Daughter’s words Father’s views

So it has came to pass that the situation had attracted enough attention for MP Wee Siew Kim of Ang Mo Kio GRC to make a public statement to apologise for what his daughter had written on her blog in response to Derek Wee’s blog entry.

A lesson learnt, says MP and dad Wee Siew Kim

“What she said did come across as insensitive. The language was stronger than what most people could take.

But she wrote in a private blog and I feel that her privacy has been violated. After all, they were the rantings of an 18-year-old among friends.

I think if you cut through the insensitivity of the language, her basic point is reasonable, that is, that a well-educated university graduate who works for a multinational company should not be bemoaning about the Government and get on with the challenges in life.

Nonetheless, I have counseled her to learn from it. Some people cannot take the brutal truth and that sort of language, so she ought to learn from it.

In our current desire to encourage more debated, especially through the Internet, our comments must be tempered with sensitivity.

I will not gag her, since she’s 18 and should be able to stand by what she says.

The new media of the Internet is such that if you don’t like what she has said, you have the right of rebuttal.

Hopefully, after the discussion, everyone will be the richer for it. As a parent, I may not have inculcated the appropriate level of sensitivity, but she has learnt a lesson, and it’s good that he has learnt it at such an early stage in life.”

What had Derek said that was wrong? Not that I could see anything wrong with what he had said. I have not gone through his shoes to see things from a man in his 30s going to his 40s, nor do I feel that I going under stress of being retrenched within my company at the moment. Yet, I do feel that there is a certain truth in the words which he had said.

 In our bid to globalise, our economy had turned into one which would doubtlessly be influenced by external factors, and that is a one of the chief characteristics which define a free globalised economy. Thus, businesses within Singapore would naturally feel the pressure to ensure that they keep up to pace in the competition, when new competitors rise across the horizon from another country, flaunting cheaper products due to cheaper labour from another country, with similar management ability, marketing skills, financial stability, and business acumen, all that boils down to its the cost of business that is directly related to the overheads of the company, and one of the key overheads would be the salary of the their employees. As salaries of their older executives increase over time, overheads increase as a result, with younger graduates appearing every year with similar set of management skills and acumen, with a greater drive for success, and cheaper wages compared to the older executives. Businesses are hardpressed to cope with the increased competition and the pressure to cut cost are therefore multiplied, which in most cases, companies would either resort to retrenchment, mergers, or management reshuffle to cut cost, downsize, or hire cheaper workers in the face of the new economic environment in order to stay competitive.

If that were to be the case within this new globalised economy, where does that stand for our older executives beyond the age of 40? In these times of uncertainty when they need their jobs to provide for their family, coping with housing loans, car loans, and bottomlines. What is important is to review what could the government do to stabilise their fears in the face of their uncertainty and possible unemployment due to newer economic challenges?

As for what Ms. Wee had mentioned within her blog, it is understandable for one as young as her not to understand the market forces that drives a free and globalise economy within a Singaporean context.

 What struck me as astounding was the words of Mr Wee Siew Kim’s comments with regards to his daughter’s blog entry. While he chooses to acknowledge the fact that his daughter’s words had been a tad insensitive and its language had been stronger than what most could take, he had failed to mentioned that what his daughter had written had been more than just insensitive, but had not captured the cause behind that anxiety which had been troubling Derek and the similar group of Singaporeans, while assuming that the anxiety had been merely rants by one whom chose not to raise his competiveness, and chose to lay the blame on the government for his misfortunes.

In Mr Wee Siew Kim’s sweeping statement, “that a well-educated university graduate who works for a multinational company should not be bemoaning about the Government and get on with the challenges in life.” Yet, if Mr Wee Siew Kim had truly subscribe to his daughter’s words, does that mean that in supporting his daughter’s words had actually been his views which he had been indoctrinating in his daughter as well? The fact that one of our government’s MPs had not understood the similar market forces which drives our elder executives off the competition had not been an area of concern for him as an MP, a leader of his constituents, lest to say that he’s President & Deputy CEO of Singapore Technologies. Yet, he seemed to understand that lowering costs of business had been a critical issue for businesses to survive in the new economic environment not too long ago, or have this issue with his daughter truly revealed his views with regards to his thought process?

While on another note which he mentioned, that he feels that his daughter’s privacy had been violated as she had written in a private blog. As I would like to reiterate on what many other bloggers had written in response. That when you choose to write online within a blog which is undoubtedly accessible by many others through search engines or links through friends, one had already chose a medium which others could undoubtedly access and choose to comment, therefore rendering the argument of her writings within a private blog with her privacy violated as balderdash.

In all, with all the repercussions which had been started with an insensitive entry by Ms. Wee. What was more worrying had been the view of one of our leader’s, with his seemingly innocuous statement, had the implications of that he chose to ignore the concerns of an average Singaporean, whom could had been one of his constituents. That is truly worrying should that be the views which had been harboured by our community leaders whom had been elected along with our Prime Minister to lead us through the new challenges that are bound to beset us in the coming years.

~ by azmodeus on October 25, 2006.