e***y
发帖数: 1198 | 1 董玉振：永久居民，路在何方？
新加坡针对永久居民与公民的国民待遇的差异化，过去两年来正在日益扩大，而教
育部关于小一新生的选校资格的差异扩大化措施，是到目前为止对永久居民最敏感和最
激烈的差异化刺激。如果说过去那些涉及到买房、医疗等待遇方面的差异扩大化，还没
能引起永久居民剧烈的冲击感，这次的冲击则是让任何一个有孩子的永久居民家庭不容
回避，不容小视。
永久居民作为国际上通行的外来人口管理的一种模式，在世界上不同国家有着较大
区别。但在多数发达和次发达国家来看，永久居民作为对本国发展有较高价值的外来人
口，因其自身价值和贡献而享受到和公民几乎相同的待遇，除选举权和被选举权等政治
权利之外，永久居民在纳税，甚至服兵役这类义务方面，和公民承担同样的义务，他们
的社会福利也因此而获得和公民没有明显差别的对待。他们获得永久居民资格本身，已
经是国家对该外来人口的一种筛选和界定，但永久居民是否加入所在国国籍，因每个人
情况的不同而各有原因，比如，退休后的打算，母国各类保险的有效性考虑等，似乎很
少有国家采取某些明显的强力手段，来促使永久居民成为公民。
而新加坡永久居民和公民的国民待遇差异化处理的力度，似乎在传递着这样一个明
确的信息：永久居民（特别是有学龄孩童的家庭）要么带着孩子一起立即申请成为公民
，要么滚蛋。尤其是涉及子女接受平等教育的权利方面的差异化，使得这个信号变得格
外强烈。因为永久居民的子女在享受基础教育权利上的二等待遇，对孩子的学业成长和
心灵健康都将留下负面的印记，这是任何父母无法忽略的。
但据笔者身边的朋友和邻居的经历，似乎又发现一个与上述“促使成为公民”相矛
盾的现象，就是不少永久居民申请公民被拒。
这就带来一个新加坡政府无法回避的问题：新加坡的永久居民制度是否有被取消的
可能。申请公民被拒，而孩子又享受不到平等教育权利，是否意味着政府准备把大部分
永久居民赶走？如果这真是政府的意图，笔者认为，政府绝对应该把这个信号传递得更
明确些，因为这些在走和留之间徘徊的永久居民，在发展自己在新加坡的事业和追求孩
子教育机会方面，必须做出取舍；尤其对华人家庭来说，孩子教育的重要性，和自己事
业的重要性同样重要。但对于正在打拼事业的永久居民来说，这确实是个不小的难题。
现在的问题是：新加坡政府对这些整体素质比较高的永久居民群体，定位和态度取向到
底是什么？
国家长远利益的考量
在各国的永久居民群体，在整体上多数是以事业为动因而移民海外的，他们能获得
当地绿卡，也是因为他们对当地社会发展的价值被确认的结果。他们的存在，对该国扩
大与输出国的民间往来，做出了不可替代的巨大贡献。吸引外来高素质移民，不一定非
要他们成为公民，他们能在输入国家工作和居住，并承担必要的义务和责任（如纳税）
，就将对社会作出了贡献。像当年龙应台任台北文化局长时，邀请高行健等知名作者到
台北居住（仅仅是居住，并没有要求必须创作或创业，更不要求加入台湾籍），以此提
高台北文化中心的地位，并借助于他们的存在，带动文化事业的繁荣。可以说，龙应台
在台北的做法，是非常有魄力和远见的。
在吸引高素质人才到本国求学和发展方面，最有远见的当属美国。美国自20世纪初
叶，为吸引中国优秀人才，用庚子赔款成立清华学堂（清华大学前身），作为留美预备
学校。美国对中国和世界各国优秀学人的吸引和培养，导致美国价值观和美国文化的世
界性传播和根植。一直到今天，中国从小学教材和用词，到政治文化和精英思想的各个
层面，美国元素无处不在，造就了美国无与伦比的软实力，甚至美式英语也替代英式英
语，成为中国英语课堂的标准发音。美国的实例，已经最好地证明了善待外来人才，和
允许人才去留流动的宽松环境，对本国当今和未来长远利益的重大好处。
记得本地媒体上不时有些读者，对有些外国留学生把本地当跳板去欧美的做法表示
愤怒，也有些对新加坡公民留学海外而不归愤愤不平。但反向思维一下，如果把世界上
有更多的优秀人才从世界各地吸引到新加坡，工作几年后再去其它国家发展，新加坡似
乎像个跳板，但他们带着新加坡的文化和美好记忆而去，这对新加坡有什么害处吗？但
对新加坡的好处是显而易见的，他们曾把青春和才华留在这里，以后还多一道联系新加
坡和世界的新桥梁。
宽松、包容和自由流动的环境，永远比限制多多的环境，对人才有更强的吸引力。
但如果要求这些永久居民要么成为公民，要么有朝一日带着接受当地系统教育的子女离
开常住国，无论如何，很难想象他们对那个国家会彻底抛弃而不给予格外的关心，很难
想象他们会洗掉这个曾经的常住国家的文化和价值观的影响。
新加坡永久居民因为子女得不到平等教育机会而不得不离开新加坡，他们对新加坡
的美好回忆将残破几何？或因割舍不掉新加坡事业而不得不委屈孩子继续在新加坡生活
下去，他们的归属感将存多少？新加坡的国家治理，有着管理一家超级国有公司的实用
主义思维和手法，这无可非议，但新加坡毕竟不是个大公司，而是将永久屹立在这个世
界上的、一个希望获得国际影响和尊重的国家。
过于实用主义思维习惯，将根本无法理解龙应台那近乎天真般的行为，至于是否真
的符合新加坡公民和国家长远利益，也就是个可能谨慎下结论的课题。至少，新加坡对
待永久居民的方式，将是新加坡人才政策的重要组成部分，结合起来评估，不难得出个
清晰的结论。
作者是本地一家城市规划公司副总裁、出版人 | i0
发帖数: 792 | 2 不了解龙应台，找到一些她评论：
我不赞成死刑。我不赞成将死刑犯五花大绑拍照。我不喜欢看到丢纸屑的人被警察
当众羞辱作为合法的惩罚。我不喜欢人家来规定我能不能吃口香糖。我不愿意买不
到想读的外国杂志。我不愿意任何人告诉我我能看什么书不能看什么书。我不能忍
受一小撮人指定我怎么想，怎么说，怎么活，怎么做爱生几个小孩。我不能忍受一
小撮自以为比我聪明的人告诉我我的文化价值是什么。给我再高的经济成长，再好
的治安，再效率十足的政府，对不起，我也不愿意放弃我那一点点个人自由与尊严
。
【在 e***y 的大作中提到】
: 董玉振：永久居民，路在何方？
: 新加坡针对永久居民与公民的国民待遇的差异化，过去两年来正在日益扩大，而教
: 育部关于小一新生的选校资格的差异扩大化措施，是到目前为止对永久居民最敏感和最
: 激烈的差异化刺激。如果说过去那些涉及到买房、医疗等待遇方面的差异扩大化，还没
: 能引起永久居民剧烈的冲击感，这次的冲击则是让任何一个有孩子的永久居民家庭不容
: 回避，不容小视。
: 永久居民作为国际上通行的外来人口管理的一种模式，在世界上不同国家有着较大
: 区别。但在多数发达和次发达国家来看，永久居民作为对本国发展有较高价值的外来人
: 口，因其自身价值和贡献而享受到和公民几乎相同的待遇，除选举权和被选举权等政治
: 权利之外，永久居民在纳税，甚至服兵役这类义务方面，和公民承担同样的义务，他们
| i0
发帖数: 792 | 3 想起了着个 :))
Two swimming dogs cross each other in the middle of the Singapore
Strait. One is a Singaporean dog swimming to Indonesia, the other is
an Indonesian dog swimming to Singapore.
The first dog asks the second: "Why are you going to Singapore?" The
other replies, " I want to live in a place where there are jobs and
opportunities, and where it's safe and clean and there's medical care
for everyone. How about you? Why are you going to Indonesia?"
The first dog replies, "I just want to bark."
【在 i0 的大作中提到】
: 不了解龙应台，找到一些她评论：
: 我不赞成死刑。我不赞成将死刑犯五花大绑拍照。我不喜欢看到丢纸屑的人被警察
: 当众羞辱作为合法的惩罚。我不喜欢人家来规定我能不能吃口香糖。我不愿意买不
: 到想读的外国杂志。我不愿意任何人告诉我我能看什么书不能看什么书。我不能忍
: 受一小撮人指定我怎么想，怎么说，怎么活，怎么做爱生几个小孩。我不能忍受一
: 小撮自以为比我聪明的人告诉我我的文化价值是什么。给我再高的经济成长，再好
: 的治安，再效率十足的政府，对不起，我也不愿意放弃我那一点点个人自由与尊严
: 。
| i0
发帖数: 792 | 4 全文:
Steps toward spontaneity: Singapore tries to mandate heart and soul
By Alex Tizon
Seattle Times staff writer
Rigid as a whipping cane, a place where the government micromanages
practically every aspect of society, prosperous Singapore is trying to
loosen up and generate interest in things besides material wealth. It
remains to be seen whether a nation where it is illegal to chew gum or
spit can slow down to smell the roses — or even learn to kiss well.
SINGAPORE — When last America took serious interest in this tiny island
republic, it was over the 1994 caning of a pimply teenager named
Michael Fay, from Dayton, Ohio.
In the media frenzy, Singapore was depicted as a rigidly authoritarian
state where one should not expect to vandalize cars without accepting
the punishment — three whacks with a rattan cane — as Fay eventually
did.
But Singapore is trying to loosen up, and the government, from no less
an authority than founding father Lee Kuan Yew, has appointed a task
force to figure out how to do it.
The "Remaking Singapore" committee, ceremoniously unveiled this year and
made up of the country's brightest minds, takes social engineering to a
new level. Its assigned goal: to create a more soulful society.
"We've been very rigid, very robotic in the way we approach life,"
said Mohd Haris Manaf, of the Singapore International Foundation, a
government-sponsored organization similar in function to the Peace
Corps. The foundation itself, some point out, is a sign of a changing
ethos.
"We're trying to open up more, to get beyond the five C's (career,
condo, club, credit card and car), to loosen up as a people and smell
the roses."
Rarely has an authoritarian state attempted a squishier project. If it
can be done, however, Singapore may be the republic to do it. The
quest would be no more a leap in consciousness than it took to transform
this swampy isle at the edge of the South China Sea into one of the
most prosperous nations in the world.
The long boom
Measuring only 248 square miles, roughly three times the size of
Seattle, this city-state sits just off the southern tip of the Malaysian
peninsula, like the dot on an exclamation point.
Four million people live here, making it one of the densest islands on
Earth. It is a flat, mostly deforested island where tigers once roamed,
replaced by ubiquitous yellow taxis that weave between apartment
buildings and ultra-modern skyscrapers. A walk through the city feels
like a stroll through a designer garden, and the city is exactly that:
meticulously designed to the last tropical shrub.
On a clear day, looking north, you can see Malaysia.
The two countries are separated by a narrow strip of sea called the
Johore Strait. Both were once British colonies, and later part of the
same Malaysian republic until Singapore got the boot. Malaysia, ruled by
politically dominant Malays, expelled predominantly Chinese Singapore
in 1965.
"We were the only state that didn't want independence, but we got it,"
said Bilahari Kausikan, a high-ranking official in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
Under the autocratic leadership of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore took an
authoritarian, and, he would argue, Confucian route to capitalist
success. That is, Lee Kuan Yew and his People's Action Party (PAP)
unabashedly put the needs of the state before individual rights.
The Cambridge-educated Lee Kuan Yew broke up labor unions, appealed to
foreign companies to set up shop — some would say sweatshops — and
created a system of laws that regulated nearly every aspect of
Singaporean life.
The government cracked down on all forms of corruption, censored the
media and the arts, and Lee Kuan Yew's PAP stifled political rivals,
either by impoverishing them through court judgments or imprisoning them
without trial.
Such controls created stability and a labor peace that allowed
Singapore's long boom. They also earned Lee Kuan Yew the moniker of
"dictator" among his critics.
The 78-year-old patriarch officially stepped down in 1990 but is still
considered the ruling voice of the country. His defenders call him an
autocrat, and a benevolent one who did what he had to do to stabilize
a nation.
"It isn't like people are not free to leave if they don't like it," said
Mary Li, a department-store clerk on the island's legendary Orchard
Road, a dense strip of flowering, multitiered shopping malls that
makes up the heart of the country.
"You notice people aren't leaving. They're coming here."
A quarter of the island's 4 million residents are foreigners who have
come for work.
Lee Kuan Yew and his party have earned what Singaporeans like to call
"performance legitimacy," which at street-level translates into
something like, "The government delivers."
The citizenry is wealthy, increasingly sophisticated and, for the most
part, contented. In less than four decades, the ousted city-state —
mainly by exporting electronics, chemicals and financial services — has
risen up from squalor to boast the fifth-highest per capita gross
domestic product (GDP) in the world.
But at what price?
There's a joke about Singapore: Two swimming dogs cross each other in
the middle of the Singapore Strait. One is a Singaporean dog swimming to
Indonesia, the other is an Indonesian dog swimming to Singapore.
The first dog asks the second: "Why are you going to Singapore?" The
other replies, " I want to live in a place where there are jobs and
opportunities, and where it's safe and clean and there's medical care
for everyone. How about you? Why are you going to Indonesia?"
The first dog replies, "I just want to bark."
'Aim well'
A main component in Singapore's spectacular rise has been its tightly
controlled populace. It is one of the most micromanaged societies in
modern history.
Voting is required. Military service for males is mandatory. Selling
chewing gum, spitting, and not flushing are prohibited. Posted above
urinals are official signs that read, "Aim well." Speeding is
monitored by photoelectronic sensors. Pornography is banned. Selling
drugs or possessing a gun are punishable by death.
Spray-painting graffiti on parked cars can net a six-whack caning, but
18-year-old Fay from Ohio — with the intervention of no less than the
president of the United States and 34 senators — got the number reduced
to three.
The overall result of Singaporean justice speaks for itself: an
efficient, orderly, squeaky clean city with a stunningly low crime rate.
There were 31 homicides last year. Los Angeles, with a comparable
population, recorded 584 homicides; Chicago, with a million fewer
people, had 667 murders.
"Women can walk anywhere day or night," said Li, the department-store
clerk. "Can you do that in America?"
In addition to the "don'ts," the government has pushed a bewildering
array of "do's" that, to many Americans, might smack of Orwellian social
engineering.
There was the Smile Singapore campaign intended to make tourists feel
loved and therefore boost tourist dollars. Immigration officers were
given government-issue mirrors to periodically check their grinning
quality.
Currently there's the Singapore Kindness campaign, the Speak Good
English movement, and the Tribunal for the Maintenance of Parents,
requiring people to support their parents in old age.
Alarmed by its declining birth rate, the government formed the Working
Committee on Marriage and Procreation, which exhorts Singaporeans,
especially those with college degrees, to marry and have sex as often as
possible. Toward that end, the government runs an online matchmaking
service for college graduates.
A pamphlet on how to date successfully, distributed by the
government's Social Development Unit, advises that you "obtain a
repository of information" from the Internet and newspapers so that "you
will not be caught in a situation where you run out of conversation
topics."
The pamphlet also says "oral hygiene cannot be ignored because there's
no bigger turn-off than a foul mouth reeking with leftovers from lunch.
"
The government-controlled press, in unison, recently ran stories on
the best places in the city to park and smooch, going as far as
suggesting ways to ensure privacy, for example, by covering the car
windows with newspapers.
Poking fun at the government's long reach, Asad Latif, a journalist
for The Straits Times, announced mockingly at a meeting of the
Remaking Singapore committee:
"The Singapore government has decided that the people shall be more
spontaneous."
Singaporeans in the room laughed knowingly.
That's exactly the rub on the Remaking Singapore project. In asking what
lies beyond the Five C's, isn't the government entering into a realm
beyond bureaucratic reach? Aren't heart and soul supposed to arise
organically from the daily mishmash of society? Is it possible for a
government to create soul without quashing it in the attempt?
Singapore takes its committees very seriously, but even members
acknowledge the project's inherent irony.
The edict, though, has been handed down, and the committee slogs
forward, collecting input from the citizenry, and planning to announce a
list of recommendations later in the year.
Already, some things have become clear: As Singaporeans become wealthier
and more comfortable, more will seek to actualize in areas other than
career.
What has been a singular national drive for economic success must be
diversified to encourage the arts, literature and sports, said Manaf, of
the Singapore International Foundation.
In encouraging the development of those "soft areas," says arts advocate
Eleanor Wong, the government must pull back. Wong, a committee member,
said the government must allow more freedom of expression, more organic
growth of artistic communities.
"More mess," Wong added.
That's where creativity comes from.
The government having "a finger in every pie," says architect Richard
Ho, "stifles the very creativity it says Singaporeans lack."
For the first time in Singapore's short history, the government has
shown a willingness to accommodate such freedoms.
Recently, the government allowed the start of a "Speaker's Corner" in
one of the city's main parks as a sort of experiment in free speech.
Citizens can go to the park any day between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. and rail
against the government or anything or anyone else — as long as they
preregister with the police and stand on a box.
The government also is reviewing its censorship policies. Censorship has
already loosened in recent years, allowing for more risqué movies
and books, and more daring ads.
Adorning the side of a red city bus on a recent afternoon was an
advertisement for a local women's magazine, Her World. The main story
headline, in big, bold letters: "The 4.4 Minute O-O-O-Orgasm."
This may not be soul, but it is a symptom of the mishmash, or "the
mess," as Wong put it. Out of this nascent pile, a buzz may arise, and
from the buzz, perhaps some art. It's a beginning.
It took 37 years for Singapore to become a world economic player; it
might take that long for Bohemia to gain a foothold here. For now,
though, the government isn't ready to give up its rattan cane.
【在 i0 的大作中提到】
: 想起了着个 :))
: Two swimming dogs cross each other in the middle of the Singapore
: Strait. One is a Singaporean dog swimming to Indonesia, the other is
: an Indonesian dog swimming to Singapore.
: The first dog asks the second: "Why are you going to Singapore?" The
: other replies, " I want to live in a place where there are jobs and
: opportunities, and where it's safe and clean and there's medical care
: for everyone. How about you? Why are you going to Indonesia?"
: The first dog replies, "I just want to bark."
| a******e
发帖数: 331 | 5 看看YALE—NUS 学院的声明，新蜕变得更自由只是时间问题
【在 i0 的大作中提到】
: 想起了着个 :))
: Two swimming dogs cross each other in the middle of the Singapore
: Strait. One is a Singaporean dog swimming to Indonesia, the other is
: an Indonesian dog swimming to Singapore.
: The first dog asks the second: "Why are you going to Singapore?" The
: other replies, " I want to live in a place where there are jobs and
: opportunities, and where it's safe and clean and there's medical care
: for everyone. How about you? Why are you going to Indonesia?"
: The first dog replies, "I just want to bark."
|
|
