Basket.

"A, B, E but no place in the local universities" - letter to ST Forum, 29 May 2007.

MY DAUGHTER'S recent applications for entry to the three local universities - Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore (NUS) and Singapore Management University - were all rejected. The reasons given were an overwhelming response, limited places in the universities and stiff competition.

My daughter is an above-average student who had excelled in sports. She has met all the criteria for entry to a local university. Is being eligible not enough? Must one now get extraordinary grades to be granted a place in university?

Like her, many young Singaporeans her age must have had their dream of pursuing a higher education dashed recently. Ironically, the universities are still advertising for applications. Are they looking for A-star performers who have more than one option? Are they raising their standards for applicants so that they will be able to improve their world ranking - just like an elite school or junior college that accepts only the best in Singapore so that ultimately its ranking will be at the top?

The Minister for Education had said that 'no Singaporean should be deprived of a good education', so what about the many students, like my daughter, who are qualified to enter university after two years of hard slog, only to be told that they had not been selected due to limited vacancies and stiff competition?

The Education Ministry should look into this problem with a sense of urgency as it only shows a lack of planning to meet the aspirations of young Singaporeans who want to study for a degree.

Local universities are publicly funded. Isn't it about loyalty and kinship that citizens are given a chance to study there as long as they are eligible for entry?

Are my daughter's grades of an A, B, C (General Paper) and an E not good enough?

My son, who is 27 years old and had A-level grades of A, B and C, graduated with a Second Upper Class Honours degree in the Arts and Social Sciences at NUS.


A sadly common phenomenon in this country are letters such as that above, which I have dubbed the "My son" variety in cheerful defiance of the subject's actual gender, due to such missives almost invariably beginning with "My son...". Look out for these especially towards the end of every year, when parents anxious about their twelve-year-olds' chances of making it to RI/RGS/Generic Top SAP School compose thinly-disguised complaints to the Straits Times; credit to our august national broadsheet for always, year after year, taking the time to publish crap like that instead or using the space for something a little more enriching.

Such letters are invariably an unholy mixture fear, desperation and self-righteous anger. They show up what I believe is the greatest social defect in this country - the entitlement complex. The letter above is no different - classically, its logic reduced to the simplest form is that the letter-writer's scion worked hard for his/her exams, and so ought to get what he/she aimed for. Now, anyone who has spent more than a couple years in secondary school is going to realise that this way of thinking is terribly flawed. Diligence equals success is something that the Ministry of Education would like every single student to believe, but it is simply not true. What diligence does is to give one a greater chance of success - but the odds of failure can still remain daunting. Most of the time, they do.

And thus, people work hard but don't do well. I've seen countless cases. My classmates, batchmates, relatives and most recently, students. The reasons for failure are many and varied. We are all human and fallible and life has a nasty habit of not letting us always have what we want, to put it lightly. But the best reaction to failure is to try again. Learn from your mistakes and give it another go. Somehow, that is the important lesson most people on this piece of dirt never seem to realise.

Instead, Singaporeans' reaction to failure is more commonly to whine. Unfair questions, a lack of time to complete the paper, unreasonable societal expectations... I've heard it all before. The annual controversy over the PSLE Maths paper is the most palpable manifestation of this effect. Obviously parents want the best for their children, but what lesson are they imparting to their offspring here? If at first you fail, whine and whine until they let you succeed? Well, you are certainly doing a good job of teaching your child proper moral values there.

Now, time to take our latest letter-writer to task.

"MY DAUGHTER'S recent applications for entry to the three local universities - Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore (NUS) and Singapore Management University - were all rejected. The reasons given were an overwhelming response, limited places in the universities and stiff competition."

The very nerve of our local universities, how dare they deny admission with such blatantly unreasonable excuses. How dare everyone else in Singapore work hard to do well! This is manifestly a nationwide conspiracy against my daughter. And how dare our universities have only limited places! Obviously they must open a vortex of space-time using arcane Babylonian moon rituals in order to create a dark campus of unholy magnitude.

"My daughter is an above-average student who had excelled in sports. She has met all the criteria for entry to a local university. Is being eligible not enough? Must one now get extraordinary grades to be granted a place in university?"

Beg your pardon sir, but last I checked you were not the dean of Admissions at any of the afore-mentioned universities. Which little bird told you that your daughter has met all the criteria for entry to a local university? Don't talk out of your ass, please.

In addition, your daughter's grades are, to put it mildly, quite a bit short of being "extraordinary".

"Like her, many young Singaporeans her age must have had their dream of pursuing a higher education dashed recently. Ironically, the universities are still advertising for applications. Are they looking for A-star performers who have more than one option? Are they raising their standards for applicants so that they will be able to improve their world ranking - just like an elite school or junior college that accepts only the best in Singapore so that ultimately its ranking will be at the top? "

I really think you ought to stop mentioning "A-star performers" when your daughter is hardly among that number. Grades matter for university entry, your daughter's were simply not good enough, kindly learn to live with that fact.

"The Minister for Education had said that 'no Singaporean should be deprived of a good education', so what about the many students, like my daughter, who are qualified to enter university after two years of hard slog, only to be told that they had not been selected due to limited vacancies and stiff competition?"

WOW UNIVERSITIES ACCEPT STUDENTS ON ACADEMIC MERIT, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?!

Hard work not necessarily = success. Would have thought you old enough to understand that by now.

Also limited vacancies again? Well, vortex of space time, moon rituals, I guess.

"The Education Ministry should look into this problem with a sense of urgency as it only shows a lack of planning to meet the aspirations of young Singaporeans who want to study for a degree."

The only problem here is your inability to grasp the very simple concept that universities admit students based on academic merit, and your daughter failed to meet the standards they set. Hence, she did not get in. I do not know how this explanation can possibly be made easier for your understanding.

"Local universities are publicly funded. Isn't it about loyalty and kinship that citizens are given a chance to study there as long as they are eligible for entry?"

It is not up to you to say whether your daughter is eligible for entry. That is for the universities you applied to to determine. And, one more time, universities admit students based on academic merit. Are you suggesting that they stop doing that? Are you suggesting with your use of the words "loyalty and kinship" that university admissions be transformed into a cesspool of nepotism and cronyism?

"Are my daughter's grades of an A, B, C (General Paper) and an E not good enough?"

That would indeed appear to be the case, good sir.

"My son, who is 27 years old and had A-level grades of A, B and C, graduated with a Second Upper Class Honours degree in the Arts and Social Sciences at NUS."

Your point being...?

In conclusion, this good fellow countryman of mine should:

1) Encourage his daughter to try again for university admission next year.

OR

2) Encourage his daughter to retake her A-Level examinations in order to achieve better grades.

OR

3) Somehow get enough money to send her somewhere which will take her.

This good fellow countryman of mine must:

1) Understand that the solution to failure is to try and try again, not whine and whine again.

AND

2) Stop writing angsty self-righteous rants to waste newsprint.

It is my hope that he comes to his senses.

Well, I'm unemployed again. Fortunately I secured a tuition job prior to ending my stint, so the cash flow is not completely cut off. Following that, my aunt asked me to tutor my cousin in... Additional Mathematics and Chemistry. I gave it serious consideration before deciding that I wasn't up to it - mainly because I failed every single A-Maths test except one in Secondary 3 and Chemistry was responsible for the only F9 I ever got; also the only time I ever finished rock bottom of my class in any subject. Rather than risk abject failure and the generation of ill-will, I gave the opportunity away.

Birth --> Student --> Rite of Passage --> Bum --> Working adult --> Bum again (Currently) --> Student again (Near future) --> Working adult again (Mid-long term future) --> Death by miscellaneous causes at indefinite age (Long term future).

Glad I am so far following the life cycle of a typical Singaporean almost to a T.

I really should stop being so scatter-brained. I've already lost two umbrellas by leaving them on public transportation this year, and today nearly lost my EZ-link card by forgetting to take it back after topping it up. Incredible. For the second time ever I was saved by Unknown Kind Soul, who returned the card to the MRT control station. Previously, I nearly lost my IC when I left it in a library lending machine.

That was only part of a wondrous day when I discovered that I had unwittingly damaged a book, had to sit through an interminable and largely irrelevant meeting, followed by a late tuition session and crowned by a particularly severe bout of motion sickness on the long ride home. I was saved by my handy Wrigley's Spearmint.

As such, I am fucking tired. MOE and NUS also chose the perfect moment to unload a deluge of paper on me, most of which are forms I need to fill up within the week. I certainly love the sweet smell of bureaucracy in the morning.

Conclusion: Please be a better day tommorrow.

Anyone ever notice the instinctual family portrait arrangement people at gatherings usually end up in?

Have not had the energy to post for over a week, which began with the chaotic doling back of exam scripts. I had plenty of choice things to say when the results came in, most of them unrepeatable in a standard classroom environment, but I will restrict myself here to saying that the performance overall was... undesirable, barring a few pleasant surprises. I can only hope for improvement with time, painful experience and harder work.

Following which I departed for my first school camp in ages (none in JC), intelligently arranged to be on Pulau Ubin. Like all school camps, it meant plenty of insect bites and little sleep. By the way, I loathe insect repellent and would rather be bitten than use it. Even in NS, when people slathered themselves in the SAF's toxic, corrosive cream, I never used a drop. Paying the price at the moment and I suspect these are sandfly bites. Murdered an Aedes mosquito, which I recognised from the distinctive white stripes, not before it got a proboscis-full of my blood. Have yet to develop feverish symptoms, thankfully. Life is a lottery sometimes.

Otherwise, it was pretty idyllic, although some way or another I became the medic. Fortunately, no severe injuries, which can either mean our students are gloriously lucky or have a modicum of common sense. I honestly can't say I know which is the case. The accommodation was better than I thought it would be, although the food threatened malnutrition. I ended by not being able to keep up with the kids, not helped by shitty coffee - but anyway, for some reason, caffeine has little or no effect on me.

Friday did come, ending exile on Ubin. Back on a bumboat, took back the class I was given, counted the kids, back to school, dismissal for everyone. I went home and all but collapsed. Then back out again for the gathering above, back home only past midnight to collapse again.

Saturday saw a handy 20% discount at Kinokuniya. Seeing my chance, I got Anthony Beevor's Battle for Spain, although the graphic novels section again failed to impress. After which it was off to the third birthday celebration in 4 weekends. Book + present + impressively-priced dinner meant I blew over 70 dollars that day. Just thinking about it makes me remember how I flinched at spending one-tenth that amount back as an impoverished student. But things are fortunately quite different now. Not that I don't bloody earn every single cent I work for.

Speaking of work, next week will be the final week of it, after which June is a break and July is when I begin turning back into a student, a transformation scheduled to be complete by August. After that, I can cease thinking about the future for a good four more years. Can't say I'm unhappy about that.

Well, one of my classes was nice enough to hold a little farewell thing for me and two of my colleagues who will be posting out really soon. I'll be hanging around for two more weeks though. Anyway, many thanks to them; it was a really touching gesture and I am grateful.

Photos, which I promised to put up, to follow.




That's one of the largest cakes I've ever seen, and two slices were more than enough to postpone my lunch for 3 hours.




My two colleagues and I.




Facing the camera.




From another angle.




Strawberries!




My colleague and I again.




Students in imitation of the trademark way I usually stand in the classroom.




Happy group photo with the guys.




Happy group photo with the girls, who are (less successfully) trying like their male counterparts to mimicthe way I like to stand.




Happy group photo with just about everyone not ready for it.




Now, isn't that better.




Me, declining to be intimate with a large strawberry.




Me, continuing to decline to be intimate with a large strawberry.




Ok, ok, whatever, seriously.




Just what is it with strawberries.




"Oh, I can finally eat this damn thing in peac... ack."


Well, it was a good end to a peaceful week.

In the papers today: "Identity more than a sum of one's schools", opinion piece in Home section. Gist of column - journalist is far too bitter about one of Singaporeans' traditional conversation icebreakers.

The object in controversy being the simple question "What school did you come from?" (and all variants to that effect).

She felt that it was a downright silly way of making acquaintance, and derided it as elitist, unimaginative and offensive. It is a "blatant misconception that schools, and their attendant stereotypes, can truly define people's identities".

I believe someone needs to lighten up a tad, here.

Countries that have the good fortune not to be tiny, rainswept tropical isles usually have cultural references and in-jokes based on one's place of origin. It is part of their unique culture, and it is a part that Singapore necessarily lacks. I mean, imagine the following conversation:

A: "Hi, nice to meet you, I'm from Tuas!"

B: "Hi! I am from Changi."

A: "..."

B: "..."

(Together): "OH SHIT WE ARE FROM TWO ENDS OF THE SAME MINUSCULE PIECE OF DIRT, HOW THE FUCK ARE WE GOING TO MAKE ADVANCED CULTURAL REFERENCES ABOUT EACH OTHERS' PLACE OF ORIGIN"

Anyone can tell me what will necessarily result next. In order to carry the conversation to the next phase, such that A and B do not create a vicious vortex of awkward, exceedinly uncomfortable silence, talk will turn to less futile topics of interest, and the subject of one's education is inevitably going to pop up somewhere. When it does, this swapping of in-joke will occur, and what has then happened is a cultural exchange of ideas that will enable two strangers to get to know each other a lot better. Once talk turns to school days, it rarely can stop, because everyone has fond memories, harrowing experiences and tales of idiosyncratic personalities to share. I don't see anything bad about this at all.

In Singapore, then, unique culture based upon birthplace has been replaced by unique culture dependent upon educational institution. It is hardly something unnatural; hardly something undesirable, unless you, like the journalist, cannot take a bit of gentle ribbing.

She also complained that she disliked being profiled, judged by the schools she attended. But two people meeting for the first time will inevitably profile each other. Every question asked helps build a portrait of the person that may or may not be accurate. Even those our journalist listed as being more acceptable, such as reading habits and movie likes/dislikes. You are being profiled by these questions as well. What makes it less alright to be profiled by the schools you went to - especially since you spent years of your life, and not just years but formative years, in those places, learning, befriending, serving, representing ;and soaking up everything about the place? It would be foolish to insist that since it was all years ago, the schools you went to had no influence whatsoever in making you what you are today, this very moment in time.

Of course, everyone knows what schools I came from - and I'm proud of the heritage associated with them. I am also more than aware of the pitfalls of having such a background, because when the inevitable questions crops up, the reaction is usually very standard. Surprise/awe (or surprised awe), unless the person asking happens to be from the selfsame institution, followed either by indirect praise or questions on how school life was like, then heightened, unsaid, expectations of my abilities - I can see it in their eyes. If the person asking happens to have children, more probing on entry requirements and school life will follow. After which I might from time to time be reminded of my background and be expected to be in six different places at one time ensuring the performance of twenty different miracles of space-time, because I was from RI.

I know it will be this way. I have long since accepted it. Plenty of my friends can testify to being piled with responsibilities because of their background, and so can I. We are thought of as intelligent, capable, efficient and dedicated, able to perform superhuman feats of administrative genius - and I daresay that is not far short of the truth. Such expectations are irritating at times, but it's part of being who we are.

In any case, my message to our unnecessarily frustrated journalist: learn to have a bit of fun in your conversations.

Disclaimer: I am not being elitist in any way, shape or form. No one is being asked to get out of my elite, uncaring mien here. Being proud of one's school is not a crime or a social failing, and I am not in any way disparaging government or neighbourhood schools.

School's still in the thick of exams, and invigilation is intensely boring. No wonder invigilators, now or then, never look like they want to be there. AFter a while, you just run out of things to do, and I found I couldn't remember enough Physics or Maths to attempt their papers at all. The questions hadn't changed much at all though, and were sufficient to evoke some very grim secondary school memories.

Anyway, I was invigilating Literature that day; A Midsummer's Night Dream, which I idly picked up and read after duly noting the extremely skewed gender ratio (26 girls, 5 guys, which is more than 5:1 - talk about stereotypes). I found to my mild surprise that I can actually understand Shakespearean English. But I was only surprised probably because Literature is something of a forgotten subject for me: always hung around but never paid much attention to. I then realised that it was the only humanities subject I took, in one form or another, for all six years of secondary school and JC (did not take O-Level History, or A-Level Geography). And I'm not teaching it, because somehow I didn't think I could.

I probably can, anyway, and was hypnotised because I remembered Literature from JC, where Shakespeare tends to be the least of one's problems (fortunately, we did not end up with Othello). I'll rather have the Bard than be Donne for, Woman Warrior seemed to be full of baffling tangents and absurdist works are never fun except maybe for the playwright (Pinter did become a Nobel laureate) - although Translations was fine and Hard Times did not mean hard times for us. The worst by far was really Donne, because I never got used to old English, it was amazingly difficult to read and even harder to pick out choice quotes. Plenty of schoolmates look at the man and the artist through rose-tinted lenses and I must wonder why.

In addition, A-Level Literature has one of the most exhausting exam formats (or had; might not be the same now): 3 papers, 3 hours each, 45 minutes per question except for PC, unseen, with double the time. That is ten essays to be written in 9 hours. Not many good memories from there, either.

Six years but never really got into the subject, though. It was always just... there. Not many complaints from me about it, but not my speciality either. It didn't come to mind, unsurprisingly, when I was nosing around for a job last year. Perhaps it ought to have.

I am finding certain prevailing social attitudes in this country more and more reprehensible. We wish to be seen as a progressive, dynamic, forward-looking city state of the future. That is not going to happen any time soon if some of our fellow citizens don't dispose of their archaic, bigoted notions about the way the world ought to work.

Take, for instance, our attitude towards the environment. The recent initiative put in place is for one day every month to be designated, in supermarkets, as Bring Your Own Bag Day, with a ten cents charge imposed on anyone who wants a plastic bag to carry their own shopping. The measure in itself is pusillanimous in the extreme - one day out of every thirty, and ten cents is a negligible amount for practically anyone in this country, especially those who can shop at supermarkets. Yet the popular reaction was, predictably, unfavourable.

Completely missing the point of the exercise, many Singaporeans complained about the extra charge, vehemently insisting that they should not be charged money for plastic bags, as they had already paid for them by buying things at the supermarket. Others expressed a belief that there were better ways to save the environment - without, of course, stating a few of these better ways. In the end, it all boils down to a fixation on the ten-cent charge: why should we pay?

My reply then would be: you can choose not to. But kindly choose not to pay and then shut the fuck up about it, please. Save money, and save your breath too. We do not need to hear your self-righteous justifications on the moral correctness of an initiative that would require you to fork out the princely sum of ten cents per plastic bag at the very most.

Unbelievably, there are people worse than these loud-mouthed scum: these are the people who loot the plastic bags offered, free, in the produce section of any supermarket, and then proceed to justify their actions with the same old argument that they have already paid for these by buying from the supermarket. Such actions amount to a matchless display of sheer pig-headed greed, and imagine how it is going to look to any foreign visitors. "Look! The citizens of this nation, instead of offering a commendable level of support for an infant Green initiative, are stooping to stealing plastic bags to circumvent it instead! Hm, this is certainly a modern, progressive metropolis of the future."

Seriously, what the fuck? It's only ten cents. You can certainly well afford it. If you don't want to pay it, you can bring your own bag, or carry what you buy in your hands. Or even wheel the trolley out to the carpark and load your things into your vehicle there. Why the fuck is there a need to resort to thievery? How low can you go?

And then we have the conspiracy theorists. Obviously, this is yet another plot by the shady government and its oleaginous partners in the business cabal to profit off good, hardworking ordinary Singaporeans. Certainly, they will be swimming in cash from charging the truly bank-busting sum of ten cents per plastic bag on a single day every month.

Again, it is just ten. fucking. cents. You can afford luxury cars, branded clothing and the latest electronic gadgets, but ask you to pay ten cents for a plastic bag and you have to resort to righteous thievery? Spend all that just to look good, and end up little better than a common thief. With a loud mouth, to boot. Disgraceful.

The other attitude I find most undesirable is exemplified in this letter that appeared in today's Straits Times Forum, reproduced below.

"I AM writing about the review of the criminal code. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's recent comments about liberalising laws regarding homosexuality have got my family and me very concerned.

My expatriate friends find Singapore a conducive place in terms of its low crime and cleanliness. More importantly, they comment that it is a wholesome place. One does not find pornography sold openly in a neighbourhood shop. Having lived in the West myself, this down-to-earth wholesomeness is what makes Singapore special.

Singapore today faces the challenge of a declining birth rate and families are breaking down at the same time. To legalise homosexuality will compound these problems, given that homosexual couples do not reproduce.

The homosexual lobby in the West is extremely aggressive. It is the same here. Observe how it is now considered intolerant when one criticises them.

What would it be like to have a homosexual teach our children that it is normal to be gay? You might scorn the idea but this is what is happening in the West.

Homosexuals lead a promiscuous and hedonistic lifestyle. What else can you expect when you do not have children to live for or be in a loving and committed relationship? This increases the risk of STDs, Aids, etc, further increasing the risk to the general population.

Homosexuality is not going to go away. All I am saying is that we do not make it easier to be a homosexual by legalising their activities. Singapore is our home and I am proud to be Singaporean. Let us keep it a wholesome place."

Translation: OMG GAYS HALP

I find it truly appalling that in this day and age, in this so-called First World city, there are still citizens who cling to such dated, frankly bigoted beliefs.

Homophobia is the serious problem, not homosexuality. The proposed changes to the Penal Code, decriminalising homosexuality, are to be applauded. It shows that our judiciary, at least, is taking a step in the right direction, and is being realistic and progressive. Archaic attitudes such as homophobia ought to be banished if we are truly to become a dynamic global city.

Yet the letter shows us how difficult it is going to be to eradicate such an attitude. Not that, of course, it is ever easy to change anybody's thinking. Rife with misconceptions and generalisations, it shows us how much some people have to learn about homosexuality.

Well, time to tear his sham arguments to pieces.

"My expatriate friends find Singapore a conducive place in terms of its low crime and cleanliness. More importantly, they comment that it is a wholesome place. One does not find pornography sold openly in a neighbourhood shop."

Apparently the decriminalisation of homosexuality will lead to a magical drop in moral standards all across the nation. Shops openly selling pornography will suddenly appear, in the blink of an eye, in HDB estates across the country. People will begin fucking each other doggy-style in the streets in broad daylight. Walking on the streets, one must be careful not to trip over horny men single-mindedly concentrating on pushing their rock-hard penises into the warm, welcoming anuses of their gay lovers. This will all happen in a flash, once it is decided in Law Minister S. Jayakumar's mind that this proposal is acceptable. There will be no warning, and there will be no escape.

Seriously, is this guy twelve or what? There are plenty of places in Singapore that are anything but wholesome. And chances are that his expatriate friends are patrons at one or more of these places. I would advise him to get some new friends, because these certainly don't seem to be very honest with him.

"Singapore today faces the challenge of a declining birth rate and families are breaking down at the same time. To legalise homosexuality will compound these problems, given that homosexual couples do not reproduce."

Yes, those evil homosexuals, how dare they cause the increase of the divorce rate year by year? How dare they ensure that Singaporean couples have less and less children? The very nerve! We should herd all gays and lesbians into squalid internment camps and force them to have unprotected vaginal intercourse - not only is it punishment, it will also bring up the birth rate! Then we should keep the babies and gas all the gays.

"The homosexual lobby in the West is extremely aggressive. It is the same here. Observe how it is now considered intolerant when one criticises them."

But you are being intolerant. What business is it of yours? Are they harming you in any way, shape or form? If not, then keep your nose out of the sex lives of others, please.

"What would it be like to have a homosexual teach our children that it is normal to be gay? You might scorn the idea but this is what is happening in the West."

Aha. The classic "It's unnatural!" argument. But homosexuality is not unnatural. It has been observed in animals - as has, I might add, necrophilia - as common as fruit flies, penguins, sheep and most damningly, bonobo apes. And mankind is a species of... ape.

"Homosexuals lead a promiscuous and hedonistic lifestyle. What else can you expect when you do not have children to live for or be in a loving and committed relationship? This increases the risk of STDs, Aids, etc, further increasing the risk to the general population."

NEWSFLASH: All hetereosexuals are pious, God-fearing men and women who renounce wordly enjoyment in favour of prayers and self-flagellation, unlike homosexuals who are sex-crazed monsters who would fuck the hole of the first doughnut they see and lick it clean afterwards. In addition, STDs can only be spread through anal intercourse. There are no risks of it spreading through normal vaginal intercourse. Nope. None. Not on your life.

"Homosexuality is not going to go away. All I am saying is that we do not make it easier to be a homosexual by legalising their activities. Singapore is our home and I am proud to be Singaporean. Let us keep it a wholesome place."

Translation: I am proud to be an intolerant, backward, self-righteous asshat who is simply incapable of understanding that the sex lives of my fellow citizens is no concern of mine whatsoever. Together we can help prevent Singaporeans from developing more progressive social attitudes!

That, or he is himself a severely closeted homosexual.

Personally, I am not homosexual. But I firmly believe that homosexuality should be legalised, and gays should be welcomed as free and equal citizens in their own right. Whether homosexuality is a choice, or genetics, is immaterial. A progressive, open society is one that respects its citizens regardless of diversity, and honours personal liberty. The government has been moving in the right direction. It should now move against bigots attempting to block it from doing what is reasonable and correct.

To truly transform this place into a city of the future, we should forget about more shining monuments to capitalism. The change of any real importance that must take place must occur within our hearts - to tolerate, respect and accept the right of personal choice.