As I witnessed
today, a senior citizen working humbly as a cleaner of a huge shopping mall
stuffed with the most expensive brands in the heart of our shopping district,
PM Lee Hsien Loong’s message of “feel for our fellow human beings” rang in my
ears.
Hope.
Heart. Home. These were the themes for our National Day Rally this year.
Brought to you by LHL.
He highlighted the
importance of “heart” when he touched on the subject of recent growing xenophobia
among Singaporeans, urging local citizens to “feel for our fellow human beings”
which the “human beings” specifically refers to the foreign nationals on our
shores. His choice on the “heart” as part of the NDR rally struck a chord in me
and moved my heart especially.
For my heart moved
towards the fact that the current achievement of our nation is a collective
effort from our first generation leaders and our senior citizens. Our nation prospers
while the youths and health of our 1Gen leaders and senior citizens fade away. Our
leaders are entitled pensions for their twilight years, our senior citizens deprived.
My heart quivered but LHL’s?
His heart feels apparently
more for foreign nationals, for they are part of “our fellow human beings” while
my heart goes to our senior citizens who are abandoned by their very own
country in which they made to prosper. And this is the same country that has
grown into the richest
nation in the world in terms of GDP.
When our country
legislate “filial piety”, and filial piety disguised as a means to dump the
cost of caring for the elderly onto the next generation, it fails to repay its
gratitude to our senior citizens to which it owes its success to. Gratitude could
come in the forms of greater subsidy for medical care or curbing inflation (please lah! Enough of the excuse that
inflation or anything else is inevitable!) or provisions of affordable nursing home. Affordability
that is pegged to our median income.
This is NOT
welfare but a noble demonstration of appreciation of an inclusive society with
a “heart”. Nevertheless, the past and existing policies contradict the kind of
heart which LHL hold, I am afraid only reserved for his foreign nationals.
If only LHL could
extend his “feel for our fellow human beings” towards our senior citizens, one
of the sources of contributors towards the GDP figures which his big fat bonus is
highly-dependent upon.
At the slightest call
for more social net provisions for our citizens, LHL would slap us instantly in
the face with higher taxes. Despite enjoying more years of budget surpluses than
budget deficit, or when he could afford higher proportion of expenditure for
defence than our education and healthcare, or when he overlooks the astronomical
amount of losses incurred by GIC and TH that could be channelled purposefully into
our healthcare. Whenever
dollars and cents are involved for his citizens, LHL’s heart would shy away. Our misfortune to note that our citizens do not fall into the decimation
of LHL’s “fellow human beings”.
LHL’s heart bled at
the damage of Singapore’s
international reputation as a result of our xenophobia. When Singaporeans were
being labelled as dogs by our taxpayer-funded foreign scholar Sun Xu, LHL’s
reticence pained my heart too. Singapore’s
reputation, closely associated to LHL’s reputation as a leader, is of utmost concern
to him; when it comes to Singaporeans’
reputation, he joins in the bashing of our people earnestly. A clear
demonstration from LHL that foreign nationals and overseas foreigners are “fellow
human beings”. And complete submission from our citizens to all the foreign nationals
is expected.
On the plights of
our citizens due to the never-ending influx of foreigners who LHL invites, he chose
oblivion. His heart goes for the rich and poor foreigners which either group would
bring in the dollars and cents, directly in terms of investment or indirectly
in the form of cheap modern slavery for beefing up profit margins for businesses
and government coffers. Thus the unlimited supply of cheap foreign labour for
MNCs, SMEs and all kinds of businesses and easy PR status given to dubious
quality of talents and even to the likes of hawkers. When it comes to welfare
for local citizens who are being squeezed out in terms of jobs and
infrastructure, LHL’s heart is always elsewhere.
Singaporeans are
expected to feel for foreign nationals as “fellow human beings” while we
ourselves are merely digits. LHL apathetically slammed the call of imposing
minimum wage for our low-income workers who have been to subject to falling real
income throughout the decade in ensuring better profit margins for international
and local business owners at the expense of low-income workers. Ironically too,
ministerial salary moves in the reverse direction of the wages of our low-income
workers and jumps by a huge proportion of a 14 % rise in 2000 and a 60 %
pay rise for ministers in 2007.
All of the above
is only a handful of the realities which our non-elite citizens are treated by
the same leader who flaunted about a compassionate heart on our NDR right
before the eyes of his own people. Inevitably, his words moves my
heart......to the heart of an abysmal disgust.
Whichever shapes LHL
attempts to disguise his heart, his policies betray him too easily. It
is far too apparent that his heart or compassion or whatever name he chooses to
call it, could only be located in the laps of dollars and cents.
