Basket.

My return to regular updates was sabotaged by a trying week. Anyway, what better way to come back (again) with a good old-fashioned rant about the state of things in this country?

The debate over foreign workers smoulders on. But then again, there are foreign workers and there are foreign workers. There are those who build your houses, take our your trash, cut your grass and perform a huge variety of other menial tasks. On the flipside, there are those who help run Shenton Way. Both are vital, but only one is consistently in the negative spotlight. Perhaps you can already guess which?

Starkly highlighting the dichotomy was the recent debate over the siting of a dormitory for foreign menial labour in Serangoon Gardens. Over a thousand residents fought tooth and nail to stop it happening, even while a similar number of expatriates lived amongst them. They could accept one being their neighbours, but not the other, despite the basic similarity in functions performed. That similarity being, that both are vital to Singapore.

That petition, by the way, is one of the most unsavoury things to come out of this country in a while, and that is certainly saying something. A considerable number of Singaporeans behaved as disgracefully as during the long, hard debate about 377a just a year earlier: incapable of accepting or even tolerating those in some way different from them, and too blinkered to see the extent of ingratitude they were showing. Because, guess what: the Bangladeshi who picks up your trash everyday is just as important as the broker who manages your investments. And I daresay in the light of recent developments within the world economy, that Bangladeshi has quite probably fucked up a lot less than your broker has with your hard-earned money.

It appears that this country not only has to learn to be gracious. It also has to learn some gratitude. Perhaps the residents of Serangoon Gardens would like to tell us all who built, or at least renovated, the pretty houses they live in? Who keeps their sidewalks clean? Who constructed all the amenities they enjoy? The very people they don't want to live within the same general area with, that's who. Huge ingrates, the lot of them.

Of course, that isn't the only murmuring that's been going on. Far from it. Usual grouses over foreigners "stealing" jobs from Singaporeans continue to appear. The common complaint is that these foreign workers are willing to accept a lower wage, and can do so because they don't have families to look after while Singaporeans do.

Well, then, what exactly do you expect? Obviously businesses are going to hire people who cost them less, especially in times like these. But free movement of labour and capital is or should be a cornerstone of the economy. If you can't be competitive, stop wasting time moping about it and go at least try to get back in the labour market. If anyone's to blame, it's not the foreigners, who like Singaporeans going abroad, mostly also came here in search of a better life. Nor is it the businessmen, who have themselves to make a living. It's the government and it's near-complete lack of a safety net. Even minimal unemployment benefits are not available. Nothing lavish is required. It wouldn't cost much and it wouldn't be hard to implement. Nor, with the size of Singapore, would it be difficult to keep an eye out for anyone sponging off the state. But no, it's the old crutch mentality argument. The unemployable are being screwed here, but it's not by the foreigners. They are just a convenient target.

In the end it all just comes down to Singaporeans having tunnel vision. The self-centred "not in my backyard" mentality has to stop. The ingrates have to be taught to stop being ingrates. Singaporeans have to look beyond this stupid little island and realise that there is a whole world out there which we can't shut out. Our government has to start giving a shit about the people.

Please, let us stop disgracing ourselves by being a First World country with Fifth World attitudes.