This must be my hate speech

If xenophobia is the word for the hatred of foreigners, what is the equivalent word for the hatred of original citizens?

Yes, I must be a snob.

I simply cannot suppress my increasing disgust at the bulk of foreign nationals, especially those coming from an ancient civilization from the north of Asia who exhibit poor personal hygiene such as trimming nails, spitting, littering, urinating in the public and even lower civic-mindedness than our peoples in terms of giving up seats on public transport, giving priority to alighting passengers on trains, standing on the left on escalators..... well, every ugly social behaviour exhibited by our own peoples that were denounced as ungracious by our own politicians and people in the past decades are now exhibited by foreign nationals. And in greater scale. The overwhelming presence of foreign nationals presented new forms of undesirable social behaviour and thus “contributed” more vibrancy to our island-nation.

I realize the likes of Baey Kim Yam and Sim Ann would chastise me for not reflecting on my own disgust or for making hate speech or being xenophobia on our foreign nationals even though my own observations conclude a higher proportion of poor behaviour and ungraciousness manifested by our darling foreign nationals than locals. And because it is a personal observation, I understand its validity and factual value are deemed inferior to official statistics/surveys despite the latter are often being skewed conveniently to prove a point and therefore diminishing the value of truth much more than individuals’ observations. 

I heeded Mr Baey’s advice and reflected dutifully to avoid being accused of being divisive and precisely I did reflect that I eventually refuse to hide my appalling disgust at some foreign nationals. Reflection is futile, I do realize that. For what underscores Mr Baey’s advice of self-reflection is not about self reflection itself but a plot to restrain citizens from painting the foreign nationals in bad colours even if those were their genuine colours. These days, the word “foreigner” has become a forbidden word for citizens like me. Negative comments are immediately framed as a xenophobic gesture. Ugly Singaporeans is not an unspoken secret and I hate our ugly behaviour as well. Contrary to Mr Baey’s advice, Singaporeans have explicitly reprimanded ourselves on our poor hygiene (think of our toilets and flushing of toilets) and severe lack of civi-mindedness. Politicians even went further to introduce a series of hard and soft approaches in the forms of fines, corrective work and courtesy campaigns over the last two decades in cultivating a more gracious society. It was then. We were lectured in the 80s and 90s by our politicians about our ungraciousness, therefore the urge of a gracious society helmed by then PM Goh Chok Tong. Politicians were determined to "re-educate" our people. It was a positive move imo.

And because of the constant reminders and penalties meted out for failing to adhere to gracious behaviour over the decades, we begin to see glimpses of GCT’s gracious society. Even bad habits such as spitting, a distinctive trait among our ethnic chinese men has become a disappearing "trait" until it was re-ignited in recent years by the whole load of a specific group of foreign nationals with die-hard spitting habit across gender and age were unloaded onto our island.

By 2012, we have witnessed a play back of the ungraciousness and poor personal hygiene in the public that we used to “endure” and shockingly, new forms of ungraciousness appear fast and furious too. Contributed by foreign nationals. Supermarket trolleys discarded at HDB void decks, supermarket trolleys pushed onto shuttle buses, test-eating fruit in supermarkets .….are adding on to the traditional list of the unbecoming Singaporeans, and when the term “foreigner” is banned, all these undesirable traits are then conveniently or cunningly classified under Singaporeans' behaviour. Littering, spitting, jumping queue are on the growth again.

The distinction between citizens and foreign nationals (new citizens, PRs or foreign workers/talents) is needed, not for the purpose of promoting xenophobia, but to highlight (1) the growing trend of undesirable social behaviour (a frequent tourist to our island has written to our papers on finding more litter than 5 years ago) as the consequence of over-expansion of population; and (2) the justification of Singaporeans shouldering the accusation of a dirtier nation, appalling personal hygiene, more ungracious people when in actual fact, the no. of Singaporeans is dwindling against an increasing proportion of foreign nationals where 18 000 – 20 000 citizenships were given out in recent years.

Yes, Sim Ann, this is my hate-speech--I detest+hate+abhor poor hygiene manners and inconsiderate behaviour manifested in the public sphere regardless of the nationality of the offender. Nevertheless, it irks me more to find foreign nationals for exhibiting such manners because:

(1) Within my sphere of living space, I come across proportionately more ungracious foreign nationals than locals.

(2) The gradual improvement (nevertheless, there’s still more room for improvement) in our graciousness is promptly undermined by some foreign nationals.

(3) The proportion of foreign nationals* are growing whilst original Singaporeans (excluding the new citizens please) are proportionately shrinking.   

* My definition of foreign nationals differ from that of the politicians. Foreign nationals should comprise new citizens who were originally immigrants + PRs + foreign workers and talents.

Total population in Singapore=5.31 million @ Sep 2012
Citizens (original + new)		PRs	Non-resident population (people on various employment passes)
3.285 million		0.533 million	1.5 million
		TWO MILLIONS!!
Source: http://www.singaporenews.net/index.php/sid/209586569/scat/a677a0718b69db72
3.27 million citizens
Original citizens	New citizens
? unknown	18 000 – 20 000 citizenships given out each year in recent years. 2005 -- 2010, Singapore added between 17,334 and 20,513 new citizens to the population each year. In 2011, the number dropped to 15,777. (The Straits Times - 8 July 2012) Taking the conservative no. of 17 334 for the intake between 2005 – 2010 alone would give rise to more than 100 000 new citizens.

I exclude these new citizens from the original citizens’ co-hort as they are generally immigrants from foreign countries with their own social behaviour and have been exempted those years of “rigorous education” of social behaviour as the original citizens. With the unabated intake of new citizens, PRs and foreign people, we, the “original” citizens (the definition itself is vague, I know) are already fast becoming the minority in our own country before the official statistics would admit.

And because of the fast-changing demography between local citizens and foreign nationals, poor social bahviour among some foreign nationals is not a matter of a few black sheep, given their large numbers. Compounded by the poor social behaviour from our very own citizens, our civilization is going backward in greater scale and depths. Mr Baey and Ms Sim might not notice this changing trend as they live miles and centuries away from mundane places, such as our HDB flats and public transport where there is large presence of foreign nationals. Both would find life in Singapore the same as it was a decade ago.

Foreign labour has helped our country to fast forward into the advanced nations thru GDP figures and image-enhancing buildings/hardware and simultaneously, they are also lending us a hand to fast track into the uncivilized worlds.

How many foreign nationals (NC, PRs, FW/FT) can original Singaporeans embrace given the large presence of foreign nationals? It took us decades to re-educate our then small population of 3.5 million in the mid-90s and we are now looking at 5 million and are still going on to 6 million or so (Lee Hsien Loong said so). And please refrain from asking Singaporeans to embrace the foreign nationals. With the dwindling number of Singaporeans, we just do not have enough hands to do so.

Mr Baey and Ms Sim have been very concerned about hate speech and xenophobic comments demonstrated against foreign nationals. Their usage of hate speech or xenophobia are just mere distraction to the issue of holding double standards for original citizens and foreign nationals. If our ungracious behaviour back then irked the predecessors of Baey Kim Yam and Sim Ann, then why the silence now on the ungracious behaviour of the foreign nationals?

If xenophobia is the word for the hatred of foreigners, what is the equivalent word for the hatred of original citizens?

Singaporeans' and ministers' expectations on inflation

Lee Hsien Loong blames Singaporeans again for inflationary concerns.

“A lot of Singaporeans feel they must have the latest and best. And that adds to the pressure of why you feel qian bu gou yong – money no enough.” – PM Lee Hsien Loong

According to him, it is not that the prices of goods have gone up but that Singaporeans' expectations have. With that, he cunningly swept the concerns of inflationary pressures under his extraordinary thick carpet.

“Expectations, buying things which you didn't use to buy, I think are a big part of why people feel housing costs (and the) cost of living have gone up.”  he said. So inflationary pressure is purely an individual’s sentiment.

No qualms about his intelligence when he exploits humans' insatiable greed for the intention to confuse the issues between desires and inflation where each are actually independent of each other. Insatiable greed is the intrinsic traits of us humans. It is true that in this day and age, we have lots of electronic gadgets which my parents' generation never had; not wrong to say either that I would want to possess infinite number of materials; and neither can LHL hide the fact that that the cost of basic goods in my parents' generation are comparatively more affordable in proportion to their salaries (my father was the only breadwinner) than it is for our current generation. Housing, education, healthcare and transport are the basic goods to start quality life. And these are the four areas which will impact the current generation more than previous generations.

Let us take a look at the pricing of HDB 4-room flats as a benchmark. Housing is a basic need for young couples to start families and 4 room flat should be reasonably spacious for young families.

On housing,

Between 1970s to 2010s, the jump in price of a 4 room flat is 18 times. I couldn’t find concrete figures for a fresh graduate in the 1970s but I do have the average graduate pay in 2012, that is, $2 678. Even without the exact figures for the 1970s, anyone could guess that current fresh graduate couldn’t be earning 18 times more than a graduate in the 70s could earn. And for non-graduates whose starting pay is lower than graduates’, HDB flats inflation is even greater for them. This is not a result of individuals’ higher expectations. It is a fact.  

Let's put it this way. Even if I give up purchasing ten iPads in the next twenty years till my retirement time, would that amount of savings suffice for my parents’ and my own medical costs by then after taken into account of future inflation rate of healthcare at the current rate? Is LHL implying that if young people were to give up their iPads, hairdos, their caviar, they would in turn “feel” BTO flats affordable?

 

A 4-room standard flat at Sengkang is priced at $ 225 000 (without grant) at Sep 2011. 8 months later, at May 2012, a 4-room standard flat at Sengkang started at $275 000, an increase of $50 000 compared to Sep 2011. 

You simply cannot save an amount of $50 000 in 8 months with a fresh graduate’s average pay, even if it means saving up every cent of that disposable income. Giving up ipads, hairdos, fine dining are futile in curbing the increasing price of HDB flats.

Desires do not result in inflation. And neither could void of desires curb inflation.

Given the inflation rate, putting aside the entire disposable income is hardly able to cushion the pricing of flats. What about the other two basic goods for families: medical and education. For some families, a single generation is taking care of the medical costs for two generations: a couple taking care of their elderly parents who have little CPF savings and their own future healthcare cost.

On our expectations on our public transport, we were in fact encouraged to believe that we have the best system in the world. It is not unreasonable then to expect the best. However, the fares rise inevitably, accompanied by a drastic fall in quality level. Think of comfort and reliability. On private vehicles, increasing number of vehicles give rise to more traffic congestions and ERP does little or nothing at all to resolve that matter.

On the other spectrum, let us take a look at the expectations of our ministers, people who are supposedly to be making huge sacrifices stepping into our political arena. The inflation of our ministerial salaries surpass the rate of inflation of our HDB flats:

Pay of ministers in 1970, $2 500 - $4 500 per month, approx. $30 000 – $55 000 each year. By 2012, ministers are paid $ 916 000 each month, totaling $ 1.1million in a year. That is 20 times the amount in 1970. 

The inflation of our HDB flats dwarfed that of our ministerial salaries inflation.

Apply LHL’s logic of high expectation,  ministers’ size of expectation is comparable to that of the planet Jupiter since the size of their salaries have been ballooned 20 times in thirty years. Therefore, it is little surprise to hear Grace Foo crying out in agony for her pay cut. 

The message which LHL is driving at is that expectations are reserved only for the ministers and elites, citizens are not entitled to have any of it. Simply put, give up hopes on his political party in resolving soaring prices on our basic goods.

From The Next Lap to National Conversation

I was browsing through the book “The Next Lap”, published in 1991 by The Government of Singapore, which was when Goh Chok Tong was at helm, and noted several discrepancies in what happened to Singapore between what was planned in the 1990s and the reality on the grounds 20 years after its publication.

（1）Projected population of 4 million people in 1991 for the next 20 – 30 years

In 1991, our population was projected for 4 million people, 50% more than the then population of 3.1 million (Source: Singapore Department of Statistics). In “The Next Lap”, it was stated that “...we can comfortably house 4 million people, 50 per cent more than now, and still improve our quality of life.” (pg 24 in The Next Lap).

Twenty years later, our population stands at 5.3 million, a 1.3 million people in excess. The 4 million population target is a huge contradiction to Lee Hsien Loong’s current vision of “6 million or so” for the future and “6 million or so” is a 100 % increase of our population in 1991.

Interestingly, it was perceived in 1991 that 4 million people allowed possible improvement of quality of life. This vision did not materialize as our current 5.3 million population has already slashed our quality in terms of infrastructure. It is terrifying to think of the damage with a further 2 million people as Lee Hsien Loong’s “6 million or so” might translate into 6.9 million people.

Other than the reduced quality of living, it also evidenced the short-sightedness of our government on our population growth. 20 years down the road, the 1991 vision of 4 million was retracted and in place is a projection of “6 million or so” people, exposing the little idea that our government, led by the same political party for 50 years, has. They have no concrete idea on the size of the population needed to beef up their insatiable GDP figures and profit margins.

(2) MRT system planned for 4 million population

The population mishap proves that all existing infrastructure was meant to cater for a population of 4 million. Today, our population stands at 5.3 and it is still growing towards 6 million or so.  

Our MRT system in 1991 was thus planned for 4 million. The 5 million population in 2011 has already strained our MRT system leading to the massive break down in 2011. Current public transport is still struggling. It is still to be seen how it would cope with a 6 million population, and not taking into account the additional one million tourists (Singapore received 13 million tourists in 2011) and growing medical tourists on our island each month. We have to think of the no. of cars on the road and the amount of pollution caused as they constitute part of quality life.

Although reactionary measures such as another hospital, more BTO flats and public transport fleet are on the way, it only serves to bare the ill-thought vision back in 1991. It gives me little confidence of the vision which Lee Hsien Loong is crafting now.

 “The Next Lap” was a written outline of a “programme to make Singapore more prosperous, gracious and interesting over the next 20 to 30 years” (quoted from the The Next Lap, Foreword--Beyond 1999, Pg 13). In a nutshell, “The Next Lap” was a vision of Goh Chok Tong’s Singapore in 20 – 30 years’ time. It is interesting to note the discrepancies between his vision then and what actually took place 20 years later. It is even more significant at a juncture when our country is in the stage of crafting a new vision, led by PM Lee Hsien Loong through the tool of National Conversation.

Would the vision of “6 million or so” population be switched to a target of 8 million or so five years down the road?

Making an enemy out of its citizens (II) On singles.

Ironically, I have been living peacefully with the social policy on the singles until recently when Lee Hsien Loong finally granted his “amnesty” on the sinful singles this Sep during his National Day Rally (NDP).

Prior to that, citizens who are single are banned from direct buying of HBD flats and are also subject to age limit, flat size limit, as well as the location of the flat purchased from the resale market during my early days of being single. Although the fairness and effectiveness of such policy is highly questionable, I managed to coerce myself into accepting the “bigger” picture of a policy embedded with family-oriented value in promoting marriage and procreation.

Rules have relaxed since then but the policy of barring singles’ access to new flat remains until this NDP. Singles are at last allowed access to new HDB public flats though tagged with certain restrictions to be released in due time for sure.

The new opening for singles soon drew responses from those who have direct interest in the new public flats and resale flats (this group of people comprising our very own citizens, new citizens and PRs) and it is such comments made by such people that I feel indignant about.

Opinions are that singles:
1) Waste precious land space by living alone in a flat

(disclaimer: in a land-scarce country which could afford tens of golf courses dedicated to a small group of people at the tip of hierarchy seems more justifiable than the needs of ordinary citizens; also, the continual release of land parcels for private housing development seems to contradict the land scarce claim)

2) Create more demand on the existing new flats and result in even longer wait for for existing applicants

(disclaimer: who is in control of the supply? Size of demand is relative to the size of supply.)

3) Cause an increase in the pricing of new flats due to limited supply

(disclaimer: who is in control of the supply? Size of demand is relative to the size of supply.)

Them and Us

It is also at this juncture came my realization of how divisive such policy is, introduced by those haughty-mighty and self-proclaimed wiser-than-all policy makers, in discriminating a segment of our citizens and consequently creating an enemy among citizens. In this case, pitting married citizens (as well as new citizens and PRs) against single citizens.

Undeniably, self-interests underlie the principle of those who are against the idea of singles owning a new flat, disregarding the social and economic contribution made by the singles towards this nation which I will further elaborate in the later part of this post. This group of people, inevitably present in anywhere of the world, who will self righteously place their self interests at the expense of others. But more even detrimental is the divisiveness of this housing policy that demarcates the citizens into you and me, the married and the single. A policy, and one of the many, that “encourages” people to see others differently despite the emphasis of the need to be “as one united people” in our pledge.

On the effectiveness of this housing policy, it does not serve its purpose in encouraging marriage but instead penalize singles and ostracize them who are as much the citizens of this country as the married ones. Especially for the male singles who have served their mandatory NS for two and a half years (during my era). It sends a clear message that our male single citizens are of less worth than that of a PR couple who gets to enjoy absolute liberty in buying a resale flat of any size and location.

One can rationalize such policy and convince oneself into the acceptance of such policy for the sake of social engineering. But on the moral grounds of justice and equality, it remains outrageously discriminative and undignified.

I have heard no complaint about the discriminative policy on the singles from any of my friends who are singles, not even from male singles. For they who have served the NS seem even more receptive towards the policy ban on singles than I was.

Singles have been penalized explicitly in the housing policy but have remained reticent against the policy. Yet, the removal of the ban on singles’ access to new flats immediately exposed the perception of some where singles are regarded as liabilities to the society and therefore should continue to subject to the deprivation of a new HDB flat, despite their contributions in their own way.

My purpose is not here to highlight or boast the contributions of the singles but to give acknowledgement to their contributions. In fact, no contributions made from any citizen in any way should be belittled.

Generally speaking, singles pay taxes (not an issue of whether singles or married ones are paying more), economically and socially supporting their own families when other married siblings live away from parents and as well as lending support to married colleagues at work. Actual scenarios vary according to individuals and different work industries. A single at work might receive more support from his married colleagues than vice verse. Or that married children living away from parents will contribute more financially and time to their parents than the single sibling living with parents.

However, on a general view and economically speaking, for the same salary that a single and each spouse of a married couple with children draw, there are higher chances of singles paying taxes or more taxes as they do not enjoy any child rebates.

At work place, married couples are given child care leave, maternity leave for women on top of their sick leave. Such child care leave and maternity leave are shouldered by other married and single colleagues. I am not looking at work efficiency whereby some employees can produce more work in fewer work days or employees working on their leave but in terms of official job benefits where singles are entitled less off days and are therefore required to work more days. For some work places, such as my previous work place, there are times where mothers with children are given privileges whereby singles like me are expected to cover for them for after work hours or given more time-consuming tasks at no extra monetary compensation. It was regarded as a form of duty. Again, this should not be interpreted as a form of complaint against married mothers but to point out that singles’ contribution, in some cases, towards family values.

Singles do not procreate any economic digits towards the contribution of our nation's GDP, nonetheless, it should neither be a sin for not doing so.

Socially speaking, for singles who could not afford or who choose not to buy a resale flat will have to live with his or her parents. In cases where married siblings move away from parents, siblings who are single are then 'thrust' upon more responsibilities in taking care of the parents who they live with. Caring for them spiritually and financially too, depending on the relative financial status of the single compared to married children. Therefore, there is a portion of singles who contribute in terms of time, companionship and money towards their own families. Singles are not what the policy made them out to be detrimental to our family values.

Therefore, it is absurd and unfair to penalize singles in terms of flat ownership based on their failure to comply to marriage due to their life choices or forced circumstances for the sole sake of social engineering where the effectiveness of such a policy is questionable to begin with.

Effective tool for promoting marriage?

How would barring singles from direct purchase of new flat encourage marriage among them? Are policy makers implying that people should marry for the sake of getting a new flat and that people who do not conform to marrying for flats will be penalized? I am not advocating childless couples to be penalized but if the principle of penalizing singles is to encourage marriages which ultimately aims at procreation, then that same principle should apply to childless couples too, who arguably have the right to choose their lifestyle or who might subject to forced circumstances too. For raising a child and marriage are both a life long task and a life-long relationship. It is really up to individuals to choose their own paths. Policies could be used to mould certain behaviour or to achieve certain outcome but they should not be used to penalize on a specific group of citizens in a criminal way. We are not dealing with macro or micro economic principle over here but human lives.

I have never queried much into this policy and could live with family-oriented values as the norm. On hindsight, I realized I have been brainwashed into the acceptance of such blatant housing policy at the expense of another group of our citizens. And now to discover how despicable and myopic it is to discriminate our own citizens, categorizing them, labelling them according to short term needs and results determined by policy makers who now seem to reverse or contradict life-affecting policy as and when they deem (eg. the stop at 2 policy, bilingual policy). The worst of all is the subtle attempt to normalize an unfair policy on a group of citizens that would inevitably give rise to conflicts of interests among other groups of citizens.

After what all is said, housing should not be used as a social engineering tool and should neither be used to split our citizens.

Making an enemy out of its citizens (I) On Foreigners.

Policy makers sieve through the genuine concerns and unhappiness of our citizens on the erratic foreign immigration policy and conveniently distort them into a xenophobic labelling.

Anyone who makes an emotional comment against the favour of foreigners over here runs the risk of being branded as xenophobia.

This is the tactic.

Of creating an enemy with its citizens--any sign of unsupportive gestures from citizens towards a policy even if it is detrimental to the citizens, the first thing policy makers do is to grab a gun and point at their citizens. Highlighting the cause of huge foreign influx as a consequence of our citizens' low fertility rate or laziness or mediocrity at work or what so ever, Lee Hsien Loong and his whole lorry of ministers synchronize to the perfection in performing that task of gun pointing at their very own citizens (Shanmugam, PAP, TCH, LKY, LKY).

Never mind the fact that you have been verbally abused for nine times and have stayed rational all those times. At the tenth time, you let your own emotions get the better of you and lashed out at the perpetuator but were caught red-handed. You have been emotional and therefore irrational. You are at fault. The perpetuator preserves his/her innocence.

That was the first step before proceeding to create an enemy among its citizens.

Citizens' disgust of our immigration policy has remained persistent and still, policy makers have little intention of reversing the policy. Policy makers responded by picking on a group of citizens who refused to pay compliments, whether justifiable or not, to the undesirable public behaviour and the unfair competition of some foreign nationals living here, effectively embarrassing the policy makers who invited the bulk of such foreign nationals over here. Denounce these citizens with the xenophobia label and rally the rest of the citizens to censor them. (Grace Fu, Sim Ann)

Cleverly directing the attention of all audience onto the superficiality of an immigration problem instead of looking at the root cause, policy makers thus averted attention and relieve themselves the immediate need to tackle the problem. Xenophobia became the immigration problem, rather than the consequence of a poorly calibrated immigration policy.

The beauty of such tactic is that, policy makers create an enemy among its citizens and encourage an internal fight. Some call that divide and rule. By creating a cat fight among citizens will help distract the genuine problem. Simultaneously, more foreigners of dubious backgrounds and doubtful quality will be herded onto our land.

The trend of such irresponsible use of xenophobia label is developing to a stage whereby any negative comment of a foreign national in any situation could constitute xenophobia. On the other hand, foreign nationals are granted immunity in criticism or insults directed at our citizens. No MP or minister has ever actively stepped out in reprimanding any foreign national on such behaviour whilst retaliation of such from the citizens would only invite a xenophobia slap on the face.