Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Foreign-born citizens

I am very happy and proud that our Women Table Tennis Team won a silver at the Olympics 2008.


There are people who begrudge their achievement and belittle our Country's success because they say these sportswomen were not born in Singapore. I was thinking about this and why some people resent foreigners in our Country. I think they belong to one of the following groups:

1. This group still regard these new citizens as foreigners. They are just anti-foreigners for whatever reasons, for example they think foreigners take away their jobs. They will also be unhappy whenever foreigners are more successful than they.

2. This group are not anti-foreigners, but it seems they cannot accept the fact that these people have become part of Singapore and can contribute to our success.

3. This group consists of people who are not proud to be Singaporeans and are unhappy that foreigners want to be our citizens.

4. These are ordinary people who think we are treating foreigners too well and are unhappy that we give these sportsmen and sportswomen a big sum of money for bringing home the medals.

5. These are loyal Singaporeans who have doubts about the foreigners' loyalty to Singapore, that if our Country were to be in troubles they would just go away.

6. People who are simply jealous of them.
Just to elaborate a bit. For example:

Case1: A foreign sportsman applied for Singapore citizenship on his own and it was approved. He has a normal job and spends his spare time slogging on his sport.
If he didn’t win any medal, those cynical would say he is stupid.
If he won a medal they would say what is so great, he is not born here. Actually they are jealous of his success.

Case2: We had brought him here, granted him citizenship, and pay him a handsome salary just to play his sport with the objective of winning a medal.
If he didn’t win any medal, the same group would be happily sneering away.
If he gets a medal, they would say what is the big deal, we pay for it. Actually they are jealous of his success as well as the money we pay him.

I think even if a local-born Singaporean won a gold medal and we gave him the $1 million, these cynical people will also not be happy. They would say what for pay him so much, having the honour is good enough, it is his duty.

Those who are always harping about the birth place of our medal-winning new citizens need to look at ourselves too. Why are those with sports talents not doing it? I believe one reason is that they they are not willing to make the sacrifice and they cannot stand the hardship. I think Singaporeans are too soft; they don't know what is real hardship. So if we depend on them, another 48 years, we will still get nothing.

I hope as time passes most of these people will come to accept our foreign-born citizens as well as foreigners working for us.