The unsettled question of public housing has to be answered in this term, and will PM Wong's Forward Singapore successfully redefine what it means to be Singaporean?
Really well put - and as someone who loves my country, I continue to wait with bated breath for the government to grab their balls and tackle these questions. I think these are existential questions that hold the country back, and insofar as they are not properly and satisfactorily answered, the country does not even have the luxury to stay static, but will clearly face decline. I would contend that there is an answer to both points you've made (regarding affordable housing and the Singaporean identity) and perhaps you've been generous to hold back on your opinions as to what they are, as I'm sure most who observe the space would surely have their answers too, but that both questions remain unanswered not because the government does not have an answer, and instead that the answers are ugly and as you've mentioned, they would hope that much like the Ship of Theseus, that they could perhaps have their cake and eat it.
I can't help but feel compelled nevertheless to add to both points and say that it's great irony that on the one hand the government places us in a sense of false dichotomy where we are made to feel that hard choices have to be made because the country has insufficient land - whilst at the same time there sits 2,700-2,800 Good Class Bungalows. The government has claimed private land back before under the Land Acquisition Act, and so it seems disingenuous to make it seem like that option either does not exist or should not be exercised.
As for national identity, and this is purely my opinion of course, but I think that it is not that there isn't a national identity or even that it is hard to pin down - it is that we cannot bear to look ourselves in the mirror because of what we now look like. A generalisation of course, but I think if you polled most Singaporeans on what they think the traits are of other Singaporeans, I suspect it will only reveal undesirable traits (that of course is a sort of NIMBY-ism where everyone has to be this way because everyone else is this way as well) - entitled, selfish, main character syndrome, calculative, stingy, risk averse, timid, demanding, just some I often hear. I've asked around and most folks have struggled to give me one positive trait they can think of that they'd personally associate with a Singaporean person - perhaps humorously there is often the saying that one can hear a fellow Singaporean a mile away when overseas and that it would kill them inside just that much to meet another Singaporean on the road.
Thank you for your writing! I really enjoy reading it! Cheers!
Thanks for taking the time to write out this well thought out reply! You’ve made some salient observations with regard to our identity and public housing situation. On public housing, I do have more considered thoughts on this and I will be publishing them in the future. Suffice to say I do think that the current public housing situation is unworkable insofar as the fundamental contradiction of wanting HDBs to be an ever increasing asset and also an asset that expires on a lease exists. I do not think that we need something as drastic as the Land Acquisition Act to fix public housing, but public housing does need to be reworked.
On the Singaporean identity, I have heard and observed many of the things that you have described. I actually think this might be a pretty common sentiment from Singaporeans: “I love my country, but I dislike the people”. I am optimistic that as the country matures we might reform some sense of community along the way, and with it Singaporeans will come to like each other again. Because the alternative is that the country slowly but surely falls apart as all bonds of kinship decay till there is no Singapore to speak of any more.
At what point is it ok to assume the worst?
This article lays out quite a stark reality.
"What happens when policy failure goes unchecked?"
https://simulatedreal.substack.com/p/singapore-immigration-the-exact-playbook
Really well put - and as someone who loves my country, I continue to wait with bated breath for the government to grab their balls and tackle these questions. I think these are existential questions that hold the country back, and insofar as they are not properly and satisfactorily answered, the country does not even have the luxury to stay static, but will clearly face decline. I would contend that there is an answer to both points you've made (regarding affordable housing and the Singaporean identity) and perhaps you've been generous to hold back on your opinions as to what they are, as I'm sure most who observe the space would surely have their answers too, but that both questions remain unanswered not because the government does not have an answer, and instead that the answers are ugly and as you've mentioned, they would hope that much like the Ship of Theseus, that they could perhaps have their cake and eat it.
I can't help but feel compelled nevertheless to add to both points and say that it's great irony that on the one hand the government places us in a sense of false dichotomy where we are made to feel that hard choices have to be made because the country has insufficient land - whilst at the same time there sits 2,700-2,800 Good Class Bungalows. The government has claimed private land back before under the Land Acquisition Act, and so it seems disingenuous to make it seem like that option either does not exist or should not be exercised.
As for national identity, and this is purely my opinion of course, but I think that it is not that there isn't a national identity or even that it is hard to pin down - it is that we cannot bear to look ourselves in the mirror because of what we now look like. A generalisation of course, but I think if you polled most Singaporeans on what they think the traits are of other Singaporeans, I suspect it will only reveal undesirable traits (that of course is a sort of NIMBY-ism where everyone has to be this way because everyone else is this way as well) - entitled, selfish, main character syndrome, calculative, stingy, risk averse, timid, demanding, just some I often hear. I've asked around and most folks have struggled to give me one positive trait they can think of that they'd personally associate with a Singaporean person - perhaps humorously there is often the saying that one can hear a fellow Singaporean a mile away when overseas and that it would kill them inside just that much to meet another Singaporean on the road.
Thank you for your writing! I really enjoy reading it! Cheers!
Thanks for taking the time to write out this well thought out reply! You’ve made some salient observations with regard to our identity and public housing situation. On public housing, I do have more considered thoughts on this and I will be publishing them in the future. Suffice to say I do think that the current public housing situation is unworkable insofar as the fundamental contradiction of wanting HDBs to be an ever increasing asset and also an asset that expires on a lease exists. I do not think that we need something as drastic as the Land Acquisition Act to fix public housing, but public housing does need to be reworked.
On the Singaporean identity, I have heard and observed many of the things that you have described. I actually think this might be a pretty common sentiment from Singaporeans: “I love my country, but I dislike the people”. I am optimistic that as the country matures we might reform some sense of community along the way, and with it Singaporeans will come to like each other again. Because the alternative is that the country slowly but surely falls apart as all bonds of kinship decay till there is no Singapore to speak of any more.
Thanks for the support, I really appreciate it!
Articulate penned.