Saturday, March 23, 2013

Do you really understand what Xenophobia is?

Do you really understand what Xenophobia is?

I believe many of those people who keep accusing others, especially those activists and participants of the 6.9 protest, as "Xenophobic" don't really understand or experience Xenophobia before.

I will tell you what slogan will be considered as "Xenophobic" : eg. "Go Home FTs!" "Get Lost FTs!" or any slogans targeted at foreigners in Singapore... that's Xenophobia. All these aren't new because it had happened all around the world before, be it in Australia, Europe, Japan, Korea, US, China or even Hong Kong. Nothing new, really.

Singaporeans are very mild and well behave in nature. We seldom take to the street for anything unrelated to monetary interests. But when we do take to the street to protest for something like this, it means that we are really pissed off. But yet, I believe in most of my Singaporean brothers and sisters that we do not translate this anger upon foreigners. Our anger is targeted solely on PAP government's liberal FT policy that is now doing more harm than good to us. Worse, their insistence of pushing forward to a totally unrealistic figures of 6.9 million population by importing more FTs in spite of the present uneasy shrinking living space has really added oil to the fire of anger.

Our anger is targeted at PAP government, not FT. Although there are really some cultural behaviors and insensitivities of these foreigners to our way of life are making us frustrated at times, but we are still treating them decently as another human beings.

Thus we should reject anyone who tries to label us as Xenophobic because we are not. Calling for "Singaporean First" isn't Xenophobic but a timely reminder call to PAP government to get to the basics of how a Nation should treat its citizens.

Goh Meng Seng

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