What do I believe in? Many things. Many people believe in many things, some people, selfish, just believe in material objects and possessions which will benefit them more, however, some other people may believe in systems which they hope would bring about a better world, such as liberty and communism. Yet, some people believe in values and qualities, and believe that these qualities are what will make the world better, if only people started embodying these qualities. These people do not dream up of big ambitions, but instead, seek to embody these qualities themselves in order to serve the world better and make the world a better place. I belong in the third category.
I believe in responsibility. I believe that everyone should fulfil one's duty and do it well. One should not give excuses and try to shy away from one's duty merely because it may be hard. I believe that everyone has a duty to the world, be it in realistic terms, from the garbage cleaner to the software developer, who should do their jobs well in order to make the world a better place, or in idealistic terms, where everyone should serve people out of their working place, from simple things such as giving up one's seat in public transport to helping out the community through voluntary work, or donating money for charity. Do I practice responsibility? I believe I do. I complete work that is assigned to me, and also serve my duty to the community and society. Do other people embody this quality? Sadly, I have to say no. Too many people in the world all try to find ways to benefit themselves, and what is the easiest way to do that? It is to push one's duty to other people so that one has a reduced workload and can have a higher quality of life. How is this responsibility? If one is assigned work to do, one should do it, as it was assigned in the belief that one would complete the work. If everyone were to neglect their duty and not be responsible, what would society turn into?
I also believe in excellence. I believe that when doing one’s duty and carrying out one’s responsibility, one should always try to achieve the best that they can, even if it means more work. I believe that one should always be able so sign one’s work with pride. Excellence to me is also progress, as when one is continuously trying to excel in something, one is also at the same time progressing. However, when I talk about excellence and progress, I do not merely mean individual progress, and individual excellence. I believe that everyone should help each other succeed, and together, as a whole, as one body, move forward and progress and excel. Let us say, for example, a class. When handing up their homework and assignments, a student should, in my opinion, always hand up the best piece of work they can achieve, and not the bare minimal so that they can use the extra time to do leisure activities, such as playing computer games. Also, although there may be some students who are outcasts, though the intensity of being outcast varies from class to class, I think that the students in the class should still help the outcast when he needs help. Students stronger at a subject should help students weaker at a subject. In this way, the class can progress as a whole, and excel as one. Do I practice excellence? I must admit, not always. I try to create the best piece of work I can, but sometimes, it is truly frustrating when in trying to create an excellent piece of work, everything starts failing, and with this frustration, I am occasionally not motivated to put in my entire best. I will also help other people so that an entire body can progress as one. Though I may not voluntarily do it, however, if I am assigned to a group, even with members I dislike, I would still do my duty and try to create the best possible work with them.
Lastly, I believe in respect. In the modern world it is today, where there is a much greater freedom for speech, people are starting to get complacent and even start splitting hairs with their superiors. For example, children nowadays are more likely to argue and disobey their parents; the evidence is present in many articles written either by the children, or by other people. It is evident that people are becoming more rebellious and are making use of their freedom to try and get everything done their way. Of course, freedom of speech is not a bad thing, and sometimes, a different perspective is welcome. However, it depends on how it is phrased. Nowadays, people are showing lesser respect to others. For example, a child may argue with his parents, however, he should always remain respectful and not let his emotions get the better of him. I think a part of respect comes from empathy. If one empathises with the audience who they are talking to, and keep in mind his perspectives and feelings, I think that a person would be more likely to show respect. I think another aspect of respect is also knowing when one is wrong, and admitting it. Nowadays, people view their image as something extremely important, and feel that by admitting their wrong, they would be showing weakness, and thus stubbornly refuse to do what they know is right, in order to protect their reputation. If instead, a person graciously admits that he was wrong, there would be lesser frustration in the world.
I was not really enthusiastic about the performance. I mean, I wanted to see how a play in a park would turn out, and having read Macbeth for an assignment the previous year, I was quite familiar with the story and wanted to see how it turned out on stage. However, the thought that they would be speaking long Shakespearean verses for the entire two-hour duration of the play was rather unattractive. Unfortunately, I cannot say that the play turned out surprisingly pleasant to watch. It was not. If I had not read the play before, I would not even have understood what was happening in the story, and in fact, some portions left me confused. Also, being a Shakespearean play, it was rather long and dreary, the period between Macbeth’s assassinations of the King to the standoff with Macduff occupying nearly an hour. The plot was also rather simple when compared to other Shakespearean plays, with only one main antagonist, unlike say, King Lear, which has several antagonists and has a rather complex plot. However, I believe that the simplicity of Macbeth also contributes to its popularity, as the audience would be better able to understand the play.
Macbeth is a tragedy, about how the main character and antagonist, Macbeth, after being prophesized by three witches that he would be promoted from Thane of Glamis to the Thane of Cawdor and finally become King of Scotland. Soon after, he learns that he has been promoted to the Thane of Cawdor, thus feeding his greed and ambition, ultimately assassinating the King of Scotland and ascending to the throne. However, under his tyrannical rule of killing of anyone opposing him, the other thanes defect to join the Thane of Fife, Macduff, and the King’s son Malcolm in gathering an army to overthrow Macbeth’s regime. Macbeth, having received another prophecy from the three witches that he was safe as “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth”. Thinking that no one could be not born from woman, Macbeth had confidently fought against Macduff’s forces, only to realize that Macduff was born by Caesarian section and was thus, not of woman born, and in the end, was defeated by Macduff.
I thought that the acting was quite good, which is to be expected since it was performed by a professional theatre company, however, due to the nature of the placing of the audience and the stage, with the audience being close to the stage and able to view it from many different angles, the backs of the actors was occasionally facing my direction, as a result obscuring the actor’s actions. The set was rather interesting, as it was quite large and one wonders how it was transported. The set served quite a number of purposes, and the props the actors used were rather realistic, such as the guns, however, those were not enough to save the show. In fact, I found the guns too loud and winced whenever they were fired, contributing to my negative impression of the performance.
Macbeth’s most obvious theme is that of greed for power which results in corruption. It has shown that a person who has been exposed to a little power will be corrupted by it and keep seeking more, ultimately ruining the person. However, the play of course does not only hope to show people the evil that power and greed can do, if not, Shakespeare would not have had Macduff defeating Macbeth, though of course, that was necessary in order to have a resolution. The play also shows the difference between kingship and tyranny, as can be evident from the fact that the King of Scotland, King Duncan, was always referred to as “king” and had the loyalty of his many subjects, whereas Macbeth was referred to as “tyrant” and portrayed as a maniac who loses respect from all his subjects, only managing to keep them there through fear.
I think that these themes are still extremely relevant in today’s society. Even though the situation may not be that extreme, yet they are in essence the same. Take for example, Marxism in the U.S.S.R. Power corrupted, and absolute power corrupted absolutely, with Stanlin using the KGB to kill off opposition, and ruling the Soviet Union with tyranny. Even now, we hear of how people with power are misusing them, for example, the phone hacking scandals of News of The World, or the various scandals which many celebrities are caught up in. Therefore, although this play may have been written quite long ago, but it is evident that Shakespeare’s themes and messages can still be applied in today’s context.
However, there are some exceptions to these generalizations. Some tabloids such as New York Daily News deal with respectable news which has in fact won 10 Pulitzer Prizes. Also, from this analysis, one can find that prejudice exists everywhere and is so common that it manifests itself in the formatting of newspapers. From the way publishers design their newspapers to attract its main target audience, prejudice can clearly be seen. For example, the fact that tabloids have more sensational news and a bolder layout suggests that the working class is ignorant of global and important affairs, as well as that the working class “judges a newspaper by its cover”. In contrast, the broadsheet that is plainer, more in-depth and has more important regional and global affairs being reported suggests that those in the upper-class have a finer culture and are more intellectual and more understanding of global events.
Learning about the different types of articles and newspapers has led me to be more critical about what I read. For example, when reading a tabloid, I now know that I have to be more critical of what it says. Tabloids tend to report on more sensational news, thus they may leave out some important information in order to make the article more interesting. Thus, when reading tabloids, when has to be more critical of its information and not believe everything it says. However, when one is looking for a light an interesting read, and just wants to de-stress, one can try reading tabloids. When reading straight news articles, it is much more believable, however, the news may not be as sensational. Even if the news has some sensational factor, the factual tone will make someone looking for a light read bored rather easily. When reading a straight news article, one truly has to be interested in the topic. If the particular topic is given extensive coverage, many details will be often repeated, which puts off disinterested readers. Thus, one truly has to be interested in the topic before reading the news article. The main focus of feature articles is not really about current events. Instead, it is about interesting topics which have become more important over the ages, or it may also be a commemoration for an important event’s anniversary. Feature articles will appeal to a wider range of readers, due to its storytelling style, which usually induces a certain sense of suspense. Feature articles also usually talk about topics which are extremely relevant to people’s daily lives, such as prejudice. Even topics such as a country’s 100th anniversary will be a break from all the other articles which are almost similar every day, that it will be a welcome break for disinterested readers.
Learning about newsworthiness has also made me realise that events are reported due to their importance, as well as due to how interesting the event reported is. Thus, I have realised that it is important to truly read a newspaper instead of just skimming over it. Previously, I had thought that half the articles in a newspaper were uninteresting, while the other half was of no relevance to me. However, after learning about newsworthiness, I have realised that many articles inside are actually very relevant to my daily life, and the only reason why they are uninteresting is because they have to be factual in order to get their message to readers clearly.
Racial Prejudice is one of the themes in To Kill A Mockingbird (TKAM), and one of the major themes that have been discussed. However, what has been discussed thus far has been mainly about white supremacy, which is the prejudice of white people against Blacks, as well as racial purity, which is the discrimination of all other races by one race. In general terms, racism is the belief that a certain race possesses certain characteristics and traits which make it inferior or superior to another. However, racism has become so common in the present context that terms such as “horizontal racism”, “reverse racism” and “internalized racism” have come up. In order to keep up to date, where the severity white supremacy and racial purity as forms of racism have lessened somewhat, I shall be talking about these other forms of racism.
Firstly, reverse racism. Reverse racism is basically racism against the majority group. For example, in a context with white people and Blacks, reverse racism would be racism practiced by the Blacks against the white people. However, even though the minority race is able to practice racism on the majority race, which most minority races probably do as a result of racism practiced on them by the majority race. However, even as the minority races try to make a stand for themselves by practicing reverse racism, they do not have the power to do so. Sure, they may be able to take a gun and shoot several people from the majority race; however, they do not have the power to practice discrimination without being arrested, such as allowing more people of a certain race have privileges like being given priority for a job. Also, by practicing racism themselves, the minority race would also be spreading a bad image of themselves, thus increasing the severity of prejudice practiced by the majority race.
Next, horizontal racism. Horizontal racism is racism practiced by a minority race against another minority race. For example, in Singapore, racism practiced by an Indian person against a Malay person would be horizontal racism. Horizontal racism occurs mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, the minority race practising horizontal racism would want to feel more powerful, instead of just being prejudiced against by the majority race, thus, they would practice racism on the other minority race. Horizontal racism also occurs because the racism practised by the majority group on the minority group may have resulted in generalizations and views being rubbed off on the other minority races, thus, these other races would also be racist against the minor-minority group.
Lastly, internalized racism. Internalized racism is similar to horizontal racism, except in this case, it is even worse, if possible. Internalized racism is when a minority race believes that that the majority race is superior, and thus, practice racism against one's own race. For example, in a western context, a Black choosing to hire white people rather than black people, even if they have the same credentials, is internalized racism. Internalized racism is practically admitting defeat, by believing that they are truly inferior. However, this may be due to the fact that the minority race have been exposed to racism against them for such a long time that it becomes ingrained in their mindset, so much so that they practise racism against their own race.
In my opinion, even though there are so many forms of racism, the root of the problem is still the same. Instead of judging people based on other people's opinions, one should instead not be bias and let a person prove for himself what he or she truly is capable of.
What is social media? Social media includes anything from videos to posts on websites such as wikis and blogs. Social media has allowed the common man on the street to tell other people about his experiences, or also to tell readers and viewers about interesting things that the person has seen. Another common form of social media in Singapore is the Straits Times Online Mobile Print, or STOMP for short. It is mainly used in Singapore to comment about short pieces of sensational news, including bad behavior displayed by Singaporeans.
Social Media provides a lot of advantages. It allows people to share their feelings and experiences to people. Thus, this will allow them to release their emotions and be heard. This apparent attention will result in the person feeling better, resulting in that person’s emotional security. It also allows people to find out more about the things happening in Singapore, and when the person realizes how easily bad behavior is reported onto STOMP, the person will try to improve his behavior, thus resulting in an improvement in Singapore’s image. Also, social media will promote active citizenship. Those using social media such as STOMP, when trying to find out bad behavior in Singapore, will actively seek out those with bad behavior, thus, they would be active citizens in Singapore by seeking out people who would bring a bad reputation to Singapore and publicizing in order to lessen such bad behavior from occurring again. Thus, they would help improve Singapore’s image.
However, these advantages may also have disadvantageous side effects. Firstly, if a great amount of bad behavior is shared through social media, and foreigners find out about them, it would ruin Singapore’s image. They would have a bad impression of Singapore, which, when viewed practically, would result in less tourists coming to Singapore, thus, decreasing profits for Singapore. Even if foreigners do not find out about it, many groups of people would be affected, because an individual does not represent himself, but represents his organization. If a foreigner reads about a man-on-the-street behaving badly, Singapore’s image will be ruined. If an Indian behaves badly, it will result in prejudice against the Indian community. If a student behaves badly, it would affect his or her school’s reputation. This all will result in unjustified prejudice against the organization. Furthermore, the person in question behaving badly, may not even view this particular post about his bad behavior. After all, there are tons of users using social media, and the person in question definitely will not visit all of them and find out that he or she had behaved badly.
What I think that users of social media in order to report sensational incidents should instead inform the person about his or her bad behavior instead of just reporting about it. This will prevent the person from being a hypocrite who just points out other people’s bad behavior but does not correct them. The person may still want to report about the incident, but if he added that he had corrected the person on his or her bad behavior, would that not instead make him be seen in a better light? Through actually correcting the person, the witness would also be targeting at the root of the problem and help reduce the problem of bad behavior in Singapore, thus that would truly help Singapore instead of just witnessing the incident and doing nothing about it.
The recently over General Elections 2011 in Singapore has seen intense competition, the opposition putting up a stronger fight than ever. The People’s Action Party (PAP), had not seen such strong opposition for such a long time. As many said, this was a watershed election. For one, a Group Representative Constituency (GRC), has been wrested from the control of the PAP, the GRC being Aljunied GRC. Many before uncontested GRCs, such as the Bishan – Toa Payoh GRC, which has not been contested since its formation in 1997, were being contested. Votes for the PAP generally, dropped, with only two constituencies with an increase in votes – Potong Pasir Single Member Constituency (SMC) and Ang Mo Kio GRC, and only one walkover, Tanjong Pagar GRC. Whereas the PAP had attained 75.3% of Singaporean’s votes in 2001, it has dropped to 60.1% in this election. What went wrong?
Firstly, the quality of the candidates of the opposition has improved. An opposition member such as Chen Show Mao has been described as with having “credentials like no other that we have seen”. Many government scholars have also chosen to join the opposition parties, stating reasons such as that they “truly want to help the residents”. The qualities of speakers in opposition parties have also increased, for example, Mr. Benjamin Pwee of the Singapore People’s Party. Opposition parties also used social media such as Facebook in order to attract more fans. This has managed to sway quite a number of young first-time voters, who make up a large portion of Singaporean voters.
Next, the PAP has also been blamed for being too arrogant and stuck-up, and not caring about resident’s needs. The PAP has used the policy of estate upgrading as an incentive for voters, however, with many estates already upgraded, the residents seemed to have gotten tired of this bait. Furthermore, residents are dissatisfied that their opinions were not considered when upgrading the estates, for example, some residents were not given the choice to decide which colour they wanted their flats to be painted. The oppositions’ similar slogans to be the residents’ voice in the Parliament has drawn many voters to vote for them, as many Singaporeans are dissatisfied that they are not given the right to consider a policy before it is implemented. Thus, voters believe that with more opposition in the Parliament, policies that do not benefit anyone but the PAP will be questioned and thus, policies implemented in Singapore would be more beneficial to Singaporeans.
However, I think that some voters have not truly considered what the PAP has done before voting, and instead voted blindly. Some people merely think that just because the PAP is arrogant and self-centered, all that they have done is to implement policies that have only benefitted the PAP, thus whatever the PAP has done is wrong and the opposition should take its place. This is a wrong way of thinking, because the PAP has truly done a lot for Singapore. Perhaps they are becoming more complacent, but they have been effective in managing Singapore. Voters should sit back and think, which is probably what the cooling-off day is for, and consider both points of view carefully before reaching a decision. The standard of PAP may have been lackluster in the recent years, but what they need is just a wake-up call, and not an overthrow of the current government. After all, with sudden changes in the government and policies, foreign investors would be less confident and decide to withdraw their investments from Singapore, thus resulting in a financial crisis in Singapore which would definitely affect many people in Singapore negatively.
Everyone plays a part in nation building, no matter how small the role. In my opinion, everyone is able to contribute to improving life in Singapore, even those of my age. Secondary school students are able to improve life in Singapore in three main areas - at home, at school and in the community.
Firstly, how secondary school students can improve life at home. A student can easily improve life at home, by making his family happier and by minimising the work load of family members, which is essentially improving the quality of life of his or her family members. The student can be polite and filial to his or her parents, as well as kind and understanding towards any siblings. This will ensure a conducive, peaceful and pleasant atmosphere at home, and will certainly boost the spirits of his or her family members. Keeping the mind healthy is definitely improving life. Another thing a student can do is to help with the housework at home such as washing dishes, or even if the student is unused to such work, simple things such as not throwing dirty laundry anywhere but instead piled up neatly, or placing dining equipment such as plates, bowls and cutlery into the sink instead of waiting for others to clear up after him or her. This will relieve some stress on family members and thus, improve the quality of life at home as well.
Next, secondary school students can improve life in school by helping classmates and teachers with certain work, such as teaching classmates about topics they are unsure of, or helping teacher’s to carry files and books. This will improve their quality of life as they will be able to relax occasionally during a stressful day, or will help improve grades which will in turn, allow that person to be better able to succeed in life. Another way of improving life in school is by working hard. When one works hard in school, one will be able to go to better universities and thus, when they come back to Singapore, there will be more experts in different areas in Singapore. These experts will then be able to improve life in Singapore, doctors being able to cure sick people, lawyers being able to defend innocent people, researchers being able to find new ways to cure illnesses and new innovations that will allow for more convenience in the country, among many other things. By working hard now in school, one will be able to improve life in the country greatly in the long run.
Lastly, secondary school students are able to improve life in Singapore in the communal level. Singapore has an aged population, and much care has to be taken of the elderly, as well as those handicapped or with learning disabilities. Secondary school students, being more mature, more understanding in such matters, less busy than adults and fitter than primary school students should take time to help the community in community involvement programmes, or even individually. Another way that secondary school students can help the disadvantaged and elderly is by donating money. The pocket money of students has increased rather greatly over the past decade and students are getting richer. Instead of using savings to buy unnecessary items such as earphones, comics and other non-necessities, the students can instead donate these savings to Voluntary Welfare Organizations whose aim is to help those disadvantaged in one way or another. If every student donated just one dollar, a total of about one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars would have been donated! Imagine how useful this amount of money would be to handicapped people, or elderly.
There are many other ways a secondary school student can help improve life in Singapore; what I have listed is just a few. Thus, I believe that there are many things people of my age can do to help improve life in my country.
