Saturday, April 09, 2005

5 Stars Of Singapore Flag

The following is a posting done by TalkNoAction in Sammyboy's forum. He has reflected my sentiments very well. We must go back to the basics of the foundations that we build our Nations on: the 5 Stars of our National Flag.

Singaporean's Singapore used to be our motto of Nation building. However, down the road, this slogan seems empty and hollow with PAP's tight grip on power the the vast social engineering it has mounted on Singaporeans. It is only till recently, PAP talks about "ownership" and "inclusiveness". I have to ask the most important question, who does PAP think has the ownership of Singapore prior to their call of "collective ownership"? It is supposed to be Singaporean's Singapore, not PAP's Singapore, isn't it?

Goh Meng Seng

By Talk No Action

When the nation of Singapore was formed, we held 5 ideals of democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality represented by the 5 stars of our flag. As a loyal Singaporean, these ideals are what we must all strive for as a nation as we serve this nation. It has been almost 4 decades since our small nation is formed.

1. Democracy - the PAP regime practically destroyed it. Of all the nations around us which one is less democratic than us? Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia or Thailand? The regime has gradually exercised control over the media, repressed the opposition and tinkered with the election system. We are governed by a regime that does not believe in Democracy.

2. Peace & Progress. We have because our neighbours are culturally and traditionally non-aggressive countries. We spent tons in the name of Defence arming ourselves to the teeth since independence and should be thankful our neighbours have no interest in joining us in the arms race. When our young nation was formed, the region was unstable so was the world, we felt we have to spend aggressively on defence to secure this peace. But we time passes, we realise our neighbours are non-aggressive and strangely our defence resources are used on various peace keeping missions around the region. The threats have changed from all out war to terrorism with the biggest threat coming from within. I would say our nation has made enormous economic progress and harmony among various races and religions has been well maintained even as it worsened in other parts of the world.

3. Justice and Equality. We started with meritocracy and ended up with elitism. Was there justice for the opposition leaders bankrupted and destroyed by through the use of courts of law? Some Singaporeans have become more equal than others - just look at the Bhatia case. Elitism has resulted in unequal opportunities with special treatment for a selected segment of our population.

Our flag might as well have just 2 stars. We are governed by a regime that doesn't believe the ideals on which this nation was formed and run this country like they own it. The pro-business policies, the high income gap, the lack of welfare for the people ensures the inequality will grow. I love this country and strongly believe in the ideals on which this country was built....that is why I don't support the PAP.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sorry for omitting to sign - I posted the above.