The following is posted as a comment by my brother-in-Christ, Peter Ng in response to Canadian Eric Brook’s letter.

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I suspect the (and many other Singaporeans) have confused gratitude with contentment and complacency. If we ever have the chance to have an objective and unloaded chat with any pro-opposition or anti-PAP Singaporean, I believe most, if not all, would be grateful to the nation builders (i.e. all who played a part in bringing Singapore to today’s state, including those whom PAP opposed and those who PAP opposed after PAP successfully got rid of their opposition status).

Even if we ask a hard-core opposition if there was something to be grateful to the PAP for, I believe most, if not all, would say yes. (Of course, there would be a need to make lots of qualifications, since the PAP that “grew the trees” is not exactly the same as the PAP today.)

However, does being grateful mean that we should be contented with our current situation even though we might be suffering? Does it mean that if I get second last in class, I should be grateful that I am not the last and not fight to improve my grades?

Imagine a person (let’s call him X) who has grown up with all the conveniences and luxuries of modern city life is captured by terrorists and subsequently rescued by local villagers in a very remote place without the comforts of city life.

Would he be grateful? I am sure.

Would he be contented with life in that remote village? Very difficult. It won’t be long before he starts finding his way back to where he is comfortable with.

A major difference between X and those of us in Singapore is that Singapore is our home where we were born and where we grew up. There is no home somewhere to go back to. In X’s case, the village was not his home and he had no right to ask them to change to suit him so he chose to leave.

In our case, do we have a right to say what kind of life I want? What kind of environment I want?

Apparently, some people think that I should not say anything because we are already doing well in many areas. These people have not understood what contentment is.

Contentment is satisfaction with one’s possessions, status, or situation. While some may derive that satisfaction from how how they compare to others, many others find no satisfaction in that comparison. Almost every one of us is better than some and worse than some at the same time so it really means nothing when somebody says we should be grateful and contented because we are better than some.

Satisfaction is based on an internal set of standards and that standard differs from person to person and group to group. While someone may be contented to have a polytechnic diploma, someone else may only be contented with a PhD and some may be contented merely to have visited a school.

If I want to have a degree and I only have an ‘O’ Level certificate, then I will not be satisfied until I get a degree. Telling me to be grateful that I had the chance to study for ten years is not going to help me. Telling me that I should be grateful because someone had to drop out of primary school in another country is going to make even less sense to me.

To insist on my being contented when the situation has not met my standards is to insist on complacency. Merriam-Webster says that complacency is self-satisfaction, especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.

This is the danger that PAP has been warning us about for all these years and which they are trying to avoid. The moment we foolishly think that we are ok because we are ahead of somebody else is the moment we begin our decline.

Just because we’re better than some does not mean that we’re doing ok. To be satisfied because someone else is doing worse and not see the many dangers and deficiencies in our present success is the essence of hubris. People with hubris don’t decline. They fall, sharply.

Singapore succeeded because there was always a strong sense of discontentment and fear of future discontentment which led to the agitation for change and improvement. Ask any of our leaders whether we have “arrived” and I believe you none of them will dare to say we have “arrived” because it implies we can stop growing and they will not even consider taking a rest, much less stopping.

PAP is very keenly aware of many dangers and deficiencies and it doesn’t want to be complacent nor does it want Singaporeans to be complacent. I suspect this is why we are always kept on our toes, with the prices of everything kept within affordability but never low enough for us to even consider slowing down, much less retire. CPF grows our money a little more than banks but less than the rate they increase the minimum sum so we are never allowed to be complacent.

Likewise, we don’t ever want our government to be complacent. No country is perfect. There is always room for improvement and the feedback on what to improve and how to improve can and should come from the people. When we voice our discontentment, it is feedback to the government on what to improve on. It has nothing to do with whether we are grateful or not.

However, many people respond to complaints and criticisms by saying that Singapore is doing well and that we should be grateful. By implication, they are saying that grateful people should not give negative feedback.

Let me tell you. Those who only sing the praises of PAP but hide the complaints of the people or tell the people not to complain are the real enemies of PAP and Singapore.

LKY once complained to a foreign press that Singaporeans are a bunch of complain kings. I thought that was a very bad response. First, complaining about your people to outsiders is a sign of a bad leader. We may admit the faults of our people publicly but criticism should be kept private. More importantly, did he ever find out why people are complaining?

Complaints are manifestations of the disconnect between expectations and delivery. The job of the leader is to bridge that disconnect. He can

     1) change the delivery to meet the expectation; or
     2) negotiate to bring the expectation toward the delivery

but most likely it will be a combination of both.

The message I seem to be getting from the leaders is “This is what I deliver. Take it or leave it but I assure you that it is good for Singapore.” If you choose me then you take whatever I give you.

If this is true, then our unique form of democracy is such that all eligible voters in Singapore in non-walkover constituencies have a moment of democracy when we vote for the leaders and we accept the consequences of our choice after that.

Besides the disconnect between the people’s expectations and the leaders’ delivery, there is also a gap between the people’s standards and the leaders’ standards. While we have done well in many aspects as a country, and the statistics look very good, it may not be as rosy for the man in the street because a beautiful scorecard for the country may not translate to practical benefits for the him. Incidentally I just found out that while Singapore’s budget surplus is among the top few in the world, the spending on its people is ranked second last, just above Myanmar.

People like Eric J. Brooks may be responding out of their own discontentment with their own situation back in home and thus only saw the parts of Singapore that are better than Canada but neglected many other positive parts of the Canadian life that Singaporeans envy.

Toronto is one of the world’s most advanced cities and has been consistently rated as one of the most livable cities in the world. Many people in the world look upon it as their dream destination and migrate there in droves.

Be grateful, Canadian.

Peter Ng

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To add on, when Eric Brook complains about the rubbish collectors’ strike, he should be glad that there is a real union out there looking after the welfare of the rubbish collectors even when I couldn’t say whether the strike was justifiable. In fact, Eric Brook should be glad if those rubbish collectors are his fellow Canadians and not foreigners. Face it, if wages of the rubbish collectors do not keep up with cost of living, then none of his fellow Canadians will take up those jobs and some of Eric Brook’s countrymen will be whining about too many foreign workers destroying his beautiful Canada.

As my old classmate Mun Chong said, Eric should keep abreast of current events before keeping forward to deliver a lecture not of his home turf – he should heed the proverb about going where angels fear to tread. We are indeed grateful to the old PAP so there is no need to ride the high horse all the way from Canada to Singapore. One should realize that the reasons behind the general unhappiness that has overwhelmed this contentment must be gigantic indeed!

So Eric Brooks, zip up. Or risk being called the thing we shoot at to zero our M-16s – the “Canadian Bull”. If anyone wonders why… that’s because my sergeant during my BMT called it the “kan ni na boo” (fxxk your mother).

New Smartphones:
Xinyun: Thoughts: Xperia go, tested.