PM Lee to Singaporeans: You should help new citizens ‘fit in’

After importing too many immigrants within too short a period of time which makes integration impossible and leading to rising social tensions between native Singaporeans and new citizens, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is now calling on Singaporeans to help the newcomers ‘fit in’.

Speaking at his Teck Ghee ward’s racial harmony celebrations, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has cautioned Singaporeans to pay attention to new fault lines that have appeared between new and old citizens due to the government’s discriminatory policies which put locals at a disadvantage.

PM Lee also appeared to come to the realization finally when he said “new citizens may be ethnically similar, but the fault lines develop as they have different norms, habits and attitude.”

“Citizens must work together to ensure that the differences do not affect social stability in Singapore….Singaporeans should help the new citizens fit in,” he added.

Due to the government’s open-door immigration and labor policies, large number of foreigners have flocked to Singapore to study, work and live in the last five years leading to rampant inflation, sky-rocketing property values, stagnant wages and an obvious decline in the quality of life.

 

PHOTO: PRC new citizen hangs China flag outside flat in Hougang

A Hougang resident was outraged when he saw a PRC new citizen hanging the China outside his flat in Hougang besides a Singapore flag:

[Source: Hardwarezone Forum]

It is an offence in Singapore to display flags and other emblems of other nations publicly, but the law was never strictly enforced.

 

VIDEO: Poverty rampant among elderly residents living in Toa Payoh

Singapore may be a so-called ‘First World’ country with world class infrastructure and glittering sky-scrapers, but poverty is rampant in the HDB heartlands especially in its elderly population where many still have to work as cleaners, cardboard collectors and street scavengers to support themselves.

Below is a shocking video of poverty in Toa Payoh, a typical HDB estate in the central part of Singapore, courtesy of the Singapore Democratic Party, a REAL opposition party which dares to hold the government accountable.

Heng Swee Keat reminds Singaporeans of the importance of racial and religious harmony

Education Minister Heng Swee Keat has evoked the racial riots experienced by Singapore nearly 50 years ago to remind Singaporeans of the importance of racial and religious harmony.

Referring to recent incidents in which derogatory comments were posted by netizens online, Mr Heng warned that they may result in tension and conflicts if not handled properly, and added that these challenges to social cohesion will not go away anytime soon.

Speaking at the Racial Harmony Day celebrations at Innova Junior College, Mr Heng said building a strong network of trust within Singapore’s multi-ethnic and multi-religious society is an important ongoing effort that should not be neglected.

“The racial and religious harmony Singapore enjoys today is not necessarily a natural state. There are instances where communal and religious tensions have led to violence in communities who have lived together. Singapore experienced racial riots on July 21, 1964, and saw how quickly communal tensions could escalate into violence,” he added.

Due to the government’s open-door immigration policies, the number of foreigners in Singapore has increased over the years, changing the country’s demographics to beyond recognition.

A number of foreigners have made insensitive remarks online which threatened racial and religious harmony such as PRC student Wang Peng Fei, but for some strange reasons, they are never arrested by Singapore’s ‘ultra-efficient’ police, let alone charged in court for their offences.

Lawyer Ravi to issue letter of demand to Law Society

Prominent Human Rights lawyer said in a statement on Friday that he will be issuing a letter of demand to the Law Society of Singapore.

On 16 July, a representative from the Law Society Wong Siew Hong submitted a letter from Mr Ravi’s psychiatrist Dr Calvin Fones to the High Court alleging that he is currently ‘unfit’ to practice law, a stunning move which was rejected outright by the judge Justice Pilliai.

Mr Ravi was at High Court to argue the Hougang by-election case, prompting some to speculate that there was a ‘conspiracy’ going on behind the scenes to ‘silence’ him.

The Law Society later claimed that Mr Wong was acting in his own ‘personal capacity.’

On Tuesday, the society issued a statement on the incident, saying that the representative, Mr Wong, had acted of his own, and he did so with the best of intentions.

A highly respected lawyer in Singapore, Mr Ravi is one of the few lawyers who dare to take on the government which controls ALL institutions of the state.

Workplace safety has not improved over the years – What is the government doing?

I read with sadness the news on July 18 about the 2 deaths and several other injuries of worksite workers as a result of scaffolding that collapsed at the Downtown Line construction site at Bugis.

Workplace accidents like these are very common in the construction industry – we read about it in the news all the time. Mostly they involve foreign workers, but occasionally they involve Singaporeans too, most notably the infamous Nicoll Highway incident. The question is: What are the authorities doing about it?

Yes, it was an accident, but why couldn’t it have been prevented? Why did safety inspectors not foresee this danger? Why were the ‘safety precautions’ the workers must have been part of not protect them from these accidents?

Precious taxpayers’ money is going to governing bodies such as the Ministry of Manpower and Land Transport Authority.

These authorities are constantly gaining awards which pride their effectiveness and efficiency. Yet, are they really? We would expect these authorities to do their job or else they would just be receiving taxpayers’ money for absolutely, nothing. And we expect them to do their job ALL the time, not just being complacent and doing only something when really MAJOR accidents happen (which seems to be the trend recently as we all know).

How many more major accidents, how many more wake-up calls do the government need before it wakes up from the fact that it has so much more to do? Yes, these workers may only be foreigners which have no stake in our country. However, when accidents happen, the cost incurred in terms of finances, manpower and precious time is hefty, to say the least, given how millions of dollars are injected into construction projects.

Resources are being wasted – resources that could have gone to benefit us. Also, sloppy workplace safety also may point to other areas of sloppiness in the construction process. Is this why there were all those engineering problems in the MRT system of late? Is this really the efficiency we know?

Granted, freak accidents do happen which nobody could have forseen. However, a simple analysis of the statistics of reported workplace fatalities from MOM’s websites shows that from 2006 to 2011, the number of workplace fatalities has remained roughly constant at 60 instead of decreasing! What has MOM been doing to decrease this number? Or have they grown used to this fact and not care that they are partly responsible for their inaction in stopping these deaths? Construction sites have big placards boasting of the number of hours their worksites have gone through without any worker injury. Yet, such things still happen. Why?

MOM controls the number of foreign workers that can enter Singapore each year. The question is, did MOM bring them in just to face a gruesome fate?

I love new buildings and convenient new train lines. But thinking of them being built as a result of blood and lives being sacrificed just makes me feel real queasy. These foreign workers live in filthy cramped conditions, are given low pay, and there are many cases of these workers even being cheated of their pay – yet in exchange of all these, their lives are traded.

Perhaps to many their lives are worthless. Yet they are still human like all of us and their right to live is as equal as any other human. For their precious lives to be sacrificed year after year and the authorities just letting it happen…It just does not seem right.

 

MICHELLE TAN

Yale-NUS slammed for blatant ‘disregard’ for freedom of speech

Students at Yale University in the United States have organized and participated in numerous protests and rallies over the years at its campuses, but the spirit of freedom of speech and association appear to be severely curtailed on its Singapore campus in ‘respect’ of the island state’s draconian laws.

The controversial Yale-NUS College, a collaboration between NUS and Yale which was met with stiff opposition from the Yale students and tutors alike will not allow students to organise political protests on campus or form political party student groups, the college’s president, Pericles Lewis told media last week.

International NGO Human Rights Watch criticized Yale-College’s move to suppress public dissent on its campus as showing  a “disturbing disregard for free speech, association, and assembly”.

“Yale is betraying the spirit of the university as a center of open debate and protest by giving away the rights of its students at its new Singapore campus. Instead of defending these rights, Yale buckled when faced with Singapore’s draconian laws on demonstrations and policies restricting student groups.” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at HRW.

HRW added that “Yale’s willingness to curtail rights on its Singapore campus lends credence to those who would deny the universality, inalienability, and indivisibility of human rights on the basis of a country’s historical and cultural context and its economic development.”

Singapore has been ruled by a single ruling party for 53 years continuously since 1959. Under the new Public Orders Act introduced two years ago, even a ‘solo protest’ in Singapore is outlawed.

Though Singapore is a ‘parliamentary democracy’ on paper, the ruling party dominates the parliament while the only ‘opposition’ party which hold six seats appears to be its ‘proxy’ like the many pro-government ‘opposition’ parties in Russia.