Blank Doll spits at you.

I am writing this to express my absolute disgust at what happened during History lecture when Mrs. Chia mentioned the Separation between Malaysia and Singapore where the people in the lecture laughed. You cannot understand how horrified I feel because truly, today, I am ashamed of my fellow youths. If all you can do is wail at the government for not doing what it is NOT doing and not celebrate what it HAS done, if all you can do is shout 'Liberty' and 'Freedom of the Press' in English, then shame on you because you do not even know the basic virtue of patriotism. This is not about revering Mr. Lee Kuan Yew even if I do admire him very much, this is about recognizing the fundamental sorrow and despair our nation felt at its darkest point and then see that what we have today is all the result of a great government who sacrificed everything for the economic good of the country.

Singapore in the 1960s was a truly sad place, how can I make it clear to you, you who has only seen Singapore in all her prosperity today? Can you see the abject state of housing during those days? Can you feel the fear in your bones when your neighbours laugh and cheer Malaysia on, ominously hinting at the prospect of invasion? Can you feel the nakedness of having a bare-boned defense when Indonesia was the greatest military force in South-East Asia? Were you there when the first peoples of the Singaporean government undertook her enormous task of economic growth? Your grandparents built their fortunes on their back, in uncertainty. People fought riots in the streets, we had nothing. Nothing.

None of us contributed to Singapore's greatness today. Today, we are a crimson mote of light and progress in the midst of a grey landscape mired by war, poverty, chaos and sickness. We have an enlightened elite, a steady middle income base and a diverse economy. Let me reiterate this, not a single person from our generation contributed to this. We did not fight for Singapore's independence, we did not fight for her survival, we did not fight for Singapore. It is enough that we have done nothing for her, but to belittle her tribulations? That is too much. That is arrogant, shameful and deplorable.

Yes, Liyana and all those tittering light-headed people who think themselves so sophisticated and witty for expressing their amusement at the scene. I am talking to you. What you said during lecture, laughing at the idea of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, that proud great man crying before all his followers, is unforgiveable. Never mind that you do not feel the same sense of belonging to the country, but at least have the intellect to understand that at the darkest moment of Singapore's history, our greatest leader showed that he was but a man, scared and uncertain about our future. Laugh at that and you mock the collective effort of our elders, you laugh at the successes of your grandparents. Don't ever forget the past because we are nothing if not the result of our past.

Rooted in our present generation is the beginning of Singapore's fall. This is enough to make me want to stay in Singapore and contribute my life to her as a politician because at the rate with which our youths are going, none of them will be capable of leading the country because none of them have the heart for it. One can only shudder as they pay lip service to some strange idea of western liberty and open society when the key problems are still social cohesion, economic survival and the strategic importance of Singapore.

Yes, I'm disgusted and I'm not sorry for it.

C'est tout.