The basis for social change is HOPE and HOPE alone. That God gave us hope to believe, hoping in HIM, and similarly, in the hope that things can happen if we HOPE in it enough to do something about. The reason I'm doing what I'm doing is not really about enabling Singapore to move on to the next phase of the future or whatever. My deep desire is to give people the hope that they can do things for themselves, and they can do it to the best of themselves, that they should always be striving for that. And through this process, coming to know Christ - at least for me...
Social change is not just change for the sake of change. Social change, is again, the hope that there is something better out there, that we can work towards a better place to live in. This is the main driving force behind the people that do these, that we may not be Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi, but with enough dedication and a community, we might be able to achieve something that improves the lives of many. Another possible theme might even be: People Deserve Better! Or something like that.
We want to live in a place where people believe that they can do something more, something greater than themselves, something great in itself. But we aren't. And this gap between expectation and reality is really one of the core reasons why people find life in Singapore unsatisfying, always having half a mind to emigrate if not for the costs involve. So what if our friends and family are here? There's always Skype and Facebook to keep track. If not just fly back every now and then and spend some time together. Lots of people do that already. Or maybe it could be just the lack of guts. But whatever it is, I'm beginning to see myself not just as part of another social change project that promises nothing in terms of action, but just another dude trying to make living more bearable in Singapore...
Thursday, 14 February 2008
motivations...
Monday, 11 February 2008
the chicken and egg question in singapore social change
The thing about Singaporeans is that they aren''t actually politically apathetic. There are a lot of people actually who are genuinely concerned about the state of the politics in Singapore, and they talk about it among themselves in their own private circles, half the time they celebrate the fact that CSJ exists, half the time they laugh at him for his antics, or shake their heads. Maybe its because of the legal actions, but people know that here in Singapore you can't challenge the PAP head on a la the revolutions of decades past. People think that for social change to seriously happen in SIngapore, there must be changes in the external environemnt before anything can happen. They mean that the PAP should relax the rules for political and social debate, even to the extent of degrading the ISA, they mean that some sort of change must happen in the attitude of the Singaporeans on this island, they mean that change must come from the outside - that the trigger for social change would not be from the people...
Well, but the fact is, social change IS for people, BY PEOPLE. Without people to to even begin to think about social change, there would be just, nothing. The fact is, for there to be substantial social change, for Singapore to have a participatory democracy or even a civil society, then Singaporeans themselves must step up to the fore and encourage others to do likewise. We live in an age where we have all become connectors - to people, to things, to causes. What we need now are initiators, people who can and will transform all our connectivity - all our FaceBooks, our gmails, into social causes. We already know, and already some have begun acting.
If we want to have genuine participatory democratic civil society, then I think we should start actling like we are one. Rules can always be changed.
No one, especially not the government, will tell us, 'eh, we can have a participatory society now, go talk politics leh'.
Start now...