Ian On The Red Dot

When I look at the Singapore I live it today, I cannot deny that it is actually quite a good life.

But could I be living a better life in Singapore?

1. Is what we have in Singapore today because of the PAP or in spite of the PAP?

Sadly, I live in only 1 continuity (i.e. Earth Prime / Yes, Marvel > DC but Batman > all) and have no access to the multiverse so it is almost impossible to answer the above question. While it is impossible to know how life in Singapore would have been with different decisions or different leaders, it is possible of course to look at some of the key decisions made by our leaders in the past and understand how it led to the Singapore we know today. And it is right to acknowledge the wisdom, importance and effectiveness of some, if not most, of those decisions; which is why, I think rightfully, our parents have supported and continue to support the PAP.

The problem is that policies which benefit one generation, while benefiting the next generation in the short run, may harm the next generation in the longer run – like the rising value of HDB flats. This is a myopia my generation must be careful not to suffer from; voting for the opposition because they seem to offer solutions to our problems must be considered in light of whether those solutions will pose problems for those that come after us – this is a myopia I feel those in my parents’ generation who support the PAP suffer from.

2. Was it only old policies that benefited Singapore?

I think PAP has become such a brand name in Singapore that we might be failing to see that it was the work of the old guard like the late Dr Goh Keng Swee that made Singapore what it is today and not the current batch of people from the PAP running for this election; we have associated everyone from the PAP with the good work done in the past. When we say that we support the PAP because of the good work they have done, we must ask ourselves, how much of it is because of work done in the early days and how much of it is work done in recent years. We might even need to ask ourselves if the newer people from the PAP are undoing the work done by the early titans of Singapore’s government.

The people in the PAP today are different from those in the past, and it is important we ask if they still hold the same values. If they do not, then they are no longer the PAP we grew up with, which means, we cannot keep supporting them just because of past glories.