commentary

I refer to Aw Mun Khay’s blog entry entitled “ Are career demands killing marriages in Singapore? ”

I agree with Mun Khay to a large extent that career demands is a main cause of divorce and unhappy family. She mentioned that people overwork and force themselves through strenuous programmes to upgrade their skills while struggling to juggle with their already heavy workload. Thus, they neglect their families and spouse, resulting in divorce. I assume that she is only referring to the lower and middle-income group members. In fact, even people holding high-ranking position faced heavy workloads and long working hours.

I too agree with Mun Khay that all the above are one of the main causes of family miscommunication, leading to divorce and for a country like Singapore, it is best for us to do something about rather than moan about it after it worsen. As mentioned in her entry, Singapore’s only main resource is humans. If most of our people overwork themselves and neglect their families, not only will Singapore have a sickly workforce, we would also experience high divorce rate that will in turn result in low birth rate, which would then affect our main resource. The government should thus take measures to take care of this problems and the solution in Mun Khay’s entry are feasible ones.

In conclusion, Singapore cannot afford to have workforces that always fall sick due to overworking. The government should help reduce this problem to as minimum as possible.

Death Penalty

I definitely support death penalty. According to Antonio Cassese, if you would to keep murderers in prison, the probability that they might kill again is very high. In order to ensure the safety of our society, capital punishment against murders is the most appropriate one. Moreover, if the government decides to keep them in prison for life instead of killing them, they have to spend a lot more money at the expense of the community. Capital punishment also does deter other murderers, which is the most effective way to bring down crime rate. According to Becker, murderers fight very hard in order to not get caught, this proves that they fear capital punishments. Lastly, it is justifiable to kill a murderer as he took someone’s life away, thus he have to pay for it with his own life, as referred to an old law of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Statistics had also proven that a country with capital punishment has a much lower crime rate than those who do not have.

However, careful investigation must be carried out before carrying out capital punishments. This is to prevent the execution of innocent people. Also, death penalty debate should not absorb all our attention. If we intend to abolish the gallows, we should also fight for the prevention of crime and against the inhumanity of many prisons. After all, what is the point of suggesting imprisonment as an alternative to electrocution, if inmates are subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment?

Can poverty ever be eradicated?

I think that poverty can never be eradicated, it can only be minimized. From the article “Can the poor countries be rich?”, it is mentioned that poorer countries can never get rich on their own without help as importing technologies requires money and earning money requires technology. Thus, richer nations can lend a helping hand to the poorer ones by providing them with financial aids or loans. However, in my opinion, poorer nations cannot always depend on richer ones to help them, as these richer nations might not find it feasible to always give aid to them. Thus, poorer nations may be better off with the aids the richer nations had given, but not to the extent that all poverty is eradicated from the country. Therefore, poorer nations should also help themselves, for example, by introducing a better education system, as education is the key to being rich. Moreover, it is mentioned that the geography of a country determines its wealth. Thus, it is impossible to eradicated poverty as there is no way to change the geography around you, as the only way is too expensive.

Furthermore, some government in poorer nations practices corruption. Even if richer nations give aids to them, their government would simply keep the money of its own use. One example is the fact that Indonesian government keeping most the money Singapore had gave to aid the local farmers in an effort to reduce deforestation and forest fires. In such countries, poverty can never be eradicated.

Embracing Otherhood

As Singapore plays host to more people from different backgrounds and culture, there are bound to be challenges that Singapore as a small country would face. Being a multi-racial country, discrimination and intolerance against people from different background and cultures is unavoidable. Also, we would also have to face the fact that many immigrants are coming into Singapore illegally.

Foreign construction workers are mostly from the less developed countries like Bangladesh and other Southeast Asian countries. Thus, Singaporeans would tend to stereotype them as the inferior race or culture and do not want to communicate and befriend them. They help us to build buildings after buildings and it is definitely not morally right to be so cruel to them. Example would be that Singaporean would tend to avoid being near to Bangladesh workers giving reasons such as their body odour. One of the challenges facing Singapore is being able to accept and tolerate against people from different backgrounds and cultures so as to be a good host.

Another problem we are facing is the fact that there are immigrants illegally coming to Singapore to find a job. Although the immigrants have usually no choice but to illegally come to Singapore because of various reasons, it is unsafe for them to do so. As mentioned in the article, an illegal construction worker fell to his death while working. His employee not only fails to report his death and he also dump his body at a nearby car park. As we can see, illegal working can cause innocent lives being lost. One way to solve this problem is to conduct checks regularly in construction sites. Through all this, we can be a good host to people from other countries through ensuring their safety.

what would happen if human vanished?

I would agree to a large extent that the Earth would be a better place if humans were gone. The Earth is definitely suffering. Humans’ activities had caused much destruction to the Earth. One example, global warming. Humans are not concern about the Earth; most of them only care about technology and how to make life better for themselves. Due to global warming, the Earth is getting warmer and warmer. Humans would feel the effect of cause, however, they are causing harm to the animals as well. The animals have no business for causing the global warming; this is caused by humans’ selfishness. Humans are also consuming and using much of Earth precious non-renewable resources at a fast rate.

Although humans had caused harm to the Earth, not all of humans’ activities are harmful to Earth. Unless global warming has already progressed beyond the point of no return, it would eventually recover much of its diversity and richness. There is no doubt that humans had revolutionized the Earth. One example is that humans had come out with ways to prevent and to anticipate natural disasters. These prove to be a great help as it prevents massive destructions.

If humans are really gone in this world, it will allow the Earth to heal.

Singapore Swing

I feel that if globalization really does not benefit the poor and the middle-class at all ,the government should really do something about it. Although globalization benefited the economy of the country, the middle and lower classes actually get poorer due to the slashing of labor prices, leading to deduction of wages. As there is always a larger percentage of middle and lower class people compared to the upper class, the government should face this problem seriously.

The other issue raised in this article is that foreign competition for jobs hurts the middle class and the lower class more. It gave example like unskilled workers like street sweepers and security guard are finding themselves undercut by immigrants willing to work for less. This is forcing native Singaporeans to change occupations or work harder for less pay. I feel that foreign competition is inevitable. The government cannot be totally blamed for this problem arising. The people affected should have the awareness to go to have the necessary skills upgraded to make them more competitive for their job. Everyone has a part to play to solve this problem.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that Singapore’s economy is blooming. However, the government of Singapore should address globalization in a way that everyone benefits from it, not only the upper class. If nothing is to be done, it may lead to the forming of an underclass and the making of social instability. Singapore would definitely not want to add on to their problems by having and underclass and social instability in the country.

Commentary

I would like to comment on Shaam’s blog entry entitled ‘School break-ups and heart breaks’.
Link to Shamm’s blog: http://www.shaamation.blogspot.com/


I agree with Shaam to a large extent that having a relationship at young age will not last long and that it would result in eventual heart breaks. I agree that these relationships will never work out as teenagers are too immature to handle relationship. It often started when two parties feel a burst of emotion for each other and started going steady. This means that both parties often do not have ‘real’ feelings for each other. Thus, this explains why teenagers often change their partners throughout their teenage years. As for break-ups, most teenagers take them lightly, while others take them seriously. Some of them could not get over with them and got into all sorts of problems like depression.

However, it is wrong to say that this kind of relationship does not do any good. If both parties are mature enough, they may use this relation and encourage each other to study hard. They can also tell each other their personal problems and come out with a possible solution.

In conclusion, I agree to a large extent that teenage relationship causes heartbreaks and is a waste of time. However, if the relationship is handle by mature parties, it may actually benefit them.