Saturday, August 07, 2010

National Day and Foreigners

Read this article.

My view
It is all right for Singapore to welcome foreigners, especially those who have the intention of making Singapore as their home for the long term. However, the local Singaporeans, especially the males, should not be placed at a severe disadvantage on employment and national service liability.

I have raised this issue many times during the past 25 years, and the problems remain unresolved. This is bad for the future of our society - for the local and the new citizens.

Our national pledge refer to "equality and justice". We should not have practices that go against these principles. They are principles (not aspirations) that concern the governance and fabric of our society.

To all local and new citizens and residents, Happy 45th National Day.
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3 comments:

Chee Ming said...

"Two legs good, four legs better"
"All animals are equal, some animals are more equal than the others"

We should know these a long time a long time ago.

August 07, 2010 11:53 AM
Spur said...

Hmmm, I wonder hows does Switzerland (or even Israel) tackles this issue of citizens being disadvantaged by compulsory NS?

For Swiss, I know that they have drastically reduced the length of full-time NS to now about 18 months or even less. I suspect their reservist liabilities also not so unreasonable or inflexible.

I know that foreigners living in Swiss are required to pay additional Defence Tax, as they enjoy the peace & security provided by Swiss NSMen. I'm not sure, but I suspect that their NS guys & reservists are given real privileges, that is tangible, sincere and useful, not like S'pore's $1.5K or $3K tax deduction (not even a rebate). I also suspect that their companies are fully compensated by the govt for any reservist downtime --- e.g. in addition to the govt footing the reservist's salary and pension payments, the company may also entitled to additional tax deductions etc.

Combined with strong labour laws & rights, it is not surprising that perhaps NS is not such a stigma in Swiss. I have also read & heard that their society & companies are genuinely proud & appreciative of their citizen-soldiers. Totally unlike the situation in SG.

August 07, 2010 3:06 PM
Vincent Sear said...

Israel and Switzerland have no foreign talent import policies. Switzerland has none of such policy at all, only the very wealthy or very desirably competent need to apply. There's no such thing as exemption from conscription if anyone wish to become Swiss except according laws, e.g. overaged, medical etc.

Israel has the Law of Return to encourage foreign Jews to return. All others need not apply. There's no such thing as exemption from exemption from conscripton too.

Switzerland also has a PR defence tax for PRs who're not citizens and therefore not conscripted.

August 09, 2010 7:52 PM

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