bad thing. Having higher expectations perhaps is a sign that we want things to be better.
In any case, Government ministers and MPs themselves have also been heaping lavish praises on themselves for bringing Singapore “from third world to first”, and that to sustain such high performance, there is a need to attract the best talents among us into government. One way to do this was to pay our officials high salaries, the highest in the world.
Should Singaporeans then expect low or lower performance from our leaders?
I think not.
And Singaporeans themselves are no slouches either. We work the most number of hours in a week, in the world.
In 2010, the Business Times reported:
“Beavering away doggedly, Singaporeans may not be aware that they have, for the past two years, overtaken the industrious South Koreans in notching up the highest number of hours worked per year, worldwide.”
The report, based on The Conference Board’s Total Economy Database, said “the average Singaporean surpassed the other East Asians, the most hardworking globally.”
The nest year, Singaporeans again were among the most hardworking.
“Singapore workers are working harder than ever with one in five clocking eleven or more hours daily, according to a survey,” Yahoo Singapore reported in November 2011.
Along with the high number of working hours clocked, Singaporeans too have to juggle family life, the relentless rising cost of living and lately, a more stressful social environment too.
So, when we are described as having a “relative sense” of entitlement, or that we are not working hard enough because “the spurs are not stuck to your hinds”, one wonders if our leaders are not out-of-touch with reality.
Finally, Singaporeans elect their leaders to lead, to solve problems, to come up with new ideas to meet new challenges to bring the country forward.
They did not elect leaders to go speak ill of them to foreigners or to the foreign media.
Perhaps our leaders should remember and remind themselves regularly that they are public servants, there to serve the public and not to lord over them, or to disparage them.
For all that Singaporeans have put in and are putting up with, they deserve a pat on the back – and not brickbats, especially not from their own elected leaders.
.
Andrew Loh
* Andrew helms publichouse.sg as Editor-in-Chief. His writings have been reproduced in other publications, including the Australian Housing Journal in 2010. He was nominated by Yahoo! Singapore as one of Singapore’s most influential media persons in 2011.
Related:
[1] Look who’s bashing Sngaporeans?
[2] Bashing Singaporeans – PAP gets in on the act.
