"SHAME" MAGAZINE
PREMIERES - RIOTS FOLLOW
by Coq Au Vin
Following the launch of
local activist group Think Centre's magazine, "SHAME", Singapore lies
in flaming ruins, riots running rampant, with looters roaming the streets, the
government in collapse and our national unity in tatters.
Think Centre, an
independent political research initiative was set up in 1999. Focusing on
Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region, it was aimed to critically examine issues
related to political development, democracy, rule of law, human rights and civil
society.
"SHAME" magazine, Think Centre's first periodical, was
launched at the Stamford Road branch of MPH on October 7. The magazine's editor
is James Gomez, the author of the controversial book "Singapore's
Shame", about the perils of self-censorship. The magazine's inaugural issue
contained articles about human rights, relations between Singapore and Malaysia,
and a new era of e-Politics.
The magazine was almost immediately sold out,
bought by hundreds of ordinary Singaporeans who believed everything they read
without question.
Within minutes, the social fabric of our multiracial society
began to break down.
Racial tensions, long held in check by the government's
community policies, reached a critical boiling point in just twelve hours.
The
flashpoint was lit, it is believed, at Lau Pa Sat hawker centre, when Mr.
Mohammed Ali bin Abdul Rahim, who runs a nasi padang store, started to loudly
criticize Kong Kah Juay, the sugar cane juice seller of being a self-censoring
stooge of the incumbent political behemoth.
Mr. Kong countered back by accusing
Mr. Ali of formenting civil unrest by voting for the Opposition just to spite the
establishment and for living in Potong Pasir, which was a dump anyway.
Mr. Ali
responded by dumping a plateful of beef rendang on Mr Kong's head. By the time
the police arrived, Lau Pat Sat was a cinder and the rioters had moved on to
rampage across Shenton Way.
Almost simultaneously, HDB heartlanders began to
tear apart from each other as our fragile multicultural roots began to
disintegrate.
"We had no idea," said Mr. Gomez, speaking from a hidden
bunker, "The government had been telling us for years how sensitive the
situation in Singaporean society was, how the slightest upset could destroy
decades of work. I thought they were just talking cock."
Mr. Gomez shook his
head, as above the sounds of explosions and screaming people wailing in terror
and despair at the humanity of it all could be heard. "Now I know why the
government has been censoring us all these years. We may look like a vibrant,
sophisticated culture on the surface but once that surface veneer is stripped
away, we're nothing more than an ugly, seething cauldron of racial hatred
waiting to explode into destructive fury, destroying all that we have fought for
and believed in."
An emergency session of the Cabinet was called, with the
Prime Minister immediately establishing martial law, calling for national calm
in the face of this grave crisis. The order was given for all copies of
"SHAME" to be confiscated, but an anonymous government source speaking
from the Istana expressed fears that this may be too late.
"A chain
reaction has begun, and there may be no way to stop it," the informed
source said, "What were those fools thinking? I tell you, when we find out
who at MITA approved their license, heads will roll." He excused himself as
he loaded and cocked an M-16 and went off to defend the last bastion of
Singaporean order.
As hordes of Ah Bengs clashed with leagues of sepak takraw
players along the Esplanade, more rioters were besieging Parliament House,
chanting, "No More Years! No More Years!" and burning mannequins of
MPs in effigy. Rumours that some of these were real MPs that were captured by
the rioters while sleeping in session could not be confirmed at press time.
"I'm so sorry," Mr Gomez said, sobbing as he buried his head in his
hands, "We didn't know. We - didn't - know..."
The Senior Minister and
his cat had already blasted away in a previously prepared escape pod whose
course was set for the Cayman Islands.
Non-Graduate
Couple Marries - Plan to Have Non-Graduate Children
by Coq Au Vin
In news that
has shocked the nation, a non-graduate couple intends to actually get married
and, what's worse, have children that will be non-graduates as well.
The couple
in question is Mr. Mai Chiak Chua, the man who serves the drinks at the downstairs
coffee shop, and his fiancee, Miss Boh Dee Gwee.
When interviewed about this
prospective union, which goes against all official policy on breeding the next,
smarter generation of Singaporeans, the two were defiantly jubliant. "So
what if we don'ch even have Air-Level," Mr Mai said, between rounds of
kopi-o, "So suat lor. I luff her and that's all that's important,
what."
Miss Boh simply giggled inanely, while doing her nails. When asked
if they actually intended to bear non-graduate children, Miss Boh replied,
"Like dat cannot say. Maybe they can be very good in England, or Maths, and
cho their exams swee-swee. But, hor, we're not going to scold them if they
don'ch do well."
Among other radical plans of bringing up their future
offspring, Mr. Mai and Miss Boh both agree that they will not be hiring a tuition
teacher for them, neither will they make them do ten year series over and over
again.
"Waste money only," Mr Mai said.
However, things are already in
motion to thwart the schemes of the happy couple to pollute the Singaporean gene
pool with underachievers. Mr. Pak Chew Cheng, of the Working Committee on
Marriage and Procreation, said that the police would be notified.
"We're
going to find this misguided pair and stop them before they do something we all
regret," Mr. Pak said, "They may think that they are bringing children
into this world with love and affection and that will mean they grow up to be
well-adjusted, happy and content with life, but everyone knows that's just not
realistic, nor desirable."
Mr. Pak displayed on a monitor a graph of the
steadily increasing population of GEP students. "We have plans to make all
schools 100 percent GEP by the year 2013. This insane, foolhardy plan of Mr. Mai
and Miss Boh's will set this agenda back by years. We must not and cannot let
this happen."
When asked about the slide labelled "World
Domination", Mr Pak hurriedly clicked ahead. "Children need discipline
and order in their lives. They also need to be force fed maths, science and
economics and repeatedly whipped, mentally and physically abused to excel.
Nurturing fun in them does absolutely no good and is an outmoded concept. After
all, all our scholars were raised in equally sterile and cold environments
without ever being treated like human beings but simply as means to getting the
right piece of paper. And look how far we've come!"
Mr. Pak said
regretfully, "However good their intentions may be, Mr. Mai and Miss Boh are
deviants and must be prevented from this course of action by any means
necessary."
A special task force as been assigned to hunt down the errant
couple, who have gone for a holiday to Batu Pahat. Once located, a crack team of
commando gynecologists will perform a hysterectomy on Miss Boh while a similar
sterilization procedure will be implemented on Mr. Mai.
"We've already set
up a sterilization clinic at the SDS HQ," Mr Pak said, referring to the
Social Development Service, a matchmaking service for non-graduates.
"All
non-graduates will be required to undergo mandatory voluntary sterilization
before getting married," he added, completely without irony.
"It's my
duty to contribute to our country," said non-graduate Mr. Chin Kay Kiang in
a falsetto, "By letting them cut off my lum par, I am making sure my
children will be smart."
It was pointed out to the now Miss Chin that she
would have no more children. "See? It's working already!" she said, in
a complete non-sequitur.
"Next!" cried the SDS doctor, brandishing a
meat cleaver. When asked about non-graduates who reproduce outside of marriage,
Mr. Pak shrugged that off, "That's what the Retroactive Abortion Death
Squads are for."
Top Student Feigns Surprise At 'A' Level Results
by Ayam Goreng
Top student Chow Mah Ger, 18, of Raffles Junior College, widened his eyes
upon receiving his 'A' level results, creating the widespread impression that
the 4 A's he obtained in Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Maths 'C', A1's in
General Paper and Chinese, as well as Special Paper Distinctions in Chemistry,
Biology and Physics, were totally unexpected.
"This is unbelievable," Chow was
reported saying to himself, audibly enough for his curious classmates to hear,
but not too loud as to appear as if he was gloating over the entire school
population, "I never expected this at all."
By affecting a certain trembling of
his hands while removing the results slip from its envelope, and subsequently
gulping as he saw his grades revealed by a gradual inching over the envelope's
edge, Chow was able to orchestrate the overall illusion that his results were
achieved purely by chance, rather than through countless hours of anti-social
mugging in the school library.
"It's not as if it's a big shock to all of
us,"
remarked Jacklyn Seet, 18, his classmate, who would only mention that her
results were 'not as impressive'. "Mah Ger has always been the biggest mugger
in the class. He's got this special system of highlighting his notes, switching
between purple, green, blue, pink and yellow, so his notes always look like some
crazy colour chart. But if you ask me, it's to make his notes look like such an
eyesore that nobody else would want to read them."
This possessive streak in Mah Ger's studying habits has not escaped the notice of other students who share
lecture halls with him.
According to rugby captain and retainee Andy
Seow, 20,
"Mah Ger was this guy who sat right in front of the lecture, bent over, adjusting
his specs, and clamping about 10 different highlighters between his thighs. We
all thought he was too poor to afford higher degree spectacles or something and
I guess we sort of pitied the guy. But the thing was that he sat in front so
that he could snatch the transparency from the lecturer in case he couldn't
finish copying in time."
Upon further nudging, Seow reluctantly shared the
following anecdote: "See, there was this one time when I think he didn't cap his
highlighters properly and so the crotch area of his white pants sort of got
stained with these rainbow-coloured markings. And believe it or not, the guy
wasn't even aware of it. When he walked past the rugby table, we all started
singing the Paddle Pop song, but he still didn't get it."
"What I don't get is
why he has to act like he's so surprised at getting his results," remarked Nizam
Haron, 18, Mah Ger's alleged rival in the school's Chemistry Olympiad team.
'He's a total muggertoad, no girlfriend, no TV, he doesn't even turn up for
class barbecues. I bet you he already knew what grades he was getting
immediately after the papers. I had the good fortune of taking the train back
with him after the exams and he kept trying to compare his answers with mine.
There was this long debate we had about the structure of benzene and he called
me up the next morning to tell me that he was right after reading up Paterson's
Organic Chemistry. And he kept going on about how he's only managed to detect
two mistakes so far, and he had the feeling that his A was in the bag. Big deal.
All I wanted at that point was to go out and party."
When asked if he had
attended the Prom Night, the school's glitzy end-of-year affair where students
indulge in rounds of autographs, photo-taking, and general nostalgia, Chow could
only offer a bashful smile and said, "I'm sorry, I'm just a bit too overwhelmed
right now, this whole thing is just so unexpected." He then returned to the task
of posing for press photographs, beaming widely, and holding his results slip in
his hands in triumphant poses.
After using the words 'unexpected' and
'surprised' at least 30 times throughout the course of the day, including their
equivalent versions in Mandarin for the benefit of the Chinese papers, Mah Ger was able to share with us his impressive list of ECA achievements, which
included being the Chairman of the Wargamers' Society, Vice-Chairman of the
Horticultural Club, a Treasurer of the Computing Society, as well as manning the
water station for the inter-faculty Cross Country competition a year ago. He was
also an amateur pipa player and shook the tambourine during a mini-concert on
Teacher's Day as a member of a short-lived band called 'Chain Reaction',
consisting mainly of gangly, awkward, zero-charisma Triple Science students.
Vikram Naidu, 18, a student councillor, had a few parting shots: "He really
shouldn't have overdone the 'totally stunned' look. Is Mah Ger going to get his
A's? Is the Pope Catholic? Tomorrow we're all going to see him in the papers,
top student, active in ECA's, now in Officer Cadet School, which is a mystery to
all of us because this was the guy who skipped PE lessons when the school was
being painted because he claimed the fumes made him giddy."
"I'm sure he's going
to brag about how he achieved it all through consistent hard work, and fail to
mention the fact that the librarian often used to jangle her keys in front of
his face and chase him out of the library or how he's completed his ten-year
series books three times over," continued Mr. Naidu. " And if it's the
Mah Ger we all know, he might
even mention the fact that he was even nominated for Prom King. The sad thing
is everyone in the entire school knew it was a sabo job, except him."
When asked
if Chow eventually turned up for the Prom, Naidu erupted in a burst of laughter
and replied, "Did Mah Ger attend the Prom? Does the sun rise in the
West?"
Hello Kitty Purchases Fail To Provide Meaning to Singaporeans' Lives
by Ayam Goreng
After the initial excitement over the pairs of Hello Kitty and
Dear Daniel toys offered by McDonald's as part of their Happy Meal promotions,
thousands of Singaporeans are gradually awakening to the fact that the purchase
of the mouthless, feline dolls, togged up in colourful ethnic costumes, has
added very little meaning to their lives, if any at all.
"I remembered how I
started queuing up at the Tiong Bahru McDonald's outlet at 6 p.m., the day
before the Hello Kitty Korean Wedding collection was going to be released," says
Henry Kow, a polytechnic student. "I mean, I could have done a lot of other
things, like vacuuming the room I share with my asthmatic brother, or finishing
up my three-week overdue school project, but I just had to be in the queue, you
know? The fuss was just so infectious you just had to be one of those lining up
or you'd feel like such a loser."
Blankly surveying his complete Hello Kitty and
Dear Daniel collection placed on a shelf above his bed, he continued in a
distant, defeated tone, 'I really thought these things were special. I mean,
there were traffic jams because so many people wanted to get their hands on
them."
But it was clear that whatever euphoria the purchase of the collectibles
had delivered was painfully short-lived, as Mr Kow removed a piece of lint from
the songkok of a Malay Wedding Dear Daniel. "You know, I've never even liked
soft toys. I once went to a friend's house and made fun at his Felix the Cat and
Little Bobdog collection. I think I even called him a sissy or something. And
now look at me, I have the entire Hello Kitty collection. If that friend ever
decides to forgive me and pay my room a visit I won't know where to hide my
face."
"Actually, I don't even like cats
either," he continued. "But at that
point of time if you weren't one of those people elbowing grandmas and
exchanging swear words and pushing your face onto those glass doors you were
just not living life to the fullest."
Commenting on the craze over the limited
edition Sanrio-produced toys, a psychologist in private practice, Dr Quek Sai
Koh, remarked, "In a society like Singapore, where there is a high level of
alienation as a result of high-density housing and a lack of civil bonds, there
is always a tendency to project a sense of achievement on the attainment of
material goods. There was widespread belief that procuring these toys would
somehow enrich lives drained by soul-crushing, spirit-numbing, rat-race
activities. But as findings show, any happiness brought upon by possession of
these toys are only temporary, and Singaporeans will have to sooner or later
confront the emptiness of their lives and the shallowness of their existence
until the next craze comes to town."
Echoing Dr Quek's sentiments, Miss Serene Chao
Ah Lien, a telemarketeer, remarked, 'When I first saw those Kitties advertised in
the newspapers, I thought, wow, so cute, and so cheap some more, I better rush
down soon and get one for myself. And when I saw so many people in the queue I
thought, wow, I'm glad I'm here, these things are selling like hot cakes! And on
the MRT ride home, I kept on holding my Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel proudly,
making them stand up on my lap. It was so difficult to decide whether I should
take them out from the plastic. I wanted them to be in good condition, but I
also wanted to see how it looked if I could put their hands together, like they
showed in the advertisements. It must look really adorable, hor?"
Asked if her
life had met with any significant improvement after her triumph at the
McDonald's counter, Miss Chao was hard-pressed for an answer. "I don't know, but
I think you can say that at least I have cute things to look at when I look at
my desk."
Then, in a softer voice she went on, rearranging the things on her
desk: five tubes of pimple cream, a LIME magazine, an Aaron Kwok jigsaw puzzle
and slips of paper with dedication notes to be recited once she got through to
her favourite radio station, 98.7 FM. "It's cute, isn't it? It's really worth it
because there's nothing like it. And it's good that they sell them in pairs,
it's so romantic."
When questioned on her own love life, Miss Chao replied that
she has been chatting with a guy from IRC with the nickname 'darkpoet' who
always greets her with a smile, typed with a colon and a bracket. "He's very
sweet, but my father keeps screaming about my Internet bills."
Suddenly
betraying a crack in her self-satisfied veneer, Miss Chao then confides,
fingering the paws of her Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel, which she had sewn
together with white thread, "Even Hello Kitty has a boyfriend. Sometimes life is
just so unfair."
Mr. Boh Kang Choe, a freelance contributor to health magazines and the
author of the book, 'Hello Kitty, Goodbye Common Sense,' communicated the
profound sense of dismay he felt after realising that the ownership of the
much-sought-after toys did not bring any added joy to his life: "One week after
I bought those damned things, I found myself staring at them. I had put them in
the living room glass cabinet, beside the XO bottles and the holiday photos, and
I realised, shit, I don't know why I spent money on them. They're just some cheap
felt with some stuffing, and whoever made them couldn't even be bothered to sew
on mouths."
So what Mr. Boh did was to march down to the nearby McDonald's at Ang
Mo Kio Interchange, where he had bought the toys, to demand a full refund. 'I
told them how let down I was, to have spent so much time queuing up, sandwiched
between an Ah Beng who had programmed that Dah-Ba-Dee tune in his handphone and
a Mat Rock listening to Bob Marley at full volume on his headphone, losing sleep
and taking leave from work, only to be rewarded with these frivolous dolls that
offer no spiritual nourishment and emotional comfort whatsoever. And you know
what the old lady at the counter said? She asked me whether I wanted an
upsize."
"That was the final straw," Mr. Boh seethed, struggling with his disillusionment.
"I decided to write a book about the traps of living in a consumer society,
about why we don't need that new vacuum cleaner or that tooth-whitening cream.
What we need is more graciousness, more kindness."
He held up his book for the
journalist, flipping furiously past the pages. "In this book you'll find out
that Singtel doesn't really love you like they claim they do and that wearing
Guess? jeans won't give you the genes of a Guess? model."
Asked how the book was
selling, Mr Boh remarked wryly, "I'd be happy if people were hankering after it
the way they were mindlessly clamouring for those spastic soft toys."
A
McDonald's spokesman, who declined to be named, had this to say about the Hello
Kitty phenomenon: "We at McDonald's would like to apologise if the purchase of
the Hello Kitty toys had failed to meet the expectations of our customers. We
have dealt with certain lawsuits before where customers had claimed that they
were shortchanged, like the case of the man who complained that eating a Happy
Meal did not make him a happier person at all. To those who realised that the
Hello Kitty toys had not in any way resulted in positive and life-affirming
personal transformations, we at McDonald's promise that we will work harder to
create more long-lasting distractions from your small, pathetic and meaningless
lives. Do watch out for our Hello Kitty World Series that will hit our outlets
in December, featuring your favourite dolls in S&M bondage leather, drag
queen sequin extravaganza and white shirt and pants."
Singapore Teens 'Unhappy' With Being Human: National
University
by Ayam Goreng
A few
months ago, a survey by an NUS sociology professor revealed the disturbing fact
that many young Chinese Singaporeans would have preferred to have been born as a
member of another race, such as Caucasian or Japanese.
The findings triggered a
furious exchange of letters in the press, prompting both academics and
lay-persons to remark on issues ranging from colonialism, the Western media,
ethnic self-loathing, and the etymology of the phrase 'so cheena'.
Now, a recent
survey conducted by his colleague, Associate Professor Seow Ah Neow, has exposed
what has been until now a well-kept secret among the country's youths: many
young Singaporeans actually harbour a desire to exist as non-human species, a
finding that looks set to shake the way policy makers, demographers and the
media view the below-20 segment of the population.
"The results are nothing
short of astounding," claims Prof Seow, giving the interview from his office in
the Sociology Department in NUS. "It is clear that many of our youths are so
disenchanted with the whole idea of being human beings that they would rather
project their fantasies on being animals, whose lives are run more according to
instinct than free will. A remarkable proportion made revealing references to
this aspect of being a creature of the wild, claiming, for example, that lions
or giraffes do not have to exercise decisions pertaining to career, education
and finances."
"Neither do they have to devise excuses to call that person in
their class whom they've had a crush on for the longest time," Prof Seow added.
"In the animal kingdom, especially among mammals, interest in the opposite sex
is often expressed through an act as simple as urinating on your object of
affection. It's a very primitive, uncomplicated existence. In the words of one
respondent, 'They just eat, sleep, mate, shit, and then die'."
Prof Seow then showed the journalist a copy of the survey form which he had formulated
over the course of one year, constantly fine-tuning the questions to remove any
potential biases and confounders. Two pilot surveys were actually conducted
prior to the actual one, to assess the viability and credibility of such a
survey. Then, a randomised sample size of 3,000 students, aged between 13 and 19
years, was drawn from the nation's secondary schools, junior colleges,
polytechnics, and institutes of technical education.
Prof Seow managed to obtain
the cooperation of school principals in ensuring that their students were
compliant with the survey, and did not abuse the stationery for other purposes,
as had been the case with 'Sharity Elephant' donation-appeal envelopes and 'My
Singapore, My Home' stickers in the past.
A quick look at the one-page survey
form showed that it consisted of three questions, accompanied by lines provided
for answers. The form also was framed by a black-and-white border which Prof
Seow claimed was available in three patterns: 'Ivy Leaves', 'Alternate Triangles' and
'Playful Penguins'.
The questions themselves read, in order:
'If you could
choose to be any animal, what animal would you be?', 'Why would you choose to be
this animal?' and 'What is wrong with being a human being, like yourself?'
"I
wanted the questions to be as simple as possible," claimed Prof Seow. When
queried on whether he thought that the semi-juvenile format of the questionnaire
would cause some respondents to not treat it seriously, Prof Seow bristled and
replied, "You see, we have to be able to elicit honest responses from these
teenagers, and we don't want to confront them with these very austere,
official-looking forms with your appendix A and appendix B and what not. You
remember a certain survey on sex that they performed a few months back? Have you
seen the forms? They were designed as if they were going to be mailed back to
the respondents' parents right after their kids were done. That's why the
results were so unconvincing. Do you seriously think that the majority of our
teenagers have not had sex? I have three daughters myself and I doubt that any
of them is a virgin."
When pressed further on his findings, which included 0.5%
of respondents wanting to be 'Hello Kitty' and a significant 2% who wanted to be
'Pikachu', a character from the immensely popular 'Pokemon' cartoon, Prof Seow replied, "Well, I would not dismiss these results as the work of pranksters, but
instead look at it as an example of how today's teens have expanded their
definition of what an 'animal' is. Look at Hello Kitty. It's a cat, but it's got
no mouth. So what is it? A dumb cat? And what about Pikachu, what is that thing?
A squirrel? An oversized yellow hamster? We've even had replies, mainly coming
from Gifted Education Programme students, which listed mythological beasts, like
unicorns, gryphons and basilisks."
He then went on to state how he believed this
was more a projection of their 'rich imaginations' than simply being due to
their over-exposure to role-playing computer games and 'Magic: The Gathering'
trading cards.
According to Prof Seow, the most popular animal in the survey was
'cat', with 21%, narrowly beating 'dog', which pulled in 19% of the votes. The
other animals, in order of merit, were 'eagle' (17%), 'lion' (12%), 'tiger'
(10%), 'dolphin' (8%), 'other wild animals' (5%), 'other farm and domestic
animals' (3%), 'soft toy-type animals that don't exist in real life' (2.5%),
'animals from fables and legends' (1%) and 'invertebrates' (0.5%).
These results
were fairly uniform across all the four race groups in Singapore, and was evenly
distributed among all the age groups. Also, there was not a single respondent
that actually preferred to be a human being.
Prof Seow highlighted the gloomy
implications of his survey: "Clearly some animals were chosen for their
strength, their agility, their bravery, and some simply on the basis that
they're cute and well-loved. But whatever animal they chose, we cannot deny the
facts that are glaring at us: our youths today have become increasingly more
alienated from their human origins, and are utterly disillusioned with being
encoded with the Homo sapiens DNA. It's a step backwards for evolution. The
roots of our humanity, of humankind itself, is dissolving before our eyes.
Darwin himself, I believe, would roll in his grave."
When interviewed yesterday,
Jonathan Chin Ah Heng, a 16-year old secondary school student, remarked, 'If I had the
choice, I'd like to be a falcon, because it symbolises freedom."
When asked if
there was anything about being a human being that bugged him, he replied,
"Yes,
my girlfriend's mood swings and being late for school."
Another teenager, Siti
Fadzilah Shamsuddin bte Haram, 14, had this to say, "Even though I can choose to be
whichever animal I want to, I will stay away from becoming animals that my
religion frowns on, like dogs and pigs."
When asked if animals actually
practised religion, Siti paused to think before replying, "I think so, when
we're not looking."
When questioned on the possible ramifications of the survey
findings, Ms Felicity Meow, a sociologist and Prof Seow's colleague, could only
offer contingent answers. "We're not sure at this point whether it's just a
passing phase, or something that has developed with the advent of cable
television and the exposure of our youths to a greater variety of wildlife
documentaries offered by stations like The Discovery Channel. But such
information on the psyche of our youths can be misused when they fall into the
wrong hands. For example, advertisers might exploit these subconscious yearnings
by using more animals to sell their products."
"It might not be long before we
see a black panther wearing two pairs of Nike cross trainers or a rhinoceros
driving a BMW on television. Already Coca-Cola has used polar bears to sell
their soft drink. And here is where I believe that our schools plays a role of
utmost importance. We might be the only species on Earth committed to our
self-destruction through acts of pollution, genocide and deforestation, but
there are still certain virtues to being human. Singaporean teenagers will have
to learn that unless you're a human being, it is going to be very difficult for
you to be able to play soccer or put on make-up."
