Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan

Some people articulate things better than I do, and I find myself lacking the time to write an insightful piece at this point in time. So I direct you to read this excellent article: http://kirstenhan.me/2011/04/25/dr-balakrishnan-y-u-no-play-fair/

Eisen Teo asked me to write him

So I read this article that day (see it here: http://cjcpig.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/gen-y-think-outside-that-kate-spade-box/) and I was suitably upset and I tweeted. Eisen himself replied and asked me to email him, so well I did and here it is:

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Dear Eisen,

I wasn't going to write you an email, but since you replied my tweet asking for an email, I guess there's no harm writing. I've also written to your uneducated forum editor Mr Yap, but didn't receive his reply. I still however hope to receive yours. Anyhow I say that Mr Yap is uneducated because of his responses to Mr Samuel Wee, which clearly demonstrated to us that he has no comprehension capabilities, basic grasps of mathematics, or both. And going by the coverage of this election, I say both.

But that's enough of him.

I must say that initially I was very appalled, and even angry to read your editorial piece, because I find the thinly veiled attempt to defend Tin Pei Ling an insult to Singaporeans, and also I question who gave you the authority to represent us, Gen Y, to lecture us.

The Gen Y did not attack Tin Pei Ling because of her youth. This is clearly evident in your own editorial where you made a huge contradiction. You said that the Gen Y flamed and virtually-lynched Tin Pei Ling, dug through her then-public Facebook and Twitter account because she is young and took a photo with the now infamous "twist" and a Kate Spade box. And you then noted only ONE comparison of her and Mr Chen, amongst the many other younger candidates, that Mr Chen has been "mislabeled" by his peers as being troublesome and attention seeking. And that's it. C'est tout, pas autre chose.

I am not sure if it is immediately obvious, but for the rest of us there is a huge difference - NONE of the other young candidates have been "flamed" or "lynched" by the Gen Y netizens online. And no, this is not because Tin Pei Ling is a girl. I assure you if she was a guy she would have been flamed more, and definitely the poor guy's sexuality will be even pulled to the forefront. It is because Tin Pei Ling, through her own actions, her own speeches previously, her Facebook, her interviews and etc have shown herself to be useless.

This has nothing to do with her gender nor her age, and if any of the OTHER young candidates did anything remotely similar to her, we would have torn them asunder online as well. And less we forget, during the last General Elections, something as minor as a form being filled up with one error raised more ruckus than this.

So what did she do? She has no opinion of any issues firstly, she does not think that the rich-poor divide is any of the government's responsibility, her biggest regret in her life is to have not yet brought her parents to Universal Studios, and then she stomped her feet petulantly on national television.

The "noise" that is heard online is not noise but its the sentiments of the electorate. It is saying that we do NOT want a person like that to represent us, and what is flaming all this anger is because the Gen Y Singaporeans know full well that unless something catastrophic happen, she is going to march in to Parliament, Kate Spade bag and all, with ease. If this was a functioning democracy, we could use our votes and make sure that Tin Pei Ling does not get voted in.

But in this unique GRC system where she happens to be running for Marine Parade together with Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong (the last time I checked, this was the case), we can safely say that if we vote for SM Goh, she will definitely get in, and other more credible opposition candidates will not. Simply because. And a more active youth, who has done much more than her, can present a better case than her and be so much so much more, has to climb Mount Everest, and this is the anger.

The anger is not towards her per-se, but at our inability to make sure that Tin Pei Ling doesn't get into Parliament, and this frustrates Singaporeans, that our votes can only do this much. I am not sure how many people will sacrifice SM Goh to make sure Tin Pei Ling does not get in.

So no, we are not going to be any nicer to anyone just because they are in our demographics, as I am quite sure that you are not asking us to vote for one race because we are of one race, because this is a very dangerous implication in a harmonious society like ours.

So how do I feel about Tin Pei Ling as a Gen Y? Let's just say that I don't want my taxes to pay for her internship. She can go do her internship somewhere else.

Sincerely,

Scott

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It turns Yahoo is giving much better election coverage than the other mainstream media http://sg.news.yahoo.com/generalelections/

I am going to blog soon

Note to self and readers: I am preparing to write about:
1. Reply to http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC110407-0000374/Room-for-religion-in-public-discourse
2. A few words on the election.

See you soon dear readers!