Tag: Christian

Exotic Singapore — Caning and the Kindness Movement

Us at MerlionBridge
MerlionPuppetsold-new chinatown

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This is just a little bit of what we’ve seen wandering around this confusing city.  Its level of exotic mystery is considerable; so too is the sense of an over-governed, highly disciplined universe.  These photos are just a peek at the color, variety and mystery popping up all around us.  A diverse community of Hindu, Muslim, Chinese, Malay, Indian and Anglo live together sharing four national languages (Malay, Mandarin,Tamil, and English.)

As we made our way in from the airport just past 1AM Thursday, we saw wide avenues and planned parks that seemed stifling within their neighborhoods, so we were delighted to learn how much more there is to this city than that first impression.  However.

This is a tough, tough government.  Even the tour guides note ruefully  “Well yes, but I can’t talk about that.”  In other words, if it’s about government rules, or the fines for littering or parking in the wrong place or or or — no comment.  And caning transgressors – nope.

I thought it was just me who felt like I’d walked into a scene from Fahrenheit 541 or 1984 but no.  Rick agreed that it’s kind of spooky here despite the ethnic variety and history and hodgepodge of design and architecture.

Whether at the gigantic conservatory “Gardens by the Bay” or the Chinatown Heritage Center or Orchard Road – an endless Rodeo Drive crammed with shoppers and women dressed like Donatella Versace –  there’s a sense of programmed unreality.

Then there’s the government-sponsored Singapore Kindness Movement. designed to “improve the characters” of the people of Singapore.  Kind of weird but OK…    Still, on a tour bus the recorded guide’s rhetoric was infused with defense of the rules and policies that govern this place and its behavior.  Government rules and monitoring affect attitudes, sense of humor and behavior.  I was in Eastern Europe when it was behind the Iron Curtain and it was scary but people laughed about it and spoke with irony and a sense of the absurdity about much of what they faced.

In Singapore, the impact is worse, I think: scary, resigned acceptance and a spooky inhibition that slowly but surely lands upon a visitor.

It’s quite an experience to swing between the visual (and culinary) feast here and these authoritarian undertones.

 

Refugees, Politics and And Civics (Not as Boring as It Sounds)

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This post was supposed to be about the budget cuts that have allegedly wiped out Civics education, supposed to wonder how Americans could know their rights – and those of others – if they’d never even been given baseline knowledge.

Here’s what I was going to say:

American schools used to require a class called “civics.”  Every kid learned about elections and government and bicameral legislatures and the Constitution.  Separation of powers.  Federalism.  States rights.  And the Constitution.  The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…) and — wait for it — the Constitution.

Education has always been, at its best, a tool to advance a civil society.  And Civics made it work.  We all thought it was dumb and boring and they gave us a terrible teacher who couldn’t be fired but we did learn the basics – enough to know, for example, that you can’t set religious limits on immigration or anything else in the United States of America!

OK all that’s true.  BUT it turns out that we DO have Civics education, just not much. It just doesn’t work. According to US News and World Report:

At present, more than 90 percent of U.S. high school grads get a semester in civics and at least a year of U.S. history. But something is clearly not sticking. A Xavier University study showed that while 97.5 percent of those applying for citizenship pass the test, only two out of three Americans can do the same.

The test they’re talking about is the 100 question exam immigrants to the US have to pass to become US citizens.  Their passing rate is 97.5%  Among the rest of us, it’s only 66%!  Since basic citizenship knowledge is what sustains our social contract, losing 1/3 of our citizens is kind of awful.  Here’s more from US News:

It’s hard to overstate just how poor is the average American student’s grasp of civics and history — or how badly we need to breathe life into civics in our schools. The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress showed about one-third of American eighth-graders scored at or about proficiency in reading, math and science. But those are robust numbers compared to civics and history, where 22 percent scored at that level. But we needn’t worry about those embarrassing scores any more. In 2013, the National Assessment of Education Progress, perhaps believing ignorance is bliss, announced that the civics and history tests, historically given in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades, would only be administered from now on in the 8th grade.

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In 2009, Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor founded iCivics to promote the need for better Civics training.  There are other groups too.  But we sure aren’t making any progress.  Todays immigration battle demonstrates the level of ignorance of, and reluctance to learn the basic tenets of a democratic government; it’s deeply troubling.

Try to watch the current “dangerous refugee and besides they’re Muslim” battle going on now and disagree!