Me and The Issues

Throughout the years, our government has urbanised the country. Villages were wiped out and in place are high rise buildings like HDB flats and shopping malls. Although urbanisation has improved Singapore’s economy immensely, I think it has also at the same time made Singaporeans more stratified.

Although in the 1950s, before urbanisation, people live in villages with poor conditions, there was social solidarity. People of different ages hang around together. Although poor, there is a sense of belonging and community.  After urbanisation, people were being separated into different classes. There is increasing class stratifications due the division of labour. The building of HBD flats make worse the situation as the size of the flats were being use to determine a person’s wealth and economic status. What were see nowadays are the high rise buildings which symbolises our wealth, but this is not the case for those without education and skills. We look at the poor begging on the streets, those singing till their voices are hoarse just for a few dollars, will that be the case if it was back in the 1950s? If not for urbanisation, will they be forced to move to the city area and resort to such to earn a living?

Due to the policy of multiculturalism, the government has set regulations on the number of people of different ethnic groups living in a HDB flat. Although on the surface it seems like the different races are now living together, corresponding to the idea of racial harmony and multiculturalism, I think that the people have become more stratified than ever. More Malays and Tamils live in the lower storeys of the flats, while the Chinese prefer the high levels. All the gates and doors are close almost every day, even when the owners are at home. There is minimum interaction between the people, even for those who live next door, what more those in other storeys. I doubt many of us actually know more than ten families from our own block. I feel that this policy of the government has separated the Malays and the Tamils from their own community and at the same time has failed to integrate them into the Chinese community who due to the ethnic ratio is the majority in any block of flat.

On top of that, the older generation now has little interaction with the young people. Due to urbanisation, Singapore is now a city state where there are shopping malls and places of interests like Sentosa all around. The younger generation will obviously prefer to hang around such places. On the other hand, the elderly usually gather at coffee shops or the void decks, chatting among themselves. This, on top of the government promoting nuclear families has separated the old and the young. Unlike in the past where both the young and the old gather together in the village’s coffee shops, idling and gambling together, we rarely see many youngsters hanging around with the old now. We now see cases of youngster fighting with the old for seats in transportations and coffee shops; will that be the case in the past?

Urbanisation is unavoidable in order for a country to progress and improve; however, I think there is a need to retain the rural parts of a country. The government might see rural areas as a bad side of the country, especially when tourists see them, but I feel that the rural areas are the place where inequality does not exists, and where people can actually live together in harmony. Why break the Malays from their own community? Why force the poor to move to the city area and magnify their poverty and sufferings?

Truly Democratic?

In the modern world, democracy is the most used ideology in large number of countries. Very few countries hold on to a different kind of system, even the communist China is opening up their economy. However, are those countries truly democratic, or have democracy been modified according to what they want?

Something that comes along with democracy is freedom, people have the freedom to express themselves, to make their own choices. However I feel that when the USA had tried to spread their ideology during the Cold War period, freedom has been taken away from many people. Obviously, the communist countries were not given the freedom to choose their own ideology. In other words, USA had forced countries like the USSR to be like what they are. They even resorted to staging a Cold War. Although there was no direct conflict between the two superpowers, we all know they did clash in other ways like the Korean War. USA had assumed that democracy was the way to go, for the benefits of the countries, or rather for themselves. I feel that in a way they are not sticking to what demcracy promotes.

I would feel that sometimes rather than to stick to their own ideololgy, countries choose to do things for their own benefits. Even though Singapore declares itself to be a democratic nation, I would think there is soft authoritarianisn. We do hold elections where the majority will decide the ruling party, however, there is no freedom of expression. I feel that thi s is because the government itself is afraid of oppositions and have taken measures to prevent any rising oppositions. The USA had always sided with French in 1991 when the Algerian elections were being cancelled because they fear an islamic victory (Barber). However, in the first place, isn’t elections an important part of democracy?

As quoted from As T.E. Lawrence it is “better to let them do it imperfectly than to do it perfectly yourself, for it is their country … and your time is short.” However, it is rather obvious that rather than to hand the power to the people, most political parties clinched onto the such powers, afraid that too much powers in the hands of the people will result in opposition. The Singapore government is an example of such a case. For years, the People’s Action Party(PAP) has been the single ruling party of the country and in many ways, it controls the country and its people. Rather than to let the people decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong, the government controls even the media. Major newspaper are controlled by the Singapore Press Holdings(SPH) and both Mediacorp and SPH are owned by Temasek Holdings, which is controlled by the government. The government wants the people to agree with them, to think the way they want them to. Hence my claim about soft authoritatianisn in Singapore.

Other than Singapore, in countries like Monaco, the media is free to write whatever they want to, however, condemnation of the ruling party is strictly against the law (Country Reports on Human Rights Practices ). This shows how the ruling party is afraid of opposition.

We can see that most countries are not truly democratic. The government do not act according to democracy but rather to their own benefits. What most countries are practising now are modified democracy. Especially with globalisation at hands, most countries are more concern about protecting their own interests and maintaining their own power. To be fair, I will agree that it is hard to be truly democratic, for too much power in the hands of the people might result in chaos, as not all will know what is best for their country. However, too much power in the hands of a small group of elites is not good either,  for it is not fair for a small group to represent the voices of so many.

Reference:

Barber, B. R. (n.d.). Rebuilding Iraq:The Problem of Democracy. Retrieved from Benjamin R. Barber: http://www.benjaminrbarber.com/oped9.html

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices . (n.d.). Retrieved from US. Department of State: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78829.htm