Please remember this is an ideal which we may not completely reach, but because we have this ideal, we’ll continue to make progress.
MM Lee, on Singapore not being a nation yet
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Sighz…So what does this old man wants?
It is very similar that we’re given “a Carrot, we may not completely reach”…
just like CPF…
49) ABC on July 20th, 2009 2.00 pm
We can always don’t sing, we can always don’t attend or watch it.
NDP evening, I’m off fishing..
#gemami….
I don’t think LKY will be able to stand and sing the songs at this years national b’day…44th somemore…aiyo…
I saw a video of him walking into Najib’s office..it was such a difficult task for LKY…
then how to walk…stand….and sing…wow…people…trust me it will be SOMETHING, if he is able to do all three….
And by the way…travelling on the MRT…i saw the number of flags hanging from peoples HDB flats….mmmm..can’t say that many….except for the RC ones…
Hi common interest on July 20th, 2009 12.42 pm,
Agree, but would like to point out that the national pledge generally translates to building a better life for ourselves and our children by contributing to the building of our society, our Nation. This is why, after all these years of nation-building, being told that we are already there – because of the leadership of the PAP – we are suddenly told that we are not quite there yet.
It therefore begs the question why it is so. Either we have been fooled by the old man or something drastic must have happened that is setting us back. This is why I figured that the influx of foreigners, and the problems they bring along, like their cultures, languages, habits and lifestyles must be the primary reason – they cannot integrate with the locals.
This is serious! We are losing our Nationhood to these foreigners!
Hi GABRIEL on July 20th, 2009 12.53 pm,
I was initially thinking something along the lines you have shared here, that we might be looking to the US in our attempt to build our unique Nation. I even thought that we are already emulating the US, when we decided to make ourselves into a melting pot by opening our doors to all kinds of foreigners, as long as they are worthily contributing to our economy.
But what is the price the local Singaporean has to pay for all these? Just like the original natives of the Americas, they became a nation-less entity. And this is what it will eventually lead to if we continue to embrace these foreigners and not doing our part to protect the interests of our own children.
We had, with the pain of our forefathers, helped with the birth of our Nation. To think that we are losing it to people who have not shed one drop of sweat, is really something I would spit at. No, I would not be spitting at these foreigners but at those who pave the way for them to be brought in.
Hi prettyplace,
Ha! Ha! Ha! Good one! Maybe it’s because it suddenly dawned on him, after visiting Malaysia, and seeing that it is not doing as bad as Singapore has been making them out to be, that he realized that we are not quite yet a Nation, as compared to our Malaysian counterparts.
About the flag thingie. Mine is an RC block and each year, the Bangladeshi worker would come by in the middle of July to hang the Singapore flag outside my corridor. I would then get to keep a new Singapore flag after National Day. There are so many Singapore flags in my drawer already. So don’t be conned by the show of flags on our HDB blocks. It is not patriotism you see, but the works of running dogs, giving the PAP leaders the impression that they have the support of the people. It is PAP Day, not National Day, any longer.
56) gemami on July 20th, 2009 3.39 pm
… Ahhh.. their fine art of Utterly Shameless Self Praise & Self Raise…
I don’t understand all this hate mail targeted at “the old fart” Mr. L.K.Y. for the fair statement he made. One must distinguish between ideals and reality. In the last many years, the incumbent government honestly did make attempts to forge “one nation one singapore..” We have to give credit to that. Those so-called patriotic national day songs really make my hair stand and my mouth puke. Honestly speaking, many of us feel no emotional bond to English in spite of the fact that we speak and write English better than Americans or British even. I will never feel at ease expressing those silly words and “dance” to American style beats of the national day patriotic songs, it makes my hair stand, it seems like we just trying to ape the west, i hate it!!! But we have to give credit to the efforts made. What else do you want to do on the anniversary of our Independence from British Rule AND Malaysian Control, tell me? Any constructive ideas? If there are none then it would do well not to be an armchair critic, so i told myself.
Now having mentioned “ideals”, we look at “realities”. The reality is that we are not a nation. LKY said quite correctly. In my personal opinion we never will be. Was it LKY’s fault? Why is everyone blaming him? Reality had caught on and the ideals cannot be achieved, it is a simple observation. For example, we will never solve our language issue, and in my opinion it’s because English is not the language of our “DNA” to quote someone here. And some day, this language and race issue is going to blow our nation apart worst then Sep 2001 did to USA. It’s got nothing to do with the “old fart”. Give him a break! He is not god.
In post #46 someone wrote “Take the case of the United States. Americans are proud to be Americans but they also make sure they and their descendants do not forget their roots.” That’s a really stupid comparison. The current majority race Caucasians in USA, originated as adventurers and colonists from England centuries ago.They conquered, destroyed and took over the land of the native “Red Indians”, and further down the historical timescale, they imported Africans to work as slaves before the emancipation by Abraham Lincoln. What roots are you talking about Mr #46. These terrorists i would call them, who make the majority race in USA today, originated from England mostly and some from Europe. Those who came from England, they speak English anyway and pass it to their children,naturally. Those who came from Europe, they eventually gave up their european languages, so today, the young caucasian kids in USA don;t know at all their real roots like German, French etc. but instead speak American style English. Those native red indians, they also mostly gave up their roots .. not by choice.. the caucasians slaughtered their ancestors to the last of the Mohicans. Those black americans, they also forget their roots… Michael Jackson would not have been able to speak any African language (his race is “African”, remember that. “American” is never a race, just as “Singaporean” will never ever be a race).
So, SINGAPOREANS can never never never never never be compared with Americans. It is not possible for the local population here to give up and forget about their inborn ethnicity and switch to English 100% because English is not in our DNA, whilst in America, it is perfectly logical for them (the majority race being of British descend) to move forward and towards “English”.
We are uniquely Singapore, we are trapped in an impossible situation and this would go on forever, whether the old fart continue to hold power or whether Chee Soo Juan become Prime Minister. We have to be clear on this point and separate it from the other issue : that the incumbent government does numerous things which are very very very unprofessional, unfair and downright stupid. Yes, I have many gripes against the incumbent government and the old fart too, but it is a fact that singpaore is not a nation, never will be, but we have to be fair to understand why and accept the reality of our doomed destiny which no politician could solve now or ever.
Regards
FairPlay
58) FairPlay
Some parts of your comment are not very true, since you are missing out on a very important aspect of American history and that’s the American War of Independence which results in the formation of a new nation.
“The reality is that we are not a nation. LKY said quite correctly. In my personal opinion we never will be. Was it LKY’s fault? Why is everyone blaming him?”
Well, i believe that people are just pointing out the fact that our dear Glorious leaders were promoting Singapore as a nation etc etc in the past and all of a sudden, there is a sudden U-turn…When a leader all of a sudden change his stance, people will react in this way, especially with the case of LKY since some readers has said that he is the type of man who appear once in a century and is comparable with A.Lincoln.
“Give him a break! He is not god.” and that’s the problem here…he is not the almighty God, but somehow our dear MIW has been trying to portray him as one close to it…the higher you climb, the stronger the impact when you fall once you go past the tipping point…
another way fairprice, to look at it is….if somebody promise big “whoo ha” to make you work, and during the ongoing work, you realise that “whoo ha” is a “illusion”, what will you do and how will you feel? maybe you will let it go, but there are others who won’t
aiyoyo
isn’t red dot 1st world country?
aiyoyo
Dear SZ
The American War of Independence was a war within the same “DNA group”, it was basically between Britain and those who were once british (or european) then went to USA. We can never compare Singapore circumstances with Americans. In our case Our history of independence was a transition of our fragmented society of Chinese, Malays and Indians away from British control, and then later, away from Federation of Malaya in 1965. There was no glue in the first place to bind us culturally unlikethe Caucasian terrorist-colonists of the land now commonly called USA. USA had the fortune of having the same glue.. the English Ang Mo DNA i would call it. So it was natural for them to switch to English and get everybody to forget the past. It was very easy and natural to embrace English as the national language, they are of the same stock anyway, generally.
WE CANNOT take the USA model and apply here in Singapore, although we all know very well that some 10% maybe more of chinese here would disagree. These are the ones who, actually HATE chinese language and culture to hell, want to distance themselves from anything chinese, are ashamed of it, dont’ want to learn,… but it doesnt change the fact that the DNA print says they are Chinese. It is uniquely Singapore, a race group with large number of its members ashamed of their past, ashamed of the language, looking down on those who speak it only and cannot speak Ang Mo tongue. IF we are not careful we will have a nation where the Chinese Singaporeans know zero chinese, whilst all the other races can speak their own language plus English. (Chinese is difficult to learn that is why this problem arise in the first place). Do we want that? If the answer is still yes there is nothing else for me to say.
Regarding the “hoo haa comment” i can agree with you more or less, but the major difference is that from the beginning i never believed that Singapore can ever be a nation. LKY knew it too i believe. But he has no choice!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What he suppose to do, lead a nation of fragmented ethnically different people, solve the May 13 1969 problems, it is not easy to be Prime Minister, everybody expect you to solve an impossible problem with no solution. He done his best, and realise cannot be done, now. The other issues about his failures and dictatorial style in the last 10 years, all the various stupid government policies on cpf, changing the rules all the time … i hate that too… but to be fair the failure of building a nation, specifically in terms of the racial and language issue, is not his failure. It was an impossible problem with no solution from day 1, as i mentioned earlier in my pessimistic post.
Regards
#58 Fairplay,
You I don’t understand all this hate mail targeted at “the old fart” Mr. L.K.Y. for the fair statement he made?
Because
1. many people are very frustrated due to money no enough.
2. foreigners better treated than locals in terms of scholarships, jobs, no need to do NS etc, etc.
3. LKY although do a lot positive things also do many negative things. The negative things have to be criticised, doesn’t matter if criticism is right or wrong, serious or for fun.
4. to release steam safely, because public protests and riots not allowed. You will be arrested if you do. Just like masturbation, you release steam in a safe manner, otherwise you may get HIV.
Fairplay…the situation got to the way it is now due to a person wearing a bigger hat then what he head should have and blowing a balloon until it is too big well past the tipping point
is it coming? the sp bills is ZEROlised for many. I heard there is $50-$100 ‘discount’.
when people are paid their demanded ideal salary & cannot deliver, how do the masses feel about being paid “market rate” & told that the ideal is just a dream?
ok lah, time to “wake up your idea!”…
#61) Fairplay “…he(LKY) had no choice…”
No. Not so simple:
1. Becasue LKY was not appointed to Tunku’s Federal Cabinet as a ‘punishment’ for defying the Malaysia Agreement which is to proclaim Malaysia on 16 September 1963, instead LKY declared Singapore’s independence on 31 August and egged Sabah & Sararwak to do likewise earlier on, and Tunku also quite kwailan kind one – he went on to support the Singapore Alliance party instead of PAP and this must have also pissed LKY big time. That led to PAP running for the April 1964 Malaysian election – but it lost big time in the peninsular. So basically Malaysians were behind the Tunku and they bought his vision of Malaysia.
2. When the racial riot of 1964 broke out in Sgp, LKY was quick to finger UMNO’s Sec-Gen Syed Jaafar Albar for stirring up Malay sentiments and UMNO accused LKY of suppressing Malays and making Spg an Israel.
3. In 1965, PAP and other opposition ‘non-Malay’ parties got together to sign a ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ declaration – adopting a siege mentality, playing oppositional, exclusionary politics that further inflamed ethnic tensions.
4. So it was the Tunku who had no choice but to ask Sgp to go.
Reference: Cheah Boon Kheng, ‘Malaysia: the making of a nation’, 2002, ISEAS, Singapore.
Even if the Malaysian Parliament had not voted for the expulsion of Singapore from Malaysia, Singapore would probably have sought a way out, in the context of circumstances prevailing at the time.
The pointers you cited, whether excerpted from Cheah Boon Kheng’s, ‘Malaysia: the making of a nation’ are not fully reflective of the situation on the ground at the time, and I would ask you to read up “History of Singapore” in Wikipedia to get a more meaningful update of what happened.
Your post is clearly short in several areas, the most crucial of which is the absence of reference to the Bumiputra Policy, restrictions being faced by Singapore when trading with the rest of Malaysia, the closure of the Bank of China branch of Singapore by the federal government, the federal government’s accusation of Singapore of ill-treating the Malays in Singapore [accusation unproven, made no doubt with the intent of inciting this group against Singapore government leaders], and the fear of UMNO of the PAP becoming too influential in the federal government.
Did you vote in the Referendum to join or not to join? Or maybe you were a toddler or still unborn?
Several colleagues of mine and I were discussing this issue and we expressed a fear of the federal government embarking on policies of a discriminatory nature, but certainly not in favor of non-Malays. And we decided that merger would give rise to racial issues and we were probably among those who voted against merging. Subsequent developments proved us right.
My post #67 being a response to Walau’s #66
Dear Sir(#67rwkc),
It was clear when the British returned after WW2 that Malaya would be Malay-ruled with the restoration of legal sovereignty to the sultans, alongside special positions and rights to be accorded to the Malays. With the federation of Malaya which included the 9 Malay states & the British settlements of Melaka & Penang, it was already the 2nd time Singapore was excluded & had remained a British colony.
From then on, the struggle to forge a federal citizenship became a struggle for ‘Malay nationalism’ with the likes of Onn Jaafar when ‘Hidup Melayu’ had a very different meaning then (‘the raakyat were now the rajas, and the rajas were the people’). The ’48 federal citizenship proposed that a political community to be constructed through either a Malay cultural homogeneity or assimilation into the Malay community. However under British pressure, the Malay leadership expanded citizenship numbers for non-Malays, and the rise of left-wing multi-racial alliance in PUTERA-AMCJA pushed for a significant shift towards more political inclusiveness albeit one in which Malay political primacy even as a perception was to be upheld.
As much as how PAP tries to paint Tunku’s UMNO as being ‘ultra’ and racist, the ‘reality’(or perhaps a figment of my imagination) is that the multi-ethnic nationalism borne on 31 August 1957 is, as Cheah Boon Kheng points out in his book, a delicate bargain framed under the ‘overarching’ UMNO-MCA-MIC coalition. The ‘fact’(again I may be hallucinating) therefore is that PAP – a predominantly Chinese ‘Johnny-come-late’ party that had to be excluded from the larger political picture did not bode well for LKY’s political ambition as Cheah pointed out ‘Lee had made it known that he wanted to be in the Federal Cabinet, if not to displace the MCA, at least to be accepted as an equal partner’(Cheah 2002:99).
#69 Walau
Tks for the clarification.
However my #67 was merely to point out that the comments you made in #66 did not give a complete view of how or why Singapore left the federation. Other factors were involved, which you didn’t cite.
Point 4 of your #66 reads:
“So it was the Tunku who had no choice but to ask Sgp to go.” And what were the reasons for asking Sgp to go? Points 1, 2 and 3? It was only half the story, and not entirely factual.
#70 rwkc:
It was meant to be a short response to the comment made by #61 which if you like – to make-up the other ‘half’ of the story i.e. the dominant, MOE-approved national narrative.
I think the history of Singapore’s separation from the Federation remains to be written, and I’m only casting it against the light of Malaysian narrative(s) and writings, which perhaps because of the more tumultuous socio-political upheavels (especially in recent years) have triggered tremendous critical reflection and thinking.
To me it is a matter of thinking about Sgp-M’sia histories as complex entwinements and how one is incomplete without the other regardless of how each tries to write as autonomous a (national) history as it possibly can, in the light of LKY’s comment that ‘we are not yet a nation’. There are more critical questions which ought to be asked and be made accessible to the public but I leave that to future professional historians, at the right time & in the right place(hopefully).
But in the mean time, I’ll be most happy to discuss/speculate/throw wild questions in the air etc ‘off-line’ at: Houganger@gmail.com.
This country Singapore has never been a nation because at no point in time, after independence, was/is there a common goal between the leadership and the people. In the early days of independence, the gestating nationhood was destroyed when the leaders strived for their own ideals rather than worked with the people for national and peoples’ wellbeings.
The leadership was clearly going for glories and posterity as far as I could see it and I am sad and disappointed that I was/am not too off the mark.
Sad !
patriot
Shall I say; the (same) Government was/is interested only in controlling and exploiting the people all along. Singaporeans end up calling themselves ‘sheeples’ today.
It(Government) always claim credits and heaping praises to itself and its’ leaders. ONE OF THE MOST COLOURFUL AND OUTSTANDING TRAIT OF THE GOVERNMENT HAS ALWAYS BEEN/BEING TO EXAGERATE AND BOAST ABOUT THEIR TALENTS AND INCORRUPTIBILITY ALL THE TIME.
The Leaders have not proved they had worked for NATIONHOOD nor do I see them putting efforts to it, all are just glory and money seekers !
patriot
we are not a nation yet…oh alright. time to migrate to a real nation i guess
Does this mean that I am actually a ROC(Republic of China aka Taiwan) citizen that happen to be born in the city of Singapore?
say so earlier lah…at least i can go serve my national service in Taiwan
FairPlay ,
same stock? since when were german, irish, english, scottish, dutch, africans, carribeans, spanish the same dna? lol. they all came together and formed the usa with english as their common language.
just like saying korean, chinese and indians are the same dna.
english is the language of england. and england is only 1/3 of the uk. going by your definition, no one in europe/world should speak english as their “native language” except the “english”. even in the uk, 2/3 of their people are not “english” hence, technically, they should not speak english lol. the scots should speak scottish, welsh speak welsh, others speak gaelic and those in cornwall should speak cornish.
we are singaporeans not chinese. we are entirely different from the chinese. most singaporeans have neveer even been to china. we are a different race and culture altogether.
Do National Service to protect a non-nation?
What MM says its true. We are not a nation. We are a company. The MIW are the board of directors overlooking a farm.
Singaporeans are sheeps and cows to be fed just enough so that they can shear and milk us.
And kindly stop being idiotic and compare Malaysia and Singapore or with any other countries. Each country is unique and have its own socio-political-economic issues; and what works for one country may not work for another.
The old man says things to suit himself. Not a nation yet after 50 years of nation building is quite ludicruous.
senior citizen,
I agree with you; you have hit the nail on the head with your comment.
And I don’t think many of us have observed this; The Straits Times - I have noticed that this has been going on for a long, long time – has given, probably 99 out of 100 times, front page treatment to whatever comments emanating from the old man’s mouth. Even when gohchoktong was the Prime Minister and the old man was just SM, the old man was given front page treatment for any comment he made, rational or irrational, profound or stupid, whereas gohchoktong was most of the time given just Prime Page honor, or back page. Just review old newspapers and one will notice that when the old man became MM, The ST has not stopped their prejudicial treatment; usually the old man’s title would appear in large, bold letters, eclipsing the caption for his speech. Even now, the current PM does not enjoy the same privilege being accorded to the old man.
The ST has a lot of explaining to do; but then, if such irrationalism exists, do they have anything rational to say?
Waiting to be named as:
Province of Singapore, People’s Republic of China