The Wee Shu Min Saga

I only just got updated on the WSM saga today by Tan Long and Zhaoyu and consequently ventured a search on Technorati. Through http://xialanxue.blogspot.com, I managed to find the alleged elitist blog entry of Ms Wee.

It is not difficult to see why many people are suaning her now. One wonders why a Harvard professor would have been rumoured to fall head over heels with her use of language. I guess either Lawrence was kidding, or Harvard professors are blinded by their love for everything that can make them seem superior to us (as is the theory hereabouts for eternity).

Never mind others. I shall say why I am personally incensed after reading her entry.

First and foremost, it's obvious that there are certain limits as to what a daughter of an MP should do. I don't believe reading complaint letters and publishing them on your blog so that you can slam it is exactly ethical. (Of course, that can be debated since the Internet is full of everything vulgar from pornography to bored bloggers.) It is quite horrendous to find that our MPs advocate such "breeding habits" in their homes. Shouldn't policy makers be imbued with morality and better judgment? Is this the result of our lack of contenders in our constituencies?

Second, what this girl calls "old ppl (40 and above)" and "crackpots. stupid crackpots. the sadder class" (the emphasis on 'stupid' is of my doing) and people of the "complement class" and "wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches" include my parents.

Because we don't earn more than $10000 a month, nor do we all speak Queen's English doesn't make us any less entitled to society's resources, and in Mr Derek Wee's case, the government, or specifically, his MP's help. If Ms Elitist read her Economics notes well (if she even takes the subject at all), she would have realised one of the macroeconomic goals of every government is to ensure equity in society, not breed an elitist class of green skirted tykes. If she read her History notes well, she would have realised that this elitist class of "intelligent" decision-makers who live loftily in their castles in clouds thrive, interestingly, in the Communist states Ms Elitist-arse asks Mr Derek to live in.

Note also that there are no such words as "undermotivated" but simply "unmotivated".

I am bloody peeved that she could have said that those people are crackpots. Do you know what crackpots are? They are drug-addicts. Low income does not equate marijuana! If we have drug deals in Singapore, it would be ecstasy scandals from high profile characters in our society.

Is it fair at all to ask those that have helped build up the Singapore economy; the majority of the working class of Singapore to burrow in silence to finance the salaries of our policy makers without their helping us out at all? Is it even minutely correct to, in the corner of your obscure mind, think that these people do not deserve better jobs and brighter futures?

The problems of unemployment in older Singaporeans and concerns of immigrant groups are real and should not be brushed off so lightly because Ms Wee was born with a silver spoon stuck in her mouth and that she so happens belong to RJC. I have many friends in the Humanities programme there, and being a Rafflesian myself, I question what could have happened to breed such noxious opinions. Are the expatriate teachers doing us more harm than good by importing their discriminations?

There is, of course, no longer any use in pursuing this matter. Thoughts are our own and they cannot be changed. I can only disagree with her, not make her agree with me. Apologies have flown around and one can only reflect on this matter as teenage folly and as precautionary tales to remind us never to think that we are of the better class of society and marginalise others who are less fortunate than us.

Perhaps we can also reflect on what went wrong in our education system as to have led to such dangerous thinking? Is my generation becoming snobbish and insolent because we are more blessed than the previous? Will Singapore become a dystopia in our hands?