Singapore is like one big patriarchal family and its children are fighting to save their mother.
When you do enough inner child healing, you’ll realise that Singapore is one big patriarchal family and those who dare to question the man at the top are the ones trying to save it.
In a typical patriarchal family, the elders make the decisions and the rest simply follow. The person at the top (regardless of gender) has the final say, no matter how unreasonable it seems. It’s just the rule. The hierarchy not only keeps people in line, but also motivates those at the bottom to want to rise to the top. They will work hard, prove themselves to the elders to be given a seat at the exclusive zone. In capitalist terms, it’s called meritocracy.
The unfortunate part of this system is that the people at the top will do everything they can to maintain control, and they do that by having power over the people below them. They limit resources, they create an atmosphere of competition and fear so that people are too busy fighting each other instead of the mastermind.
The first time I saw through this bullshit was in secondary school in a social studies class. I learnt how the government passed the Land Reclamation Act to legitimise their taking of land from anyone and everyone for development purposes. I was like wow, that’s how they justify their actions, by passing laws to back them up and punish those who don’t comply. I didn’t know much at 14, but this style of governance didn’t sit right with me.
As I see Singapore becoming more and more developed, I’m getting sick of the constant construction. If it’s not a BTO construction, it’s a road construction. For years, people have been fighting for their issues to be heard. And so many are discouraged because they feel nothing will change no matter how hard they try. That’s because it’s always the minority making the noise. The majority of Singaporeans have decided their loyalties are to the patriarch and the rewards they can earn by being ‘good’. They have no intention of breaking the system. They enjoy the safety and comforts of it.
As we witness forest after forest being cleared for ‘development’, we are losing more and more of what is natural in our land. This is what it looks like to be short sighted. Clearing a forest that took hundreds of years to grow in days in exchange for a milestone in your portfolio.
In that same social studies class, I also learnt that Singapore had no natural resources except for its people. But the efforts of the government are quite anti-citizens now. We’ve crippled the education system so much that tuition is flourishing (My very uneducated guess is that tuition centres pay a lot of taxes). Our people are struggling from burn out and depression. And now, we want to take away the last thing that keeps us vital. The trees, the plants and animals that makes Singapore more than just a giant factory. The greenery where our souls can find peace because we don’t live in bungalows nestled in flora and fauna. Most of all, we don’t need a reason to protect Mother Nature. It is a part of us, we owe our peace, our health, our lives to the land, not to the nation-state.
The land belongs to itself.
Our forests, just like the mothers and grandmothers who had no voice of their own, need their children to speak up and take action.
I don’t know how much of Maju Forest and Gillman Barracks will be saved. But wherever we can reclaim our powers in this patriarchal system, we do so. One day, we will gain critical mass. One day, the old system will fall, and a truly lion-hearted leadership will take its place.