Saturday, July 21, 2012

Singapore's Weakness (1)

I was looking through my old Mac desktop when, in the dustiest folder of them, I found an article from an interview with Mr Stanley Tan, Chairman of SIngapore's National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre. And then I saw this screenshot of a  news article on Straits Times:

"Singaporeans’ weak civic responses and an over-reliance on the law may be an unintended consequence of successful inculcation of a key government doctrine: that only a strong state can deal with the visceral pulls and permanent fault lines of race and religion. Distrusting citizens’ ability to talk through differences, some Singaporeans seem trigger-happy in their zeal to police the frontiers of religious harmony. "

That just stuck on me. What is it about our people? Why was this screenshot made? It better be of some great importance. I don't just snip of articles from the newspaper for random reasons. So this has to be it. 

Those 2 articles were written quite some time back. And I could have sworn that I read it a million times just because I could not get a firm understanding of the concepts that they were trying to deliver. So much for speed reading. They gripped me. It was a hold tight that I needed to wrap my mind upon. It had to mean something. 

So I am going to read them again and relive the inspirations that got a hold on me. 

Straits Time article about Mr Stanley Tan

Singapore's weak civic responses

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