Post No. 88: Rhetoric vs Reality...

Had a relatively busy week this week (plus I'm mildly sick due to the haze), so I will just post something short this time round...

Well, if I'm not wrong, it was reported in the news one or two weeks ago that PM Lee, together with Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan (Minister for Community Development, Youth & Sports) and the 12 new 1st term MPs (more commonly known as the P65 MPs or now, the "hip-hopping' MPs), held a dialogue session with more than 200 young Singaporeans.

And if I don't remember wrongly, at the dialogue session, PM Lee said something along these lines to the audience: "You must stay and make a difference. If you say you don't like something, you are fed up, let's go, I think that's a great pity. We would have lost somebody in whom we have put a lot of hope and I think Singapore will be worse off. But if you say this is not good, you are going to make a nuisance of yourself until you fix it, that's different. Then I think there is hope for Singapore. You stand your ground and make it better. What is it you are unhappy with, let's get that changed ...you must have the optimal degree of unhappiness - just right, and the conviction to make a change" (italics mine).

Hmm... I understand and appreciate what PM Lee was trying to say with the above. Neither am I saying that PM Lee wasn't sincere when he said what he said above. Yet, perhaps I'm being a little bit too cynical here, what have we seen really happening to people who "make a nuisance" of themselves in Singapore because they are unhappy with some aspects of the political system here and/or those who stood their ground trying to fix what they don't like in Singaporean politics?

I suppose that I can cite several examples of those who paid the price of making a nuisance of themselves but I don't think I will need to, considering that the names of these examples which I can cite are already quite (in)famous...

Perhaps we are supposed to "make a nuisance" of ourselves without really being a "nuisance" to the Government...?