Say No To 6.9 Million People Event, 16 Feb 2013

Given that nearly 4000 people had signed up to attend, I wasn't surprised to see fellow audience members clad in black when I got out of the train at Clarke Quay MRT. The weather hadn't quite let up. I was worried that a persistent downpour would render the event fruitless, but gloomy skies with pockets of intermittent rain didn't quite bother the umbrella-ready crowd. At the station exit, there were many old men chatting under shelter and a sole MRT worker keeping an eye on things. I entered the drizzle and sauntered onto the wet grass, past the table selling the official 'No To 6.9 Million' T-shirt. There were clappers and bottles of water being distributed as well. I ventured further into Hong Lim Park, looking for friends (we would remain lost for a while). A good of young and old persons, mostly locals and some foreigners. Maybe even some tourists. The journalists with their long cameras and longer tripods were weaving their way through the crowd. I plonked myself somewhere in the middle, guided by Watsapp messages of navigation.

Gilbert Goh started talking a little after 4pm, thanking everyone for coming. One by one, the speakers would take the stage over the next 3 hours to make their points on why we should oppose the White Paper on Population Growth.

As I write this 2 days later, I recall Ravi Philemon talking about his kids not having opportunities in their homeland; a Cradius Tan (?) asking the government to place bets in casinos and not with its people; a young lady who we likened to Ris Low who talked working as a toilet cleaner for $10 an hour when she was studying in Australia; a middle aged Chinese man (who did insurance I think) who kept to the theme that our government and people were in denial. He made a lot of sense; a Malay lawyer who has 7 kids and expecting number 8; Tan Kin Lian who talked about welfare for the elderly; the charismatic Vincent Wijeysingha who expressed that this gathering wasn't anti-foreigner but pro-Singaporean, not against people but policy; Tan Jee Say was the last guest speaker and he was vocal. "Your Prime Minister has failed his country". There may have been a few more speakers but they weren't memorable enough to make this post.

I expected a variety of arguments. Some were logical, some fair, some seemingly baseless, some erroneous, some emotional to elicit an intended response. Even contradictory - someone talked about HDB flat prices going up and how that meant a worse future. Another speaker talked about falling HDB prices and that meant the same fate. Some persons talked about welfare systems in Australia and the Nordic states without mentioning the high levels of personal income tax individuals pay to sustain these measures, something I don't think Singaporeans are ready for.

There was multiple mention of xenophobia and that this event was not an anti-foreigner rally. Most knew what this meant but some choose to ignore it. There were frequent shouts of "Kick out the foreigners" or variations of that throughout the rally. These guys are dangerous. They do not see the right problem and likely are victims of policy that saw perhaps their jobs replaced with lower cost foreign workers or have noisy non-local neighbours. They are angry, and when you're angry, you say stupid and do stupid things.

The key takeaway for me was that the gahmen wasn't listening. They rushed through this White Paper without explaining simply what the aims were and it was easy for us to pick on a number to run with, the now infamous 6.9. There are fair points in the release but the one-sided delivery from high and mighty mouths overshadowed the weighty issues.

Personally, I don't want to live in a super-crowded city. At the same time, I wished Singaporeans would grow up and accept certain truths while developing their social graces. We have a long way to go. Speaking up is a good start.