What is the Ulterior Motive for 154th Leeporter for Helping FTrash Attack SGs?

[makapaaa]

[h=2]ST reporter defends her article on speaking out against xenophobia[/h]

April 3rd, 2013 |

Author: Online Press

Glad to see that Saturday’s column (‘Zero tolerance for intolerance’) has continued the ongoing discussion on xenophobia, and I thank everyone for giving their two cents’ worth. In response to a few things being circulated online, I thought I should make clear some points:

1. Just because I say that xenophobes like to be known as pro-Singaporeans, it doesn’t mean that all pro-Singaporeans are xenophobes. That’s a very important difference.

2. Some have compared Saturday’s column to an earlier Singapolitics piece I wrote about the online reaction to Amy Cheong. I hope people have taken the time to read the two pieces and not just the headlines. Fundamentally their messages are different, yet linked. Broadly speaking, Saturday’s column argues we should stand up to discrimination, while the Singapolitics piece talks about the way and manner we should go about doing that pushback.

3. Some have also said that Saturday’s column makes it sound like I am only blaming people for xenophobia, and not so much the Government. Firstly, that isn’t true, because the column talks about how the population White Paper stoked anxieties, and how our political leaders appear to have ceased their talk about integration. Secondly, there have been other pieces, both online and in the mainstream media, that have already pointed out how their liberal immigration policy and lack of intragovernment coordination has resulted in many problems and much unhappiness, and it’s something the Government has recognised and is attempting to rectify. How well those attempts are going can be the subject of other columns (and rightly so). But the point I was interested in making is that as active citizens, we should take responsibility for our actions. We are perfectly justified to be unhappy, but that unhappiness should not translate to hatred towards foreigners. We take responsibility by venting the unhappiness at the right way, and we take responsibility by telling those who do it the wrong way to stop it, as civilly as we can (see point 2, and the Singapolitics piece).
.
Tessa Wong
SPH Journalist
[Source]: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=456570871089334&set=a.120973937982364.29797.100002092765800

 

[makapaaa]

<CITE class=fn>kiasi:</CITE>
April 3, 2013 at 6:56 pm kiasi(Quote)
I think she just wouldn’t dare to bite the fingers whom feed her – yes we shouldn’t blame the gahmen for naming us S’poreans but when u have swarms of foreigners landed in our small piece of land, how r we gg to be happy to these foreigners, S’poreans are no xenophobic in nature it’s only when they r being squeezed out that’s where the problem lies.

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<CITE class=fn>Blame Your Editor For Crafting:</CITE>
April 3, 2013 at 6:57 pm Blame Your Editor For Crafting(Quote)
misleading headlines then–a very frequent (and deliberate?) occurrence in Straits Times dailies . . .
“I hope people have taken the time to read the two pieces and not just the headlines”

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<CITE class=fn>Breaking Good:</CITE>
April 3, 2013 at 6:57 pm Breaking Good(Quote)
Lol!
This Tessa Wong joker works for SPH and dares to call herself a “journalist.”
What kind of a one-bit “journalist” dares to claims to be a real journalist by trying to pump out two-bit propaganda articles like this?
Whatever happened to journalistic standards?
It is no wonder that the SG press is ranked almost at the bottom of the pile amongst the North Koreas of the world.
If she wants to be a proper, real journalist, she should try to come up with articles acting as checks and balances against the PAP regime.
Otherwise, she is just wasting her time and our time.

 

[makapaaa]

[h=2]From tolerance to intolerance[/h]

April 3rd, 2013 |

Author: Contributions

White Paper Protest @ Hong Lim Park on 16 Feb.

This is a personal journey of an average Singaporean, like all Singaporeans. The changing mindset of a very tolerant Singaporean towards foreigners is very likely to be shared by all other average Singaporeans. Actually the word tolerance towards foreigners was never an issue, never appear in the Singaporean vocab. Most Singaporeans are or were very hospitable and warm to foreigners in this island. Most foreigners in the past left with a very pleasant experience of a very friendly people during their sojourns here. It is very unusual for a visitor or those who have worked or studied here to have had bad memories of a unfriendly people and ugly experiences because they were foreigners.

Things are changing so rapidly that the tolerance for foreigners is becoming intolerance. Some have broken out into out right anger. It used to be a little inconvenience taking public transport that was often a bit squeezy, and finding a seat a little lucky. The experience of taking public transport today is to have strangers, clearly foreigners, stuck to your sides, front and back, rubbing or knocking at you, breathing down your neck or yakking away at the top of their voices. Their unfamiliar and often unpleasant BO, with their arms stretched across your face cannot be fun but must be most unpleasant and irritating.

Fighting for a seat with the foreigners becomes a game of being ungraceful or disgraceful. What really troubles the Singaporeans must be the huge presence of foreigners and the deprivation of a better life for the citizens. When many Singaporeans are out of jobs, in between jobs, under employed, unemployed, while foreigners are fully employed, many taking up cushy and high paying jobs, things will turn a bit ugly. No one is complaining so much about foreign workers who are needed and tolerated here as transient workers.


And when foreigners flooded the housing markets and driving up housing prices, pushing them beyond the reach of citizens, and also the favourite item of car ownership becoming an impossible dream to many, tolerance will become intolerance.

Tensions will build up over time and over many unhappy incidents. The last straw, when Singaporeans become a minority, when they are victimized, discriminated by foreigners, you expect Singaporeans to continue to be meek and selfless and continue to put their arms up wide to embrace the foreigners? The elite in their little palaces can talk cock about sharing with the foreigners when they could hide in the comfy enclaves and move around in private cars.

The danger is that the rot will get worst and will affect the children of Singaporeans in more adverse ways in the future. This little piece of rock is home to the Singaporeans, the only thing they have. This little rock cannot be traded away for fiat money. The developers with their money motive will be happily bid for land at higher and higher prices to feed the foreign frenzy, with money from all over the world. The Singaporeans cannot afford to compete with the rest of the world on an ‘equal’ basis as many are much richer and able to buy up everything and replace the Singaporeans in everything, everywhere.

This tolerance and intolerance issue cannot be spoken in void. There are lives involved. There is country and citizens involved. It is not a simple economic number game. There are also many intangibles of being a people, a country and a nation. Yes, I am getting more intolerant to foreigners when they crossed my path, cut into my way and deprive me of things that I used to have as a citizen in my country.

Having one or two foreigners can be fun, a novelty. When the citizens become the one or two, and the foreigners swarming all over us, it is no fun anymore. It is intolerance, and this intolerance will grow in intensity and will be felt by more and more Singaporeans. It is a road that spells trouble.
.
Chua Chin Leng aka redbean
* The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/