The MENDAKI Policy Forum 02/11, entitled Post-GE 2011: A Consolidation of Malay/Muslim Issues was held on 23 July 2011 at the LASALLE College of the Arts. Organised by the Research and Policy Department at Mendaki, in collaboration with Mendaki Club, the forum focused on key issues raised during the general elections, relating the implications it has for the Malay/Muslim community.
Participants were welcomed by a panel of speakers that included Dr Lai Ah Eng from Asia Research Institute, Dr Suzaina Kadir from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Mr Yeoh Lam Keong who was the Director of the Economics and Strategy Department, Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) from 2000-2011.
The speakers covered a range of topics, mainly touching on issues surfaced during the general elections such as the rising cost of living, foreigner influx, the economic and social implications for the community, integration amongst Malay Muslims in Singaporean society, and the issue of political representation and projecting future challenges and opportunities for the community and national collective as a whole. The discussion session that ensued was frank and riveting, with the roles of civil societies and the ills of meritocracy being questioned. The speakers were joined on stage by discussant, Ms Hamidah Aidillah Mustafa a member on the executive committee of Mendaki Club, and Ms Nadia from the Research and Policy Department at Mendaki who moderated the forum. The dialogue between participants and speakers was vigorous and enlightening, with controversial topics of minority politics and bread and butter issues such as rising costs of living and the social policies that are in place within the Singapore framework being debated on.
For more information on slides presented by Mr Yeoh click here.
Further details of the forum will be published in our upcoming Rubrix newsletter and on our blogsite. Please continue to watch this space!
P R E S S P L A Y
All characters, names and telephone numbers mentioned in this clip are fictitious and meant for the purpose of public education only. The programme “Dari Buaian ke Menara Gading” is presently under development.
Is our definition of “puberty” confined to chronological age and physical bodily changes? Have we considered the psycho/social developments in the child relevant with the times? Have we recognised enough the need for the teenager’s assertion of his own space, independence and individuality in finding his own identity? What’s the impact of puberty, our response to puberty and the educational adjustments on our children?
What’s Your Two Cents?
(You may choose to leave a thought in the “Comments” section of this post, or stretch your response further by submitting it as an idea that can be developed into public messaging for common reflection. Click here for more details on “What’s Your Two Cents?” campaign.)
Have you noticed or observed anything within our community that irks or touches your conscience and makes you want to point it out so that others will notice it too?
The Forward Planning Exercise (FPE) Unit, under the Community Leaders’ Forum (CLF) 2010, is calling for submission of ideas that may be developed into public messaging for common reflection. If you have observed or noticed anything within our community that either irks or touches your conscience and makes you want to point it out so that others will notice too, now is the chance. Please proceed to the link below to share your two-cents worth…
http://sgmmcommunitymatters.wordpress.com/think-pieces/two-cents/
Challenge for Singapore & Russia is to grow entrepreneurial pool: MM
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1083911/1/.html
“We’re trying to do that (develop our own pool of entrepreneurs). But we are hampered by culture. We’re largely Chinese and Indians. And both Chinese and Indians, the best go into government, (they) don’t go into enterprise.” Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, at a dialogue organised by the Russia-Singapore Business Forum, Tuesday 28 September 2010.
Of Enrichment Classes and Techno Gadgets
Posted: May 31, 2010 in ThoughtsTags: education, enrichment classes, learning, social capital, techno gadgets
Have education and learning opportunities turned into commodities that are only available to those who can afford?
Of Enrichment Classes and Techno Gadgets
Reflections from the Integration Workshop, 22 May
Posted: May 25, 2010 in FPE Events, Lifeskills Capabilities Building, Lifespan DevelopmentThe following links are documentations from the CLF2010 FPE Integration Workshop that was held on Saturday 22 May. Attendees of the session may download these documents for their reference, while a more detailed notes of discussion are currently being compiled.
Notes from FPE Integration Workshop – Points for Further Deliberation
Notes from FPE Integration Workshop – Big Group Discussion
Notes from FPE Integration Workshop – Cluster Discussion: Lifespan Development
Notes from FPE Integration Workshop – Cluster Discussion: Lifeskills Capabilities Building
Notes from FPE Integration Workshop – Future Media Headlines
Here is a story of 3 Malay youths: One who joined a dance troupe because he couldn’t find a job having only Primary 6 qualifications. Another, a teenager who is in the troupe who has aspirations to be the first Malay to scale heights – a challenging aspect of the troupe’s performance and a mark of praised skill if successfully acquired. Last but not least, a youth who joins the troupe for pure sports, a rewarding hobby.
None of the above sounds wrong, or even offensive. But what if the dance troupe that we are talking about, is a Chinese Lion Dance troupe?
Suddenly all our positive impression of the 3 youths fades away. Why?
Does the increasing trend of Malay youths getting into lion dance troupes worry you? Or do you think differently about this?
What are your thoughts?
The diagnosis to the multiple problems of the Malay community has always often than not been attributed to the problem of the mindset. For those who are within the cycle of poverty, they need to change their mindset to get out of it. For those children who are always underperforming in schools, they, together with their parents, need to change their mindsets in order to achieve better grades. For those chronically unemployed, they must change their mindset in order to get hired. Such is the simplistic diagnosis given.
What about the systems and structures under which those very people are living? What about the policies and the institutions that govern their lives, things that, by the way, were created by other people rather than heaven-sent? In other words, whose mindset problem ought we to address?
In his Nobel Prize lecture delivered in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, 2006, Muhammad Yunus asserted that
“… poverty is not created by poor people. It has been created and sustained by the economic and social system that we have designed for ourselves; the institutions and concepts that make up that system; the policies that we pursue… All it needs to get poor people out of poverty is for us to create an enabling environment for them”
(Muhammad Yunus, 2007. Creating a World Without Poverty – Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. New York: Public Affair, p. 246-247).
Hence, when the community is lagging behind, when some of our families had to resort to living in tentages along the beaches, when our students are generally underperforming… whose mindset problem is it?
