JC SiLent:You cant be that far away from me ; if we're looking on the same side of the moon
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
On last sun [03/07/05] Newpaper, there was an article abt a dialogue session with MM Lee regarding racial difference as a part of NUS 100th yr anniversary. A name caught my attention.
"Lawyer Michael Loh, 41". AHH.. look very familiar leh. do i noe him?? OHHH.. isn't he the spokesperson of the local acappella group Budak Pantai. OHHH no wonder lah.. i do noe tt Mike is a lawyer ard tt age.
if anyone saw tt article, pls reply if tt is Mike pf BP...
this is the article..
Scruffy neighbours? No thanks
IT began with a flattering question about Spore's multi-racial 'success'. And it received an honest answer from no less than modern Spore's founding father, MM Lee Kuan Yew.
No, we're not the Utopia you think we are, and it's not just abt race. There's also a worrying 'class divide'.He said: 'You don't mind ur neighbours not being of the same ethnic group, but you don't want them to be scruffy and dirty. And you don't want your kids to mix with oth kids who are filthy and speak in vile language.'So although Sporeans are still 'better off here' than in many oth parts of the world, Mr Lee admitted 'there's still segregation of sorts'.
The MM was taking part in a 90-min dialogue with some 100 uni chiefs and academics fr around the world as part of NUS' centennial celebrations.
A surprising statement, considering he was addressing foreign university dons?
'Actually, I'll be more surprised if he DIDN'T say it,' lawyer Michael Loh, 41, told The New Paper. 'Because of his role as a mentor, I think MM's come to the stage where he's more willing to reveal painful and sensitive realities. Obviously, he feels Singaporeans can take the hard knocks.'
Class consciousness, for example, has always been inherent among the Chinese, Mr Loh added. A concern that could well worsen as the income gap grows wider.
Mr Loh admitted he would be more comfortable living next to an educated, well-to-do Malay or Indian neighbour than one who 'just struck the jackpot and moved up... to a condo.' The initial question to Mr Lee, however, was centred on race.
With so much 'global strife' due to religious and ethnic differences, the president of Pennsylvania State University, Dr Graham Spanier, had earlier asked, how did Singapore succeed in 'embracing' so many different backgrounds?
Mr Lee's response: 'It's a very difficult ideal... and I'm not sure we've achieved it.'
'What we HAVE achieved is a certain accommodation. You will never get a completely fluid and fiction-free multi-racial society.'
Sobering words, coming fr a man who has lived through and grappled with the country's ups and downs over the past 40 yrs.
Spore's colonial masters, the British, Mr Lee reminded his audience, 'had not catered for education' when we became independent in 1965. So in the early days, the different racial communities ended up building their own schools, dormitories and free hospitals.
'We were like different kinds of fish in a pond with different degrees of salinity. The fish meet occasionally, but they're really more comfortable where they are, in their own eco-structure.'
That's why the Govt introduced a compulsory balloting system for HDB flats, he explained. So that Chinese, Malays, Indians and others will become one another's neighbours and their children will attend the same neighbourhood schools.
'This was discomforting,' Mr Lee recalled, and there was some adjusting to be done on everyone's part.
'We have got as far as we have by persuasion... (But) it's not been completely successful, because the rate of inter-mingling and acceptance is faster among certain groups than in others.'
He singled out the Malay community, saying they're 'centred around the mosque more than the other social centres that we've got'.
'Not quite what we'd hoped for, but that's the end result. We live with that.'
Responding, former Nominated MP Zulkifli Baharudin, 45, told The New Paper he agrees that 'there's little harmony, but just co-existence'.
'It's true that there's now greater religiosity among Malay-Muslims. My fear is this might lead to greater exclusiveness, at the expense of multi-culturalism,' he said.
'As a Singaporean, I'd like to see us celebrate our diversity. I agree we're not there yet.'
& 12:05 am