Aaron has a post about ‘The Economics Of Foreign Talent. The post and the comments got me thinking about a fundamental difference between Singapore and the other highly competitive cities and locations in the world like NY, London, Silicon Valley…
Those places are just part of a bigger country.
What does this mean? This means that if I am born and raised in New York and I do not like the pace of life there and how I am unable to have a decent life there because of all the foreign talents and whatever other excuses reasons, I can choose to go to another part of America to start my life.
I could leave my New York roots behind and still be an American.
Singaporeans do not have the luxury.
We cannot decide to check out of Singapore to make a home somewhere else and still be a Singaporean. Of course, not every Singaporean who goes overseas gives up citizenship, but if more people find the need to leave Singapore to secure the life they desire and to find any sort of satisfaction about living, then increasingly more people will likely give up citizenship.
And even if we maintain (and not exercise) our citizenship, does that make us a Singaporean if the rest of our lives are on foreign soils. And from people I know, it does make sense to be the citizen of another country if you’re going to spend most of your whole life there anyway.
And so that is the problem with Singapore now. If things go the way it has been going, then Singaporeans will be forced to make a choice.
We don’t have the luxury of choosing both a Life and our Citizenship. And if the citizenship continues to get devalued, the choice is an easy one if not obvious.
And so as National Day approaches, maybe it is time to realize that Singapore may never really become the nation we envision it to be.
Ned Stark | 26-Jul-07 at 6:28 pm | Permalink
Indeed, that makes it kinda tragic. Forced out of the land of your birth…but i guess, that seems the way things are going to be in Singapore.