It’s a Mad Mad Plastic World

The problems that humans have brought to Mother Nature today, is nothing much but pollution. Talks regarding pollution were often said to be totally negative both to environment, and to the human race as if our environment collapsed, we would be in serious trouble. Yet, if one will to think further, pollution is totally inevitable, as a natural effect and as required by humans to advance.

Notably, plastic is one of the worse sources of pollution today together with emission of fumes. Both however, required the presence of oil to exist. The formation of oil however, is from dead organisms that are buried deep underground. I am sure everyone would know that a comet once hit the earth and that caused the end of the dinosaurs. In such a way, Mother Nature has paved the way for oil to exist.

Humans would then enter into the picture when they had discovered on how to tap oil as a natural resource, and that to fuel their technology advancements. One of the greatest invention humans brought about would be plastic.

Perhaps the greatest globalization would be the advancement of economy, when there is formation of cross border multinational corporations. They brought about immerse profits to their home nation, and employment benefits to some other parts of the world. However, they are also the primary source of pollution. Manufacturing almost could not be separated with pollution by fumes and wastes into the water bodies. Governments all around the world are trying to curb with the pollution problem caused by these manufacturing plants in their country. Somehow it does work to a certain extent, but pollution, especially plastic, is still around.

The greatest source of pollution by plastic is not from the factories, but is through consumption by humans. Everyday humans get in touch of disposable plastic such as bags and drink bottles. These items were once made of paper and glass respectively, but to cut cost they are thus made into plastic, though they seemed to be much sturdy. Plastic when consumed in such a way, often finds themselves in the landfills of the country instead of to the recycling plant. It is not possible for authorities to stop a housewife from throwing a plastic bag that used to contain food she had just brought back home, nor it is possible to track every single teen with a coke bottle and expect them to throw into the big recycle bins all around the country.

In Singapore the government has much started campaigns to help the environment, particularly the “3R” that we as students living in Singapore get to know from excursions during primary school days, which is Recycle, Reuse and Reduce¹. The next step, recycle bins were placed all over the country, to enable people to segregate and deposit items for recycling². Last but not least the government started this campaign to go on door to door to collect items for recycling by giving out huge plastic bags to residents for the program. In my perspective, both such programs are quite a failure. The comfort of what Singaporeans have at home, which is a rubbish chute in homes or even for newer flats just beside the lift, would advocate them to just throw the waste into the chute, instead of going further distance to the recycling station. Ironically, even when committing them to collect from residents, the campaign wasn’t a success at all; in fact it lasted for quite a while before it died out. Even more amusing is that residents made use of the huge plastic bags for spring cleaning, thus the plastic bag itself becomes a pollution problem.

In conclusion, a problem with pollution doesn’t just lie with factories giving out toxic fumes or waste to pollute the environment, they are in fact easier to curb by just enacting laws and regulations. It is only at a more micro level that pollution would cause a serious problem, and plague our landfills with non-biodegradable plastic.

Citations

1. Tips on 3R, National Environment Agency (http://app.nea.gov.sg/cms/htdocs/article.asp?pid=1463)

2. Location of Recycling bins, National Environment Agency (http://www.nea.gov.sg/cms/rcd/locations/map.html)

The Negativity of Technology

I believe most people would have watched the famous “Terminator” series of movies. For the benefit of those that didn’t, the plot exaggerates the negative effects of what technology can bring to mankind. However in a much lower degree, technology does have its negative implications.

Today, our lives would not be separated with technology, no part of our daily lives would be completed without technology, take a student for example, doing assignments, travelling to school on time, easy access to resources, none of which would not be done without engineering of public transport and the personal computer, they are just common things that we would do in our daily lives, and it is technology’s integration into our lives that made us simply forget about its We all know about technology brings about benefits, in fact the word has been always associated with good, without anyone questioning. However it does bring about certain disadvantages to societies

A computer brings about many benefits, one would use it for work or entertainment, regardless of age and nationality, people would communicate online at chat rooms, increasingly blurring the definition of distance. However this was the root of disconnection between family members. Parents would work in the day, and when returned, could not get a chance to communicate with their children as they often indulge themselves in chat rooms. Not only that, dangers at internet chat rooms and the eventual meeting with strangers would lead to the creation of young victims of sexual assaults. When we look at some of the guidelines by the creator of the MSN Messenger, which is popular today, the dangers that appeared are suggested by the guidelines when chatting online¹

Teenagers that indulged in online computer games would often get reality and cyber world mixed up. They would associate themselves with the identity that is portrayed in the games, however the fact that the cyber world is very unlike the real world, they would often find themselves in trouble.

On a larger picture, the economy of the day too relied heavily on technology. Every financial tool that the common people can access, be it ATM or internet banking, are all made possible with technology. Undeniably the stock exchange of every country would constitute the liquidity of the country’s economy as stock exchanges all over the world, with the aid of fast communication technology is able to communicate with each other that economies of the world intertwined and depended on one another for survival. Stock market crashes that happened in 1987 and the subprime mortgage crisis now are the results of an interlinked global economy.

The most devastating aspect that technology would bring to the global society is nothing but war. As we have known war would sprout economic instability, which in turn would mean that one country’s war would become every country’s problem. Yet technology has created the possibilities of war with just a push of a button previously², without the need to mobilize troops. As the world gets advances and globalised, it is not surprising that the flames of war would be easily lit just like what was described of the world before the Great War as a burning cauldron.

In conclusion, it is undeniable that we could no longer carry on our lives without the aid of technology; it has since been integrated into our lives and seemed to become organic. We should however, always beware about what negative aspects technology can bring about to our lives.

Citations

1. Safety Tips For Chat Rooms. Microsoft Corporation. (http://www.microsoft.com/protect/family/activities/chatrooms.mspx)
2. Video on Titan II Missile Silo Museum. History Channel – Lost Worlds: Secret A Bomb Factories (http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/tv_guide/full_details/World_history/programme_457.php)

The Changing Definition of Warfare

In the study of sociology, poverty is perhaps the cause of many conflicts and bloodsheds, wars, revolution were mostly related to the poverty of the people. As the world advances, people started to look at how to combat poverty in a serious tone. International organizations such as Red Cross set up to help disaster struck places as well as down to the lower levels we can see local governments such as in Singapore, institutions such as Chinese Development Assistance Council.¹ However poverty’s weapon on mankind is now not wars, but through epidemics. Yet when it comes to disputes between nations, people could not put down their differences to resolve their problems.

The most recent cases of epidemics are that of the Bird Flu and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). In both cases we have seen a combined effort for mankind to tackle and eliminate the source and containing the disease. Affected countries with bird flu, took steps to collaborate with one another to exchange knowledge, such as the Programme between Singapore and Indonesia.² The video Professor Amir shown us, narrated how the World Health Organization (WHO) came up with the identity for SARS via rallying the assistance of various scientists all over the world to come up with a combined effort. Such recent efforts in combating epidemics showed that globalization, which in fact enables the spread of information and vast extensive communication networks, becomes the weapon to strike back at the epidemic. The speed at which SARS was contained was done virtually in weeks, compared to what it is in the past; the Black Death lasted for three years.³ In this case mankind today possibly has all the resources to counter any threats by an epidemic.

What sparkled off such epidemics such as SARS was due to the unsanitary condition in which livestock and humans lived in. living side by side with livestock, and the inability of the authorities to deal with them due to economical reasons, provided a chance for the SARS virus to develop into an epidemic. In other words, poverty was the indirect cause of modern epidemics.

Ironically, faced with such a great enemy that will take lives in thousands, mankind could cooperate and deal with the disease holistically, however when it comes to conflicts between man, things drags on for years without any solution. The most recent, yet seemed to be never ending was US’s war on terrorism. This war has been raging for 7 years, yet it doesn’t seemed to be stopping, although things have quieted down a bit but we can still hear the word “terrorism” more frequently than what it is prior the twin towers fell. Differences between the terrorists and counter-terrorists, unlike combating against an epidemic, could not be resolved. However unlike an epidemic, which requires time and effort to find a cure, the reasons for warfare was laid down clearly, yet mankind could not reach an agreement.

If there is a World Health Organization, why there isn’t a similar organization where it works the same to combat any possible spark of war? Today we can see that poverty no longer is a cause of warfare and conflicts, as it is but the reason why people become poorer today. Warfare thus becomes more difficult to solve when reasons behind them are complicated by politics and not poverty.

Citations

1. About Us. Chinese Development Assistance Council. (http://www.cdac.org.sg/eng/about_us/about_us.htm)
2. AVA’s Collaboration Programme for Bird Flu Control in Kepri. Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore. (http://www.crisis.gov.sg/NR/rdonlyres/0EE9A6DD-6ADF-40D5-A489-33926422E464/0/CollaborationProg.pdf)
3. History – Middle Ages – Black Death. British Broadcast. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml)

The Things We Missed Out In City Planning

Urbanization perhaps is a positive thing to do, to draw up a city so that the government can effectively allocate the places correctly for the development of the Nation, sometimes however, when over indulging in slicing up the city, the government forgot to touch up what’s done previously

Since Independence in 1965, one of the government’s policies was to achieve economy stability for this young nation. Naturally, Singapore will have to be thrown onto the drawing board to be drawn up and allocated places for certain activities, just like Sir Stanford Raffles work in the olden days¹. Some of the places became industrial areas of what we seen today, Jurong ,Sungi Kadut, Woodlands, as well as the newer Ubi area which holds much of the light industries and offices. In the recent years there has been a new “breed” of industries popping up in Singapore, first we have the Science Parks from 1980s², as well as recent years, in which perhaps most people have not heard about is the establishment of Biopolis and Fusionpolis.³

Somehow things are going good, the path towards a fully knowledge based economy was right with the Science Parks, and now Biopolis and Fusionpolis, there was also the idea of One North, that integrates living together into an industrial park.⁴ So it looks nice on these places, what about places that contributed to the economy initially and brought Singapore to what it is today?⁵

The inaccessibility of Industrial Areas

Singapore today still has a sizeable manufacturing industry, based on the stats; Singapore has a total investment of 16,083 million dollars in local manufacturing industries by investors.⁶ However, we didn’t see any developments of such industrial areas to a more high tech area like what One-North is. Based on personal experience, as I have been a temporary employee at Science Park 2, transportation services such as bustops are abundant; in fact there is even a transitlink bus service that travels within the Science Park⁷, suitable for the working population for their daily commute. An industrial area however, does not have such luxury, particularly in Sungei Kadut, one has to drop off the bus and walk all the way into their workplace. If a bus service can be catered for Science park, why can’t a bus service be catered for service for Sungei Kadut industrial area? For readers that don’t know where is Sungei Kadut, it is the large industrial place that you see out of the window in the MRT on your way from Yew Tee to Kranji. Perhaps it is not possible for that to happen, or more likely we have focus too much on the infrastructure of new industries, or is it that it was purposely left behind? Did we forget about the welfare of the people that work at these industrial areas?

The View towards Foreign Construction Laborers

The very recent issue of the building of a dormitory within Serangoon Gardens, in which residents were concerned about security as there will be construction laborers, however turns out to be that the government is intending to house manufacturing workers. This sort of appeased the residents as they assume that manufacturing workers would be females and less “aggressive”.⁸ the concern about construction worker’s committing crime was actually quite groundless. The police force main concern currently does not include them at all.⁹ This incident not only showcased the discrimination of Singaporeans towards foreign construction laborers, but also the fact that Singaporeans still see them as not part of the ever globalised Singapore society. However there are yet many dormitories that housed them but just that they are not as glamorously showcased in news and reports, like what the One-North has. I am sure one wouldn’t notice a dorm for construction workers when it was actually built like a condo by the government. There was one such at Bukit Batok, just beside the bus bay. In my perspective the general Singaporean public had some discrimination that all foreign construction workers are aggressive and will resort to crime whenever they have the chance, as well as the lack of media coverage that they had actually been living amongst us for a very long time. It is as if they are not part of us. On the other hand, the Fusionpolis, Biopolis and One-North concept was so much so covered by the media, to the extent that buses carrying employees of such hubs to popular lunch locations, introduced them to the public that they existed in the Singaporean society, that is they are foreigners but are part of us. Did we forget to include them into our society?

In my perspective, in the effective planning of the city, the focus would not just be on what is in trend at the moment; it is but a holistic approach to plan and to improve things at the same time. When somebody is left behind, social problems and issues would surface. In the issue regarding construction workers for example, it is clear that Singaporeans could not accept them at all; they would at the moment, still considered outside of this urban city’s society.

Citations

1. Raffles Town Plan – Ministry Of Education Singapore (http://www1.moe.edu.sg/learn@/singaporerivertrail/sec/G041_Dunman_Sec/raffles_town_plan.htm)

2. Our History, 1980s – Economic Development Board, Singapore (http://www.sedb.com/edb/sg/en_uk/index/about_us/our_history/the_1980s.html)

3. Singapore Investment News 2003 on the establishment of Fusionpolis – Economic Development Board, Singapore (http://www.sedb.com/edb/sg/en_uk/index/news_room/publications/singapore_investment03/singapore_investment6/fusionpolis_where.html)

4. One-North introduction, JTC Corporation (http://www.one-north.sg/aboutus_introduction.aspx)

5. Our History, 1960s – Economic Development Board, Singapore (http://www.sedb.com/edb/sg/en_uk/index/about_us/our_history/the_1960s.html)

6. Statistics Table on Manufacturing, Singapore Page 13 – Singapore Statistics Board (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos/statsT-manufacturing.pdf)

7. Bus Enquiry – Transitlink, Singapore (http://www.transitlink.com.sg/)

8. MP Meets Serangoon Gardens residents on dormitory decision – Yahoo! Singapore News (http://sg.news.yahoo.com/cna/20081005/tap-263-mp-meets-serangoon-gardens-resid-231650b.html)

9. Key Crime Concerns – Singapore Police Force (http://www.spf.gov.sg/stats/statsmidyr2008_keycrime.htm)

Singapore Identity – A Crisis or Our History in Remaking?

Identity is perhaps one of the most talked about topic today in Singapore. Recent years we have seen the influx of foreign workers, professionals and even students. Everywhere you go, there are bound to meet someone that is of foreign descent. Personally I cannot figure out who is who nowadays until the person speaks. They have become so integrated within the society that I the line between Singaporeans and Foreigners are totally blurred today. Then again if one will to think properly, Singapore’s very own demography, which the Government calls the 4 main races, are actually not indigenous people, the Chinese, in particular, has ancestors that came from china to work in Singapore during pre-colonial times. Fast forwarding the sands of time to now, isn’t the influx of foreign workers somewhat similar to that of in the past? Instead of Chinese, Malay and Indians its people from China, Bangladesh we often talked about today. Here I have to stress that the Chinese that Singaporeans talked about are Chinese that just came from China and has a distinctive accent and looks. In my perspective, the eventual outcome of it, is just history repeating itself, in a different context and timeframe.

Often, we talked about retrieving back the Singaporean Identity and its importance, quite obviously so that Singaporeans would stay united and live in Singapore – to think it’s a place they belong. Singlish, being “kiasu” and “kiasi” are all typical traits of Singaporeans. In my perspective, the people of Singapore can’t do anything except being continuing these traits. It is only the Government that can promote the Singaporean Identity by giving a green light for it; however what they are doing, I felt that it has a negative side to its positive intention

Singapore Identity – was it really a real concern by Singaporeans?

The highly globalised society as discussed in the earlier paragraph, makes the Singaporean identity seemed to be shrinking, on addition to the political apathy of Singaporeans, Singaporeans are just people that lived here for a long time, but works at the same job as the foreigner. Add on years to the stay of the foreigner, there will be simply no difference him and Singaporean that is brought up in Singapore.

Will the eradicating or perhaps the control of foreign workers help in highlighting the Singaporean identity? I would say it’s a no. if Singaporeans are majority consisted of middle class, which the government aims to have, as well as working class with small amount of people in the rich, there would still be no Singaporean identity being created at the expense of foreign workers, due to the fact that both the working and middle class aspires to advance to further in social ladder. All they care about will be to earn money, who would care about building a common identity? In fact most of the time what we heard about the complains of working class Singaporeans, are that the foreigners that willing to accept lower wages gets their job, and not the issue about that they eradicate Singaporean Identity¹

Singapore however, cannot do with foreign talents, as it’s a fact that we need them to bring in technology as well as investment. It is but the means of Singapore’s economical success since the Colonial days, the very reason why Raffles stepped into Singapore. Not only that, the manual labour market of Singapore consists of mainly foreigners, without them our infrastructure will never grow. It is a place where people would come from everywhere of the world and do so still today.

Low birthrate might just be another problem that Singapore faces now, based on the information given at CIA world fact book, Singapore’s infant mortality rate is at world lowest², ironically birthrate is also at top ten lowest³. Thus it was a solid fact that the low birth rate was easily defined as Singaporeans refused to conceive. In my perspective, the Singaporean identity could best be accomplished “passively” upon one active thing Singaporeans will to do. That I would mean Singaporeans gearing up for a higher birthrate, at the same time constitutes the Singaporean Identity by increasing the amount of Singaporeans. I believe it is however the best way that Singapore can call itself “Singapore”

 

Speak English Good English Movement

Not only we need to speak English, but the Government wants us to speak Good English. The Government defines it as “encourage Singaporeans to speak grammatically correct English that is universally understood” as well as “Speak in Standard English so as to be understood by all English speakers in this globalised and highly-interconnected world.”⁴ That is of course out of good intention, as if the world learns English, the command of good English will Singaporeans an edge over others. Now to think deeper into it, what makes up Singlish? Is it the usage of the “leh” “lah” “loh” in our conversations? I would think it’s more than that. For example, if you shout “Mata! Mata!” in the streets, across all races, they will understand it as “police” Personally I belonged to hokkien dialect group, when I asked my parents what’s police in hokkien, they said its “Mata”. Only until I grown up then I realised that “mata” is actually a Malay word and not a hokkien word, it is only the hokkien in Singapore that defines mata as hokkien, as my mum who went to the Fujian province for a holiday years back told me they don’t understand her at all. Therefore in my perspective, the way we integrated Malay words into our dialect, with a twist of Chinese and English, as well as ending with “leh” “lah” and “loh”, the end product would be more correctly and affectionately defined as English. Look at it this way, isn’t the integration of the various language, reflects the racial harmony within Singapore? That even language integrates with each other and forms a new local language – singlish.

Singlish as a another language

The Singapore education system teaches English as its main language, and the student can take up mother tongue as a 2^nd language. Increasingly students are taking up a third language, like my classmates, one of which is taking Chinese Language and the other, French. Given the fact that singlish is a fusion of the many local languages, isn’t that our society can accept Singlish as a form of language that has its origin from Singapore? Perhaps the government, promotes the speaking of good English should remind Singaporeans that it’s ok to keep Singlish, as long as one can switch to Proper English when in need.

In conclusion, the discussion about Singaporean identity is but a knotty one. We cannot do without foreign workers yet we cannot let our identity fade away. What if we will to accept the globalised society of Singapore today as a Singapore identity and to accept Singlish? Will it be just the creation of a brand new Singapore identity? – The remaking of Singapore’s immigrant history

 

Citations

1. Chua Beng Huat & Tan Joo Ean, Singapore: Where the New Middle Class Sets The Standard (Pg 142 lines 11-12)
2. CIA World Fact Book, World Infant Mortality Rate (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html)
3. CIA World Fact Book, World Birth Rate (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2054rank.html)
4. About Speak Good English Movement (http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/site/about-the-movement/index.php)

Technology and Economy – Key Ingredient of Democracy

Wars, despots and tyrants over the ages had brought about bloodshed and sufferings, which in turn activates the notion that the strength of ruling the country must be given to the people, this was the basis of the French Revolution and it sparked off a series of government changes throughout the world. Today democracy is the mainstream government style, and it’s here to stay, simply because bloodshed that generated from this form of government, compared to other forms of governmental style is low. However is it true that democracy enables a government to run its country, or is it other factors? In the following paragraphs I shall discuss on the two logical factors that enable a government to function, to stay in power, and it has got nothing to do with democracy.

Technology

Across all forms of government, history has proved that the country with the highest technological advancement will get to rule over and decide policies that would affect the world. After the Industrial Revolution, the Great War has seen the first spark of technological aid towards warfare; this was given by the invention of the tank by Great Britain¹ that changes land war fare totally. Subsequently World War 2 saw Germany’s success at the European Theatre with their Panther Tanks, as well as Soviet’s victory, which is built on the general success of the T-34 tanks². Clearly we have seen that technology has brought about success for governments to remain in power in yesteryears. One might argued that only dictatorship would step up on weapons development, but that isn’t really true. Today technology has advanced rapidly and with the end of World War 2 comes the invention of nuclear fission³, which allows superpowers to create weapons of mass destruction. On a smaller scale the series Future Weapons made by discovery channel⁴ showcased advanced technological advancement in war industries that makes what we know during our National Service seemed too little. It is however no coincidence that all superpowers are democratic countries, US, UK, France, Russia. Thus there is a question whether democracy enables them to stay in power, or is it their technological advancement in weaponry that instills fears for a success rule that nobody dares to challenge the system?

Economy

The fear of revolution is what all incumbent politicians are afraid of; it is the only thing that will relinquish them of their powers prematurely. French Revolution, American Civil War and even Hitler tried to make use of a putsch to seize power and rally support. The basis of revolution would always be social inequalities as poverty would advocate people to rise up against their government. The Mob will not consider what or who will take over as long as they are relieved from hunger. So what has democracy has got to do with it? It would make sense to say that superpowers, just nice they are democratic, and just nice their economy is good, that one will be miss the point and attribute the success of the economy to be the work of a democratic government. There is no reason why a non democratic government would not do well, look at china today, everyone is flocking to china to invest and get on their “economic train”⁵. However they are not at all democratic but communist⁶. Looking at the United States today, the anti-war sentiments are raging for years due to the fact that there not only many Americans died in the war, but also huge amount of funds required sustaining the war effort, hitting 200 billion USD by 2005⁷ The recent subprime mortgage crisis further showed that United States had most people that are unable to pay off their houses that they resort to loans to purchase their property. It certainly showed that the war on terror that has raged for seven years ridded one terror yet brought about another.

He who controls technology and the economy would stand a higher chance to control the people and impose legitimacy on their rule. It is a fact that has been shown in superpower nations clearly, and at the same time they are the great advocators of democracy. However both technology and economy as we have seen rates the effectiveness of these democratic governments, France and United Kingdom was never stronger than the States, in terms of technological advancement (They don’t have a Lockheed Martin to generate 2 billion dollar planes⁹). Losing either of this would serious incapable the ruling power as shown in the economical crisis the US is facing right now. In my perspective, democracy doesn’t mean its superior, what’s important is to have advanced technology and a great economy.

– Kevin Tan, HS103 T5

Citations

1. Article on Tank – MSN Encarta Encyclopedia                                                                                          (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761574601/tank.html)
2. German Panther Tank – History @ About.com                                                                   (http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/vehiclesarmor/p/panther.htm)
3. The Manhattan Project – Atomic Museum                                                                      (http://www.atomicmuseum.com/Tour/manhattanproject.cfm)
4. Future Weapons Series – Discovery Channel (http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/future-weapons/future-weapons.html)
5. Investment in China
   (http://www.fdi.gov.cn/pub/FDI_EN/Economy/Investment%20Environment/Macro-economic%20Indices/default.htm)
6. China – CIA World Fact Book (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html#Govt)
7. The rising Tab For US War Effort (http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1217/p01s01-usmi.html)
8. Subprime Mortgage Crisis – US Economy @ About.com                                                                (http://useconomy.about.com/od/economicindicators/tp/Subprime-Mortgage-Primer.htm)
9. B-2 Spirit – Air Force Link (http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=82)

War And Terror – Nationalism as Contrasting Tool for “Better” Government Systems

The “in” thing in government today would be that of democratic one, I used the word “in” basically is due to the fact that it’s the most widely accepted form of government today or perhaps its due to the United States as the leading superpower that somewhat legitimized democracy as the one and only most truthful government system. Undeniably history has seen the disastrous effects of Nationalism, notably National Socialist Germany. To a very large extent a country ruled by the ideology of Nationalism would naturally wage war sooner or later at their enemies, but like a coin, everything has its flip side, where by much people would don’t bother to look at. Eventually they forgot the other side of the coin. I would say it is exactly what the democratic world wishes the people to do – Forget about everything else, embrace democracy. It is also however natural for the Self to overlook and got themselves into a narrow mindedness amongst the social institution they are in. In the paragraphs that follow, by just the economy and social administration of National Socialist Germany we can see that there is not much difference between Nationalism and Democracy, without the 3 letter word of W A R.

Definition of Nationalism

 “loyalty and devotion to a nation ; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups”  (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary¹)

Notice that there is no avocation of war within the definition.

Background

With the end of the Great War Germany plunged into a economy disaster, with high inflation as as much as 6 million unemployed by 1933, as well as the Reparations enforced by the Versailles Treaty, Germany was in the verge of collapse, The people were looking for someone to take over and change the situation, it is however going to lie on the National Socialists. (History Learning Site – Weimar Republic and The Great Depression²)

Revival of Economy

Particularly the most important issue was to solve the high unemployment rate of the country, these measures came in the form of public work schemes, pushing the Germans into various industries, establishment of new factories such as the Volkswagen Company, a car manufacturing company that still exists today, and also towards the start of the war, War industries also served a means to cease unemployment (History Learning Site – The Nazis And The German Economy³). One might argued that although the revival of economy served the ultimate aim to wage a war, but that doesn’t imply that the term Nationalism must be associated with that, this is in fact not even stated in the definition of Nationalism. What if war was not started by Nazis?  Look at Singapore in its early days when the PAP government fought to build up the economy; we are not considered Nationalists, the German National Socialists were, however it’s the same thing we have been through, the only difference being they waged war and killed millions, and in my perspective that doesn’t warrant a stamp of evil on Nationalism, if not a lot of the world’s political leaders would be placed on trial like criminals for improving their country’s economy

 

The Great Metropolitan City

The National Socialist might have sworn to gear up for war as soon as possible on its enemies, however cast aside that we cannot deny that they have plans to build Germany into a great city just like what the United States did. The plan was to build the nation into a modern city forged out of inspirations of Roman architecture, as well as famous building such as Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel  but much larger in scale. Paths to link will be on top and below will have roads only for vehicles much like today’s tunnel system we see on the move. However war as taken the country into another direction and the rebuilding of the country was never accomplished. It is a fact that governments will try to improve the lives of the people, and so do the Nazis when they are in power, one might say that there are no evidence left today to show what they have really done, however today Germany has in fact underground foundations of the roads that are built by the Nazis. (History Channel – Cities of The Underworld – Hitler’s Underground Lair⁴). Here it comes to the point again that, the people who advocated nationalism did something to improve the social lives of its people, but was convicted due to the starting World War 2.

Nationalism as being wrongly defined

Sad to say the word Nationalism has been strongly associated with war and terror today. However of one were to think deeper, what if Hitler was a Democratic? Will there be any differences it might make today? I would strongly think it’s an affirmative. Waging a war is not decided by government system but by the people leading the government. Democracy can wage war, look at the United States, they are waging war on another country, however to make it sound nicer they legitimized it by saying it’s a War on Terror. In my conclusion, although Nationalism today has of little importance whether it wages war or not, and seemed to have no reason for the term to exist since its branded totally harmful, we hear the term now and then, I would say that the continual condemnation of Nationalism is a contrasting effect for democratic governments of today to show people, and to legitimize any form of war should they will, or happen to wage one.  – Kevin Tan, HS103 Tutorial Group T5

 

 

 

 

 

References

1. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nationalism
2. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/weimar_depression_1929.htm
3. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazis_and_the_german_economy.htm
4. http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=mini_home&mini_id=53900

Crime And Globalization – Extradition Treaties – “Paper Tiger”

As we all know, today’s crimes no longer were just contained within the borders of the criminal’s country. The massive movement of people from country to country in search of work, works like a medium that spreads the seeds of crime to a foreign country like how a virus would spread from a human to another. Often we see people going to work in neighborhood countries, just like how Malaysians crossing the border to come to Singapore to work. Due to technological advancement, particularly in this century, Borders are increasingly getting blurred as people would just cross the border in the day, and return back to their country at night. However there is still a need to regulate and enforce justice. This is when extradition treaties come into play. Although its usefulness leaves much to desire. 

Extradition Treaties Are Just Not Extensive Enough

Due to the advancement of technology, people can now fly cheaply to another country. Any criminal can just leave the country in time and escape to a country that has no extradition treaties with his country, and it would mean that the criminal would go scot free. Yet this problem could be easily solved via the signing of treaties, however this effort was not put into practice at all, many countries due to differences, didn’t have any extradition treaties with specific nations. Particularly the United States, which has no extradition treaty with country like China. (United Nations Crime And Justice Information Network¹) So why does this happen? Needless to say the differences between US and China, like the Taiwanese Independence issue, prevents any sort of such treaties to be signed.

Extradition Treaties are full of loopholes

Just last month, Thailand’s ex Prime Minister Thaskin Shinawatra and his wife jumped bail and fled to Britain, the Thai authorities were unable to extradite him back due to special rules in the extradition treaty. Under Article 4 of the extradition  treaty signed between Thailand and Britain, extradition will not be granted if the person is still under trial back in Thailand. (Thailand-United Kingdom Extradition Treaty²)Thaskin was on trial in Thailand, yet granted bail to go for the Olympics, it was a mistake of the Thai authorities, also a loophole in the treaty

 

 

The European Arrest Warrant – An example to follow?

After the European Union was formed, The establishment of the European Arrest Warrant allows countries in the EU to cut off any formalities and extradition procedures, not only it shortens the time the crime is committed and criminal arrested, on the other hand it discourage any potential criminals. (Interpol Legal Fact Sheet³) So was it useful in any ways? The answer is yes. Based on the research project budgeted by the European Commission in 2004, crimes of all sorts across member states has been reduced significantly. (The Burden Of Crime In The EU by The European Commission⁴)

In my perspective, extradition treaties between countries are still lacking behind, and criminals just need any country to flee to. If political tussles and differences won’t stop between countries, then I would say that extradition treaties might as well don’t exist. The European Arrest Warrant however, serves well in the function. However one might ask, that cooperation between countries, must there be a union amongst many nations?  The answer however would still be closely related to gains and agendas of nations, crime is never one of the main starting points.

 

Citations
1. http://www.uncjin.org/Laws/extradit/usa.pdf

2. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/50/39371698.pdf

3. http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/LegalMaterials/FactSheets/FS11.asp

4.http://www.europeansafetyobservatory.eu/downloads/EUICS_The%20Burden%20of%20Crime%20in%20the%20EU.pdf

Women And The Family – Are Men’s Roles Really Irreplaceable?

As we have all seen, the roles of women in the society has since been increased ever since the Industrial Revolution of early 19^th century, women had gradually replaced men to work in the industries, replacing the roles of men. However there are other kinds of roles that women had participated in the course of time, that actually considered to be irreplaceable by women.

Night Witches
During World War 2, women not only got themselves into the war industries and produce weapons and equipment for the country, In Russia, women went into military service, and served as pilots in the Russian Air force. They achieved good records and thus got themselves a nickname by the Germans, the Nachthexen. “Nacht” would mean Night and “Hexen” would meant Witch, hence translated as Nightwitch. The Germans would name them this way is due to the skills of the female Russian pilots, the strike in the cover of darkness and The German flaks were unable to shoot them down, hence like witches, unable to be killed.  In my perspective, women may take leads in the military today, however to a certain extent they have not seen war, and the in the case of Russian Night Witches, they are the ones that really destroyed the myth that women are unable to fight with the country’s army, fully advocates the positive roles of women in society (The Night Witches – Russian Combat Pilots Of World War 2¹)

Legacy of Carly Fiorina
Business geeks won’t be unfamiliar with the name Carly Fiorina, as the CEO of the computer giant Hewlett Packard from 1999 to 2005. We might see many women holding managerial positions in the business world, but few had done so much like Carly Fiorina. Traditionally Men will be seen as more “gutsy” and decisive, however Carly Fiorina had done the same as well to eliminate this myth. She changed the general direction of Hewlett Packard to allow the company to take up the track of innovation with the new slogan “HP – invent” However most significant was the acquisition of Compaq Computer in 2002. Not only it showed that a women like Fiorina could be decisive like men, it also break the thinking that women are easily swayed by others, this was due to the fact that despite controversies against the acquisition, Fiorina went ahead with the plan. Although it was not a wise decision in the end, and led to the eventual termination of Fiorina’s CEO position in 2005, Her Legacy clearly showed that a women can excel in the business world, be decisive, and as firm as men.  ( The Rise & Fall Of Carly Fiorina, CBS News²)

Although women had been in the working force in factories in the past and as white collar office dwellers today, one can easily argue that the movement was due to the increased level of education given to women as society gradually become more open minded, and that it is nothing surprising that a women whom had a university degree would work in as a white collar, and that women may work in roles that are considered possible to be replaced by them, however from what we see women can actually take over roles that are deemed impossible to be performed by them, even since World War 2 we have examples of such feat, therefore the increasing importance of women I would say will be here to stay and it will gradually create challenges upon other supreme roles of men.

Citations
1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A5849076
2.http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/09/scitech/pcanswer/main672809.shtml

Work and Trade – The Existence of Craftsmanship Today

Capitalism exist today primary today amongst most countries, least the few that is still of communism nature such as North Korea. Notably Capitalism’s main feature is that it fully eradicated the importance of craftsmanship and focused on division of labour. This totally changes how people think they can earn a living, long gone the days where by a person would intern under a specific master at a certain skill and process all of his skills in matters of years, under a capitalistic economy, one could just step out of their house and work as a worker – on job training will be provided as they will be just focusing on a single part of a gigantic assembly line of a single product. It seemed like all of today’s modern products are manufactured under division of labour, however Craftsmanship still exist today, which I would say it exists in 2 forms

Firstly I consider professionals as craftsman. One might argued that professionals such as doctors, engineers and lawyers would definitely need to contain all of their field’s knowledge within them, as its logic that we can’t have multiple lawyers representing a single client in a courtroom and few doctors at the operating theatre taking turns to hold the knife. The meaning of the word “Craft” would be “an art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill” (dictionary.com¹) and naturally “craftsman” would meant the person possessing the skill. In this sense, a doctor would be a craftsman skilled in the art of healing, and the lawyer would be a skilled with the laws of a particular country and debate. Thus craftsman actually existed today in the world where capitalism reigns supreme. Just like the olden days, Craftsman of today earn high wages, for example a doctor would earn around $4000 local currency in Singapore (CNN Asiaweek, 2000²). This is considered high as the average income of Singaporean household in 2007 is around $6000 in local currency (Singapore Department Of Statistics, 2007³) thus with a doctor as a family member, I would say that the average income would certainly hit well over $7000 at least depending on the number of active working adults living under the same roof. Capitalism may erode general public as craftsman, however being a craftsman today enjoys real high standard of living with the amount of salary they are drawing per month.  In my perspective, the identity of today’s craftsman would be considered as elites like in the Colonial Days.

So what about the rest of the people that are unable to become professionals? Due to education and poverty, they are unable to rose and become professionals. Are they doomed to be workers under the capitalist for eternality? I would say no. There is yet another type of workers that are more advanced in class than of their counterparts that we see today in factories. I am sure the brand Ferrari is not foreign to everyone. For the ones that had been living  under in a well, Ferrari is the brand name of one of the world’s most sought after and expensive luxury automobiles in the world. The reason behind the price tag is due to the elaborated assembly line that it has. Here Craftsmanship comes into the picture, as the workers manually assemble the vehicle, from the body of the vehicle to the leather sewn to make the seats of the interior. Yes it is still division of labour as we can see from here, as workers are doing the same job everyday all the time. However the end product, which is the automobile is actually over 80% hand assembled, unless there is a need to make use of machinery. In comparison with the common workers that manufactured in a fully automated assembly line, the workers at Ferrari are all much skillful than them. I would consider them as semi-craftsman due to the fact that they only know about a particular job scope, but just more skilled and know more than the common workers. (Ultimate Factories – Ferrari by National Geographic Channel, 2007⁴)  

In my conclusion, although Craftsmanship in theory was eroded by Capitalism totally, there are still traces of them in the modern society. One might argue that it seemed farfetched to consider what I have shared as craftsman, as they are really different from what’s in the past. To me, however it is still a fact that craftsman of the past has no reason to exist today, however we can still consider these modern craftsman as craftsman as they certainly do have their fair share of skills unlike the common workers we see. – Tan Choon Kiat Kevin, HS103 Tutorial Group T5

 

References
1 – http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/craft
2 – http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/features/salaries/2000/popups/content/sing.html
3 – http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/papers/people/op-s14.pdf
4 – http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/ultimate-factories/2895/Overview