GMS,
I just dropped by Temasek Review to read some of the incoming posts - looks like it is a flood of complaints.... the official media is quite quiet but not the internet...
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Volunteers work long hours and are given mere packaged food whereas the athletes and officials are given buffet-style meals.
For YOG relay, looks like they have to drum out the school children to come out to welcome the Torch Relay, some more in pouring rain... parents must be hopping mad..
Looks like the elitist top is totally out of sync with the grassroots for this YOG thing. Yet frankly, they have been out of touch for a long time. I note certain interesting correlations...
The spirit of volunteering has never been rooted as a culture in Singapore. To encourage volunteering for YOG, the pappy regime run into a big problem which is the source of all these complaints. Volunteering gets few rewards except the pride and honour to be involved in a "cause". Yet why are all these volunteers complaining? Surely there should be "enough" pride in the nation and for common good... the finger goes to the Very Top. All the while in their propaganda, they are the ones who insist an enormous exorbitant price in material terms must be paid for good "talented" folks - the very elites who are needed to run the country and so in a circular argument, they deserve their rewards, hence their "legitimacy" and need to be granted such rewards. With such arguments, if you buy them, everybody will start thinking ...so where is my reward then? Clearly I deserve to be treated just as greatly ...where is the material rewards? This logic goes downwards to all strata of the populace in the cultural system - everybody is thinking for its own sake. In all political systems, the problem is the size of the pie - some will get more, some less or alternatively, everyone should get more or less the same? When the system decides to go elitist to justify their existence and need for material rewards, it has consequences that ripple throughout the socio-cultural system. The elites take care of their own first, and 'others" later, and even preach the gospel of their greatness, and due to this greatness, the "others" get their "rewards", which is at a great disparity to what is at the top.
I think the pappies have not thought deep enough about this, and they are simply thinking of the end-goals of YOG. They are not thinking enough of the processes that are churning in this system of ours which they have a hand to create. Does our socio-cultural system have what it takes to promote the end-goals of YOG? It ignores the old-decades socialisation practices that have been around in this nation of 45 years... thanks to the pappy regime and system.
For this system, such practices of the elites have long been around and only now, it is applied on a national scale for YOG. Let me illustrate an example, say SAF. All of us are long grounded in the socialisation practices of the SAF. SAF started off with the notion that you need conscripts to build an army to defend a nation. If you get professional, first of all, there is a problem of paying and with an empty treasury, the country can't afford it. So pay them dirt cheap and this is what happens... as the country progresses, they forgot about it, and continue to make use of this cheap labour to keep this facade of maintaining an army for deterrance and use these solders for the "national" events like NDPs, YOG etc. Honestly, they paid cheap for these labour but for the elites, the argument turns the other way round - they are to be paid "market" rate. Quite a hypocrisy?
For a long time, soldiers come and ago, and complaints about SAF turn into jokes, and we only talk about these among ourselves and accept the rituals forced onto us. The significant majority of my army buddies still think SAF is a "joke". Once I remember our Commander wanted to have a "frank" talk with all of us, and wanted us to say frankly our feelings about SAF, and promised that it will be kept within the four walls. The interesting thing was that nobody raised any objection at all. We aren't even interested to voice our internal grouses. Yet we all knew that most of us did not take SAF seriously, nor do we have pride in "serving this nation". There is no pride and SAF is just a dumb chore. As a soldier and I reckon for many, you can feel it that you are not treated well as a form of honour in real deeds but the top fellows on top just shout empty rhetoric about this national duty as a honour. It is crass talk and lots of hypocrisy.
This YOG thing is remiscent of how things are organised in SAF, and how exploitation takes place. This time, you are messing with students' lives, and I do think it will blow up at Pappies' faces .... in a matter of time, the media will be asked to tone down painting the negative image...but for the internet, I doubt they can do anything. It is interesting that they have not realised it, and they are employing these same practices here.
It is not pretty. I have no wish to wish the worse for Singapore. YOG should be an event every citizen should be proud. It is the way the undercurrents have been running that make it impossible. If they want to generate a good image, it should be how to make Singaporeans get "rewarded" on their personal terms - national pride should be about a "common" good and a certain genuineness in the values system. However, in the case of Majulah Singapura, the elitist culture and values that have been embedded here, primarily for their "own sake", and it hinders their promotion of such humanitarian values.
This time, the joke is on the pappies. Haha. Looks like how they want YOG to be, is not going to turn them into votes for the coming elections. Hope you will score on this one for your electoral attempt, GMS. Good luck.
