Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Growing up as a criminal

Here is a letter from a Singaporean who migrated and became a Canadian citizen. But he is treated as a criminal for not doing national service.  A few years ago, I met the parent of a boy in a similar situation. The parents migrated to Australia, but the father had to accompany the son back to Singapore to serve national service - otherwise the son would be treated as a criminal.

8 comments:

Lye Khuen Way said...

I can empathise with those "caught out".
Even though I served my NS proudly, I have come to question the unfair treatment of our very own Singapore males vs non-Singapore males being courted to be PR then granted citizenship at the magic age of 35 !

yujuan said...

Don't bother to come back to the tiny red dot on the world's map.
No big deal, the world's an oyster, what is Singapore, man!

rex said...

Rex comments as follows,

Twenty or more years ago, this kind of letter would attact no grounds for sympathy towards Stanley Tow and the like.

Because in those days, singaporeans were treated more fairly, foreigners were never given an edge over locals. In those good old days, every male proudly serves NS, and indeed if you are 15 and parents send you off to study and you return, you HAVE to do NS or be charged in court. The USA also had the same system. When Muhammed Ali world champion boxer, refuse to be conscripted during the 60's, he was also jailed and treated a a criminal in USA courts. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG. IT IS THE LAW. If there is no such law, rich singapore parents will spent money for their children to escape overseas for some years, then come back years later when their child are grown up, and they escape NS altogether. Can you imagin if all the wealthy minister's son escape this way? The system is fair, because even if you are a minister's son, when you come back you will be jailed and treated as criminal if you don't serve NS. To enjoy the priveleges of being citizen you have to do your part.

Yes, this logic serves well 20 years ago. But today, it doesn't.

It is because the govrnment had created a host of new unfair conditions which ironically strips singapore citizens of privileges in many cases and transfers the privileges to foreigners. It is absurd, wrong, and downright immoral of the government to allow such policies to continue.

The entire fabric of singapore society is dissintegrating, because of the very wide impact of the foreigners first policy.

All the PAP government knows is to give motherhood statement speeches of national unity every now and then, and they are even asking us to help to integrate the foreingers who are overwhelming the entire society and fragmenting it beyond repair, to communities of north indians, prc's, pinoys, mynamar, srilanka, etc.

Singapore racial demographics are a time bomb for disunity, and yet the government is dangerously overhauling the entire scenario without careful thinking. Our entire society is in jeopardy, and yet PAP is still pretending not to be aware of the issues and bad policies perpetrated by their own stupidity and greed.

They have to pay for their crime against the sons of singapore somehow, some day.

rex

Vincent Sear said...

Either we have NS or we don't. As we have it, all whom are liable should serve. Abscondees are criminals under the law.

However, I think that only young men wishing to remain Singaporeans should serve. Those who wish to migrate elsewhere should be allowed to surrender their citizenships and go, perhaps paying a compund sum for past benefits of the state that they had enjoyed as kids. They should then be allowed to revisit Singapore on foreign passports as tourists, not criminals.

There's no point holding people back to serve NS when their hearts are no longer with the country. They'd grudgingly go through the motion and leave after ORD.

Vincent Sear said...

I'd like to share a real-life story. Many years ago when I was first sent to Bangkok for a business assignment, the accommodation arranged for me was a rent-by-week apartment.

The apartment manager was a Syrian who spoke perfect American English and conversational Thai. I learnt that his father was Syrian and his mother was American, who had since divorced. On a trip to Syria in his late teens to visit his paternal grandparents, he was detained and forced to enlist.

He just bear with it and went through the motion, thinking that after a couple of years, he could return to US without the embarrassment of a criminal record to live with, and the uncertainty of how long would the prison sentence be, such was Syria.

After serving and discharge, he got his rude shock. US revoked his passport and right of entry for having served in an "enemy" army.

He didn't want to stay in Syria. So, with whatever resources he could muster, he roamed around the world and that was how he took on the job in Thailand. Last I've heard, his mother was still appealing for him through various US departments and bureaucracies.

Its ME said...

Catch the spirit of patriotism is the real defender of Republic of Singapore.

Its ME said...

2011 citizens must catch the spirit of patrioticism to be the real defender of Singaporeans.

Anonymous said...

The last I heard, there are more than 10,000 Singaporean-born males like this case who are overseas and cannot come back to Singapore, if even as tourists, just because they refuse to serve NS.

And the PAP prefer to welcome FTs in and treating them better than Singapore-born males.

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