Boston of the East?
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
24 April 2013
When Mr Lee Hsien Loong watched the news of the recent bombing at the Boston Marathon, he was inspired by the many stories of people behaving selflessly when faced with fear and danger. In his Facebook, he wrote, “If ever Singapore encounters an incident like this, may we have the courage and the humanity to respond with the same grace and unity as the Bostonians.”
How the people of a society behave depends on the society they grew up in. The cultural, the political and the social environments all play a part in the moulding of a people’s values and their attitudes towards the community.
Boston has generally been socially progressive and politically liberal. It is known for having a passion for politics. There is a great intellectual community and it is a place where progressive ideas are shared. It has a strong, vibrant arts community. There, gays are not frowned upon or criminalised.
Say No to the Concrete Jungle
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
15 March 2013
In the recent Budget debate, the Government pledged to commit a tenth of Singapore’s land to nature reserves and parks. According to the Senior Minister of State for National Development, Mr Tan Chuan-Jin, the pledge is “significant for a highly urbanised city-state”. He made it sound as if this is a great concession to the people of Singapore. Unfortunately, it is not. In fact, having only such a small plot of green is likely to be detrimental to the physical, mental and social well-being of Singaporeans.
If we look at the map of Singapore, 10% of Singapore would barely be enough to cover our nature reserves and the catchment areas. What then are the types of parks and recreational spaces that we are talking about?
The Population Debate: The Optimum Size
Filed under: Current Affairs and Politics, Dr Wong Wee Nam
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
06 February 2013
It is not true that the more people we have, the better the economy and the better the standard of living will be for all of us. On the contrary, apart from all the ills of over-population, the denser the city, the higher the cost of housing and taxes. The more buildings there are, the more likely they will block our views, our light and our air.
So what is the optimum size? In The Next Lap, published by the Singapore Government in 1993, it was recommended that “…with careful use of land, we can comfortably house 4 million people.”
The Population Debate: What are we bequeathing to our children?
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
04 February 2013
If a target of 6.9 million people is what the government hopes to achieve, it is not an exaggeration to say that in 2030, Singapore will become a marketplace where sojourners come when the times are good to ply their trade and make their money. But it will no longer be a home where citizens live and strive to develop it into a better place for their children. With all the over-crowding and Singaporeans becoming an obvious minority in their own country, there will not be many true-blooded Singaporeans left who are willing to die for their country and defend it against all external threats. It will no longer be a home. It will no longer be a country. It will just become purely a business centre.
In the recently published Population White Paper, one of the pillars for a sustainable population for a dynamic Singapore is for Singaporeans to form the core and heart of Singapore. It is argued that by increasing the fertility rate and importing immigrants in large numbers, we will be able to the achieve this. Unfortunately, this is not so.
Why the PAP lost so badly in the Punggol East by-election
Filed under: Current Affairs and Politics, Dr Wong Wee Nam
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
28 January 2013
The results of the Punggol East by-election surprised everyone. People expected a very close fight. No one expected PAP, by its own standards, to be thrashed by such a wide margin. Even the professional forecasters who make a living offering odds thought that the PAP was going to win by 1000 votes.
What then went wrong?
When Michael Palmer resigned his seat, the Prime Minister saw no urgency to call for a by-election. He said that there were some national issues to be settled first. On hindsight, perhaps he should have stuck to this initial intention. Unfortunately he did not.
Is opposition unity a myth?
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
16 January 2013
When the by-election for the constituency of Punggol East was called, the Worker’s Party was the first opposition party to announce that it was going to contest the ward. Subsequently, the SDA and the Reform Party also made their intentions known. There was little reaction to these latter announcements.
Then the Singapore Democratic Party decided to join in the fray. This was when all of a sudden, panicky cries for opposition unity started coming out from everywhere, especially online. SDP was called to withdraw from the contest. The critics claimed it would be in the interest of opposition unity that SDP did so. Furthermore, this needed to be done for the sake of the national interest.
The PAP remains unchanged
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
05 December 2012
Mr Lee Hsien Loong is beginning to sound like the old 78 rpm record that he once used to describe NCMP Dr Lee Siew Choh.
In a recent speech at the PAP’s 32nd Party Conference, he stressed that the mainstay of government policy is economic growth, openness to foreigners and meritocracy
There were the usual warnings that low wage workers will be hardest hit if we don’t have growth, that young people will leave if we don’t have meritocracy, and our economy will suffer without foreign immigrants.
Singapore in 2022: Look at Plums to Quench the Thirst
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
19 November 2012
Imagine that a ruling party has just suffered what it considers a huge setback in a General Election. Its loss includes two ministers, a mayor and a potential minister. Suddenly it dawns on the party that the people are really very anger and ready to inflict more political damage come the next time round.
Initially, it tries some public relations exercises, but the anger continues. It is reflected in the Presidential Election where the favoured candidate wins by a minority vote with a very slim margin.
Is there a need to stage a conversation?
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
20 October 2012
Recently, Singaporeans were urged to participate in a national conversation. This is actually nothing new. It has been done before in S21 and the Remaking of Singapore.
From the looks of things so far, the exercise is not going to be very much different from its predecessors. The lives of Singaporeans would, therefore, not be expected to improve very much as the problems have already existed for some time and have not really been adequately addressed.
There is really no need to stage any kind of national conversation because Singaporeans have been engaging in political conversations all the time. You can hear or read them on the internet, in homes and in the coffeeshops. However, the PAP prefers the conversation to be carried out in their own way so that they can be seen listening to the people.
The Politics of Wang Lun
By Dr Wong Wee Nam
04 October 2012
The Scholar in White (白衣秀士) is not an idiom referring to those “scholars” selected by the PAP to be its candidates for the general elections. It is actually the kungfu nickname of Wang Lun (王伦), a character in the famous Chinese novel, The Water Margin (水浒传).
To understand the character Wang Lun, it is necessary to know what the book, The Water Margin, is about.
The book is made up of short stories of various characters and their adventures. This book is set during the last days of the Song Dynasty where corruption, incompetence in government, political disorder, oppression by the ruling class and the powerful, and cruelty in meting out punishment were the norm. The 108 heroes in the story are actually labelled as “outlaws” because of their opposition to the establishment.
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