Here comes Singapore’s 42nd Birthday, and the 19th National Day I will be going through.
As I can see, National Day Celebrations are meant to promote patriotism (which is lacking), sometimes commonly marketed in Singapore as sense-of-belonging. I think Singapore has gone through another year of prosperity, like other years, other than now the NDP is at Marina Bay instead of National Stadium (which had got enough budget for rebuild). Nothing new to brag about for my Republic.
Actually, I do know of some country don’t even bother about celebrating its independence day. For those country, however, it is the folks everywhere around the country, who organize their own form of celebration, ranging from street performances to selling of souvenirs. These countries are already at the stage where, even without any form of propaganda being used, the people themselves already have the sense of belonging, that is instilled within them. I call this, real patriotism. This year, I want to start building that kind of patriotism. Perhaps bit by bit. It has to start somewhere anyway.
Singapore on the other hand, normally require prompting from the elites. The big problem today is, who wants to take the initiative to be patriotic and organize out-of-the-box events (and risk getting arrested)? I mean, when policy comes, elites expect people to follow. Problem comes, finger are pointed at people for not being proactive enough? Who is going to organize that national day parade if the elites don’t? You? Me? We know that you and I will not bother to do that now, not mentioning the fact that we do not have the resource. But ultimately, the answer is still up to you and I. This year, I also want to do something to contribute to the reversing of this contradiction.
This is no ceremonial message. I don’t do annual speech for the sake of it, which always talks about the same thing. Useless things. Boring things. Tomorrow is indeed National Day, our nation’s independence day (from Malaysia), and I am dedicating this to that. Really.
Once again,
Happy Birthday Singapore.
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ADOLF LAM
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