I'm Singaporean, but it's OK.
I enjoy the daily car rides to school with my dad. We talk about random things, about his business, about my university life, about society in general. Today we talked about Singaporeans and national pride (or lack thereof).My dad was relating to me how he went for a business lunch with a acquaintance, and for most of the two hours, this business partner was very critical of Singapore, the government, the PAP (ok the government IS the PAP), and its people. He went on for 2 hours about how bad this and this is, or how other countries were better in such and such. I don't know what exactly he said, but my dad said it was just really negative on the whole.
My dad is quite for the Singapore government, but it's not without reason. It's mainly because he's seen the rapid changes and improvements since we gained independence in 1965. That's not to say he follows the government blindly. He thinks there's room for improvement in terms of dealing with social issues (there always is), but you can't deny that the government has done a good job since gaining independence. I think it's something that we really take for granted. Which other country in the world can claim the rise from third world to first in a span of 30-40 years?
In the 1970s, there were complaints that Singaporeans had no manners and never queued for anything. National campaigns to get people to queue up resulted. Recently in parliament, a MP commented that we are 'a nation of queues', as if it was a bad thing. While the issue he was addressing was that queues in Singapore are too long, it would not have hurt if he recognized that its an improvement from the unruly days where order was non-existent. While it's good to be critical of our country, I think there also should be more acknowledgment of how far we've come. Our security, cleanliness, sound government, low corruption, and religious freedom- all these we take for granted.
I see more Singapore bashers than people who are genuinely proud to be Singaporean. I get very uncomfortable when my fellow Singaporean students talk Singapore down to exchange students, labelling it as boring, being just a 'little red dot'. What do they get out of it?
Just a side point, on the 'little red dot' issue, I don't understand how we just lap up that label. It was ex-Indonesian president Habibie who labeled us as that, trying to drive home the point that our size is insignificant. I keep hearing it in conversations with friends and even the media keeps using it in their columns. Why do we use a term that doesn't do us justice? We're small, but we make up for it in quality human capital.
Anyways, the point I'm trying to get at is, we're really doing ourselves a real disfavour if we keep talking our country down. We're all Singaporean citizens whether we like it or not, and complaining about our country to foreigners doesn't just make our country look bad, it makes us as citizens look worse. What good does complaining to non-Singaporeans do? Just as people are proud to say "I'm American", or "I'm Thai" or "I'm from England", I hope one day most people can say they're proud to be Singaporean.
I'm not saying we live in a perfect country, after all the world is imperfect. A little positivity wouldn't hurt.
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