'I'm apathetic too, but i just like to bitch'

it's the worst state a citizen of a sovereign state can be, said a vociferous academic in the field: to be apathetic about apathy. but it's a well and tested theory, and a very much entrenched social phenomenon: that when economic success is so widespread and societal stability begins to be taken for granted, people automatically get politically lazy, i.e. no motivation to be apathetic. i think this point being accentuated by the intrinsic chinese desire to make more money, being probably the most cash-acute ethnicity amongst others. 'why fix it if it ain't broken?'

amidst all the hooplas of constitutionalism that i've been in contact with these days, it's sad to realise at the end of the day, it's not what the entrenching provisions that protect our fundamental liberties that is the concern of the day, or even of the life of an average singaporean. it then reduces down to that our constitution may just well be a fanfare of words, the 'tyranny of language' where even some of the most fundamental liberties are ignored but no one makes a collective voice audible enough to force things to change (like the right to vote and the right to property are all blatantly missing from our constitution). are things really that bad, the situation that bleak? or is it a chinese thing per se? well Hong Kongers often take to the streets their gripes about the dwindling bastion of democracy but critics say they do that because this apparent lack of democracy brought about by the hinterland that is China, is precisely the thing impinging on financial progress and the hick in the prosperity wheel. the foreshadowing of poverty is the only pushing force in those rallies. so it's probably true then, that economic success equate to political stability which in turn equates to a populace being increasingly apathetic, because to shake things up may very well mean the shattering of some major piggy banks or standards of living that had been too comfortable.

but this can't be right, can it? you see singaporeans complain the whole while, pre-Hong Lim Park times, about the lack of forums to speak out to masses, and post-Hong Lim Park era, about some other things that somehow they claim to be political. and often the voices you hear are not featured in our familiar columns of the forums of the major newspapers, but out from the mouths of these people, that disappear into thin air once the topic dissipates. it seems that perhaps Singapore as a nation is of a 'I am apathetic but i just like to bitch' nature?

for a start and for fear of flaming bushes one too many, yours truly is guilty as charged (the charge that i am author of, no less). but this is because i do recognise singapore to be in a vastly unique position, with sensitive demographical concerns and regional socio-political landmines to be taken into account. extraneous and insular issues that come together to present a most quagmire of circumstance.