Category: Politik

Goh Meng Seng: Even Senior Civil Servants Planning To Migrate, Singapore Education System Not Teaching Good Values To Students

When I was traveling to visit a friend during the Chinese New Year period, someone called out to me, “Are you Goh Meng Seng?” I returned my greetings and thought that this was just another the usual meeting with a Singapore supporter.

But I was proven wrong. This meeting with Michael, proved to be different from others. At the very least, we spent about 20 to 30 minutes chatting on the sidewalk of the busy MRT station.

Michael told me he is an opposition supporter despite the fact that he is a civil servant. The sad thing is that he said he is preparing to migrate out of Singapore to Japan. This is not the first time I met a supporter who will tell me that they are migrating out of Singapore, to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US etc. The last one I met before Michael was Jack at Cantonment Police Station when he was getting his certificate of good conduct from the police so to facilitate his migration!

Naturally, I asked Michael why would he and his family want to migrate to Japan? If all supporters like him were to migrate out, then who do we have left behind to give opposition their continuous support?

Michael explained that he is doing all these for his children. He has been to Japan and was impressed by their education system. They teach “VALUES” to their students, not just subjects or “living skills” like how to deal with internet and the New Media.

I was stunned by his words. I thought there are no other Singaporeans like me who would talk about “VALUES” or the lack of it in our education system. In fact, from top down, Political Leaders to civil servants and commoners, wrong values were transmitted in various subliminal messaging through the political system and pop culture. One of the reasons why I decided to step into opposition politics was due to my rejection of PAP’s vote buying exercise via using ASSET ENHANCEMENT HDB UPGRADING carrots. It is basically telling Singaporeans that your votes and soul could be sold or bought by such pork barrel politicking. I did not want my children to live under such system which cultivate such BAD VALUES. Thus, I decided that either I fight PAP to change this system or I shall resign myself to making more money and prepare myself to leave this place; for the sake of my future generations.

In fact, I have decided to let my daughter to study in Hong Kong instead of Singapore, purely because of my rejection of PAP’s indoctrination of BAD values through the education system. The massive brain washing via distorted history books and slanted National Education which mixed PAP’s propaganda into various messaging.

I do not see the day I could successfully eradicate the PAP’s system of self interests and self preservation. But at least, I tried and am still trying.

And Michael is right, our education system has stopped cultivating our shared common morals and good values with regards to Morals, Equality, Fairness, Humanity, Social Justice, Social Responsibility and Democracy. Even our National Pledge was treated just as an empty promises of the State and ruling party everyday; rightfully so because PAP has openly declared that this National Pledge is nothing and has no value at all but just a Highfalutin ideals which we should just ignore.

Our education system is more interested in Elitism, to filter out the “bright” Scholars with high IQ, never mind if he or she has any morals or core values to begin with, so that PAP could just put them into civil service and eventually into their party to serve their political monopoly.

Michael told me that many civil servants, high ranking civil servants, are looking into migration out of this place we call Singapore. I was surprised because no matter what, civil servants, especially those high ranking ones, were the ones who helped created the current system! Why are they migrating out of their own creation?

They are just here to work and meet their KPIs which may or may not give the best results that the society needs but definitely serve their own promotions and bonuses. They saw the flaws of the system in many instances but the Top down management would just discourage any dissidence towards the Elite Scholars. Thus, when their time is up, they would just leave Singapore, for the sake of their children.

Michael also told me that the stifling academic environment will not provide the kind of First World education that Singaporeans deserved. He said that he has known various foreign lecturers employed by the local universities had their contracts or tenure shorten or discontinued just because they have made unflattering remarks on local politics, PAP and its policies. The lack of academic freedom would compromise the standards of learning dependent on critical thinking.

Our education system basically discourages critical thinking while promotes conformity or group thinking. This is why Michael felt very pessimistic about the future of his children if they were to remain here in Singapore.

My little conversation with Michael has to end as I was late for my visit. But this little conversation with Michael sets me thinking on the future of Singapore.

Education is the foundation of every Nation and it involves not merely economic importance but also the cultivation of our Nation’s Soul. This Soul will determine how our society will look like, how our National Identity will be forged or disintegrate. Any political system’s effectiveness will depend on this cultivation of the Nation’s Soul, its cultural and social consensus based on the values it holds. But somehow, our Good Core Values are serious lacking while bad influences like political propaganda have been on the rise.

Without the Freedom to Think with strong cultivation of Core Values, there will only be Mind Slaves left in the country.

Goh Meng Seng

Source: People’s Power Party – PPP

February 17, 2016
SDP: PAP Clearly Violating MOE Policy Of Maintaining Apolitical Schools

Singapore Democrats

In 2009, the Straits Times reported that Minister for Law K Shanmugam had warned his party members in an editorial in Petir, the PAP’s newsletter, that “younger voters can erode its dominant position should the party fail to convince them that Singapore…needs a strong leadership and a political system that allows for effective and speedy decisions to be made”.

Mr Shanmugam felt that for the PAP to prolong its power, it needed to “provide greater political education for Singaporeans, in particular, students”.

Another Straits Times report said that Mr Shanmugam proposed that schools teach “comparative political systems” but to do this in the context of “improving the Government’s effectiveness in reaching out to younger Singaporeans”.

This is why the SDP applied to the Ministry of Education (MOE) to allow us to conduct talks with students and to present another point of view. The MOE, however, says that “schools are neutral places for learning and not platforms for partisan politics”. The SDP documents here how biased and partisan history and social studies textbook are.

Educate students about politics, says Shanmugam
By Zakir Hussain
Straits Times
19 December 2009

For 50 years, the PAP has stayed in power because it has delivered progress to the people, its leaders often point out.

But Law Minister K. Shanmugam feels younger voters can erode its dominant position should the party fail to convince them that Singapore, more than most countries, needs a strong leadership and a political system that allows for effective and speedy decisions to be made.

He gave this warning to his party members in an editorial in the latest People’s Action Party bi-monthly magazine, Petir.

Mr Shanmugam appears to have his eye on the clock when he issued his word of caution, saying no political party had stayed in power continuously for more than 70 years.

The way for the PAP to outlive this record, he feels, is to provide greater political education for Singaporeans, in particular, students.

However, he said: ‘The education should not trumpet the virtues of any particular system.’

Instead, students should be taught, among other things, how political systems work in different cultures, the impact of geographical and social factors on societies and why city states rise and fall.

‘This will make people look carefully at the liberal democratic model and help them decide which aspects best suit Singapore,’ he said as he set out how the PAP can communicate better its message that Singapore needs good governance and that only the PAP can deliver it.

His concern comes at a time when a younger generation of better-educated voters feels the political process and system in a democratic state should be based on the Western model of liberal democracy.

Mr Shanmugam and government leaders reject the view, arguing that the best systems are those that fit the society they govern.

‘Not every aspect can be transplanted in toto across cultures, without regard to different economic, social and geostrategic situations,’ said the Law Minister.

It is a position he has argued vigorously in favour of in the past three months: first to a group of international lawyers meeting here in October, then the Harvard alumni in Singapore last week, and now, PAP members.

Mr Shanmugam, who is also Second Home Affairs Minister, said the PAP’s message had resonated with the older generation who experienced the turmoil of Singapore’s early years.

‘But the collective memory of this is not as strong among newer generations, whose viewpoints will increasingly influence the political process,’ he added.

Younger Singaporeans may therefore believe that the Western model of liberal democracy can be adopted without trade-offs, he said.

‘Singaporeans are entitled to decide whether they want the trade-offs.

‘And if the majority chooses slower development and a lower quality of life, and is willing to accept more tensions within our society in return for changes in the political system, then so be it,’ he said.

‘But that choice must be an informed one,’ he added.

Source: http://yoursdp.org

February 17, 2016
What PAP Really Wants Is Assimilation, Not Multicultaralism

The ban on hijab is part of the PAP’s attempt to remove Islamic identity among Malays in preference of a Chinese cultural hegemony.

The last few weeks, the Muslim community has once again, been treated poorly by the PAP Ministers.

K Shanmugam Sc] accused the community of being distant (even though the Malays are the most open and accommodating community in Singapura).

Then Masagos Zulkili justified the ban on hijab and likened the ban to the law against gay sex.

As stated in the other post, Assoc Prof Lily Zubaidah Rahim argued the hijab ban is due to a Secular Fundamentalist PAP government trying to control Islam.

But why does the PAP, a party that claims to promote multiracalism…

ban an Islamic obligation in the name of harmony?

The answer is that what the PAP want is not multiracialism but assimilation.

For a community to be assimilated into another, they need to change their values, behaviour, beliefs and anything that makes them different.

And become the same as the community they assimilate with.

Barr and Low observed:

“the Singapore systems of meritocracy and multiracialism are no longer concerned primarily with intercommunal tolerance…

but are aggressive programmes of assimilation of the racial minorities into a Chinese dominated society.”

“Chinese values—or at least the government’s narrow, sectarian version of Chinese values—were promoted to the whole population…”

“Where does that leave the minority races?… [To] prosper in this society, they need to internalise ‘Chinese virtues’ and become ‘like the Chinese’ in subtle but important ways.

In short, they are expected to submit to a form of partial or incomplete assimilation into a Chinese generated, Chinese-dominated society.”

The authors further argued that “the onus was thus placed on the Malay community to assimilate into the predominately Chinese Singapore, or risk continued marginalisation and discrimination.”

While LKY’s and the PAP’s desire to privilege their race is understandable even though it is racist…

Barr and Low assert that the Malay MP’s major function is to facilitate the Malay community’s assimilation into the Chinese community.

They noted “the overwhelming evidence is that the public leadership of the Malay community across the board are keen to help their constituency to assimilate, since this seems to be the path to prosperity and peaceful coexistence.

The PAP Malay MPs are obviously enthusiastic assimilationists, since this is a large measure of their raison d’etre…

Indeed, this need to assimilate into the rest of society in the public sphere is recognised by Syed Haroon Aljunied, Secretary-General of MUIS.

When asked if he thought ‘assimilation’ was necessary for the Malays to gain a higher representation in the civil service,

he replied ‘Yeah that’s right. Then they don’t see any difference.”

Reference:

Barr, M. D., & Low, J. (2005). Assimilation as multiracialism: The case of Singapore’s Malays. Asian Ethnicity, 6(3), 161-182.

Source: Almakhazin SG

February 16, 2016
Fanaticism in supporting your political idols. They can do no wrong!

It is always highly amusing to witness fanaticism in action. When a person is uncritically loyal to something/someone – and it is invariably funniest when that entity is a political party – you will hear him/her suspend all forms of rationality when trying to justify a leader’s statements or actions.

I rarely get surprised when such people express statements in support of their ‘unerring’ idols. Even if those statements/actions are contradictory, or go against their own beliefs and principles that they have been articulating all these while, cognitive dissonance kicks in and they will attempt all sorts of weird ways to justify those statements/actions.

—–

‘Oh we don’t know what (s)he says behind closed doors.’

(But that politician from the other party, yeah we don’t know what (s)he says behind closed doors, but it can’t be anything positive.)

‘Oh (s)he is a good person; time will show this.’

(That person from the other party, is not a good person, and we don’t need evidence for that.)

‘Islam teaches us to think well of others.’

(But go ahead, think badly of those from the other party)

‘Oh (s)he is not politicizing the issue; (s)he is just bringing up an important matter.’

(But when a person from the other party brings up the same issue, (s)he must be politicizing the matter!)

‘Oh it’s not that they contradict each other, we must look at the context in which they said whatever they said.’

(When the other party’s members contradict themselves, to hell with context!)

‘The opponents prayed in public??? Gosh, trying to score political points!’

(Wow, look at our leaders, always pictured being in mosques and around religious scholars. God bless them!)

‘Have you asked what (s)he meant when (s)he said that? We cannot assume things.’

(But i don’t need to ask the other party for explanations of what they say; after all, i can only judge by what i see! It doesn’t make sense for me to not take him/her at his/her word!)

—–

Even if their ‘idols’ said the earth was flat, these people will say: ‘oh (s)he wasn’t wrong, it’s just that his/her words were taken out of context’; ‘there were some religious scholars who used to believe the earth was flat, so we must respect differences in opinions’; ‘let us ask what (s)he really means by that statement, and let us not jump to conclusions.’

Source: Walid J. Abdullah

February 16, 2016
Government’s stand on Tudung is untenable in this day and age

Since my post rebutting the position of Minister Masagos Zulkifli on the Tudung issue, I have received much support from members of the public, majority of who are Muslims, indicative of the frustration within the community towards the continued disregard of the feelings of the community on the Muslim women being discriminated against. The Muslim community has for many years patiently expressed our collective disapproval of the discriminatory policies within the channels possible in the community as well as via national platforms whenever there was a chance to do so. Each time, the community is left disappointed by the government’s response.

I have personally engaged on the issue even before I decided to join politics by directly being involved with individual efforts within the nursing professions as well as with undergraduate nursing students. These individuals suffered direct discrimination for not being allowed to don the Tudung as a Professional nurse or during practical exams in their Professional Nursing undergraduate program. They have resorted to communicate to the Institutions within the Nursing profession on the matter. These Institutions share the views of the Muslim women nurses on the fact that there is no Professional basis to disallow the Muslim nurses who wishes to put on the Tudung and that the policy that forbid the Muslim women should not continue as it is discriminatory. However their hands are tight to undo the policy.

The government on the other hand has kept repeating the same mantra to justify prolonging the discriminatory policy. It uses the excuse of potential social agitation among races and communities should they change the policy. Each time they only offer anecdotal evidence that highlights the so-called social ramification that worries them. However, this reliance on social scenarios is not in anyway backed by analysis and studies, which interestingly are available on such, related intra-community relations and whose findings points otherwise. (I have referred to 2 such studies done in my earlier posting on the issue) In fact the corresponding implication should the government reason be true means there is a serious problem with the majority community for still maintaining an intolerant, biased and almost negative perception towards other minority communities. Thus a glaring failure of so-called community trust-building initiatives, which wrongly focused on the minority rather than the majority.

Prior to the views of the Minister, which has angered the Muslim community, 3 other Muslim PAP MPs mentioned in their speeches in parliament directly or indirectly echoing the sentiments of the Muslim community on the Tudung issue. Those speeches by the 3 MPs were very much welcomed by the community and were in fact offering much hope that a policy shift seems to be on the card. However sadly, the recent statement made by the Minister directly addressing the community via national TV on the matter was a cruel denial of the desire of the community to see the overdue changes take place. What is most frustrating for the community is the clear reference to non-professional related reasons to justify the policy continuation. Thus it therefore becomes incumbent upon us to scrutinize the validity of the secondary reasons forwarded by the Minister as justification for the government’s position.

The Minister mentioned too the need to ensure that the demands of the Malay/Muslim community on the Tudung be equitably responded in relation to “similar” demands by other communities. In particular he mentioned the LGBT group’s call to repeal the 377A penal code that criminalizes gay sex. Let us look at how accurate it is for the Minister to compare the 2 issues and call for the entire Malay/Muslim community to accept the tradeoff that he implied are a fair and equitable deal.

The Malay/Muslim community call for lifting the Tudung ban on the nursing profession is primarily based on the lack of evidence to support its continuation from a Professional point of view. As mentioned earlier, the Professional nursing body as well as the Medical institutions found no legitimate grounds to justify any ban for nurses to put on the Tudung and perform their nursing role professionally. There are in fact many examples of other majority non-Muslim secular countries in the world that have already allowed Muslim nurses who desire to put on the Tudung to do so. This is simply done by making modification to the uniform of the nurses in hospital to have versions that suited the dressing requirements of Muslim women who wants to put on the Tudung.

The other arguments that the Muslim community put forth to challenge the government is that contrary to what they claim, a women nurse wearing a Tudung and doing her professional role as a nurse in public or private hospital are not seen as undesirable by the majority that may require their nursing services in anyway. While no known surveys were done specifically to enquire about this so-called unhappiness by the majority who happened to encounter a women nurse in Tudung, it would suffice to draw some ideas about the most likely outcome of such a survey, by opening our eyes to observe what kind of social attitudes do the majority of people, especially non-Muslim have towards other Muslim women in Tudung that are currently employed in Medical facilities such as Nursing attendants and Doctors. To date, we are unaware of any untoward incidences or complaints made on any such Muslim women in Medical facilities already allowed to wear the Tudung, especially those that are professionally related.

Thus based on the 2 reasons forwarded above, one on Professional grounds and the other on social grounds, the government’s position is untenable. Then we have the curious reason of the wider implication on harmony should the government be seen to be uneven-handed towards specifically the LGBT community if they agree to submit to the demands of the Muslim community by allowing the Muslim women to wear Tudung as nurses. Lets us analyze this strange logic. To impose an equitable clause would require the comparison to be of equal merit, which in the case of the Tudung and the LGBT are a real stretch.

The Tudung ban for nursing are professionally and socially unjustified as they are, on both grounds invalid arguments as explained and evidenced clearly above. The demand by the Muslim community for a policy change on the Tudung ban for the nursing profession stands on its own merit. For the case of the LBGT, on both medical and social grounds there are reasons to keep the law even though the law essentially is irrelevant as gay sex can easily take place in the privacy of hotels and homes and it is only a criminal offense when it is reported which seems most unlikely as they would have mostly been done in private by consenting adults. The only likelihood of any possible penal case would be if a public arrest was made for such an act in public and that criminal offense applies to both gay and straight sex. Thus to compare the Tudung case to the LGBT case clearly shows that they are not similar. Before the LGBT group protest, let me state clearly that the above explanation in no way intended to disrespect the LGBT group, the example is used only because it was raised as a comparison by the learned Minister.

Putting the 2 issues by the Minister as comparable cases worthy of tradeoff is clearly a bad call. A like and like analysis above goes to show how unlike and unlike the 2 issues are. Inevitably we have to wonder what other hidden reasons there is, which makes the government so reluctant to change and remain intransigent on the Tudung issue.

For the Malay/Muslim community, this continued refusal to explain clearly and honestly inevitably could only imply that the government itself do not wish to allow Tudung to be worn by nurses or any other uniformed services for reasons that it continues to hide behind the notion of sensitivity. This prolonged silence and elusiveness are unhealthy as it only invites speculations on the part of the Malay/Muslim community as well as other communities as to what could be the probable reason. Worst of all it conveys a subtle but demeaning message of arrogance and distrust on the part of the government in dealing with a minority community. Above all, the continuation of this ban for Tudung on the nursing profession is ultimately discriminatory towards Muslim women and the Muslim community as a whole.

The above suffice for now as additions to my earlier post in response to the Minister. I offer more clarity to my initial posting in order to avoid any potential misunderstanding from anyone who may instead of dealing with my arguments, once again chooses to adopt the conventional ‘we know better coz we are the government’ approach which is not in the spirit of openness that our President and the Prime Minister have clearly highlighted as their preferred ways for this newly elected government during their recent speeches in Parliament. Majulah Singapura!!!

Source: Damanhuri Abas

February 16, 2016