Hmph.

"When you say $66 is high, let me just be clear that they pay about a dollar a game to watch in the comfort of their homes. I think it is reasonable. I think they can afford it. It is less than a cup of coffee," said SingTel's Edward Ying.

Yeah, we can afford it, but why should we pay this price for it? I can afford to pay $100 for a cup of coffee too, but should I be paying $100? This is a silly argument from Singtel's CEO that displays a lack of tact and a disconnect with ground sentiments.

Instead of apologising to us for this entire fiasco, he paints himself as a white knight who has brought the World Cup to Singapore.

Problem is, we all knew it was coming, but it took so long because you inflated prices so we could all bleed to death for your profit margins.

It's even better when he said "I think they can afford it." Who are you to think for us? I have my own mind, and I prefer to use it so people like you don't tell me how to think.

And the Nescafe 3-in-1 coffee I drink definitely doesn't cost $1 per cup, assuming I watch all 64 matches so it's actually $1 per game.

It is just not reasonable considering even developed countries like Japan are paying $9 for this, and our neighbour Indonesia is getting it FREE. I find it even more hilarious that the Straits Times said that there were countries that were paying more, but did not offer any examples. Perhaps because there are NONE?

I guess it just looks bad that we are the idiots who are lining the pockets of FIFA because Singtel was crazy enough to outbid Starhub by $100 million for the English Premier League rights. Hello, outbid $1 also win, you outbid $100 million for what? Too much money ah? If you have too much money, then I hope this World Cup bleeds you to death, Mr Edward Ying.

I am a huge soccer fan, but I know what the limit is. And this certainly is the limit.

Unfortunately, Singaporeans are the type of people who will just pay and pay, and hence, we are destined to pay and pay until we start to think for ourselves again.

The kentangs are ruining Singapore

Recently, Education Minister Mr Ng Eng Hen has inflamed the heartlands with his proposal of a controversial language policy. This policy involves the lowering of the weightage of the Mother Tongue at PSLE from the traditional 25% of the total to a slightly lower percentage.

The reason he gave was, he observed that his son struggled to learn it to the detriment of other subjects. The second was, he reasoned that other countries did not have such stringent language requirements for mother tongue at primary school level.

So now, because your son had problems learning Chinese, you think it is only right that you should make mother tongue less important for other "kentangs" like yourself. Because you are a Chinese person but did not learn your mother tongue well, you think it should count for less because you can't teach your son how to speak the language of his ancestors.

Hey, you know what? I know a lot of kids who have problems learning English too, because their families speak Chinese at home. Can I apply to lower the weightage for English too?

Mr Education Minister, first, you institute a policy that makes a simpler version of the Mother Tongue syllabus available for those who are weaker in the language, now you want to dilute the importance of the Mother Tongue further, by telling people its okay to focus on other subjects because really, you shouldn't be wasting so much time trying to communicate with other members of your own race.

I am getting very convinced that there are certain people up there who spend all their time in ivory towers and have no idea of what the ground sentiment is like. With such a policy, who are you really benefiting? Other rich, English speaking families like yourself, or the heartlander families who speak their mother tongues at home?

Such a policy is controversial not just because it is a misguided attempt at reducing the importance of MT in our society, but also because it benefits a certain class of society a lot more than others. It helps the rich English speaking lobby to keep their children in elite schools, while making it more difficult for heartlanders to get into the same schools, because the traditional advantage of the heartlanders, their fluency in MT, is now eroded as a competitive advantage. I find this extremely disgusting.

Other countries may not require such stringent requirements to determine who are our best and brightest at primary school level, but in Singapore we do. Singapore is land scarce, and as a result, school scarce. The best schools can take only so many, and we have to ensure that it is truly the best of students that make it to those schools. It may be sad, it may be stressful, but this is the result of living in a country where we have little except the talents of our people, and whatever we make out of life we have because we worked and fought for it.

People overseas may not get why we are such a serious people, uptight, competitive and driven, but try living in a country where entry in favoured schools is not a given right but a privilege, and you start to understand the collective psyche of "survival" and "scarcity" that underpins the Singaporean mentality. Why else do you think we have the terms "kiasu" and "kiasi"?

If children in schools are struggling to learn the language, it is not just the failure of families in not teaching their children properly. The problem also lies in the syllabus and methods of teaching, which the government is very subtly diverting our attention away from so as to not draw attention to the fact that even after so many years, we still have not found a good way to teach our kids how to speak two languages effectively.

Learning a language is hard work, and should not be taken lightly. However, people in Switzerland can speak three languages, and I know many other people who can speak that number too. Granted not everyone has the aptitude to learn so many languages, but surely two is not beyond the ability of most people.

I did not enjoy learning Chinese growing up. I had tuition sessions, I stayed behind in school, I rewrote my essays and I had to live with the bad grades that inevitably came my way because I was competing against Chinese scholars. But today I am glad that I went through all that because I can read a Chinese newspaper, which is one of the hardest things to read on a daily basis in Chinese.

Of course, with this being Singapore, I guess I had better brush up my English skills, because that's all people are going to be speaking in 10 years.

Identity

One morning this week, my editor pulled all of the interns into his office, and proceeded to ask us this question. Are you a Singaporean first, then a Chinese person, then a religious person, or is the order something that changes according to the situation?

And while he was engaging us in this discussion, it quickly became evident that some people were very religiously devout, to the extent that religion came before their identity as Singaporeans or Chinese. One of the interns brought up the example of how she would not offer joss sticks to her deceased grandfather because simply doing so was against her religious beliefs, and she would not compromise on her stand.

When the editor pointed out that offering joss sticks was simply an act of respect rather than a full-on subscription to the religion, she simply said that she would not wish to do something that would set a bad precedent in her religious community. When she was then asked to consult her pastor on whether such an act could be allowed on the grounds that it was not a form of worship, rather just simply a traditional Chinese rite, she said her pastor was open minded but she preferred not to debate it.

It was an example that showed how our youth are still not secure or knowledgeable enough in their religion to challenge it, preferring to let people in authority dictate the terms of their faith. I personally am of the opinion that one should challenge all aspects of a religion that one chooses to subscribe, because ultimately, a faith is something between yourself and God, and when you let someone else do the interpretation for you, the danger is that the person chooses to manipulate you, or simply force their own interpretation on you for their own purposes in the name of God.

Cynical perhaps, but I also find that when one debates the finer points of a faith, one becomes more secure, and able to explain these same finer points to another, which makes their case for their belief in one's faith more convincing. If I were to ask Muslims why they do not eat pork, or Christians on why they have pagan symbols like Christmas trees in their festivals, how many of them can actually give me a convincing answer according to the tenets of their faiths?

Debating a faith and becoming knowledgeable in it also makes one better at putting down false prophets, who often borrow the might and influence of the church to push their own selfish agendas.

Religion is something that is open to interpretation, yet fixed on archaic rules, often opaque and not open to debate because of subtle sensitivities mixed in with the emotions associated with religious fervour. Due to its nature, many brands of religion often surface, and the dominant brand is often one that is subscribed to because it has a powerful political or religious lobby behind it, as a look at history will quickly tell you. A good example would be the brand of Islam practiced in the Arab states, Wahabism, which is subscribed to by the Saudi state, the most powerful and influential of the Arab emirates.

So it brings the question of, in a certain period of time, which brand of a religion will be dominant? The more hardline and fundamental in times of crisis, or the more moderate in times of peace? Because people did not debate their faiths enough, or engage in a greater understanding of other faiths, the religious fervour and panic after the 911 attacks resulted in neo-conservatives seizing upon the fear of people to invade terrorists that were fuelled by "Islamic fundamentalism", when the real cause of the war is quickly becoming apparent as another type of fuel altogether, the crude black one that comes out of the ground.

There have been efforts to bridge that divide, with dialogues and inter-faith conventions set up. However, in the Straits Times earlier this week, there was an article on whether inter-faith religious dialogue was a farce, a matter of preaching to the converted, because the people attending these sessions tended to be more moderate. More worryingly, the dialogue at such conferences often skirts thorny issues, lacking any real depth, as prolonged discussion on how religions can co-exist while remaining true to their own faiths is not something that can be covered in a single dialogue, and faiths often pay lip-service to suggestions, promising to consider them but doing little to implement them.

And it is very worrying, because in secular Singapore, fault lines lie across the societal fabric, and the lack of discussion does not mean they don't exist, simply that they lie dormant waiting for the right incident to inflame them. Legislation is all fine and good when the judiciary and public institutions are in good working order, but in times of crisis when resources are truly tested, will they stand up to the same standards in defusing racial tensions? Bear in mind that sometimes, leaders in government are not secular either, even though they are elected to a secular system, and you see where problems might arise.

And in Singapore, the fault lines are well known, just not talked about. A friend of mine today pointed out that the Malay race is still not trusted within sensitive institutions in the military because for them, their religious loyalties may cause them to side with fellow Muslims rather than Singapore's cause in times of war. However, I believe that such loyalties are present in all the Abrahamic faiths, namely Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam.

Why is it that we judge Muslims as having a conflict between the interests of the country and their religion, and yet not paint the other similar faiths with the same brush? Why is it that we judge them as being less able to make a rationalised decision as to which identity they choose to be according to the situation, when many Muslims I know are brilliant, moderate and extremely rational people?

It is fault lines like these that need to be debated and talked about, because pretending the problem doesn't exist is like having an ostrich with its head in the sand, unable to see the lion sneaking up on it.

A UN Special Rapporteur, Mr Githu Muigai, visited Singapore recently, and when he left, he made several comments on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. While we do need to look carefully at his comments, because after all, he is a foreigner and not familiar with the more subtle aspects of our social mix, I disagreed with this statement from the Foreign Ministry.

"In the course of his press conference this afternoon Mr Muigai referred to restrictions in our laws such as the Penal Code and the Sedition Act and expressed the opinion that they may not as useful today as forty-five years ago. He called for greater openness in the public discussion of sensitive issues.

"Here we must emphatically disagree with Mr Muigai. Race, language and religion will always be sensitive issues in Singapore. This does not mean that they cannot be discussed, but a balance must always be struck between free expression and preservation of racial and religious harmony.

"This balance is only for the Singapore government to determine because only the Singapore government bears the responsibility should things go wrong. The UN bears no such responsibility and we see no reason to take risks for the sake of an abstract principle. We believe most Singaporeans agree with the government's approach."

How could they just claim that most Singaporeans agree with their approach? Did they ask us? While I agree that Singapore bears a "responsibility" to not inflame racial tensions, why are they so convinced that things will "go wrong" just because of a few debates? Do they really think that we are unable to think for ourselves, that good sense will not prevail despite the high level of education among the Singaporean citizenry? How long more do they want to continue spoonfeeding us the right way to think?

Free expression is not simply an "abstract principle", but a way to help people to think for themselves. If you don't have an opinion, it means you are not thinking. When you are not thinking or asking questions, you don't know enough to care. When that becomes too common, you get what you sowed - political apathy.

Who are you first, a citizen, before a member of your race and faith, or is your race or faith something that carries more weight than being a member of the citizenry? We are a young nation, lacking a strong national identity. Without debate, we might find it difficult to tell people why we identify ourselves as Singaporean, beyond the fact that we love our food, which is something any new immigrant can tell you.