CATEGORY: SOCIETAL ISSUE /EDUCATIONAL ISSUE
LINK: WWW.TODAYONLINE.COM
Brief Summary Of Article: Tabitha Wang’s conlumn on foreign workers and how they are treated (“The invisible folk”, Jan 19) hits the nail on the head.
Article Review:
I feel that what Tabitha Wang has raised is becoming a reality in our society. And this indeed is a sad reality of what out society has become. She is absolutely right that social discrimination exists here. Daily I see the construction workers school; they slog under the hot sun and toil in the pouring rain. Our security guards stand in the rain in the wee hours of the morning to direct the traffic for our safety. Maybe the least we could do was to offer them a kind gesture or just a simple greeting instead of walking past them indifferently treating them as “invisible folk”.
They and their countrymen and the millions of transient workers who have made their way across the world in search of a better life (like our forefathers), constantly come up against people who think only about the differences between “us and them”.
The problem is that a certain level of snobbery has pervaded our society, as it has with many other First World countries. We feel that our hard-earned success gives us the right to sneer at people who will probably never reach our station in life.
My mother for one is often guilty of making snide remarks when she sees foreign bangladashi workers ever since she had a bad experience with one when she was young. I hate it when she does that and I constantly try to change her prejudiced outlook.We see a few foreign workers behaving badly and we automatically assume that the entire contingent is made up of sexual miscreants. We see them as unambitious, simple-minded country bumpkins.
One local newspaper’s report last month about how certain retailers refused to allow their clothes to be featured in a fashion shoot, when told the models would be migrant workers, illustrate the point vividly.
I am not saying that I have been pleasant to all foreigners. I have had some unpleasant encounters with foreign workers, but I feel that ultimately, Singaporeans are capable of doing the same thing too. I am disturbed when I see a foreign worker looking lost and yet afraid to approach a local on the street for help. Isn’t it amazing how some of us think we have the right to order them around even when we are not responsible for their pay cheques?
I agree with Ms Wang that Ashok and friends do not expect us to throw open our gates and wash their feet. Simple goodwill gestures would suffice. A smile and a nod for the grass cutter who stops his work because you’re walking by. A day off every week for the domestic worker, who takes care of you, your family and your guests 16 hours a day. A wave to the cleaner who clears the thrash from your HDB flat every morning.
It’s not too much to ask that we treat others with basic respect. After all, like the John Farnham song, we’re all someone’s daughter, and we’re all someone’s son.
erp-07-assignment-article-2.doc
* sorry i couldnt find the hard copy and the soft copy on the website has probably expired already. I have the soft copy here though.
