Rilek1Corner

Tag: Equality

  • Commentary: Native Born Singaporean Personally Offended By What Happened In McPherson

    Commentary: Native Born Singaporean Personally Offended By What Happened In McPherson

    As a native born Singaporean , I am personally most offended by what happened in McPherson over the Open House Organised by the RC.

    For this scandalous incident to happen in a PAP ward will lend weight to the suspicion of many Singaporeans that the PAP favour New Citizens over indigenous Singaporeans . Even before this scandalous incident, many Singaporeans already felt government policies discriminated them in favour of New Citizens and that they had become refugees in their own country.

    I am not against New Citizens but I demand that all Singaporeans be treated equally!

    I do not accept the reasons given by the RC for this scandalous incident. Grassroot leaders should have known it was highly insensitive to have treated Singaporeans in this manner. And given the huge influx of New Citizens into our country , their advisor which was Ms Tin Pei Ling herself should have ensured that the RCs in her constituency treated all Singaporeans, including New Citizens, equally . Merely saying that she was upset over the incident is a totally inadequate response.

    A statement from Project Freedom founder Lim Tean.

     

    Source: Tean Lim

  • Execution of Muhammad Ridzuan Shows There’s No Justice And Equality

    Execution of Muhammad Ridzuan Shows There’s No Justice And Equality

    Where is JUSTICE!!!!????

    U people tell me…….how to trust the law..?????!!!!!!!

    “We the citizens of SINGAPORE..Pledge ourselve as One united peple…
    Rgardless of Race..Language or Religions..to built a Democratic Society….BASE ON JUSTICE N EQUALITY????
    BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH”

    All BULLSHIT!!!!!!

     

    Source: Remy Jupri

  • Alfian Sa’at: The Voice (Nanyang Edition) Debacle A Lesson In The (Lack Of) Equality

    Alfian Sa’at: The Voice (Nanyang Edition) Debacle A Lesson In The (Lack Of) Equality

    Yes, I am tired of stuff like The Voice (Nanyang Edition) cropping up time and again, I am tired of some Chinese people who saw nothing wrong with it, of them seeing no problem when Chineseness is squarely equated with Singapore when it is just one square in the giant patchwork that is Singapore culture, I am tired of them mentioning Shila Amzah any chance they get as if that settles the debate, I am tired of the fact that they don’t see that it’s not just a matter of learning Mandarin to join the contest but that I’m not considered significant enough for the show to be marketed to someone like me, I am tired of having to remind others that I exist too, that my language is not the same as yours, that if I want to choose to learn your language it will be out of my own free will and not because I have to succumb to a monolingual environment that you have shaped in your image, whether out of thoughtlessness or convenience or a demonstration of majoritarian might…

    But I am aware that this fatigue will interfere with my own openness to other cultures, to my curiosity about the beauty and the wisdom contained within them, that I must never close myself to the other even when the other wears the garments of an oppressor, that I will continue to catch the offerings at the Huayi Festival and the M1 Chinese Theatre Festival even if I don’t see a reciprocal gesture of those catching Pesta Raya or the Kalaa Utsavam programmes, that I must always be conscious that in any multicultural society there is a relationship between language and power, that there are those who believe to speak another’s language is to submit to their rule and power (and this is the pathology of the vernacular school system in Malaysia), that however difficult it is to de-link language and power one has to do it because it will otherwise trap your ways of thinking, that there is no such thing as a superior or inferior culture, as there is no superior or inferior language, that though there are dominant languages they do not exist to dominate and though there are minority languages their fate is not to be subordinate, that however foreign a language might be one must always keep faith that it contains the word for ‘patience’, or ‘forgiveness’, or the very concept at the heart of this: ‘equality’.

     

    Source: Alfian Sa’at

  • Mohamed Jufrie Mahmood: Malays Want True Equality, Will Choose Tan Cheng Bock Over Malay PAP Puppet

    Mohamed Jufrie Mahmood: Malays Want True Equality, Will Choose Tan Cheng Bock Over Malay PAP Puppet

    Many Singaporeans may not be aware of the main reason for the hype on the need to allow a candidate among the minorities (in this instance the Malays because the Indians have had 2 of their own already) to be elected as Singapore’s President.

    I fully share the views expressed by Alfian Sa’at in a recent post.

    I am basically colour blind when it concerns this. To blazes with symbolism/tokenism. What we Malays want are fair and equal treatment. We want to be treated not as second class citizens. We want to be represented in all aspects of the Singapore socio political and commercial landscape. We want to play a real and meaningful role in the defence of our nation. We want to be allowed to freely practise our culture and religion without intruding into those of the other communities or reducing the common space, like the donning of the tudung. We want an end to all forms of discrimination in all sectors, especially in the NS and immigration policies which are so blatantly to our disadvantage. We want to be truly united with the other communities as one people.

    We want a president who can unify us all, irrespective his race. We say a big NO to a puppet president even if he is a Malay.

    If asked to choose between an ex Malay PAP minister (because under the proposed new criteria only such persons would qualify, I suppose) and Dr Tan Cheng Bock, for instance, I would gladly choose Dr. Tan even though he is not a Malay.

     

    Source: Mohamed Jufrie Bin Mahmood

  • Zulfikar Shariff: Don’t Dilute Role Of Malays In Building Singapore

    Zulfikar Shariff: Don’t Dilute Role Of Malays In Building Singapore

    Growing up, I read and heard about Lim Boh Seng, Tan Kah Kee, Tan Tock Seng, Elizabeth Choy.

    And I wondered, apart from Lt Adnan and a few other rarely mentioned names, where are the Melayu, Indian, Eurasian personalities?

    Surely Singapura was not built solely on the back of Chinese migrants.

    It was later that I realised how Singapura’s history is Sinicised.

    And why we need to make sure we magnify the history of the other communities. Insha Allah in this post, I will briefly discuss a little bit of the colonial history of the Indians in Singapura.

    There were more than 100 Indians who arrived with Raffles in 1819, including Sepoys, clerks and the famous trader Naraina Pillai.

    Naraina Pillai was a trader and philanthropist who gave out substantial amounts of his wealth to build temples and other social causes.

    By 1873, there were about 12,000 Indians resident in Singapura. They were mainly labourers, financiers, traders, administrative workers and shopkeepers.

    But the British also brought a substantial number of Indian convicts. When the British left Bencoolen in 1825, they brought 600 Indian convicts with them. By 1860, there were 2,275 convicts residing in Singapura.

    However, British residents were not happy with the arrangement and by 1873, the remaining convicts were sent to the Andamans islands.

    Skilled Indian convict labourers contributed substantially to the city’s development.

    As Governor of the Straits Settlements, Colonel Blundell noted

    “The whole of the existing roads throughout the Islands… every bridge in both town and country, all the existing canals, sea wall, jetties, piers, etc., have been constructed by convict labour. But not only is the community indebted for these essential works to the mere manual labour of convicts, but by the introduction among them of a system of skilled labour, Singapore is indebted for works which could not otherwise have been sanctioned from the State funds.”

    The next time we walk pass St Andrew’s cathedral or the Istana….take note…

    They were built by Indian convict labourers.

    Reference:
    Sandhu, Kernial Singh. “Some Aspects of Indian Settlement in Singapore, 1819–1969.” Journal of Southeast Asian History 10.02 (1969): 193-201.

    Picture: Construction of the Government House (Istana)

     

    Source: Zulfikar Shariff