Tuesday, August 18, 2009

What's the big deal?

There have been some online comments about the National Day Rally this year. And some questions.

One asked why religion was the focus this year? What triggered the response of a whole National Day Rally to address this unseen, hidden problem?
That the problem is unseen is probably due to good PR management. But perhaps in being good, the govt was too good and the people have not realised the problem. In the days and weeks to come, perhaps the govt will be "showcasing" more problems, solved problems. So people realise that there is a problem, but there are solutions.

Another asked, what was the big deal about showing Singapore's progress in the last 50 years. Which country, other than war torn countries, have not progressed in the last 50 years, he asked.
The answer lies in his question. Other than war torn countries. Could Singapore have gone that way? Sri Lanka comes to mind. There have been comparison between Singapore and Sri Lanka. How Sri Lanka took the path of raising one religion and one group of people over others, and led to the formation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam. And decades of civil war and terrorism.

The answer also lies in framing the question correctly. What other country with just 600 sq km of land, producing not enough food to feed its people, with not enough water, and kicked out of a Federation with every expectation by the federation to fail and falter.

Which other country now has a higher per capita GDP than the US and the UK when we started with little?

It is not simply that we have progressed... but how far we have progressed.

We take things for granted.

We don't know how lucky we are.

No comments: