Singapore ― “In Singapore, we have witnessed Mr Umbrage who talked down to the reporter, Mr slip-of-the-tongue Minister who called an NMP illiterate and a Senior Minister who sees anyone earning less than S$500,000 per annum mediocre”, read a piece written by a former student from Raffles Institution, opining that a form of class system still exists in Singapore.
The piece, initially shared on WhatsApp messenger, has made its way around social media, being shared in various Facebook groups. Mr Y, not the author of the piece, states:
“This is written by someone from a lousy skool. Quite good surprisingly. SG long term solution is egalitarianism, not elitism that creates ELITERATES.
Where a cleaner is respectably paid compared with a doctor, lawyer, engineer. And acknowledged, respected for their contributions to society. Then families won’t feel the pressure to push their kids. Trust in the positive side of people who will want to do their best, with encouragement, not pressure. Instead of fearing people will do the least and be lazy. The latter is LKY’s fear mongering narrative for the past 50 years and it’s time to progress and move on from his ideas in a vastly different world”.
The piece, written by one Mr Charles Chow states that “THE REAL CANCER THAT IS PERMEATING DEEPLY INTO THE SINGAPORE SOCIETY IS ELITISM, NOT RACISM…”
Explaining that “To a large extent, racism is just an excuse or bogeyman used to mask the real problem of elitism, class, and caste”, the author goes on to state that bringing up issues of race is a red herring, because, as he purports, “there no racism amongst the rich, educated and famous people in the world”.
“There may be an EIP system to prevent racial enclaves in the HDB flat allocation system. But has any study been done to investigate elite racial enclaves amongst our privileged new citizens (> 500,000 of them in the last 15-20 years), PRs (>500,000 of them today) and EPs (200,000)?
Many core Singaporeans have served NS and helped built the Singapore of today and by some estimates, more than 100,000 of born and bred locals are now displaced by new Singaporeans, PRs, EPs and SPs.
This is the COLLATERAL DAMAGE caused by the ruling elites’ desire to turbo charge and punch our economy well above our natural weight”, Mr Chow writes.
They add that inflating the economy is not a sin, but only sharing most the benefits among multinationals and foreign talents while majority of Singaporeans are given little portions, is.
“LKY warned that if we did not vote the PAP, our women would become maids in foreign lands. But instead, we now have 40,000 core Singaporean men driving Grab, 30,000 delivering food, 16,000 driving taxis, 40,000 cleaners and landscape personnel, 30,000 security guards etc. all of whom are lowly paid compared to the imported high-flyers”, Mr Chow wrote.
Comparing the salary of local ministers with that of their foreign counterparts such as Jacinda Ardern’s, the author added:
“She earns less than $500k per annum and by our Senior Minister’s definition, she is supposed to be mediocre. Yet she was voted this year by Fortune magazine as the world’s greatest leader, beating all our Singapore leaders by a mile”.
The writer opines that much of Singapore’s issues stemmed from elitism, and it is often wrongly conflated with societal stresses and Covid-19.
Racism and xenophobia are then cited as causes for all of Singapore’s problems. However, the writer explains that “Racism and xenophobia are merely the external manifestation of some FAR DEEPER ROOT CAUSES that the ruling elites are slow to address”.
Responding to TISG’s queries, Mr Chow said: ”
My final point is that an indictment against elitism is not an indictment of elites.
There can be elites without elitism.
The elites of society can be humble, caring and polite to the less fortunate members of society.
Many egalitarian nations such as the Scandinavian nations, Canada and New Zealand have achieved that status.
We must strive to be like them.”
/TISG