National Day Rally 2009

PM Lee delivered his National Day Rally on 16 Aug 09 (Sunday). Traditionally, National Day Rallies used to be 2 weeks after National Day. However, since PM Lee took over premiership, I noticed he had brought forward the rallies.

There is also an evolution in the way the last few rallies were held. Multimedia and technologies were introduced. In contrast to all the 'dead' charts we used to see, we now have clips, sounds and other forms of animations, etc. Nice change. I guess even the rallies are trying to catch up with times to catch the younger group, I suppose?

Last night's rally was one of those that I enjoyed most because of the straightforwardness of the messages and it was not as 'heavy' a topic as previous rallies. I don't mean the messages were 'light' in terms of trivality. On the contrary, the focus of the night, ie religion, is one of the most difficult and sensitive issues to address in public. One has to be very mindful of what is said and I think PM has managed to bring his points forward in a very candid manner, even in his attempt to be transparent.

I meant 'light' in the sense that I don't have to absorb all the statistics about incomes, bonuses (esp baby bonuses), health care costs which were the highlights of previous rallies. Perhaps I am not a number person. Those were 'heavy' and complicated topics which I find extremely hard to absorb. Last night's topics were more easily 'absorbable', though I must say the issues at hand were very critical to our survival. Easy to understand, but takes the whole nation to act appropriately in order that we do not derail.

In fact, I am glad PM spent a great deal of time (about an hour, I noticed) talking about religions.

Though we have not reached a point where we see major clashes in the different believes, I am sure minor 'hiccups' and incidents have happened on the ground, like those examples PM had shared. It is understandable that these incidences have to be solved amicably and sensitively in low key manner. However, we can't always rely on MPs, town councils, etc to help resolve these when we can prevent it from escalating in the first place. I don't know how many more of such incidences that we do not know about that have been resolved 'silently'. The thought is scary because we may be living in 'near-misses' when a real 'accident' may lead to unimaginable repercussions.

I really hope we can watch our words, our tongues, our acts now, before we have to watch our lives!

The Swan Analogy

In his speech on government settling religions 'conflicts' on the ground in a low key manner, PM used an analogy of the swans - describing how graceful and beautiful when you see the swans sailing across the water when you view them from the top of the water but they are paddling furiously beneath. I fully appreciate this analogy.

He was trying to make a point that what we see is a picture of a 'peaceful, calm, of Singapore harmoniously progressing' which we are. But we don't see the tireless effort that is trying to keep this nice picture going. I think if this is not addressed, we are in the danger of taking a lot of things for granted, thinking we are really living in a perfect world. One doesn't get a nice picture automatically, but it takes effort, not by one person or one group of people, but everyone.

The apt swan analogy reminded me of the swans in botanical gardens when I visited them in 2007. What PM said was exactly what I saw then. The swan were very very graceful and I walked closer to the pond trying to capture them on camera when they were near the side of the pond. When I was very close to them, I noticed the feet working real hard below the water! That was the very first time I saw what had been hidden from us all these while. You can't see it unless you are real close! So hearing PM's analogy brought memories back to my botanical garden trip in 2007 (http://mihovale.blogspot.com/2007/11/graceful-swans-and-their-way-of-life.html)

I hope we can continue to live peacefully in our little red dot. We have mostly what we need, let's not create big problems for ourselves when we can prevent them.

National Day Rally 2009 can be viewed via http://www.pmo.gov.sg/

Happy National Day!

9.40pm