---political correctness of the highest order---
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
paradigm..
make no mistake about it..singaporeans are ugly creatures..
and i don't mean that literally even though such an expression wouldn't be lost on most of you..
we are ugly..egoistic..and maddeningly boorish..a society of prudes who are under the impression we hail from some kind of egalitarian utopia where everything unpleasant is embarrassing and beneath us.
just over last weekend..5 of our local dragonboaters met their demise under the most unfortunate of circumstances. as the nation scrambles to cope with the shock & grief..one word immediately comes to mind: HYPOCRITES
take a gander at any local newspaper over the past 3 days and one thing is immediately apparent. other than the elaborate writeups detailing the deceased's life history & family grief..the most initial and jarring headline(s) screamed 'Singaporeans were not wearing life jackets!'; 'Could accident have been avoided with life jackets?'; 'Life jackets not a must in competitive racing!'
i first learnt of the incident via the radio, where the newscaster nonchalently announced '5 Singaporeans were sucked under a freak wave along a Cambodian river. A Cambodian official commented that the 5 Singaporeans did not don life jackets...'
hence the island is now in an uproar over the issue of life jackets..to the point former retired Navy scholar turned Dragonboat Association chairman Kwek Siew Jin had to make a public statement saying the 5 men chose (wrongly) to do without their lifejackets while scaling the river.
so the weight of 5 lives are measured against the donning of life jackets in Singapore? why the heck is an educated affluent society like ours unable to cope with disaster? why on earth are we hell bent on finding a scapegoat to put the blame on? are we so immature that we can't accept this is just a freak accident of nature and focus on what's actually important (namely to aid the affected families in the proceedings and remembrance of the 5 men who died)? the entire lifejacket saga seems to take more precedence over the actual deaths...which inadvertently makes it a very bad time for others to know i'm singaporean..
how can we call singapore a developed country when we can't even deal with such things in a more composed manner? something happens...hell & highwater break loose to explain the blame away. newspapers talk about how unforgiving the river can be this time of year, how dragonboaters usually aren't good swimmers because of their mainly upper body training...all hogwash bullcrap meant as filler for the papers. we're trying to tag a reason for their deaths..does that even make sense? if my son/daughter (touchwood) had their lives cut short in some accident..as a parent i couldn't care less even if someone could give me the most detailed logical explanation for their death. God Himself couldn't give me a good reason that would calm my soul, much less some dribble in the local newspaper.
food for thought: what IF the 5 men did wear life jackets and still drowned? what then? 'Singapore life jackets found to be of inferior quality'; 'Singaporeans using wrong type of lifejackets?'; or worse..'Singaporeans may not have drowned if lifejackets didn't impede their movement'
GOT SOMETHING TO SAY??
-e|even¹¹-
and i don't mean that literally even though such an expression wouldn't be lost on most of you..
we are ugly..egoistic..and maddeningly boorish..a society of prudes who are under the impression we hail from some kind of egalitarian utopia where everything unpleasant is embarrassing and beneath us.
just over last weekend..5 of our local dragonboaters met their demise under the most unfortunate of circumstances. as the nation scrambles to cope with the shock & grief..one word immediately comes to mind: HYPOCRITES
take a gander at any local newspaper over the past 3 days and one thing is immediately apparent. other than the elaborate writeups detailing the deceased's life history & family grief..the most initial and jarring headline(s) screamed 'Singaporeans were not wearing life jackets!'; 'Could accident have been avoided with life jackets?'; 'Life jackets not a must in competitive racing!'
i first learnt of the incident via the radio, where the newscaster nonchalently announced '5 Singaporeans were sucked under a freak wave along a Cambodian river. A Cambodian official commented that the 5 Singaporeans did not don life jackets...'
hence the island is now in an uproar over the issue of life jackets..to the point former retired Navy scholar turned Dragonboat Association chairman Kwek Siew Jin had to make a public statement saying the 5 men chose (wrongly) to do without their lifejackets while scaling the river.
so the weight of 5 lives are measured against the donning of life jackets in Singapore? why the heck is an educated affluent society like ours unable to cope with disaster? why on earth are we hell bent on finding a scapegoat to put the blame on? are we so immature that we can't accept this is just a freak accident of nature and focus on what's actually important (namely to aid the affected families in the proceedings and remembrance of the 5 men who died)? the entire lifejacket saga seems to take more precedence over the actual deaths...which inadvertently makes it a very bad time for others to know i'm singaporean..
how can we call singapore a developed country when we can't even deal with such things in a more composed manner? something happens...hell & highwater break loose to explain the blame away. newspapers talk about how unforgiving the river can be this time of year, how dragonboaters usually aren't good swimmers because of their mainly upper body training...all hogwash bullcrap meant as filler for the papers. we're trying to tag a reason for their deaths..does that even make sense? if my son/daughter (touchwood) had their lives cut short in some accident..as a parent i couldn't care less even if someone could give me the most detailed logical explanation for their death. God Himself couldn't give me a good reason that would calm my soul, much less some dribble in the local newspaper.
food for thought: what IF the 5 men did wear life jackets and still drowned? what then? 'Singapore life jackets found to be of inferior quality'; 'Singaporeans using wrong type of lifejackets?'; or worse..'Singaporeans may not have drowned if lifejackets didn't impede their movement'
GOT SOMETHING TO SAY??
-e|even¹¹-
