The Iceman Cometh: The Role of Foreigners in Singapore

By Bhaskaran Kunju

The recent Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) report is just a tip of the iceberg in our Government’s shift on the foreign worker policy, as seen in this year’s Budget report. Given the inadvertent adverse effect it has had on productivity, it is high time the authorities looked into this matter.

However one issue regarding foreigners that has always been a thorn on the side of the PAP and has never been let out of sight, has been the involvement of foreigners in domestic affairs. There is some leeway when it comes to academic matters but in terms of media coverage and direct involvement in politics it is an area of strict no-go.

In 1988 American diplomat, Hank Hendrickson, the First Secretary of the US Embassy in Singapore, was expelled for ‘meddling in Singapore politics’. Most recently the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) and The Economist fell foul of the OB markers and were sued for defamation on two separate occasions. For the latter it wasn’t the first.

The expectation is that foreign publications should refrain from critiquing the Singapore Government for it may adversely affect the credibility and image of our political system and our leaders.

Given our history I think anyone with any sense of patriotism should have some sense of pride in keeping our domestic affairs to ourselves. It isn’t a question of political affiliation. However much discontent we may have with our political system it is an issue for Singaporeans to rectify, not foreigners.

While the Government has been active in defending its integrity, somehow the net has been left open for Singaporeans to be treated as stooges by foreigners in some instances.

Recently one publication has found itself in the mainstream and was highlighted on this site in an article a couple of weeks ago. Singapore Business Review (SBR), a business news magazine owned and run predominantly by foreigners, had a report on the recent poly fee hikes headlined as “Foreign students biggest losers as Government puts citizens first.”

While fee hikes were all around, there was a differentiation made to ensure that citizens and foreigners were not on the same platform, which is understandable and long overdue in the first place. So it is rather out of line to have a foreign publication skew the news to make it seem like foreigners in Singapore are being mistreated.

If in case you might brush this off as just a poor headlining incident, then the Twitter feeds of the said publications on this matter are far more damning:

But this isn’t a one off incident either.

On February 18, an article written by Mr Tim Charlton titled “Singaporeans gambled ‘til they dropped” made the rounds online. It was the second of a two-part review of the opening day of the Resorts World at Sentosa Casino.  This SBR article claimed that ‘Singaporeans, who can only stay in the Casino for 24 hours after paying a $100 levy, decided to take a quick nap between gambling to sleep on the floors of the Casino before presumably waking up to try their luck again’.

Now here’s where Mr Charlton’s story falls apart. The levy is paid by both Singaporeans and Permanent Residents (PRs), yet Mr Charlton is somehow certain that those on the floor were indeed Singaporeans.

One might give Mr Charlton the benefit of the doubt and accept that maybe he had approached the said individuals and checked on their nationalities. But that wasn’t the case either.

In his first part of the article from the day before on February 17, “The good, the bad and the ugly at Resorts World opening” he claims, “Whilst it’s true I did make the trek to Sentosa, and the almost 400 metre trek from one end of the carpark to the escalator, I did not, in fact, manage to enter the casino halls.” So it does lead me to wonder exactly how Mr Charlton made his conclusion and run such a damning headline about Singaporeans.

In stories run by The Straits Times (ST) observations of people sleeping on the floors were indeed made. However according to these reports the incidence of people sleeping on the floors was due to the long wait in the never-ending queues and occurred outside the Casinos.

Another point of contention is the photo that SBR provides in its article as proof. The photo was supposedly taken inside the gambling halls, and shows a group of people sleeping on floor mats.

The unusual thing is that there is a similar photo that was run by ST, but taken from a wider angle and seems to show a very similar location with people sleeping on the floor as well. Furthermore the location provided by SBR looks nothing like the inside of a Casino.

You can make the comparison of the two photos below. The SBR photo is on top:

A Lianhe Wanbao article did however quote a patron having seen people sleeping on the floors of the Casino, though these individuals were identified as foreign workers and not Singaporeans.

In fact according to most reports (including Mr Charlton’s first report) there were far more foreigners than Singaporeans in the queues as foreigners were not subjected to the entry levy imposed on Singaporeans and PRs. Inside, the proportions were reportedly the same as well with even a significant number of blue-collar foreign workers in the midst.

So who did get the reports right? In this instance I believe the SPH owned publications were right in their coverage.

Mr Tim Charlton is no rookie mercenary reporter but the Editor-in-Chief at SBR and it is disheartening that he would choose to publish an article with claims he could not personally validate and a headline that is in poor taste.

SBR’s Twitter feed was again in overdrive, promoting the apparent ugliness of Singaporeans. One might excuse it as just exuberant promotion of the publication but the claims made in the Twitter feed of the recent Budget announcement also had shades of apparent foreigner oppression:

The most irksome part of it all however is the use of Singapore in the publication’s name, which is both exploitative and opportunistic in light of the coverage provided by the publication.

SBR does have its fair share of hard news reports focused solely on finance and business news but it is not easy to overlook the fact that a foreign entity has chosen to trump up foreigner woes while at the same time paint Singaporeans and Singapore in bad light, if and when it chooses to.

As mentioned earlier, the establishment has taken a hard stance on foreign intervention in domestic affairs. Course of action is taken in cases that directly affect the credibility of the Government and political structure, but the same due course should be in place to ensure that the integrity of Singaporeans is also protected. It is only then that one may look at it as a righteous act that protects the integrity of the county as a whole.

The most recent example of the need to protect the integrity of Singaporeans can be seen in the handling of the hit-and-run case involving Dr Silviu Ionescu. It is heartening to see that the case is still being pursued, but I believe it will be a travesty should Dr Ionescu get away with his crime.

The idea of ‘Singaporeans to debate and resolve our own issues’ should be ingrained in us all, as only then can we look to make a positive change lest we forever be in a state of dependency, be it with the ruling Government or on foreign intervention.

It is alright if foreigners are here to contribute productively, in fact they are welcomed to should the numbers permit, but should it then turn into a game of ‘Iceman Cometh’ whilst they are still of foreign status, then it crosses the line.

I believe no country or her citizens who value their sovereignty would welcome such interference. It is a matter of pride and autonomy and anything else borders on subjugation by proxy. Even the most oppressed of nations found liberation from within and we are nowhere near such a state of oppression.

The topic of foreigners in Singapore is a sticky one and over the past few years, it has been one of the most contentious domestic issues as well. Unfortunately it has also brought out the worst in people. But that in no way means it is an issue that lacks justification in the first place.

Terms like xenophobia are thrown around conveniently to dissipate the discontent but this doesn’t at all aid in a balanced discourse of the issue. The real issue lies in the quantity and quality of the influx of foreigners on our shores and in the instance of this discussion, on the role of foreigners in domestic affairs.

Back in December 2007 a group of exchange students at the National University of Singapore were stopped by the authorities and severely reprimanded for trying to stage a demonstration in support of the Myanmar uprisings during the ASEAN Summit. While their intentions were pure and of the best interest for the people of Myanmar, it is rude that they chose not to abide by the rules of their host country, even if they had found it not to their liking. It is a matter of principle and respect.

But there have been far worse consequences for foreigners who chose to waddle into domestic matters. In early 2004, post SARS epidemic, Singapore Airlines (SIA) found itself locked in a standoff with the Air Line Pilots Association-Singapore (Alpa-S) over issues of pay cuts and other management-staff issues which also included the problem of foreign based pilots being given preference in picking desirable flight routes while leaving ‘scraps’ to the local pilots.

The Alpa-S incidentally is not an NTUC affiliated labour union. In this instance the matter deteriorated to the point where members of the Alpa-S held a discussion with then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew at the Istana on more than one occasion.

It wasn’t the first time that SM Lee found himself mediating with the pilots union and in 1980 they had a run-in with him when he was the Prime Minister. SM Lee’s intervention in the 2004 incident was hence explained by then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in parliament, “SM did this rather than one of the other ministers, because this was unfinished business left over from 1980 when there were troubles between SIA and the pilots’ union which SM handled.”

Now the relevance of this incident to this article lies in what happened thereafter. Captain Ryan Goh Yew Hock, a senior pilot with SIA was fingered as the main instigator of the debacle. The Alpa-S issue had arisen after members had ousted the incumbent executive committee.

According to a Straits Times report SM Lee had singled out Capt Goh during the discussions with the pilots union and ‘was accused of working behind the scenes, crafting a petition to oust the council, but not signing it himself.’  He had also apparently been in the process of relocating to Australia.

Captain Goh was a Malaysian citizen but had been a Singapore PR since 1981. Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng labeled the pilot an “undesirable immigrant” and his PR status was revoked. His undermining of SIA labour peace while at the same time planning an escape route to Australia was not taken well by the Government. Captain Goh eventually had to leave the country.

In a Straits Times report dated March 7 2004, it was noted that  “Mr Lee made the point at that meeting (with the pilots union) that if Singapore ‘goes down, it is not just SIA that goes down, but you go down too’. But it was different for PRs as they could opt out.”

Let’s hope that this sentiment has not changed.

*The Iceman Cometh is the name of a play by American playwright Eugene O’Neill.

Copyright © The Temasek Review, 2009

Other articles by Bhaskaran Kunju:

>> A rebuttal to Vikram Khanna’s article on need for foreign workers

>> How much immunity for a diplomat

>> The saga of (dethroned) beauty queen Ris Low

>> Is there room for more foreigners in Singapore?

>> Why social cohesion is at the forefront of the Prime Minister’s National Day Rally

>> Changes in political system to allow more alternative voices

>> The untimely departure of Chip Goodyear

>> Should universities be re-politicized?

About Author:

Bhaskaran Kunju is a Political Science and Communications and New Media undergraduate at the National University of Singapore. He is a regular contributor to the Straits Times Forum and TODAY Voices. He also writes for NLB and FAS and hopes to be a full-time journalist.

Being the second freest economy in the world – What does it mean to Singaporeans?

By Damon Yeo

 For 2010, the Singapore economy has been named as second freest economy in the world, after Hong Kong by the Heritage Foundation. Since 2000, our economy has consistently scored about 87 by the foundation, a considerably high score according to this index.

So, what does this study mean for the average working class Singaporean? If you do not have time to finish reading the article, here is the answer: very little.

Well to be fair to the study, which had been carried out annually since 1995, it was not set out to measure the overall well-being of an average citizen in any given economy. Instead it just specifically measures how freely an individual can work, produce and consume as well as how freely the government allows labour, capital and goods to move around. It does not measure how much an individual has to start with.

The index measures ten separate broad areas of economic freedom and a maximum score is 100 for every area.  

Government Spending

One area to determine economic freedom is by looking at how much the government spends. The concept is that the less the government spends, the less economic distortions there will be in the market. In this benchmark, an economy where the government spends nothing at all will get a score of 100.

 Compared to other economies in the world, Singapore is ranked second. Only Myanmar has a ‘better’ score (possibly due to corruption). As expected, Scandinavian economies with generous welfare benefits are heavily penalised in this area – Sweden is ranked third last and Denmark fifth last.

 Quite clearly, this benchmark illustrates the inverse relationship between (the lack of) government spending and economic freedom.

 However, bear in mind that low level of spending by the Singapore government does not necessarily indicate neglect of provision of public goods – it could also represent the lack of unemployment benefit payouts and efficiency.

 Labour Freedom

 Our economy also ranks number one in the Labour Freedom benchmark. This benchmark measures six different factors, including hindrance to hiring additional workers, difficulty of firing redundant employees and mandatory severance pay. Broadly speaking, if companies in an economy can hire additional workers easily, fire redundant workers easily and pay very little (or no) severance pay, this economy is defined as free.

 This benchmark obviously measures economic freedom from the perspective of the corporations and not the workers.

 A previous article has already discussed this extensively. This report, which is done independent of World Economic Forum’s report on Competitiveness, reaffirms the fact that corporations are “well-treated” in Singapore, at the expense of workers themselves. This particular benchmark will be uncomfortable reading for many Singaporeans who lost their jobs during the current recession.

 This labour freedom is likely achieved by the tripartite relationship (government, unions and workers), which had been often championed as a comparative advantage of our economy.

 Monetary Freedom

 This particular benchmark in the study measures price stability and level of price controls in an economy. The study deems that If prices are stable (ie low inflation) and the government does little to interfere with market prices, the economy is free.

 Singapore is ranked relatively high at ninth for this benchmark, behind economic powerhouses like Japan, Hong Kong and Switzerland.

 However, the overall level of government involvement in Singapore’s economy is very different from that of the rest of these countries. More than 80% of Singaporeans own properties sold to them by the government and through Temasek Holdings, the government has significant interests in a large number of companies listed on the Straits Times Index. In a nutshell, the Singapore government can impose much more effective price controls than most other developed economies.

 Despite its ability to, the study has shown that the Singapore government has done little to control prices in Singapore. This somewhat explains the exponential increase in prices of HDB flats in Singapore.

 There will be debate on whether price controls have desirable effects on the society (not economy) in general, but it is clear from here that our government has chosen not to control prices.

 All in all, this report from the Heritage Foundation tells us very little what we don’t already know. For many a years now, the Singapore economy has been a great role model for all other countries in the world, but the bigger question is – how much had that benefitted workers in Singapore?

 

Other  articles by Damon Yeo:

>> GIC’s investment in Stuyvesant Town: Unraveling the mystery

>> The demise of Dubai: How the mighty have fallen

>> The minimum wage: pros and cons

>> HDB’s 2 billion dollar deficit: More questions than answers

>> Singapore v Hong Kong

>> DBS and a series of ‘unfortunate events’

>> Sale of Chartered – An Anatomy

>> 3rd most competitive nation in the world and what it means to the average worker

About the Author:

Damon is a proud graduate of Nanyang Technological University in 2004 with a degree in Accountancy. He is currently working in the finance department of a UK Bank

A deeper understanding of the “Foreign Talent” issue

By Lawrence Pek

Clearly, there has been a lot of unhappiness on the grounds with the huge influx of foreigners into Singapore in the last 18 to 24 months, even though PM Lee has addressed this issue (well, sort of), I would like to dwell further with a deeper analysis of certain repercussions of these misguided policies.

Value Added – Currently, clearly we have many foreigners in the service sectors, from 7-11 to waitresses to masseurs. The quality of Foreigners is both unclear and not scrutinized. Are they doing work that Singaporeans cannot do (special skills, experience or relationships) – or just competition with locals for local jobs (hawker centre, petrol kiosks and 7-11).

Cheap vs. Cheaper – Even though it is true that foreigners are willing to accept cheaper salaries, please consider 2 things in the long run:

1.     Will they continue to accept the same low wages in 3 to 5 years? They will not, for 2 simple reasons – if they 30% cheaper than the local Singaporeans now, they will want to price themselves 5 to 10% cheaper than a local Singaporeans, these foreigners are not stupid, they want to be “cheaper” and not simply just “cheap”

2.     What will the government do about the high unemployment rate for the local that was displaced? e.g. If you bring in a cheaper 25 years old PRC girl to work in 7-11 to replace a 35 year old Singaporean woman (or man) – then what will he or she do, once she or he is replaced? Can that local find a higher valued job (higher salary with higher function) – Isn’t it clear that MOM just created a problem by doing this?

 

Structural Unemployment:

Please allow me to use this to clarify pt 2, this comes about rarely, but it is a bitch to handle for any Minister of Manpower. Simply, there is a job mismatch – there are plenty of job vacancies to go about, but the quality of the people simply cannot perform what these jobs require…the market has changed and companies now require skills and knowledge workers in very specific or niche or high (high is not niche) areas. Then there is a clear and definite for that company to import foreign talent in order to perform the tasks at hand. But locally, MOM and MOE need to look at re-training and re-educating the local manpower to perform these task.

Why? The reason is one of valued added and sustainability. If MOM and MOE can realize that there are no short cuts to structural unemployment, then they need to bite the bullet to retrain locals, because the locals stays and with a higher skilled workforce, Singapore as an economy will be more cutting edge and more competitive.

 

What happens when the Music Stops?

With 36% foreigners now in Singapore, regardless of whether they are PRs or even New Citizens – will they be there when the going gets tough in Singapore or will they leave for their homeland (China, India, Vietnam…). Singapore is NOT HOME, they WILL LEAVE and then WHAT DO WE DO?

Who will fill the void and what will happen to our economy? There is a further perspective, if you have a small group of 100 and 10 leave, the 90 people should be able to cover and manage, but if you have a group of 10,000 and 1,000 leaves (same 10%), the balance 9,000 cannot and will not want to cover and manage the gap.

 

The Brain Drain issue

This is not a new phenomenon; there are many Singaporeans (even though they keep their passports) who will never come back here. Artists, Musicians, Scientists and lastly, people like myself, self-made business men. I have so many friends now in US, Europe and China now, they simply will not come back anymore; their reply is very simple, Singapore no longer provides the environment for their (or their kids) development. Their value in these foreign countries is higher than in Singapore. They already feel there is no more reason, no more space for them to come back anymore. Given the new demographics in their homeland now, I doubt if any of them are inclined to ever come back.

 

Conclusion

In summary, the key message that I would like to convey is that of Sustainability – Yes, it is true that the local bred and born has 2 main issues, which is driving the influx of foreigners. We are not willing to breed, and we are no longer as hardworking or have higher expectations in terms of our employment benefits.

However, we cannot take the short cut route and look at the short terms benefits in terms of GDP growth. Rather than bringing the foreigners and creating a unstable society (trust me, there are many pissed off people), why is it that we cannot bite the bullet and try to brain storm ideas to increase birth rates, to control wages for locals.

Unfortunately, it is true that I am not a full time labor officer at MOM, so I am not privy to lots of internal discussions or data, which I am sure, has led our urban planners to decide on the current course of actions. However, I do not think that I am wrong in my assessment above and I do would like an opportunity to be proven wrong.

As a last word, to these scholars and ministers, I would like to implore your better judgments on 2 fronts. Please trust us to understand your predicament and we will do our best to understand the issues, which we understand is our issues, anyway. Please do not be so insecure in your policy making, talk to us and make us understand, we are your people and responsibility.

 

Other articles by Lawrence Pek:

>> Where is my country going

>> Strategies for the next election 2010/11

Don’t forget about us, says university students

By Low Wei Xiang

Singaporeans might have plenty to cheer with the government’s announcement of price hikes and changes in the primary school balloting system to enhance the privileges of citizens, but they could be losing sight of the big picture.

Last week, the government announced that PRs and foreigners will pay higher fees to study in government primary and secondary schools. Singapore citizens also get twice the number of chances when balloting for places in popular primary schools.  These changes are in a bid to draw a clearer distinction between citizens and non-citizens.

However the government might have lost focus on the more important issues.

Changes across primary and secondary school levels are likely to be well-received by citizens, but there would have been little difference with or without these changes.

Citizens and foreigners alike would still get their respective places in government primary and secondary schools.  Perhaps the only difference would be that citizens now have an edge in popular primary schools – but an education in a primary school that is more or less popular would not result in substantial differences.

In addition, the effects of these changes are minimal, since only 4% of the primary and secondary school students are foreigners.

In contrast, foreigners account for 8% of polytechnic and ITE students and 20% of university students.1

While citizens should be heartened by the changes, we should bear in mind the bigger picture. If the government wants to enhance the privileges of citizens, there are bigger, more impactful issues in education of the higher levels to address.

Issue 1: School Fees Between Citizens and Non-Citizens in Tertiary Institutes

School fees for foreign students in Singapore’s government tertiary institutes are comparatively low since they receive the same amount of government subsidies extended to citizens and PRs, but how fair is this measure?

Scenario: If a student was newly enrolled into the following courses for Academic Year 09/10, the tuition fees payable annually for the 2nd year onwards would be as bolded (fees for the 1st year are lower for some schools) –

Unfazed by brickbats, Temasek Review aims to boldly go where no blog has gone before

By Bhavan Jaipragas from journalism.sg

(The below article is republished here with kind permission from the author)

Within Singapore’s increasingly influential new media sphere, Temasek Review (TR) has emerged as one of the more controversial players.

With an ambitious mission statement and vision, TR was quickly regarded as a site to watch. In recent months however, it has been mired in controversy. The blogosphere has been set alight with a flurry of discussions about TR, with some netizens expressing a curiosity about its motives while others have openly attacked it.

TR remains as ambitious as ever. “In ten years’ time, the internet will emerge as the primary source of news for many Singaporeans and we want to be a key player when that happens,” its caretaker manager said in an e-mail interview (full text below). He said the target was to register as a company, earn revenue through advertising and employ full-time journalists – something no socio-political website in Singapore has managed to do. Refusing to divulge more details, he said that the website was still “exploring the best option to take”, citing Malaysiakini and Huffington Post as possible models that his website might want to emulate.

The representative agreed to the interview on condition of anonymity, saying that this was in line with TR’s policy to “keep a loose structure for the time being” as the website was still finalising its organisational setup. Such coyness is one reason why many netizens are suspicious. Although many sites allow anonymous comments, Singapore’s most influential independent sites have founders who were open about their own identities from day one. These range from the Singapore’s first online magazine, Sintercom (Tan Chong Kee) and the grandfather of blogs, Yawning Bread (Alex Au), to later arrivals such as The Online Citizen (Choo Zheng Xi), Mr Brown (Lee Kim Mun), and even hard-hitting activist sites such as Singapore Rebel (Martyn See).

In contrast, TR has a page dedicated to the profiles of its columnists, but its leadership remains incognito. A significant number of the website’s articles are attributed to nameless “Correspondents”. This shroud of secrecy has led to rampant speculation about TR’s motives, with some suggesting that the website is not quite the “independent, balanced and unbiased” Internet newspaper it has positioned itself to be.

The caretaker manager who answered our queries was not too fazed by such rumours. He said that “content is more important than the writer”, citing how other news entities like The Economist and Malaysiakini regularly do not attribute articles to any specific writer. He added that many of the website’s writers were not comfortable to reveal their real identities, but the number of hits on their articles showed that readers were not too turned off by their anonymity. Discounting what he called the “traditional view that a site has to be run by credible people”, he said that what was more important for a website like Temasek Review was to build its influence through increased readership even if that meant quality was sometimes compromised.

TR has also been accused of wanton plagiarism. Recently, an anonymous blogger set up a blog highlighting several instances where content generated by elite news entities like AFP, Voice of America and China’s People Daily were passed of as original content on Temasek Review. The bylines at the beginning of these articles attributed them to TR’s own “Correspondent”.

The manager of Temasek Review dismissed these allegations, stating that the articles quoted in the blog “all have the sources stated at the bottom which he (the blogger) had deliberately chosen to omit when cropping them”. According to him, such a copy and paste method of news aggregation employed by Temasek Review was justified, considering how mainstream newspapers like The Straits Times regularly republished international news content produced by the wire agencies. He further added that the website could not be faulted “as long as we quote the source of the news” and that “everything posted in the Internet is for sharing under a Common Licensing Scheme unless explicitly stated otherwise”.

TR states on its site that it is a subscriber to various news sources. However, it may be ignoring the fact that individual subscriptions to news media do not include the right to reproduce their content. Indeed, commercial news media explicit forbid such unlicensed use of their stories and visuals.

In this age of news aggregation, most news organisations have allowed news aggregators like The Huffington Post and Google News to carry link headlines and excerpts, as long as the full article remains on the source’s website. TR, however, reproduces others’ articles on its own site. Its sources don’t seem to have taken so far, probably because TR is still too small a player to worry about. If TR becomes as big a player as it wants to be, however, its copy-and-paste journalism will probably attract a few lawyers’ letters for copyright infringement.

Though profits are not the ultimate objective of Temasek Review, the plan is for it to be self-sustaining in the long term. It was revealed to us that the website is currently “fully self-funded”, with the caretaker manager one of the contributors. “It does not cost much to maintain the website at this stage”, he said. Part of the website’s financial strategy is also to have advertisement revenue from its sister website East Asia Review subsidise operating costs.

The ambitious plans of the website seem to have no place for other players in the local new media scene. When asked about the relationship between Temasek Review and other independent new media entities, its caretaker manager’s answer was curt: “We are not really keen to collaborate with others. We prefer to mind our own business”.

It remains to be seen how the website can deliver on its plans to become a professionally-run commercial outfit, with only a select few of such websites able to generate enough advertising and subscription revenue to hire journalists and other backroom staff. Temasek Review is still some way off from becoming the fully-fledged online newspaper a la Malaysiakini that its caretaker manager envisions it to be.

Read rest of the article and interview here

About the Author:

Bhavan Jaipragas is a media researcher at the Nanyang Technological University

Singapore’s bilingual policy: a success or setback?

By Nicholas Tan

Long regarded as the crux of Singapore’s financial, political and national success, the bilingualism policy has come under the limelight recently, all thanks to Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s apology for his mistakes in the policy.

When the policy was meted out four decades ago, Mr Lee said: “if we were monolingual in our mother tongues, we would not make a living.”

Nobody can deny the fact that as a result of learning our sciences and mathematics in English, we can go almost anywhere to further our education and earn a living as a scientist or a lawyer. MNCs and research companies have no qualms about setting up regional bases here and directly contributing to our economy. However a further prognosis of Mr Lee did not quite materialize. He predicted that ”Becoming monolingual in English would have been a setback.

We would have lost our cultural identity, that quiet confidence about ourselves and our place in the world.” Regrettably, the younger generation has already shown signs of that much unwanted setback despite NOT being monolingual. We might, with some difficulty, claim to be bilingual but we are definitely not bicultural. The younger generation has lost interest in the Chinese language because of the way Chinese is taught in schools: rigid, boring and meaningless. Chinese literature and culture are out of the question if students loathe the medium of instruction. It is hardly perplexing that most of us know nothing about cultural heritage and identity.

What might be happening? A fundamental principle of our governance is that education keeps up with economic growth and society. Consequentially, we learn a language if it is beneficial to the country, regardless of personal interest. For instance, we learn mother tongue to promote communication and economic cooperation with other countries.

The Chinese language is emphasized in particular because the government wants Singaporeans to leverage on the rapid growth of China. The problem occurs when the pressure on students comes in the form of ‘forced’ learning of the written and spoken forms of Chinese over a short period of time in order to ‘keep up with the economy’. Our ‘comprehensive’ Chinese education lasts from primary school to pre-university education (JC/polytechnic), after which hardly anyone reads or writes Chinese anymore. At best, we use a mixture of Chinese and English in our daily conversations in addition to losing almost all writing and reading skills. Is this the kind of attitude and level of Chinese literacy desirable in a population expected to deal with native speakers of Chinese?

It would be exaggerated to claim that we are all jaded victims of the bilingualism policy, for I consider myself a relatively grateful survivor of the policy. I enjoy speaking and writing Chinese and it still surprises me how some of my peers abhor the language.

Learning Chinese was not enjoyable because one had to go through the rites of dictation and ‘ting xie’ year after year. It was a chore, a pain, but it gradually became bearable as I was moulded by being around Chinese-speaking friends and grew to like Chinese music and Taiwanese entertainment shows. These seem like trivial and silly reasons but they all point to the fact that to learn Chinese, one has to enjoy the process. Make it ‘fun’, as Mr Lee Kuan Yew puts. However, learning Chinese should not be achieved by removing the arduous process of ‘ting xie’ and ‘mo xie’ (it’s not madness, really.) Instead, the focus should lie on inculcating interest in the language out of a school setting.

Family and friends play an important role in shaping one’s attitude towards the language. For example, it helps that families try to speak Chinese at home to help students habituate into speaking mandarin. It is not easy to create a whole new environment around the student, one that facilitates enjoyable learning of the language, but learning a new language is not meant to be effortless.

The top PSLE student this year came from Guangzhou in 2006 and began learning English here. She attributed her success to ‘library trips and encouragement from family and friends to speak English’. Furthermore, she admits that there were no short-cuts to learning a language. Her achievement proved that language learning is hard work; lowering standards or removing burdensome procedures of writing do not solve the problem. I also caution against excessive use of English in teaching Chinese because the two languages are very different in nature and by using English, we are conveying the message that there are ‘equivalents’ in Chinese for everything in English and vice versa.

They all sound more like restrictions than advice to learning a new language. Well, not every individual has a flair for language learning and we have all come to realize that some people are more bilingual than others. Apart from the dearth of a conducive environment for learning Chinese, more commonly there is a lack of motivation. It is impressive to read about people who push themselves to the limit to learn 8 or more languages, all out of passion, but it is idealistic to expect such ardor in our students. Why not separate students into groups of ‘I love Chinese’ and ‘I just want to get it over and done with’? It would be nice to reward passionate learners with the chance to learn more and guarantee release for the uninterested after imparting the most essential ‘knowledge’.

We need to replace the image that Chinese is just another subject one has to mindlessly memorize for twelve years before throwing it away with a precious gift of heritage. For the few who have suffered under the bilingualism policy such that their talents went unrecognized and emigration was the only way out, it is sad to see them forsake valuable cultural assets for the development of their limitless aptitude.

In the earlier years of Singapore’s independence, the situation was reverse. There was a greater proportion of mandarin-speaking families and we were figuring out ways of better grasping the English language. How did we become better at English over the years? Encouraging families to communicate more in English and gradually shifting from Chinese-medium schools to English-medium schools were some contributing factors. As much as these changes improved our English, they reduced Chinese and other mother tongues to mere subjects like mathematics. Could there be a similar reversal in favour of the Chinese language? Bilingualism was borne out of Singapore’s need to operate globally and ‘retain’ cultural identity; it is time we put more effort into its second objective.

 

About the Author:

Nicholas was born and bred in Singapore. Like most other Singaporean males, he ad undergone primary, secondary, JC education and full-time national service. Currently, Nicholas is an undergraduate of the University of Western Australia.

Immigration and public housing: Should the govt or the people plan ahead?

OPINION

It is a forte of the PAP government to plan well ahead into the next few decades to chart the future direction and destiny of Singapore.

Soon after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong assumed the leadership of the nation in 2003, he announced an ambitious plan to increase Singapore’s population to 6.5 million people via immigration by 2030.

The population of Singapore in 2003 is estimated to be around 4.2 million in 2003.

Singapore’s population hit the 5-million mark in June this year which represents an increase of 19 per cent in less than a decade.

As Singapore’s fertility rate is only 1.28 which is way below the replacement rate of 2.1, this means that the increase in the population is contributed largely by the influx of immigrants.

Foreigners now made up 36 per cent of Singapore’s population, up from 14 per cent in 1990.

Of the 64 per cent which are citizens, the exact breakdown of old and new citizens is not revealed.

According to Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng, there are over 20,000 new citizens and 90,000 PRs last year.

Naturally if there are so many foreigners settling down in Singapore, the demand for public housing will surely go up.

However, it appears that the National Development Ministry had failed to plan ahead for Singapore’s increased population now a few years ago as evident from the housing statistics provided by HDB in its financial report for FY2008/09.

[Source: HDB Financial Report 2008/2009]

As we can see from the above figures, the number of flats built by HDB for the last three years average about 3,ooo plus a year which is way below the number in the preceding 5 years.

55,515 flats were built between 2001 – 2005, or an average of about 11,000 flats a year. From 1996 – 2000, 158,621 flats were built.

Why are there fewer flats built when the rate of immigration was increased during the same period of time between 2006 – 2008?

It doesn’t take an economist to figure out that the rising demand for public housing in the face of limited supply of flats will lead to inflation in prices with some first-time home buyers missing out on their choice of flats or being priced out of the market altogether.

The prices of HDB resale flats hit a record high in June this year with that of new flats following suit.

In two recent sale exercises of BTO and balance flats, they were more than 10 times over-subscribed, an indication of the severity of the housing shortage on the ground.

[Source: HDB Financial Report 2008/2009]

We can see from the above table that there were 9,870 bookings for new flats for only 3,183 units completed in 2008.

Despite the rising unhappiness and resentment on the ground at the housing shortage and sky-high prices, HDB continued to insist initially that supply of new flats are adequate to meet the housing needs of Singaporeans.

Following mounting criticisms from the public, HDB relented and promised to build more flats to meet the demand.

The number of projects under construction increases by 74 per cent from 18,073 for FY07/08 to 31,058 for FY08/09 which begs the question on why HDB has not done so earlier.

If the number of flats built between 2006 – 2008 are indeed sufficient to meet current housing needs as claimed by National Development Mah Bow Tan, why then did he reverse his stance abruptly and announce that HDB will increase the supply of new flats now? Is there a mistake made somewhere?

The new flats under construction at present will only be completed in three to four years time.

Is the PAP government planning ahead by building more flats to meet the expected increase in demand or “backwards” to do so only when the demand has far outstripped the supply?

PAP MP Dr Muhammad Faisal chided Singaporeans for not “planning ahead” when purchasing their first homes.

He quoted the example of a young couple who had registered for a flat in Punggol this year when they are expected to get marry only four years later in 2013.

With due respect to Dr Faisal, it is both unreasonable and unrealistic of him to demand Singaporeans to plan ahead for their matrimony as human relationships are fickle and fragile by nature and it would be foolhardy to expect all couples who apply successfully for HDB flats to get married eventually.

How can they know or guarantee that they will tie the knot a few years down the road? What if they break up after they pay the 5 per cent downpayment for their flat? It will automatically be forfeited by HDB.

Using the current prices of between $250,000 – $350,000, this will result a loss of $12,500 – $17,500 for the couple or one of them, not a small sum by today’s standards.

If Dr Faisal or HDB wants to encourage Singaporeans to plan ahead and purchase their flats a few years before their marriage, then it should waive off the penalty for couples who are unable to complete the transaction because they are no longer together.

It would be far easier and more practical for the PAP government to plan ahead by either increasing the supply of flats or reducing the intake of new citizens and PRs than to predict matters of the heart.

Public housing has become a necessity for Singaporeans who cannot afford private housing.

The onus is on the government to keep the prices of HDB flats affordable to enable Singaporeans to get a flat of their choice and not on the buyers to plan well ahead of schedule in their personal affairs so that they will have a readily available flat by the time they get married.

Why citizenship test is a red herring to deflect blame from the govt’s immigration policy

OPINION

When PAP MP Halimah Yacob proposed introducing a citizenship test like some other countries for prospective new citizens, she was not cut down to size by a geriatrician MP for suggesting a “highfalutin” idea.

Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan described it as “quite sensible” and would study the feasibility of implementing it on the ground in the future.

The Straits Times then followed up with a series of articles to “sell” the idea to Singaporeans as a panacea for Singapore’s immigration woes.

A mock pre-citizenship test was even conducted among locals and foreigners to prove the point that Singaporeans do not know that much about their nation either.

Knowing that the Singapore media is completely under the control of the ruling party, one should take its proposals with a heavy grain of salt.

The proposal of a citizenship test is no more than a PR exercise to show Singaporeans that the government does listen to them and to divert attention from the crux of the issue: that its immigration policy, or rather experience has gone awfully wrong.

Singapore would not end up having this hot potato on its hands had the government not opened the floodgates indiscriminately to the tide of immigration a few years ago in an ambitious bid to increase Singapore’s population to 6.5 million.

Overnight, countless of immigrants find themselves Singapore “citizens”, some of whom do not speak a word of English or stay here for only a year or two.

Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng admitted that two out of three applicants for PRs are successful over the last few years which is extremely high among developed countries.

The criteria set for becoming a Singapore PR appears to be very lax as there are no mandatory period of residence unlike in other countries like Australia (2 out of 5 years) and United Kingdom (5 years).

It was revealed in the papers recently that China national and Singapore PR Zhang Yuanyuan who sparked a furore by proclaiming her allegiance to China on CCTV7, received her PR within 2 months of application after finishing her studies in a private institution in Singapore.

By harping constantly on the citizenship test, the media is cleverly switching the issue from the rate of immigration to the rate of integration of the new migrants in the hope that the public will forget the atrocious blunder made by the government.

A citizenship test will not reduce the inflow of foreigners so long the government does not introduce more stringent criteria to control the types of migrants allowed to take up Singapore citizenship.

Neither will it help to identify those who will better integrate in Singapore society because a motivated applicant can always read up about Singapore to prepare himself/herself for the test.

It will serve no useful purpose other as a psychological tool to lull Singaporeans into a sense of complacency and to appease them. The government’s current immigration policy still stands.

With elections around the corner, the ruling party is afraid that the immigration issue may cost them to lose some votes and hence the need to put up a charade to show that they understand the concerns of citizens.

Recent speeches made by senior leaders indicate that they are still committed to increase Singapore’s population via immigration and there will not be any radical changes made to the policy.

Singapore’s low fertility rate is unlikely to improve in the near future and immigration remains the easiest option to boost its flagging population for both economic and political reasons.

The key question we must ask is not whether the new citizens are able to integrate into Singapore society but if we are accepting too many of them in the first place.

If we impose stringent criteria on the prospective applicants such as mandating them to stay in Singapore for a number of years before they can apply for citizenship, then we will not have to deal with the problem of integration which arises because too many foreigners are allowed to become citizens when they have spent too little time here.

Foreigners who are keen to become Singapore citizens must learn to integrate into our society on their own instead of the government using taxpayers’ monies to help them integrate.

It is disingenuous of the Straits Times to promote the citizenship test as a panacea for Singapore’s immigration woes in order to deceive and mislead the public.

If the government had studied the policy carefully and thoroughly before implementing it in a haste, we will not end up with so many problems now with the locals feeling threatened by the newcomers who have not quite settled down in Singapore yet.

As the population of new citizens continue to increase, the divide between the two groups will be accentuated as the migrants will tend to mix among themselves in their own cliques rather than to reach out to the locals.

Social integration is a natural process which takes place slowly over the years. One do not become a naturalized Singaporean overnight in a few years by staying within one’s own community from China, India or other countries.

The government is making a serious mistake in thinking that integration can be managed and facilitated artificially by throwing money at it which is tantamount to making another mistake just to cover up the first.

Upper middle class folks are living in style

By Seah Chiang Nee from The Star, 28 November 2009

IN RECENT months, I have had a few glimpses of how far Singapore’s upper middle class has moved ahead in the richest city in South-East Asia.

The chance came as I was searching to rent a home, looking behind closed doors in the presence of an agent.

After visiting some two dozen homes in several estates, a picture soon emerged of how well the upper gentry — roughly a third of the population — has benefited from the island’s prosperity.

The upper middle class is, of course, a loose socio-economic offshoot of a broad middle class population.

Who makes up this group? Generally, they include professionals, businessmen, managers, executives and, of course, high-earning senior civil servants and politicians.

In my hunt, I have met home-owning doctors, administrators and shipping directors, with wives, more often than not, in similar professional strata.

(The middle, middle class earners are mostly in sales, technical and clerical work while the working class includes manual workers, cleaners and labourers.)

One family wanted to sell me its well-heeled, three-storey terrace house for S$1.6mil (RM3.9mil), with one proviso — delivery only after December.

That was when the whole family would resettle in Australia.

The upper middle class (UMC) is defined not only by its earnings or wealth but also by education, social influence and lifestyles.

To me, the extent this group has advanced economically in the past decade or so has been phenomenal. I had realised it only in general terms, but too substantially.

Singapore’s UMC, of course, does not include the super-rich or the tycoons (who are in a class of their own) or wealthy foreigners who have been attracted to its shores.

Most likely they are millionaires, living in a luxurious condo or a landed property, a scarce commodity on this land-short island.

Increasingly, the UMC is gunning for it.

There are only 68,300 landed houses, or 29% of the total private properties in Singapore — and future growth is minimal.

The upper middle class person has a car and a maid — possibly even two of each — and his family takes annual overseas trips every year.

His growing emergence is the result of years of rapid economic expansion and an education system that pushed out tens of thousands of graduates ever year, particularly women.

The economic power of the female professionals is one of the major factors for the phenomenon.

The lifestyles of many of the residents are far more lavish than I had realised.

Staggering to me is the number of owners who spent S$150,000 to S$600,000 (RM366,000 to RM1.4mil) refurbishing or rebuilding their homes, adding one or two storeys. It has changed the landscape.

This sort of money could buy a bungalow even in suburban America, let alone in most parts of Asia. Not many UMC folk have swimming pools or spas or are chauffeur-driven but they are not short of other luxuries.

For lack of a better phrase, I’d call them Singapore’s “poorer class of millionaires”.

In a two-storey home, I saw various family members watching cable television on five 37-inch LCD sets in their own rooms. One was attached next to the dining table so that none needed to miss any programme while eating. In front of the house were parked two cars.

When I mentioned it, a cable TV technician laughed: “You’re behind time. It’s quite common now. I just installed a set in a bathroom.”

They send their children to study abroad, own several mobile phones, one for each family member (except possibly grandmum), and invest heavily in the latest high-tech gimmickry.

At one restaurant, a friend of mine saw a family of four eating a meal that included premium New Zealand beef and prime ribs for the children that cost about S$25 (RM61) each.

Some of the kids eat their school lunch at Japanese restaurants, update their mobile and table-top technology regularly — and go on European trips with classmates.

Finance professor Francis Koh of the Singapore Management Univer­sity was quoted by a newspaper as saying: “The profile of the wealthy is changing; the wealth is filtering to younger people.

“Today’s rich Singaporeans are not only more willing to spend, but want to be seen doing so.”

The really wealthy, estimated at 8-10%, are described as having at least S$1mil (RM2.4mil) in financial assets.

In the past few years, Singapore has recorded more new millionaires than any other country in the world.

Next in line is the UMC; some economists estimate some 19-20% of Singaporeans belong to this group, with the broad middle class making another 37-40%.

Estimates differ, sometimes widely, until a proper, detailed survey is carried out.

On average, these high-earning individuals earn S$7,000 (RM17,000) a month, possibly much more.

The third part of today’s Singapore is the lower middle class and the poor, the republic’s biggest potential for social friction. They make up the bottom 30% of society.

In several previous columns, I have written about the widening gap between the rich and the poor and the public discontent that it has stirred.

Class is often a sensitive and subjective matter in every country, including Singapore.

To prevent tensions from simmering, the government wants to avoid (not always succeeding) any excessive flaunting of wealth, especially by well-paid government leaders.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned: “If we let the politics of envy drive a wedge between us, our society will be destroyed and all will suffer.

“That must never happen.” – The Star

Republished from The Star on 28 November 2009

New citizens in grassroots organizations: Serving the interest of the community or the PAP?

OPINION

It was revealed by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan lately that there are about 4,500 new citizens serving as grassroots leaders in various estates in Singapore.

He claimed that this will help promote integration between the newcomers and Singaporeans.

With due respect to Dr Vivian, the grassroots organizations such as Residents’ Committees (RCs) and Citizen Consultative Committees (CCCs) have long failed in their original mission to “bring Singaporeans of various races and religions together”.

Few Singaporeans will bother to participate in events organized by these quasi-PAP organizations, let alone volunteer their time and services to join them as grassroots leaders.

You need only show up at every event organized by your RC/CCC for one month to realize that it is attended by almost the same few faces.

There are literally no young Singaporeans seen at grassroots functions such as block parties and dialogue sessions with ministers.

It will be interesting to find out the membership growth of both the locals and new citizens in the grassroots organizations.

Unlike Singaporeans, the new citizens have plenty of reasons to join grassroots organizations.

Being new to a foreign land, these  government-affiliated organizations will provide a much needed source of support and help during times of need.

Furthermore, it will also serve the purpose of networking for the newcomers to make new friends and acquaintances in Singapore.

For Singaporeans who have been living here for their entire lives, they have their own circle of family and friends and do not need to rely on the grassroots organizations.

Many are too busy with their daily lives to find time to “serve” their community. They will rather spend their weekends with their family or do their shopping instead of going for a morning stroll with the MP.

So if there aren’t that many locals in grassroots organizations or participating in its activities in the first place, how are they going to serve as a medium for new citizens to reach out to their Singapore neighbors?

It is highly likely that the new citizens will end up mixing only with a particular clique of Singaporeans who are politically affiliated to the PAP.

It is an unspoken truth that grassroots organizations are no more than the “eyes and ears” of the PAP on the ground.

All of them are directly controlled by the People’s Association headed by the Prime Minister himself.

Grassroots leaders are more than often not PAP branch secretaries who sit on two or more committees such as the RCs and CCCs at the same time.

With more and more new citizens being roped into grassroots organizations, they may end up mingling among themselves rather than the larger population as a whole and accentuating the divide between them and the locals.

Being highly politicized organizations which are intricately linked to the ruling party, grassroots organizations should not be beneficiaries of the $10-million Community Integration Fund paid for by taxpayers’ monies.

Not only will they not help the newcomers integrate, they will have the unintended effect of securing their allegiance to the ruling party.

The PAP knows that Singaporeans, especially the younger generation, desire more opposition to check on them in parliament and its support base is slowly being eroded with time.

New citizens who have no inkling of Singapore’s politics, are usually more inclined to vote for the incumbent government which gives them the opportunity to start their lives afresh in Singapore.

Their votes will be crucial to counter the rising support among indigenous Singaporeans for the opposition in the next few elections to enable the PAP to maintain its political hegemony.

We must not forget that the entire political system in Singapore is designed to entrench one single ruling party in power to the exclusion of others – the government dislikes having an effective opposition to hold them accountable.

To them, this is “adversarial” politics which is anathema to their interests since their flaws, fallacies and hypocrises will be exposed clearly for the public to see.

Even with the GRCs, it is a tall order for the PAP to win 98 per cent of the seats in future elections repeatedly.

Winning the new citizens to its side first before anybody else is crucial for the ruling party as they and their next generation will form a powerful voting bloc to contend with.

The control of the media and grassroots organizations is instrumental in engineering past electoral victories of the PAP.

With the information monopoly enjoyed by the mainstream media being chipped away gradually by the new media, it is imperative that the PAP cultivates close ties with the new citizens and voters of the future right now.

Singaporeans should demand stringent criteria to be set before the fund is allowed to be used by the grassroots organizations.

For example, the activity or event will only qualified for funding if there are are approximately equal mix of locals and new citizens.

There is little point in conducting HDB block parties for a group of Indian expatriates with few Singaporeans involved or a one-day tour to Malaysia attended by the same cliche of geriatricians with little participation from the new citizens.

Singaporeans will have no objections to fraternizing with the newcomers, but $10-million is no small sum and we have to make sure that it doesn’t end up promoting the interests of the PAP instead of the community as it should be.

Next Page »