Your Air, My Air

When the atmosphere starts to tear, streets flood with the deluge of melting ice, crops die from unprecedented heatwaves, oil fields become battlegrounds, who should take responsibility and who should fix this snowballing crisis before we cease to exist?

In 1994, Rwanda saw 800,000 people dead. Belgium troops fled after evacuating their own, France turned an all too blind an eye, the UN refused to call it genocide and take the action the dead bodies were yelling out for. Troops were not mobilised, policing action we are so fond of never took place. Bodies were driven over because unlit streets were strewn with them and people were chopped open by machetes. Still, we ignored and responsibility never attributed.

Today, we lose 200,000 acres of forest each day, the ozone layer has a hole the size of the Antarctic continent and global temperature continues to rise as greenhouse gases produced by powerful systems trap the heat that melts ice caps killing too many.

This war involves no gunfire, no weed-trampling vehicles or highly-insured SWAT team. This war is one sparked by man’s innate (and inane) greed and sheer lack of concern for a society greater than himself.

When the genocide was happening in Rwanda, the rest of the world ensured that their interests were never to be included or blamed. Their own existence must be safe since what was happening in another country should not bother them. We have taken this time-honoured route again. What affects one society is of no concern to mine since mine, encased in a glass dome secured by bubble wrap, will never experience devastating, pollutant-laden forest fires. My home, air-conditioned, plumbing and electricity-enabled, is not responsible for the devastation in countries from whom we get our resources.

These countries are plagued with folly, lacking industrial and educational advancements are irrevocably responsible for the haze caused by their backward practice of clearing their forests for crops (or biofuel plantations). When their citizens suffer, we must watch our air because it is on their governments’ heads to stem pollution.

Should developed countries that reap the benefits and draw the most energy salvage the situation? But how can they even begin to? Big states cannot help because they have got environmental woes themselves. They are fighting epic battles with the PSI index in their high-rise, fuel-guzzling buildings and can hardly fathom the thought of reworking their policies to save themselves much less lesser privileged neighbours. Beijing is a clear example. Economic dragon that it is, it can hardly help farmers in rural areas keep crops afloat as the heat proves disastrous and it cannot even help its citizens, who are raging through floods and mud slides. When they cannot clean up their filthy backyard, should international bodies, set up with the intent of facilitating global cooperation, help?

Can protocols, treaties, sanctions, boycotts, conferences and summits fix what we need? When we dish out new policies, choose certain research projects over the other and veto one environmentally-friendly suggestion instead of the economically-slanted other, we take another step away or towards exploitation of natural resources and irresponsible energy extraction. The environment has become victim to how our social systems are built and also to the way our political systems are structured. Can international protocols impact individual citizens so that we will take responsibility? Will summits suffice in helping societies, regardless of ideology, state or economic bias, realise it is not a tussle over whose fault it is but a global problem, the cause of which we have ascertained for the umpteenth time, which would inevitably hit us in the face much too soon.

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Works Cited

Bekman, Stas. “How big is the hole, and is it getting bigger?” 2008. Stason.org. 1 Nov. 2008. <http://stason.org/TULARC/science-engineering/ozone-depletion-antarctic/07-How-big-is-the-hole-and-is-it-getting-bigger-Ozone-Dep.html>

“How many acres of rain forest does the world lose every second of the day?” 2008. WikiAnswers. 1 Nov. 2006. < http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_acres_of_rain_forest_does_the_world_lose_every_second_of_the_day>

“Rwanda: How the Genocide Happened”. 1 Apr. 2004. BBC News. 1 Nov. 2006. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1288230.stm>

Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston: Pearson, 2006

Obsolete Only Because You Think It Is

Technology, with all its highly beneficial effects, is made by people. These people, plagued with the defects of human folly, live within a social structure built upon the foundation of competition and perpetual fear of depreciating. The speed at which technological advancements are made continue to move so quickly at an exponential rate because of a self-fulfilling prophecy (Pollack par. 5) eminent in states and their citizens.

Governments used to industrial development saw machinery used in capitalist production systems where the need for human labour is reduced and dependence on machinery increased. Soon, this evolved into a reliance on the possession of technology in the post-industrial era where, as Sernau points out, rivalry, competition and greed proliferates.

In this world where the need to be ahead features in every government, countries can perceive another to be more viable and push the speed of change in their society. They fear being bypassed or noticed as socially underdeveloped in a network of connected financial systems where markets are interlinked.

This inane sense of competition and pressure to be kept in the loop has led to states and companies viewing their technology as obsolete leading to it becoming truly obsolete since they or other organisations would have created more speed, storage space and capabilities which make the technology they possess obsolete.

This process has sparked competition between countries, like the six Asian countries who have sent space-probes against those who have not, as well as rivalry within nation-states.

One only needs to look at Singapore for an example. We have the e-citizen where transactions and applications are filed online. We have made computer operations that do not exist at the consumer’s end obsolete by implementing a network where nearly all government services can be accessed by consumers/citizens via the Internet.

Companies have followed suit; thinking they might lose out if they do not have tech-savvy employees, they set employment criteria to favour those who are computer-literate. Even for jobs you think might not require even smelling the keyboard,

http://jobs.monster.com.sg/details/6365200.html?sig=js-6-383fa6ebdf1613be7878edaca62c79c7-1

http://jobs.monster.com.sg/details/6295121.html?sig=js-6-383fa6ebdf1613be7878edaca62c79c7-1

This relegates those who have served the company well to the backburner unless they undergo training kindly provided by the company and subsidised by the government. Companies are responsible for encouraging reliance on the presence of technology.

Even the people fear being segregated. When everybody stands on the same ground and owns an MP3 player and/or laptop, we call for better ones so we will never fall behind. Each time we purchase a new item, we prepare for it to be less popular. This demand drives a supply based on imagined competition between peers. Since we believe what we own no longer stands and purchase something we perceive as better, we, like states and companies, fulfil our prophecy.

While this appears as a very linear Descartes view of “I think it is obsolete therefore it is obsolete”, what it really means is “I think it is obsolete, so I replace to remain valid”.

Coupled with the technologically-enhanced stratosphere we exist in, this phenomenon increases the digital divide. While it keeps those it favours in power as they continue to replace and make networking systems that fall only half a miniscule version behind obsolete, those at the negative end of the divide are kept in place by the self-same phenomenon. They see their economic budgets and cower when they are told they will not match up; constant aid fuels this defeatist mentality.

Meanwhile, states continue to impinge upon themselves and their people the desire for technological growth, separating the good (tech-savvy) from bad (computer illiterate), as they persist in making themselves inadequate by first seeing themselves as such.

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Works Cited

Pollack, Neil. Knowing the Sociology of Technology. 1996. The European Association for the Study of Science and Technology. 24 Oct. 2008 <http://www.easst.net/review/dec1996/pollack>

Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston: Pearson, 2006

Singaporeans for Sale (While Stocks Last)

When a virus outbreak happens, the world panics; local governments rush to prepare hospitals and schools, slap on posters in toilets and place public service messages on TV. International organisations fight to find a cure, transcend borders (as did the diseases), leave behind rivalries or concern for escalating costs to identify and stop the virus. But why?

It is because citizens have become commodities that carry heavily-vested economic interests. Singapore epitomises this, calling citizens her most powerful resource and having SARS or any outbreak that would kill her resources would be equal to cargo that has toppled, damaging all the potential profit-making products.

Of course, keeping the country free of a pandemic is important because when citizens panic, the economy will have to come to a standstill since offices will not function and companies will not open. Internally, this would mean other citizens will not be able to access the daily necessities they would need.

Economically, it means ports will not be opened, trade would not happen and income would not be generated. Economically, this would be a disaster for a country dependent on human movement and activity. Economically, and even more so with globalisation increasing interconnectivity and ease of speed with which investors can relocate operations to a country that harbours no tainted goods, a blemish or decrease in supply of its human resources would translate to less profit for the country-corporation.

Economically, Singapore needs her manpower to be in tip-top shape and running like a well-oiled machine. Any signs of respiratory failure would be a fatal flaw. So, to keep our investments sound and ensure our machine (or machines) never stops, we have, very efficiently, implemented precautions and sets of instructions and contingency plans.

Our hospitals stand as a reminder of our ability to survive a pandemic and carefully suited men in labs with civil or social defence procedures make us believe we are safe and free from panic while we run the rat race for income.

We are no longer (if we were ever) kept safe from diseases because human life is precious. Instead, we are kept pumping because we are precious commodities that contribute to and propel the economy.

When we are forced to be quarantined – during SARS and the Tuberculosis outbreak in the 1950s – what happens to our rights as human beings? Should health be enforced? Can we be jailed for unwittingly carrying a virus?

When governments implement fluctuating and impermanent population control policies, they slowly chip away the values we treasure and the beliefs we embody. They way we function has been structured around what would work best for the economy.

When filial piety is shoved in our faces and we are told to care for our folks and our own ageing selves, for whom would we do so? Are we not alleviating pressure on government welfare spending? Besides, an increase in life expectancy and decrease in mortality rates will look good on our HDI index, will it not? Who knows what investors a health hub would attract if its citizens are kept in the pink of health?

With that, I am up for $3,500 a month and come equipped with the promise of never distressing trade and foreign investment nor will I jeopardise our social standing in the world. For an annual increment of $200, I will also keep myself and my offspring well-oiled and attend pre-scheduled medical checks to ensure I contribute surplus value to our Orwellian machine. Also, I will build my family (i.e. number of children) according to what is best for tax payers and federal resources.

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Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston: Pearson, 2006

First Things First

Before we begin to sing the praises of modernisation, exalt the advancements (economic, primarily) that come with urbanisation and use these developments as an excuse to propel burgeoning contemporary art, perhaps we should first take a breath to address, if not solve, the issues of poverty, discrimination and environmental degradation.

The 7^th Shanghai Biennale 2008 aimed to use art (of course) to talk about the effects of urbanisation. It was to have addressed issues of global warming and the perishing of mankind (Chong par. 5). However, one cannot help but wonder how these paintings or elaborate installation pieces will alleviate the discrimination faced by residents of rural districts who have moved to the city centre in search of better life chances.

Also, they failed to question why the rural areas are not given the same amount of resources, if not more, in order to close the disparity. Why do you continue to remove and deprive in order to ensure that only one area, the area that is shown to the world is nice and aesthetically-pleasing? Arriving in Batam, Indonesia, one is greeted by rows upon rows of uniformed shophouse-like structures. You are impressed, thinking that the island you thought was backward has progressed or is on its way to urbanisation. But you venture deeper into the huge island and you see shanty-communities; you look for a toilet and they tell you to hold it till we reach the spa we were meant to go to. Why are these areas different from the “centre”? More importantly, why do the two areas have to be separated?

The recent hubbub surrounding the hostels for foreign workers at Serangoon Gardens is an example. A city-state like Singapore hardly has any rural areas bar the half-past-six farmlands in Kranji, Choa Chu Kang and whatnot, so residents of rural countries invading wealthy urbanites’ turf will have to do.

In September, it was proposed that a hostel for foreign workers be ready in Serangoon Gardens, a better-off neighbourhood in Singapore. Foreign workers are the metaphor for residents from the rural areas who have migrated to a city-centre – in this case, overseas – in hopes of jobs. Typically, they should be feeling dislocated and lost but in Singapore’s situation, they are unwelcomed even before their arrival.

Such is the fear that someone or a group of someones from a lesser-advantaged country might taint the urban culture that these citizens enjoy. What could have been an excellent model of assimilating less with more or gentrification Singapore-style which would have led to accommodation and cooperation has given way to small-minded, territorial discrimination.

Every protest from the residents boils down to the fact that they want to keep those from a lesser-advantaged area separate from the districts that have already sown the seeds of urbanisation.

If this separation is to continue and spread as the rate of urbanisation increases and the number of urbanised cities grows, then the disparity will only get bigger and the desperation more pronounced. As we celebrate economic progress and artistic architectural enclaves, should we not bear in mind those that we have left behind who want the same opportunities? Instead of blaming or writing off the rural areas for not having enjoyed the same success because of some inherent deficiency, should we not consider if, in the first place, the source of your prosperity is not the very root of their poverty and the reason is not the removal of resources from a poorer area to support the tourism boom, property boom, economic boom, health care boom, educational boom that comes with industrialisation, modernisation and urbanisation?

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Works Cited

Chong, Glenda. “7^th Shanghai Biennale focuses on China’s urbanization.” Channel NewsAsia. 9 Sep 2008. MediaCorp Pte Ltd. 10 Sep 2008. < http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/eastasia/view/374600/1/.html>

Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston: Pearson, 2006

“Responses to reports on Serangoon Gardens.” Transient Workers Count Too. 2008. Transient Workers Count Too. 10 Sep 2008. < http://www.twc2.org.sg/site/letters-to-the-press/response-to-reports-on-serangoon-gardens.html>

Fulfilling Fictitious Functions

Individual identity or artfully crafted projected identity is excellent and goodness knows we lack so severely in our nearly hegemonic (when we choose to be) society, that creative individualism. But besides dress sense and whatnot, we have race, religion and ethnicity and all of which begins to sour when we compare, divide and discriminate.

Determining a person’s mental capacity based on the size of their breasts or the amount of melanin in their skin is ridiculous; privileging and bestowing power on another based on their height, size of their noses or colour of their hair is absurd.

How can we allow such inane distinctions or uphold these definitions? Because it serves a function, does it not? Just like we need poverty or social deviants (criminals), we need a lesser-advantaged race (ethnicity or something) through which we can live vicariously and use as a teaching example for our children (because goodness knows we are too superior to stray). Besides, they are fun to mock with senseless jokes based on nothing more than ignorance and they therefore function as a form of entertainment in which we seek solace or escape from our own dreary lives.

So what really is race, religion or ethnicity? If these are abstract concepts then why do we still have them shoved so determinedly next to our faces on our identity cards?

The reason is that you need to identify me through my various identities for the instinct of fitting me into a schema. You need me to look a certain way so that you can place me into the predetermined social construct of what I will be. This is so that you will know quickly – sometimes too quickly – if I will rape, rob or render you speechless with my wealth and intelligence.

But who drew those lines and who assigned those qualities or faults? Cleary, separation by identities is purely functional for the beings that possess another abstract concept – power.

The only plausible reason why religion or “race” is called into play is when one wants to, under a faction, exclude their excluder thereby placing themselves in exactly the same place of that ex-excluder except that this new person will be drab in holy garb.

Perhaps those given power also felt it was necessary to first discount others to glean their people’s identity. That is, this “we” could only be if there is a “them” and this “them” is derogatory and situated on the periphery.

Then this negation of a “them” is that source of unnecessary conflict. The socially constructed margins that preach to preserve uniqueness will become dangerous because selfish beings created this schism that differentiates one from the other.

Churchill proclaimed, when he mobilised his men for war, “Let THEM die for their country.” Why was a distinction between a “them” and a “we” created and kept vehemently and vigilantly?

Edward Said said of identity politics that what is important is not who speaks but what is spoken and how it is read or heard. He also said that marginality is not to be gloried in, “it is to be brought to an end so that more, not fewer, people can enjoy the benefits of what has for centuries been denied the victims of race, class or gender inequality” (Said 380).

Really, if our so-called functional social divisions and our desire to degrade other alternatives dissipate, then society will be truly diverse and so much more accepting.

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Works Cited

Said, Edward. “The Politics of Knowledge.” Everyday Theory: A Contemporary Reader. Eds. Becky McLaughlin and Bob Coleman. Singapore: Longman, 2005. 370 – 380.

Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston: Pearson, 2006

Lost Democracy in an Apathetic Society

Democracy has to be tailor-made but Singapore’s version is so haute couture that only the elite will be so privileged to wear it. How have we become a country so suppressed and so weirdly contented with our one-party rule, walkovers and lack of transparency or rather, our lack of desire for transparency? Perhaps it has to do with the adroitness with which our ministers deflect queries – if any were even asked. Or that we do not have much of an opposition to rally for our differing views – again, if we even have any. But maybe the biggest hitch in our democratic machine is the contentedly apathetic society in which we exist.

First, it is necessary to commend the intense selection criteria the PAP has for its ministers. These ministers are ready for every question whether hostile or concerned. At the Budget 2008 dialogue, I was struck by the way Senior Minister of State Grace Fu handled questions on the incongruence that plagues every Budget. She did it carefully with just enough humour to put everyone at ease. Juxtapose that with ex-National Solidarity Party’s secretary-general Steve Chia’s Hokkien mumbling of an apology at the election rally, it is clear to see why it is easier to take the word of our ruling party.

Besides, we are not living in abject poverty that would make the affluence of our leaders extremely irreconcilable. Sure, there are unreasonable price hikes but we are still comfortable (or scared). Executive Editor of The Newpaper, Melvin Singh, said that when the price of meat increased, Indonesians stopped eating meat, Malaysians switched from beef to chicken but Singaporeans sat in restaurants eating steak while complaining about the rising prices. What this illustrates is that Singaporeans have enough to not create a scene but are contented with quiet, careful complaining.

Anyway, should we want to complain, who do we turn to? We have not got much of an opposition in the first place. In the US, there are two viable ways to serve the people and both parties bring vastly different beliefs. If you were to ask someone in Singapore if they were Republican or Democrat, Right or Left wing, what will they tell you?

The opposition is only the opposition because they are not the PAP. The issues they fight for cannot change how our society is run. In the 2006 elections, besides bringing a slightly higher number of candidates, what else did the opposition fight for? Mr Chiam See Tong contended with then-Prime Minister Goh over whether a walkway should be built between Potong Pasir MRT and the coffeeshop. With that, how much of a safeguard are they from keeping the PAP from corruption? Would voting for the opposition simply mean that we are placing the power PAP possesses in another authority’s hands?

Then, the crux of the problem is what the citizens are doing for the issues we want changed. In order for this warped democracy in which we live to change, Singaporeans must learn to not be taken in by glittering generalities and learn as a society, to officially ask for change (a familiar Obama refrain).

Calling ourselves apathetic should not be an excuse to remain so; it is a call for action. A call for us to take the time to learn all there is about one side of n issue and then taking more time to learn the other so as to empower ourselves to make an informed decision and a rational argument. We cannot continue to sit and complain because the laws that suppress can only suppress if we allow them to.

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Works Cited

Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston:

Pearson, 2006

Don’t Call It War, It’s Sharing with Polite Policing Action

This would be an excellent time to come up with a sociological solution or at least a diagnosis for this illness; But what for?

We hardly need a solution because there is not a problem in the first place. Those tiny conflicts, a little fire display, that peaceful policing action – these are not problems, all that violence is not harmful but necessary and the lives that are taken were all accidents, really, and they all died for the nation, the country they love and were willing to die for. And please do not shed a tear because they will get war medals, you know? We all know how coveted those are – more than our lives.

So, young men, mere boys who should be partying at college, basking under the sun and weighed down by textbooks are hauling sub-machine guns across battlefields mowing down other boys – sorry, I meant that they take a break for overseas experience and carry tools of self-defense and sometimes, but barely, use them or have them used against their being.

So why are these pubescent teens killing and being killed? It is because what distinguishes us from simpler animals is not our DNA, our less hairy bodies or the popularly-proclaimed ability to “feel” but the compulsion to war with our own species.

We possess paranoia, the inane instinct to propagate our resources and the sense of superiority. When we selfishly choose to see our culture as mightier, our generosity makes it compulsory that we share – whether the other party likes it or not.

The British, ambitious colonialists, saw their territorialisation of the Orient as necessary to extend order, decorum and peace; no matter that the means to their end was neither peaceful nor orderly. The United States and Soviet Union also wanted a semblance of order in their spheres of influence and violence (legitimate, mind you) was the enlightened answer. When Catholics and Protestants, Hindus and Muslims, Christians and Muslims warred, they felt that their books taught a better way of living.

Perhaps this charitable sharing happens because we have risen so high up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that we no longer need to worry about food or shelter and can now desire self-actualisation and that means the power to conquer all.

Since today’s technologically-advanced, genetically-modified, internationally-bound civilization means finding food or violent enculturation is not an issue anymore, our killing over land has become all the more ridiculous.

If I can make that realisation, why does the larger public not see this? Could the powerful press have suppressed information so that citizens can make the nationalistic and right decision or could it be that citizens do not feature in the decision?

If citizens do not get input, who holds the power and polices these things? Which authority legitimises these bloody policing actions? Could it be the politicians who mirror the terrorists in their radical ideology? Who sanctions the killing and gets to euphemistically call these gross acts of human rights violation – touted then revoked by democratic powers – “police action”?

When these central authorities push military research to the top of the agenda and increase the purse for military spending, they must have forgotten the starving, homeless and unemployed in their country. When they were in congress voting, assuming decisions are made by congress and not one Great White Bully, they must have forgotten that young men – brothers, sons and fathers – will be deployed. When they order another dozen F-16s, they must have forgotten that just a quarter of that military spending would have solved disparity among global citizens.

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Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston: Pearson, 2006

Fixing a Desperate (Deviant) Subculture

What would motivate some one to turn to deviant behavior and how can social or criminal justice stem the violation of a lawful society?

It is easy to write off crime as an illness that has nothing to do with societal ills. But we know people turn to crime because they are desperate, greedy or the environment encourages it.

Another reason is pressure from their community. Jester, one of MS-13’s members, joined when he was 8-years-old and leaving was never an option. If he grew up in a community where most are MS-13 members, how can he break free without being ostracised or killed?

Then, what if someone desperately needs money? What if he is lonely and feeling dislocated? With desperation being a huge motivator, the obvious option would be to congregate with others who share the same cultural background.

MS-13, a growing and threatening deviant community started off with some 20-something Salvadoran immigrants who had an obsession with Ozzy Osbourne. They met at a playground near where they lived and who knows what turned them to crime but the lure must have been juicy because they were hooked.

Then there is the Aryan Brotherhood (AB) — an all-white prison gang that decapitates and threatens prisoners of other races. Why yes, they are whites and whites are hardworking citizens who if pushed are only meek petty thieves. But they are gang members and fiercely ethnocentric when in prison. There, they are or feel that they are the minority and stand out. Fear and desire to maintain their supremacy bands them together and allows offence to be taken easily. Vulnerable new white convicts, wary of their new environment gravitate to the protective umbrella of a group that looks the same as them.

It seems then, that the only feasible option would be participation in the sprees and channeling, with deinviduation as catalyst and adrenalin as fuel, what guilt they have into enjoyment.

However, the function of gangs has shifted from treasuring solidarity among an ethnic group to one that brings in money. Gangs are now multi-national corporations with franchises. MS-13 has a business model and the AB has a markup on their bestselling products.

In the interest of profits, the groups enforce authority via beatings, reprisals, murder and grow their employee base.

MS-13 started with Salvadoran members but now recruits Latin American immigrants and younger Latin American children who could have assimilated with society. The AB engages in semi-free-trade import-export businesses with a Mexican gang.

Since the groups have become burgeoning criminal organisations that play by their own subaltern rules, can criminal justice work?

Will persecuting and relegating “criminals” to a structure where they can reconvene in their activities exacerbate the crisis?

Besides, disdain can have convicts feeling flustered, irrevocably desperate and segregated. Even deportation is not an option. They return home as strangers in their own country, ashamed and desperate.

Perhaps during trial, a sensational story might get followed, the sad plight of immigrants exposed but when media livery dies down, the guns get drawn and drugs dealt.

So can social justice help? Can we be fair and give every individual the same benefits? Do we start at ground level and work with youths, offer the option of assistance to the immigrant community, not label the immigrant community “immigrant community” and stamp out illegal immigrants to help those return home with little animosity?

Can we fairly light every alley, have every neighbourhood enjoy the same facilities, provide patrol for every street? Can we change the culture that teaches discrimination and can we learn not to be drawn into desperation?

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Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston: Pearson, 2006

The Changing (or Changed) Family Dynamic

Writing this entry was more than difficult. After pages of illegible scratching on paper, I realised why; I have been living the problem for so long that this has become a non-issue.

My mother being a working single-mother, my going home to an empty house was never an issue. That was also probably because everyone in my social circle was a latch-key child who had cup noodles for a snack while watching Cartoon Network.

However, the video in lecture revealed how it was a huge issue that society has to tackle.

The changing family dynamic, what I never thought was an issue, was gathering so much speed and affecting so many that the degradation of the basic social unit is inevitable.

Even if the two parents are still stakeholders in the nuclear family, some have welcomed domestic workers into their household. The domestic workers now share in the shaping of the child’s values and habits. It is not so much that parents are alarmingly absent but that domestic workers are calmly present and sharing the parenting responsibilities. They do because the traditional ideal of domestic division of labour with the mother at home has now changed to her bringing home the bacon just like the men.

These dual-income families no longer have the luxury of spending hours with their children since their need to maintain their status might have left them reliant on two incomes.

With divorce now made so accessible (8.3 divorces per 1,000 women in 2007, 7.2 in 2002 [Singapore Statistics]) single parent families have multiplied. Even if these families can get by, the children are brought up by only one parent who most likely would have to work.

Apart from all these changes, there are also the well-paid mothers who choose to work because they can and not because they have to.

With so many parents now relinquishing their parenting roles, out of necessity or choice, we must question who ensures children still have that bond with their parents and who will play the largest role in introducing and enforcing values. Is there no way that parents can return home to spend time with their children?

When we discuss this, we open a new can of worms. With today’s rising prices, every dollar earned is needed. Besides, the economy can no longer function without women in the workforce (according to MOM’s 2006 figures, 63% of women contribute to Singapore’s economy). Yet, we are so quick to discriminate and neglect allowances for working mothers.

The government has recognised the shift and taken steps like making provisions for single-mothers to purchase HDB flats at subsidised rates and allowing maternity and childcare leave as well as paying out subsidies such as child relief deduction on income taxes. So government policies mirror the changing dynamic but what about society and profit-driven companies?

My mother has never taken advantage of the generous off-days for fear of losing to her colleagues. She works harder to ensure that her position does not slip. Even when I fell ill, she kept that from her bosses worrying that taking leave would have her appear less capable. It is almost as if being a parent branded her as a less efficient worker.

Perhaps instead of letting this scattered family dynamic slip by as a non-issue, family planning agencies (goodness knows we have plenty) can sit down with companies to come up with a handbook, much like the recent How to Maximise Your MediShield one from CPF Board, to explain how to be conscientious workers while still maintaining a semblance of a parent-child relationship.

Works Cited

Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston: Pearson, 2006

Ministry of Manpower. “Employment Rate in Singapore: Highest Local Employment Rate in 15 Years”. Ministry of Manpower. 2006. Ministry of Manpower. 29 August 2008. < http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/press_room/press_releases/2006/20061005-employment.html>

Singapore Statistics. “Key Indicators of Marriage and Divorce, 2002 – 2007”. Singapore Statistics. 2007. Singapore Statistics. 29 August 2008. < http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/people/marriages.pdf>

An International Body Where Every Voice is Heard

In today’s globalised economy, countries are dependent on international trade to rise in the ranks. The lack thereof would leave them in abject poverty with little hopes of enjoying the benefits of consumerism.

Ideally, free trade agreements or the World Trade Organization (WTO) should allow trade to happen without barriers.

Ideally, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) should provide outside capital since they (i.e. World Bank) call themselves a “vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries” (World Bank Group par. 1).

But what if the policies and actions are decided by few, powerful nations?

Greenpeace states that the meetings organised by the WTO are by invitation only (Greenpeace par. 2) and this is corroborated by the Inter-Press Service (IPS) which states that “12 or 13 delegations have been invited to these meetings” and these are the meetings that “focused on the contentious issues within the NAMA [non-agricultural market access] negotiations” (Kwa par. 12).

The same site notes that some “closed-door meetings” that took place were of “limited access” (Kwa par. 10). So who speaks up for countries who are not invited but whose progress depends on that aid?

What would happen (or has it already?) should developed nations become threatened by the developing countries’ large population that is ready to work cheap to produce commodities consumed by richer countries? Do they fear an uprising and action from civil militia that would drive their exploitative efforts out if “aid” is provided?

But that is not possible, is it? They have nothing to fear since tariffs now keep imported goods more expensive. As precaution, these wealthy nations also support their flailing local business so these companies, with enough might, continue to invade the poorer countries whose people NEED work. They then use the systems that these countries would have used in the first place if only they had the capital (HELLO WORLD BANK!), to start production.

Soon, these countries leave because of pollution, overpopulation of factories and they leave in their wake, unemployment, stunted economic growth, confusion and severe environmental degradation which the WTO, IMF, World Bank do not or cannot care about because they are concerned with economic progress.

These all ensure that the citizens have no other way to make a living especially since developing countries, crippled by the depleted natural resources, want to crawl up, they take a large debt that is accompanied by political agendas of heavyweights.

Also, without the necessary wealth or industrial management expertise, as that is bought over (Brain drain) by wealthier nations who can pay (Shah par. 1), the developing country continues to chalk up debts and remain under the mercy of powerful nations.

So, does the solution lie in sustainable trade as Greenpeace suggests? Can countries crawl out of poverty with an integration of “environmental, social and economic priorities” (Greenpeace par. 11)? Does this represent the restructuring of economic policies, eradication of unfair labour rules, easing of the burden on the environment, concern for the society that MNCs set up home in and does this mean the implementation of an international body where every voice is heard?

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Works Cited

Greenpeace. “Encourage Sustainable Trade”. Greenpeace International. Greenpeace. 23 Aug. 2008. <http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/trade-and-the-environment>

Kwa, Aileen. “WTO Delegates Following Talks Through News Media”. IPS – Inter-Press Service. 2008.Inter-Press Service. 23 Aug. 2008. <http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42926>

Sernau, Scott. Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability. Boston: Pearson, 2006

Shah, Anup. “Brain Drain of Workers from Poor to Rich Countries”. Global Issues. 2006. Global Issues. 23 Aug. 2008 <http://www.globalissues.org/article/599/brain-drain-of-workers-from-poor-to-rich-countries>

World Bank Group, The. “About Us”. The World Bank. 2008. The World Bank. 23 Aug. 2008 <http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,pagePK:50004410~piPK36602~theSitePK:29708,00.html>