I had heard about how insolent they were, how ignorant their questions were BUT I never expected it to be this bad. Here’s for those who haven’t watched.
Being a first time voter myself (if it’s not a walkover), I wanted very much to watch this supposed to be interesting dialogue. Greatly disappointed in fact, with 7 journalists in the panel (1 being slammed and slapped in the face), there were little constructive questions throughout the whole session. And in fact I think it was a shocking revelation for Mr MM, in terms of of the education system that is in place today. Undergrads, or grads bringing out a “fear” of voting against the PAP, when there’s absolutely no way you can tell Mr Lim Ah Kow, or Mr Tan Ah Beng voted against the PAP. (Thanks Matilda for bringing that up earlier on, I improvised the characters *lol*)There are many bloggers who have already touched on how unhappy they are with the choice of the panel, the misrepresentation of us post-1965ers (a new term I learnt while googling for the dialogue video!) in their immature questions, the constant interrupting of others who are speaking etc. I can’t even describe how disgraced I feel when CNA broadcast this to other countries, and what other people in these countries see of our generation. But I don’t want to dwell on the number of times I frowned, raised an eyebrow, shake my head, went “HUH?!” in front of my PC when I watched the dialogue TWICE.The only “fruits” from the dialogue was finding out about the 1955 elections, how PAP fought its way to a major presence in parliament from just 3 seats in parliament that year. Mr LKY touched on how opposition parties can gain more support and getting more qualified candidates to run for elections. Own experience (even if it’s in a different era). Respect!
The coffee session earlier with my girls about the political scene (yes my girls are intellectual ok?) was enlightening. Not with facts alone, with mature thoughts and thinking. At least the education did a minority good. ( Elitist!) True enough, Mr LKY did a lot for our country and I believe it’s impossible for Singapore to have done so well in such a short period of time without him. His name is reknown, it gives a face to this little red dot on the global map. I applaud him for what he has done so far. However I think we do need to look back on what has been built in this nation for the past 40 years and fine tune it further. Especially the education system. (Didn’t manage to touch much on this during my coffee session)
We are a KBE that relies so much on human resources/creative ideas to survive and I don’t think the education system is doing enough to achieve that. I think the dialogue is a (disappointing) reflection of how narrow-minded some of the higher educated individuals are today. Thinking out of the box, really pursuing their passion, to let their creativity flow, stepping up to the plate to do something different. I am not saying the education sucks, I am saying there should be less emphasis on just that paper, more focus on brainpower. Like Mr LKY at 82, his memory is not failing, his questioning is methodlogical, totally convinced why he is MM still. The best assets of our economy is us. I think there can still be betterment in our education system honestly, more fields of specialisation in our universities….
And of course the support for SOHOs, SMEs (which there is currently Spring to do that), there should be more attention given to this essential part of support for this generation.
I am still reading up the elections history even though I am still astounded by the vid. I think we still have so much more we can talk about. I am not apolitical definitely, but I am comfortable still. Don’t feel a need for a change currently not because I am ignorant, but because I cherish what I have today and I do care what happens in the future. But the times are moving faster, there will be more tests for governments of the world, not just Singapore. So may the best candidate win! 你有料你赢 lor！
