News

This National Day we remember how we have built our nation over 59 years. This nation was built with fierce competitiveness amid a lack of any natural resources. I believe this has served us well and we should be proud we have reached this stage of nationhood. As we build for the next 60 years, with a new prime minister at the helm, we shouldn’t take our success for granted and hope the same formula applies. We seem to have lost sight of nation-building and are ending up just competing against one another. We have become so competitive that this trait features even in our comics, in the form of Mr Kiasu, for instance. We compete to get into good schools, compete in schools and spend millions on tuition. This trait continues in the workplace. I had the chance to watch director Jack Neo’s Just Follow Law during a flight. The scenes of people scrambling to find a scapegoat when something goes wrong instead of finding a solution together hold true in real life too. For an example of how we can collaborate with others and support them, we don’t have to look far. I’ve come across offices with a sizeable Indian workforce setting up chat groups for their community. Any help needed will be met in these chat groups. Any new employee would be added to the chat group and quickly assimilated into the workplace. I envy this trait. For many Singaporeans, every new employee is a new competitor, not a collaborator. This National Day, we should discard our image of being a fiercely competitive people and become one united people, collaborating with others instead of trying to outdo them. Lastly, I’d like to quote from the Planet Of The Apes franchise: “Apes Together Strong.” Let all Singaporeans unite for the next 60 years of nation-building so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation. Happy birthday, Singapore!