OPINION
It was revealed by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan lately that there are about 4,500 new citizens serving as grassroots leaders in various estates in Singapore.
He claimed that this will help promote integration between the newcomers and Singaporeans.
With due respect to Dr Vivian, the grassroots organizations such as Residents’ Committees (RCs) and Citizen Consultative Committees (CCCs) have long failed in their original mission to “bring Singaporeans of various races and religions together”.
Few Singaporeans will bother to participate in events organized by these quasi-PAP organizations, let alone volunteer their time and services to join them as grassroots leaders.
You need only show up at every event organized by your RC/CCC for one month to realize that it is attended by almost the same few faces.
There are literally no young Singaporeans seen at grassroots functions such as block parties and dialogue sessions with ministers.
It will be interesting to find out the membership growth of both the locals and new citizens in the grassroots organizations.
Unlike Singaporeans, the new citizens have plenty of reasons to join grassroots organizations.
Being new to a foreign land, these government-affiliated organizations will provide a much needed source of support and help during times of need.
Furthermore, it will also serve the purpose of networking for the newcomers to make new friends and acquaintances in Singapore.
For Singaporeans who have been living here for their entire lives, they have their own circle of family and friends and do not need to rely on the grassroots organizations.
Many are too busy with their daily lives to find time to “serve” their community. They will rather spend their weekends with their family or do their shopping instead of going for a morning stroll with the MP.
So if there aren’t that many locals in grassroots organizations or participating in its activities in the first place, how are they going to serve as a medium for new citizens to reach out to their Singapore neighbors?
It is highly likely that the new citizens will end up mixing only with a particular clique of Singaporeans who are politically affiliated to the PAP.
It is an unspoken truth that grassroots organizations are no more than the “eyes and ears” of the PAP on the ground.
All of them are directly controlled by the People’s Association headed by the Prime Minister himself.
Grassroots leaders are more than often not PAP branch secretaries who sit on two or more committees such as the RCs and CCCs at the same time.
With more and more new citizens being roped into grassroots organizations, they may end up mingling among themselves rather than the larger population as a whole and accentuating the divide between them and the locals.
Being highly politicized organizations which are intricately linked to the ruling party, grassroots organizations should not be beneficiaries of the $10-million Community Integration Fund paid for by taxpayers’ monies.
Not only will they not help the newcomers integrate, they will have the unintended effect of securing their allegiance to the ruling party.
The PAP knows that Singaporeans, especially the younger generation, desire more opposition to check on them in parliament and its support base is slowly being eroded with time.
New citizens who have no inkling of Singapore’s politics, are usually more inclined to vote for the incumbent government which gives them the opportunity to start their lives afresh in Singapore.
Their votes will be crucial to counter the rising support among indigenous Singaporeans for the opposition in the next few elections to enable the PAP to maintain its political hegemony.
We must not forget that the entire political system in Singapore is designed to entrench one single ruling party in power to the exclusion of others – the government dislikes having an effective opposition to hold them accountable.
To them, this is “adversarial” politics which is anathema to their interests since their flaws, fallacies and hypocrises will be exposed clearly for the public to see.
Even with the GRCs, it is a tall order for the PAP to win 98 per cent of the seats in future elections repeatedly.
Winning the new citizens to its side first before anybody else is crucial for the ruling party as they and their next generation will form a powerful voting bloc to contend with.
The control of the media and grassroots organizations is instrumental in engineering past electoral victories of the PAP.
With the information monopoly enjoyed by the mainstream media being chipped away gradually by the new media, it is imperative that the PAP cultivates close ties with the new citizens and voters of the future right now.
Singaporeans should demand stringent criteria to be set before the fund is allowed to be used by the grassroots organizations.
For example, the activity or event will only qualified for funding if there are are approximately equal mix of locals and new citizens.
There is little point in conducting HDB block parties for a group of Indian expatriates with few Singaporeans involved or a one-day tour to Malaysia attended by the same cliche of geriatricians with little participation from the new citizens.
Singaporeans will have no objections to fraternizing with the newcomers, but $10-million is no small sum and we have to make sure that it doesn’t end up promoting the interests of the PAP instead of the community as it should be.
not interested to integrate.