The PAP turns 62 today. A week ago, they spoke up for and stood by affirmative action, the very principle that its founding members fought against, every tooth and every nail. The irony passes them by as they legitimises it with an overwhelming vote in Parliament.
Unlike affirmative action apologists, the late Lee Kuan Yew would never rush into positions for appearance sake. He would have turned in his grave, literally and metaphorically. He took what he saw as a Malaysian Malaysian, put everything on the line and took us out of a merger that he had so vehemently believed in. The conviction in their spirits then, soulless today. The PAP of 2016 turned their back on what the pioneer generation believed, the same generation whom they had so profusely thanked in 2015. We the younger ones were asked to learn from our pioneers. They have clearly forgotten all of that today.
I grew up being told by my PAP leaders that affirmative action is not what Singapore believes in. Look at Malaysia, affirmative action. Singapore wants none of that. Now we have affirmative action delivered on a plate by that parliamentary majority. Sad, none of the sitting MPs thought that this was so so wrong. None. And they say they have the interests of Singapore at heart. The temerity, the audacity, the tragedy of it all.
Today, we have nothing but this obscurantist doctrine, reinforced by the sitting Minister for Malay-Muslim affairs. Simply to get a ceremonial position for a Malay and their problem as a community will be resolved. This is no different as how easily a bill gets passed in a parliament heavily skewed in the favour of these new apologists. The whole clan [and parliament] celebrates. It was not too long ago they call members on the other side of the spectrum chauvinists and discredit them with the might of the machinery.
They clutched at straws but wielded the stick with the blank cheque they were given. The recent amendments to the Constitution is an indictment of how far the PAP had deviated from their beliefs and founding principles. Just cut the rhetoric. This is a totally different party today, from what it was in 1954.
With you, for you, for Singapore. The hypocrisy. The PAP of 2016. Happy 62nd Birthday, the leviathan that is the PAP. Barely recognisable from the one that ushered in independent Singapore in 1965.
The next time, when you say you believe in the PAP, remember to opt yourself out from that affirmative action that is now a part of the PAP’s DNA. Guilt by association, as they say.
Source: Chen Jiaxi Bernard
