Extend the joy

So good to hear good news! Pure, unadulterated, straight-up good news. We got a medal! Yay!!!! Thank you Feng Tianwei, you made our day! Wish TNP wouldn’t be such a party-pooper and place the doped-up muscle-men on the front page alongside Feng. Who cares about these dopey men? Their bodies can’t even compare to the cast of Magic Mike – get an eye-full of hunk candy in today’s Life! Now I want to know more about Feng. Probably been in the news many times before, but that was before. Let’s celebrate our heroine! Let it all hang out! Don’t anyone out there try to kill this great moment in Singapore’s history. In a period of so much scandal and discontent, there is still sports to cheer us. Thankfully.

While we’re on the Olympics, I note that there was a question asked at the ST inter-JC current affairs quiz about the number of condoms given out at the Olympic Village. The ST report today however never gave the answer – except that the school got whatever the figure was, correct. How many leh? Another question was which Batman movie was playing when the Colorado gunman went on his shooting spree in the cinema hall. Answer: Dark Knight Rises. I sure hope that the quiz tested the students on more fundamental and important questions, rather than the pop culture type. It will be too easy though in the next round, they got a question on Singapore’s Olympic bronze – like when was the last time we took a medal, or who was the first Singapore Olympian or even Feng’s scores. But if they got it wrong….they should be paddled on their backsides….

People who matter

Everytime somebody important dies, newspapers do a poll. The results are invariably the same. Young people don’t know anything about the person who died or why his death is such a big deal. This is the case with the death of Yong Nyuk Ling, a member of the first Cabinet, according to TNP today. I bet the same question about Lim Yew Hock would deliver the same results. If I recall correctly, polls done on Toh Chin Chye and Goh Keng Swee drew quite a blank too.

So we know this already. Young people do not know enough of Singapore’s political history. I don’t know what is being taught in primary schools, but I figure such information would be imparted under some kind of national education, values or civics classes. (In my day, many moons ago, history was a primary school subject – taught in Chinese). You know something, I bet not everyone can give the year of Singapore’s independence or what the symbols on the national flag stand for. Nor does everyone know what the Malay words of the National anthem mean. I admit I am not sure too.

There must be a consensus, I believe, on what sort of historical knowledge we should have ingrained in our national consciousness. However we chop and change National education, values or civics classes, there must be an enduring core that is our history, to be taught through the ages. I mean…we should go beyond the Sang Nila Utama story.

Of course, there will be some contention over what is “correct” history. Should Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s many books, for example, be considered recommended or compulsory reading? Some will argue that that is the People’s Action Party’s history not Singapore’s. And Singapore’s moves towards independence will probably have to incorporate two different perspectives, both Singaporean and Malaysian.

Let’s skip all that and get down to people. I gather that in the US, the founding fathers and the drafting of the Constitution is big part of classroom history. I think some Singaporeans can put more names to America’s first Cabinet than they could to ours. We should immortalise our pioneers, not with statues or street names but as part of compulsory history. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from journalism, it’s that people like reading about other people.

Of the first Cabinet, there are only four members alive. I hope that when their time comes, there won’t be a newspaper poll which says that young Singaporeans don’t know about them, or worse, don’t care.