A topsy turvy world

Photo from Google

I always say this to people who try to solicit political opinions from me:

When big boys play politics the ordinary people suffer.

It's strange how, 5 years on from 9/11, things have a way of coming around to haunt us. Even a small red dot isn't spared. Here's why.

On the English broadsheet this morning, two reports on local happenings got my attention. The first was about the IMF/World Bank meet (as usual, ad nauseam), about how the authorities in 1984-ville are putting much effort in physically fencing off areas around Suntec City with steel fences, to protect foreign delegates. A second story reported on how a family, consisting of a local man, a Thai woman and their small child, is about to be broken apart by uncompromising immigration laws. The mother is about to be deported while the citizenship status of the child is in limbo.

We cannot claim to have a compassionate society when the welfare of the everyday man, the working class folk is left undefended while "bigger" (read: hoity-toity) issues are pondered over.

Governments are growing bigger everywhere. The threat to the everyday man has never been bigger than now. It looks like the real fallout of 9/11 is the growth of governments at the expense of personal space and welfare. Every aspect of collective human decency and compassion, it seems, can be given up in the name of fighting terror.

I leave you with an excerpt of a speech given by Bo Wang, an academic, at the Iowa University in 1984, about the phenomenon of the Ugly Chinaman. The full text is available from here.

"The quality of the fruit is determined by the quality of the soil in which the tree grows. Similarly, people are the 'fruit' of the societies in which they live. The citizens of a country should cultivate the ability to judge their leaders; otherwise, they only have themselves to blame for the consequences. If we are willing to shout our praises for a man who is unworthy of our respect, who is to blame if he rides roughshod over us?"

Remember to run for cover when the big boys play politics.