I was following his earlier posts, Char_jig_Kar(CJK) might have supported LKY on learning of Mandarin, he definitely did not support the old guy on elimination of dialect.
Personally, I have the same opinion as CJK, Mandarin helps Chinese of different Dialect to communicate. However, if one remove his own dialect, he is removed of his own root. If you look at the young ones nowadays, you do not see their heritage anymore.
Singapore is the only country that bans broadcast and reportage along language lines (that are chinese dialects)that no other country does.
The use of Mandarin was a Political decision to cut out the various clans and dialect based interest group. More importantly to remove Political opponets that had a strong alond dialect lines. Lim Chin Siong is a fiery orator in Hokkein. At that time, China was isolated from the world, and its economic opening was not even contemplated by anyone. The economic value of Mandarin did not even come up for discussion in Singapore then.
Circle Chap Ji Kar holds the position that Mandarin can replace mother tongue. It took him 300 over posts to state his mother tongue and he has come out with 2 mothers or 1 mother who apparently speaks to him in 2 dialects. He continues to think that dialect as a mother tongue has no relevance.
PAP Old Man has always argued along similar lines of Circle Chap Ji Kar that Mandarin is a substitute for mother tongue which it is not. ( unless you are less than 20 yrs of age, you might not recall what the original grounds were) Old Man used this arguement to support the ban of dialects in Singapore in public media. Only when China opened up, the economic value arguement of Mandarin in engaging China came up.
Here is a summary
1) Mandarin economic value is tremendous. It acting as a bridge for Han Chinese cannot be disputed. Thats common sense. If the Manchus had chosen Cantonese, it will act in the same capacity.
2) Mandarin is not the mother tongue of 99% of Singaporeans.
3) It cannot replace dialects in understanding the culture and roots of a dialect.
You may wish to read the thread again. No has ever stated that Mandarin does not play the role of bridging the various dialect groups. I wonder how you came to that?