Must We Fight? - another portfolio assignment

I have chosen to analyse present-day issue based on a letter published in the Straits Times newspaper. By doing this, not only can I find many S.S. values inside, I can also learn about Singapore and its current happenings. This can also tell me about how Singaporeans react to a certain situation, like in chaos or happier times.

I have chosen a letter written by a member of the public. It is entitled 'Barrage of responses – only in online forum' under the main heading of 'Let’s talk about FEE HIKES'. This appeared in YouthInk, a Monday feature in the Straits Times. YouthInk is a forum that reviews and let young readers air their views about current affairs that affect them. In this instance, I hope my analysis to this letter I have chosen help the reader of my portfolio become aware of the things that matter to youths (soon I will be) and the rationale behind their views.

`Let’s talk about FEE HIKES’
A fee hike means there is a fee increase for a certain service. In this case, a group of people who have to use the service want to protest against the party that increases the fees. One of the ways to protest is to wear coloured ‘White elephant’ T-shirts like those worn by a group of schoolgirls when they protested against the delayed opening of Buangkok MRT station. They wanted to convey the message that the MRT station existed for no purpose if it could not better serve Buangkok residents’ transportation needs. Another way to protest is the use of violence. One of the examples is by creating a riot as in the earlier days when Singapore had inter-racial disputes.



The protest that was not to be
In one of the most recent incidents, NUS introduced a 3 percent fee increase across all faculties. This means the entire NUS student population and the students’ parents/guardians were affected. In addition, there had already been a few fee hikes over the last few years. A movement was started to band the student community to protest against the NUS authorities. However, because few people joined in the protest and the protest demonstrations fizzled out as soon as it began. Youths from NUS wrote to YouthInk about what they felt about this outcome. The underlying point among these writers was that there were too many people sitting on the fence.

There were many who only talk about their unhappiness while waiting for others to act for them. In his letter “Barrage of responses – only in online forum”, Eisen Teo as an NUS freshman, lamented that the strong emotions at online forums did not match those on the NUS campus. He was bewildered how the student community did not even bother to follow through with the proposed protest actions, including the “black T-shirt” campaign. The strong voices of protest online did not find its match on the campus, where Eisen’s fellow students were described as being meek and seemingly cannot be bothered.

Should we protest?
Even though we might not like a certain thing, we should not protest in an ugly manner. We can share our opinion in a more respectful manner. At school, we can tell the teachers that we feel that there is a better solution to something, or we can tell them calmly that most people do not like the teachers’ ways. In this manner, it will not make anyone unhappy, and we can still get what we want or agree to something in between. We must uphold justice and not have barbarians in the country that we live in. in other words, we can win not only by actions, but we can also win through words. I feel that words make a powerful bargaining tool, and once a peaceful solution is agreed upon, we can then act to honour the agreement.

They should have told their principal about what they thought about the fee raise, and have it solved the more amicable way. This would have been more constructive and given NUS a chance to explain its position.

Lessons learnt from history
In the earlier days of Singapore, we had many riots whenever people among different races were unhappy. If we had continued to be like that, our country will have many protest demonstrations and riots around and we would not be what we are today. That is why the late Mr. Rajaratnam wrote the pledge for all Singaporeans to remind us to value harmony with fellow human beings. If Singapore is not harmonious, it will break up. Therefore, we should teach pupils of the future generation to do the right thing and respect differences, so that we can have harmony!
In present Singapore, we can still apply these values. We should neither give up nor resort to antagonism in times of difficulty. We should have harmony among neighbours … in fact, with everyone. We should, most importantly, continue to strive for what we want in a way that can help others see our aspirations. Better still, we should aim to win them over! :-)

***REFLECTIONS***

I selected this piece of work because I could find many good values to share with you, the reader. The other reason was that this issue was fairly recent, and involved students, so I could identify with it more easily . I wanted to learn how Singaporeans reacted to present-day situations. I found out that when something did not happen the way they like, they would protest. This was just like the Buangkok affair that involved President Thaksin.

As part of writing about ”Must We Fight?”, I learnt some strengths and weaknesses about myself. I would like to share these as well what I have learnt from this exercise.

ü MY Strengths

About the portfolio style I chose
· It was a review, and I like reviews.
· It was easier to express the values, compared to other styles like ‘poems’.
· It was easier to write my feelings too, compared to poems.

About the story I made
· I divided them into parts, making it easier for me to analyse and for my raeders to understand.
· I included a lot of my own insights. This demonstrates that I am developing more and more of my own views about things that happen around me. I also find that I critically review information presented to me, rather than take everything at face value.

About myself
· I like writing reviews; I am good at it.

About the topic itself
· The topic was quite straightforward, so I did not need to spend time to understand it.
· There were many values inside that I could identify with.

MY Weaknesses

About the story I made
· I tended to write in present tense, instead of past tense.
About the topic itself
· It would have been easier to write if I were involved in that protest. I could have described and expressed better the protest and what the students were trying to do.
What I have learned
I have learned that reviews should always be written in past tense. I have also learnt that Singaporeans do not like to protest through violence, but they prefer to do it online. Being online allows Singaporeans to remain anonymous (e.g. use of pseudonyms instead of using real name) and not attract too much unwanted attention.

This piece of work was not an experiment for me. I did a similar piece of work in my P4 portfolio. If I had more time, I would have talked more about what I thought of Eisen’s words (on the NUS students).

I got stuck when I did not know what to add on after the ‘The protest that was not to be’ part. Luckily, I remembered about adding my personal insights.

Thank-you reader, for reading through my work!!!