Singapore's former minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew told the local media yesterday that he will continue to contribute to Singapore for as long as his health permits.
Mr Lee was addressing media questions about his daughter's column in The Sunday Times.
His daughter, National Neuroscience Institute director Lee Wei Ling, had revealed he was suffering from a nervous disease that affected his balance.
The disease, sensory peripheral neuropathy, causes the conduction of sensation from his legs to his spinal cord to be impaired which makes his walking unsteady.
Speaking on the sidelines of a tree planting event at Tanjong Pagar GRC yesterday, he said that he had no doubt at all that his disease had not affected his mind, his will nor his resolve.
"People in wheelchairs can make a contribution. I've still got two legs, I will make a contribution."
He said the disease started two years ago when he was 86 and has since learnt to adapt.
"We learn to adjust. It started two years ago when I was 86, and at 86 many of my contemporaries are either on wheelchairs or are not around. So I am grateful to be still around at 86, although less steady than before," said Mr Lee.
"But as you see, one learns to adjust and I take steps which are wider apart to maintain a sound balance. I have no doubt at all that this has not affected my mind, my will nor my resolve. "
In the face of rapid social and political changes, the government plans to shift its 
education system more towards building character and values and understanding local politics.
education system more towards building character and values and understanding local politics.IT comes at a time when Singaporeans are clamouring for a greater degree of personal liberties and liberal democracy in a city where bonds are being diluted by mass foreign arrivals.
In the eyes of the government, they require a new effort to reinforce national and individual values, particularly in politics, which had guided the city for the past 46 years.
On Wednesday, the government announced a record-high population of 5.18 million, of which 37% came from abroad. This was another growth of 2.1% in the past six months.
The continuing influx has raised resentment among Singaporeans and the government has organised community programmes to integrate the different communities.Education Minister Heng Swee Kiat’s concern is not only in dealing with larger numbers of students or improving academic quality, but also ensuring that youths respond rationally.From official comments so far, the concept seems to be two-pronged – one being to mould student behaviour towards others, particularly foreigners living in their midst.
The 50-year-old minister defined moral values and responsible behaviour as “respect, responsibility, care and appreciation towards others”.
The second part – likely to be more controversial – is to get students to understand politics a la Singapore.He told a recent seminar that political values would be included such as responsibilities of citizenship.
“As a young nation with a short history of independence, we must have informed, rugged and resilient citizens.” When the students graduate, he said “they would stay united to overcome crises and adversities which we must expect to happen from time to time”.
Heng, one-time principal private secretary to former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, became Education Minister after his election in May and is believed to be earmarked for a higher leadership role.
His plan is not entirely new. Last year, the Education Ministry had set up a Citizenship Education Unit with a view to crafting “active citizens”.
“We may live on a small island but, unlike Robinson Crusoe, we do not live alone,” he told the gathering.
The new focus would get youths to be less self-centred, “to look beyond themselves and start to appreciate people whom they come into contact with regularly but seldom notice”.
His “citizenship” policy appears to differ with the stand of Law Minister K. Shanmugam, who described Singapore in a speech as “not a country, but a city”.
Heng not only thinks otherwise, but wants to implant the idea of citizenship deeply in the student mind.The new objective is not only to develop the student academically, but also to get him to think of his own responsibilities in the wider society.
The public reaction to the plan is likely to be mixed, with many parents supporting moral and character training.By nature, Singaporeans are generally conservative and stick to tradition – particularly the older folk.
“The teaching of social behaviour and values is a long time coming,” said a retired civil servant. The youths here are generally quick-learning and hard working but a bit too self-centred to live in a global city,” he added. “A ‘values-based’ education should balance things.”
However, the idea of political teaching may not go down too well with many people in the wake of the May election in which 40% of people voted against the ruling party.
To some, it stirs suspicions of “political brainwashing” of young minds.When the idea was first mooted last year, leaders of the People’s Action Party (PAP) had expressed concern that Singaporeans were becoming too influenced by “Western-type democracy”.
Ever since the election, Lee Kuan Yew has condemned the principle of a two-party political system as detrimental for Singapore.His son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, is a few shades less hard-hitting than him and has pledged to implement reforms gradually.
In a talk to foreign correspondents in 2005, PM Lee said: “I think in 20 years our society will
change. I think the politics of it will change. But I do not see a Western model … as the target we want to aim for.”
change. I think the politics of it will change. But I do not see a Western model … as the target we want to aim for.”Critics fear that the political programme would be used “to clean youthful minds” so that the ruling party can remain in power.“The classroom can easily be turned into an arena for political campaigning on behalf of the ruling party behind the veneer of providing an all-rounded curriculum,” said Ng E-jay in his online feedback.
“This is crossing the line. Politics should stay out of the classroom,” commented surfer gil.Will it work?
Some teachers believe it is a lot easier to teach social values and individual behaviour than it is implanting political values in an individual.It will even be tougher to make the learning stick as he grows into an adult.
“Students are not stupid these days. Unlike us 30 years ago, these kids are well informed, having access to the Internet,” said acacia. He said he would be surprised if they took such lessons seriously.
The average student today generally pays little interest to politics, and such a programme might completely turn him off the lectures, said a polytechnic student.
Or, he added, it could be a disaster for the PAP. “Instead of supporting the ruling party, they could well rotate to the opposition parties,” he said.Besides, such value teaching can badly backfire if the political leaders and teachers do not follow the “right values” that they want students to learn.
The Straits Times reported that Mr Lee walked steadily without any help yesterday.
RELATED ARTICLE Judge and Mahatir part of conspiracy to frame Anwar http://www.freeanwar.net/jan2003/facnews190303.htm
Ibrahim Ali’s pipe dream of fighting for the Malays is as fantastic as thinking we can resurrect the Dodo by cross breeding pigeon with ostriches.
The assertion that only Malays are superior, and yet lagging behind at the same time because Ibrahim does not want to lose the special privileges already extended, actually insults the very idea of what it means to be Malay.
"'Modern Malays' are an admixture of races," said Professor Zilfalil Alwi, whose paper "Asal Usul Melayu Berdasarkan Fakta Genetik" (Tracing the Origins of the Malays by Analysing Genetic Data) discusses a three-year study involving around 50,000 volunteers. "Nowadays you can't tell the difference whether someone is Chinese or Malay by appearance alone," he added.
Truly Asia
Thus, the pivotal question now is how Malay is Malay enough? Because genetically, there is no mention of pure-blood Malays - so what would next best constitute a real Malay?
The answer is not as Ibrahim Ali or his patron Mahathir Mohamad would want us to believe, perhaps because the truth would straightaway spell doom for Perkasa, the so-called and self-proclaimed protector of all things Malay in Malaysia.
Ibrahim Ali and Mahathir, the former premier, already shame all Malays by perpetuating the false thinking that there is such a thing as pure-blood Malays, born with the right to lord over all the other ethnic groups residing in Malaysia. The fact is that a pure-blood Malay is a myth and the term Malay in Malaysia is an act of law and not a blood or genetic type.
Defined by the Constitution and rooted in the Social Contract
The meaning of Malay is actually constituted by the Federal Constitution through Article 160 (2) : “Malay” means a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, conforms to Malay custom and—(a) was before Merdeka Day born in the Federation or in Singapore or born of parents one of whom was born in the Federation or in Singapore, or is on that day domiciled in the Federation or in Singapore; or (b) is the issue of such a person".Thus, any Muslim who speaks the Malay language is already on the verge of being identified by law as a Malay. The delusion of Ibrahim Ali and Perkasa, when they scream of championing 'Malay' rights and supremacy by attacking and demonizing non-Malays, is thus fundamentally wrong.
By trying their best to kick every other ethnic group out of the country, Ibrahim Ali, Perkasa and UMNO are also demeaning their own ancestry. The fact is most of the leaders in the government are themselves a mix-mash of ethnic groups and nowhere near being pure-blood Malays.
It is safe to say, the Orang Asli, the natives of Sabah and Sarawak, have greater claim to ethnic purity than the Malays yet they do not use their genetic makeup to lord over the others as viciously as Ibrahim Ali, Perkasa or UMNO do.
The Malays form the government because the other ethnic groups allow them to be so. The Malays also form the government because peppered throughout the Federal Constitution are safe-guards that protect and shield the Malay community. Perkasa and Ibrahim Ali are actually irrelevant to the cause of protecting the Malays. There is no need for them to do this because the Constitution already does it.
Outnumbered by the non-Malays
So, how Malay can a Malay be? A better proposition is to look at the Malays as stewards responsible for the safety and well-being of all other ethnic groups living in Malaysia.The claim by many Malay leaders that the Malays are also the majority stakeholders in Malaysia is false because they are actually outnumbered by the non-Malays. The fact is, collectively, the non-Malay (including the bumiputera) form the majority of the population and can lay claim to being the real king-makers and not Perkasa as Ibrahim Ali likes to brag.
To be a true Malay would also necessitate being a protector of those who are non-Malay since this is the responsibility granted by the non-Malays to the Malays as implied in the social contract of the Merdeka days.
The bottom-line is, Ibrahim Ali, Perkasa and some of the notorious UMNO leaders are totally irrelevant when they discuss what it means to be Malay because in truth, there is no such thing as a real pure-blood Malay.
As the Arab Spring enters a tense autumn chill, Tahrir Square remains a fiery political battleground, where struggles between the people and the state constantly churn and redefinine themselves. When police officers went on strike in October, they raised hard questions about the position of the public sector in the struggle against counterrevolution.
Thousands of Egypt's police, though tarnished by the shameful violence deployed by security forces during the January 25 uprising, are now staging their own revolt. Meanwhile, the military brass, initially lauded in the early days of the revolution when it refrained from crushing demonstrators on behalf of Mubarak's dictatorship, have become the target of public vitriol. The chaos -- part of a continual wave of strikes, demonstrations and crackdowns -- illustrates the people’s growing bitterness at the hijacking of their revolution by a reactionary junta.
So are the cops defecting to join the rabble? The momentum comes from struggling rank-and-file officers who actively distance themselves from the corrupt interim regime and notoriously cruel Interior Ministry. Alongside basic bread-and-butter grievances about wages and working conditions—the crux of all the strikes that have rocked the country this year—there are calls for an internal overhaul to restore the integrity and credibility of the institution.
According to one news report:
Police said they would hold an open ended sit-in until their demands were met, as around 12,000 went on strike. Egypt has 350,000 police altogether.Some of the officers at the protest waved banners reading “Good treatment equals better service.”Another banner called for “Purging the ministry of the mafia and the remnants of el-Adly,” a reference to former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, who is on trial for deadly police attacks on unarmed protesters during the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.
Although the opposition was initially galvanized by the images of security forces cracking down on peaceful protesters, the new face of dictatorship seems to be the military, which has led arrests and prosecutions of civilian activists. The situation has grown more tense in the wake of sectarian clashes that many accuse the military of using as a pretext to consolidate power and target enemies.
The actions of the police strikers touches on a key question in any labor conflict involving public safety agencies: which side are they on? Cops are broadly defined as public servants, but when the state is attacking the citizenry, including its own employees, which “public” is represented in popular struggles for civil rights, a living wage, or accountable government?
In Wisconsin last February, amid massive protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s attack on public workers’ collective bargaining rights, many police officers allied with the demonstrators. The surprising show of solidarity defied lawmakers’ attempts to split the public workforce by shielding safety officers and firefighters from the harshest provisions of the anti-union legislation.
In the Occupy Wall Street movements, the position of the police has again been called into question: are they tools of a tyrannical state or ordinary folks trying to make a living? Their position as public-sector workers contrasts with the the cruelty and corruption they’ve come to represent, but is the people-vs.-cops binary too simplistic for a movement that aims for maximum inclusiveness?
Filmmaker Michael Moore has aired a video (apparently popular on right-wing websites) urging local police to join the Occupy movements. Ironically, Moore drew a parallel with the non-intervening Egyptian military forces (an image that clearly no longer applies today, except for the handful of activist officers who’ve risked severe punishment to defy their superiors.)
Meanwhile in the U.S. demonstrations, veterans of occupations of a different sort have found common cause with the anti-capitalist protesters. But the tragic case of Scott Olsenshows that service members are as vulnerable as any citizen to the ruthless hostility of the government’s foot soldiers.
Following mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge, an Occupy activist argued in Liberation that the authoritarian nature of the profession commits police to enforcing the structures of oppression:
...while cops as individuals are not part of the ruling class, they cannot be considered part of the oppressed classes either. … They are an arm of the ruling class, whose function in society is to maintain the rule of the rich over all of us...Rank-and-file soldiers in the military, who typically serve only for a few years, have at several key historical moments defected, torn off their uniforms, and switched back to the workers’ side in large numbers. Professional police officers, who have chosen to join that institution of repression as their life’s work, almost never do...In city after city, occupations are being confronted by police violence and harassment. In some places, the police have already shut them down. We have to learn from these experiences. If cops want to be considered part of the 99%, there is only one way: by quitting their jobs as the enforcers of the 1%.
But now shift the lens to post-revolutionary Egypt, where police are not as comfortably ensconced in hierarchies of social privilege, and massive unrest has afflicted all sectors of society as the “new” authorities brazenly betray the spirit of January 25. The counterrevolution has permeated not only government but civil society as well, as even some union leaders are reportedly siding with military authorities by restraining strike activity.
Have Egypt’s rank-and-file police chosen, as public servants, to defend the people over the corrupt elite? How deep does their solidarity run, especially if the state continues to monopolize armed violence? The striking police could just be cynical political operators, or a symptom of a general collapse of Egypt’s social edifice. But their action nonethelesschallenges activists everywhere to rethink the meaning of “public security” in times of revolution.
No comments:
Post a Comment