serangoon gardens and their new residents – whose call is it?

sheer racism has been rearing its ugly head in singapore once again. who would expect this in the year 2008 when we have come so far since the bloody 1964 riots?

tensions seem high when the serangoon gardens issue is raised, especially where the foreign workers (i.e. the bangalas & chinese migrant construction workers) may soon be joining their community, and having them loitering around the premises of their potential new home just seems to be unfathomable.  

i can understand the sentiments of those that are protesting incessantly for this proposition not to materialise. has anyone smelt one of these workers? i mean, just standing next to one on a train and taking a whiff of his body odour, is enough to turn you away from that carriage. i don’t mean to sound rude/racist myself here, but there’s just no better way of stating this widely-known truth that somehow, majority of the bangalas we’ve come across just seem to have that lingering scent of sweat mixed with wet clothes shut in a cupboard before it’s allowed to dry. and it stinks big-time. i think all employers should give these foreign workers some “soap money” to get themselves better shower gels to mask their stench or allow them to take more showers throughout the day, especially one after work. something ought to be done about the bad smells they emit. maybe we can donate our soap bars to them through a “bathe the workers campaign?” 

today tries to use statistics to prove to the angry serangoon garden residents that their fears of increased crime rate are unjustified. the paper tries to downplay the percentage of foreign workers arrested last year as a relatively insignificant 3,780 out of 19,371 persons, but i doubt it will probably get anywhere with those numbers.

while driving to school today, 3 bangalas were leering so hard right at me from the back of their trucks (on 3 separate occasions), as if they have never seen a girl before. and when i glared right back, they held their gaze still and refused to turn away until their lorry was out of sight. it was certainly discomforting for me, and more so when i was not wearing anything revealing to begin with.

as for the chinese migrant workers, on many occasions, they have been extremely loud (the women especially)! it’s like they got so immune to the noise in their hometowns, they don’t seem to feel that there’s a need to re-adjust their own volumes when they’re here.

the gahmen has to acknowledge that a large part of our society is still this sensitive and such stereotypes persist on because there is much truth in it and we consider such behaviour as rude and intolerable. maybe MOM should educate them with the ‘do’s’ and ‘do not’s’ in singapore as part of their orientation when they first arrive here so that they can fit in better? well, it’s just a suggestion! :p

at the end of the day, i believe the residents (altho’ they openly don’t voice it) are most concerned on the impact of the prices on their property in bringing these workers in. and this is a valid concern. serangoon and geylang are already deemed as the cheapest towns on our local version of monopoly and it seems that we are making it a reality. it isn’t fair to those who bought their houses in serangoon for a hefty price to see their property prices dip because of the foreign workers moving in as their neighbours and jamming up the area even further.

yes, back to the moral argument on how we should learn how to live in perfect harmony, we should acknowledge that these people who keep our roads clean, build our HDBs and do the dirty jobs that we wouldn’t want to do, are also humans, and they need a place to stay. and us singaporeans, should show that bit of graciousness and gratefulness for their efforts.

but it’s really hard to keep neutral and cool-headed when such a topic eventually affects you directly and i believe the proper solution is for the gahmen to re-look into the validity of the reasons on why it has to reallocate these foreign workers and justify them to the public and reveal the actual no. of these workers moving in. perhaps they might want to create smaller groups of these foreign workers to be spread out throughout singapore, so that they would not be deemed as so intrusive. an entire school of them sounds like a lot to me!

and if this is not a mere reallocation exercise, then probably it’s time to get realistic and limit the no. of foreign workers coming in to singapore. there’s only so many inhabitants this little island can hold.