Losing our national identity: Who are we?
November 6th, 2009 | 
Author: The Zhang Yuan Yuan fiasco has aroused a lot of criticism from the official media against Singaporeans. Singaporeans have been “corrected” in their misguided ignorance that Zhang is actually a citizen of PRC and not Singapore and hence it is alright for her to display allegience to her country, and that the criticism against Zhang demonstrated a high degree of “narrow mindedness” among singaporeans.
I must beg to differ. For those of us post ‘65 ers, immigrants from a foreign country have been a part of our life since childhood. We had classmates which we studied together, teachers and professors who lectured us in University, colleauges who struggled with us, who were all from Malaysia.
It had never been an issue with accepting them as part of us, and there was never any concern about “integration”.
How could we suddently become “narrow-minded” now, in the eyes of the offical media? Are we really so?
Criticism against zhang is not about her allegience to China, but about her callous attitude towards the PR status which she enjoys. It looks like our very lax immigration policy has allowed people like Zhang Yuan Yuan, who, not having a degree, a career, nor any special skills, to be admitted as PRs, and to be entitled to citizenship a couple of years later.
Are we able to absorb so many immigrants in so short of time. At the end of the day, is it “us” integrating “them”, or “we” becoming one of “them”?
Ex Perm Sec Ngiam Dong HOw expresses such concern eloquently in his article to the Straits Times titled “lest we become strangers in our own land”. He is concerned that “We risk having them (immigrants) use us as a stepping stone. Foreign fathers may advise their sons born in Singapore to leave when they reach the national service age of 18″
And now, we have so many of them who nominally have become one of “us” by virtue of their newly granted citizenship, but in mindset and emotion, maintain to be “them”. We have PRs who used Singapore as props to display her partriotism (like Zhang Yuan Yuan), and we have new citizen like Li Ye Ming, who openly proclaim himself as 中国人 and not 华人， like the way we differentiate ourselves from Chinese citizens.
Wouldn’t such words and actions arouse concerns among us, the local Singaporeans? Is such concerns grounds to be labelled as “narrow-mindedness”?
PM Lee has maintained that assimilating and integrating new immigrants means having them adopt values and attitudes of Singaporeans.
But with so many of them among us changing the ways the Singapore society operates, the notion of “values and attitudes of Singaporeans” is becoming more and more like a variable rather than a a set of beliefs with whom we identify ourselves.
Would we one day no longer wanting to differentiate between 华人 and 中国人？would we one day no longer require 2nd generation PRs to serve NS? would we one day not bother with national identity, but rather, tolerate a blurring between being Singaporeans and being a Chinese Citizen?
Who are we going forward? it is beyond my imagination.
Andy Liew
Posted in 
Coz it’s true to character of...
Since independence we as a nation has been striving and have undergone many many tests to nuture and cultivate our own national identity. Singapore has always aspired to be number 1 using home grown assets and brains. But now sad to say everything has changed since now the so call foreign talents are here to make our lives better….where were they before all this and if Singapore wasn’t what it is today would they flock here?
Excluding those from the 60s and 70s when we had foreign born MPs.
After 44 years of indepandence, we still have MPs and Ministers born in Malaysia.
I bet by the next election, we will have PAP MPs that were born in China and India.
Perhaps it is the lesser of two evils. In a country of billions they have lesser chances of standing out however in in Singapore, we can differentiate China Chinese from Local Chinese.
What is the matter with people, we are Singaporean? Most of us have taken roots in Singapore and our generation are Singaporean born in Singapore.
Since post Independent Singapore has acquired its own citizenry where it has a generation of mostly born Singaporean. It is a new beginning and we are trying to nurture the society as a nation.
Most male in Singapore serves the national service and work hard to help the nation to become what it is today. If we were a migrant generation with migrant mentality we would not be what we are. We would probably be thinking how to get back home soonest possible.
With the government’s open door policies they had wipe up what had been done for a generation by creating another round of migrant generation which will do Singapore more harm than good.
All I would say is that we had trusted the government too much in the past and we must start to think for ourselves and fend for ourselves. The government wont to do and muddle up all things and confuse the population to support their misadventure. Let them deceive us no more.
We need an alternative voice in parliament to help us to address ourselves. It is a better way to achieve long lasting peace and stability of the nation and her identity.
Who are we?
OXYGEN to be breathe in by MIW and then breathe out as Carbon Dioxide out of this country replaced by foreigners
Where is our past generation, has it been slaughter by the “STOP AT TWO” policy. End meet todays has the PAP created this critical problem for us.First things in our economy we faces critical labour problem. If with the last lost murdered generation Singpaore today won’t face this liberal migration.
The LKY must take full responsible for this critical mistake!
Our national identity is already lost.
Singapore IS already a HOTEL and no longer a COUNTRY.
It’s a place to make $$$.
Nothing more, nothing less.
If our overpaid leaders can admit to certain wrong policies, results of which we only realised after 30 years. There is no telling whether their FT policy will necessary be good for S’pore. By then, S’poreans and the next generation have to live with the errors imposed by our MIWs.
S’pore looks exactly like George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Characters:
MIW = Napoleon
MediaCock and SPH = Squealer
Sinkie Police Force = the 9 fierce dogs
Opposition Party = Snowball
All other Sinkies = all the other animals in the Farm
5 years ago, I know that I am Singaporean and proud to be one.
Now, I feel like an alien in Singapore. So sad. If PAP garners more than 55% votes in the next election then I will be out of here.
Panzer! PAP made Singapore a prositute House.
Is it NOT embarassingly telling to those stupid dogs that Singaporeans have increasingly boycotted national day celebration flag hanging as each year goes by.
RC have to hire foreigners out of our tax money to hang our flag in high visibility areas in pathetic hypocritical show of our seeming loyalty on Singaporean’s behalf.
Even funnier now that our national pledge is highfalutin nonsense of aspiration that hookwinked Singaporeans since independence.
No wonder foreigner even rub salt into our wounds be hanging their nation’s flag from our iconic HDB dwelling AND degraded our blue i/c on their state-owned propaganda televised media for their nation of 1.3 billions to mock at our stupidity.
Now you are all ordered to STAND UP FOR SINGAPORE!!!. Anyone obeying?
I first moved to Singapore over ten years ago and was saying to my friends only a few weeks later than it seemed strange that I felt more welcome in Singapore than the Singaporeans I knew.
But this is something Singaporeans need to confront. Clearly, the continuation of the Lee Family in power with their PAP lap dogs is no longer desired by most (?) Singaporeans, not can it be considered desirable in view of the horrendous mismanagement of the economy and the reserves etc… over the past decade. So it is time for Singaporeans to wake up and vote the b-st-rds out of office. You’re the only ones who can do it.
Not for a moment do I think the PAP will lose anything in the coming election. With their gerrymandering and know how of fixing opposition, they are the superior and hyper dominating political party in Singapore.
The pathetic meagre representation of those in cyber space is nothing compared to the vast PAP supporters in the heartland whose daily bread is the MSM’s feed. Those who are intelligent are already here spilling the beans and grumble with hell sworn words. However the mass majorities are afraid of losing their jobs or business should their votes being earmark by PAP. The perception that PAP knows who is voting for and against them is strong. These people are too scared to vote against the PAP.
To reach out to this group of people is definitely not an easy task.
It is your job to bring more people to this place to have their brain re orientated and healed through the baptism by TR.
.
The reality of is due to the necessity of the 1960s where Girl or boy 2 was enough.
It was so good that in the 70s the politicians forgot to revise the dwindling birthrate thus we are an aging society and need the influx of foreigners.
For this we have to pay the price
@ Wee SK on Fri, 6th Nov 2009 3:11 pm
Exactly right. The massive influx of migrant importation in the last few years will be an albatross on the necks of our future generations. The poverty and desperation impact – worse than hit by a nuclear explosion ripping through this place. It may not be that long when global economies implodes next. And the begging in the street that followed will be worse than poverty-stricken parts of India or Africa.
Singaporeans are in deep trouble now. Vote for change.
Guess what?
first,we lost our jobs,now we may even lose our singaporean
identity…this isn’t funny?
Just think about it. What is the name of our country? Singapura or Singapore? We never thought about it. Most would dismiss as being childish or totally unimportant. But it all boils down to our identity.
What is the meaning of being a citizen of this nation? How come we ended up as a sovereign nation when all this while this island had always been in the hands of a foreign power? Be it Majapahit, be it Sultanate of Johor-Riau, be it as a British Colony or as part of Malaysia.
We became a sovereign nation because of the ideals that was brought forth to the Malaysian rulers at that time. That was “Malaysian Malaysia”. A nation for all races (there were others before him who championed for a common identity but were never mentioned).
So what national identity do we want to talk about then when we have this kind of unofficial rascist policy carried out by the government. It is nothing more than just a money making machine that is so turned on by GDP growth. It does not bother about Gini coefficient,the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.
To make matters worse, we have a state ideology based on Total Defence also known as Survivalism. At all cost, anything that threatens the survival of the nation will be eliminated and that includes basic freedom. Nothing more to comment about this point.
So where are we heading to? Make money and more money. That is the perhaps the symbol of our national identity. The SING DOLLAR. We brag so much about it when we travel to neighbouring countries that makes us so proud or should I say a bloody snob. Then we blame them for hating us.
That is national identity for you.
Not for a moment do I think the PAP will lose anything in the coming election. With their gerrymandering and know how of fixing opposition, they are the superior and hyper dominating political party in Singapore.
The pathetic meagre representation of those in cyber space is nothing compared to the vast PAP supporters in the heartland whose daily bread is the MSM’s feed. Those who are intelligent are already here spilling the beans and grumble with hell sworn words. However the mass majorities are afraid of losing their jobs or business should their votes being earmark by PAP. The perception that PAP knows who is voting for and against them is strong. These people are too scared to vote against the PAP.
To reach out to this group of people is definitely not an easy task.
It is your job to bring more people to this place to have their brain re orientated and healed through the baptism by TR.
Singapore is a hotel and it will be good for Singaporeans to keep that in mind. Should the opportunity arise to go overseas, Singaporeans should grab it. Meanwhile, vote for Change.
but who is responsible for all this? its singaporeans…. they give absolute control to PAP to do what they want for 5 decades… i mean singaporeans dont even want to give the opposition like 9 or 10 seats (about 10% percent) in the parliament instead they give the opposition like 2% of the seats and PAP like 98%. in last 5 decades the most they have given is like 4.
how can singaporeans today expect PAP to look after them, care about their welfare, protect their identity and space etc when they simply gave PAP the full power to do what they want.
with this kind of control and power, of course any party will do what it wills. it wont worry about reservations of the people…
Let’s not get hung up on this concept of national identity. There’s none. Why?
- Singapore is not a country but a city (as suggested by Shanmugam recently)
- The national pledge is an “aspiration”
- The ruling elites lack of faith in the masses of the population, which to LKY are mere “digits”; they are to be led
- The crushing of every sort of organisation that grew out of the Chinese-educated population in the 1960s and early 1970s; everything from schools, temple and cemetery organisations, and Chinese language newspapers
- Nationhood as a concept has been usurped by the PAP
- LKY belief in a self-renewing ruling elite group (i.e. the PAP), hence leadership of the party is not selected from the rank and file of the party organisation
@temasekpatriot – There are more than just Singaporeans to blame.
1) Blame opposition parties for fielding weak candidates. They are full of in fighting.
2) Singaporeans are too trusting and sentimental. They practically fell in love with PAP. People say love is blind so what to do.
3) PAP crush all their opponent with whatever fixing means they know how.
PAP outsmart all of us and they put us into their pocket and shake shake shake.
We, the citizens of Singapore
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of SDP, WP or other parties,
we will vote for opposition parties,
based on true justice without repression,
so as to achieve alternate government
to kick out foreign no talent for this nation.
The PAP knows that the PRs are here for the short-term, but they do not care as long as they can secure votes for the next GE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LCL2IqgjSc&feature=related