From ‘Casinos built based on need to create jobs’, 15 Apr 2011, article by Maria Siow, Today online and ‘S’pore open selectively to international talent:SM’, 15 April 2011, article by Grace Ng, ST
Six years after the decision was made to build casinos in Singapore, the issue remains on the minds of several ministers, with Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong being the latest to weigh in.
…”From the moral standpoint, the Government and most people in Singapore are against gaming,” said Mr Goh.
But in the end, the choice was made based on the need to create jobs, the difficulty in relying on manufacturing and a few key industries in generating growth and the lack of natural tourist attractions, he said.
The subject of casinos surfaced on Monday, when Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and People’s Action Party chairman Lim Boon Heng brought it up during an unveiling of the party’s General Election candidates, as an example of how there is no “groupthink” within the party, struggling to hold back tears as he did so.
Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo brought up casinos again in an interview with Yahoo! Singapore on Wednesday, when he emphasised the need to make difficult decisions to keep Singapore competitive, while acknowledging its pitfalls.
“I mean, I still feel guilty about the problem which gambling causes to particular families but very often public policy are a trust of evils, you can’t have it all ways,” he said.
…Mr Goh highlighted the rise of new media such as Facebook and blogs – a mega trend…but he cautioned that the tool could be used for good or evil. Likening it to a knife that can be used to cut fruits or kill people, Mr Goh said: ‘New media can sometimes suffer from the danger of being used by a small number of people…who are hiding beyond anonymity (to) spread misinformation, distort news and so on. But we have to live with it.
Dont cry for me, Singapura
Politicians coming out expressing their personal feelings to the point of melodramatic weeping, and admitting that gambling is morally questionable, yet coming to the consensus that IRs are a necessary evil for the greater good, does make one wonder what goes on in those boardrooms and who were the key players putting their foot down, lording over the wishy washy emotional types, and pushing this idea through despite all the objections. The problem with the IR situation is that there is no single person to blame. If a SARS epidemic spins out of control once more, all eyes will be on the Health Minister. If you have a gambling epidemic, we don’t have a Minister of Gaming and Recreation to wag an accusing finger at going ‘I told you so’. Instead we have this foggy ‘trust of evils’ in the air, like a earthquake cloud looming over us which we can’t do anything about (pardon the tsunami analogy). Except that if we were to be swept away in a ten-storey-high wave of gambling addiction, there will be no fund-raising celebrity cheer songs led by Jackie Chan, or the responsible people taken to task for making a bad decision. Instead we’ll be swirling in a miasma of finger-pointing and shrugging masked as rhetoric, drenched with the tears of ministers bawling because no one ever listened to them.
SM Goh himself once admitted that he was ‘against gambling’ but not ‘anti-gambling’, (Credibility at stake:SM Goh, 21 April 2005, Today, see below) which is like saying you’re against murder but still allow it to happen because we can’t stop people from dying, because that is what exactly happens when gambling addicts hurl themselves off buildings. It’s mentioned in the same article that the casino proposal was accepted as he didn’t want others to think of us ‘incapable of making rational decisions’, or how we were ‘lacking boldness’ i.e. ‘kiasi’, at the expense of thousands of curious people leading otherwise normal healthy lives. It’s like a schoolboy pressured by bullies to take a piss in a swimming pool in exchange of not being hammered daily, inconveniencing other users because it seemed ‘rational’ to him and a small price to pay for not to be pushed about like a wuss at the time. Further on SM mentions how having a casino would give Singapore an edge over the likes of Dubai, but fails to realise that these Muslim countries are still vibrant and successful today IN SPITE of lack of casinos. AND alcohol. How much of this casino business is really ‘rational’ anyway, considering that the industry strives solely, ironically, on human impulsiveness?
Surely, if we had all these reservations on casinos, why build not just one, but TWO of them? Why surface this ‘Hmm maybe IRs weren’t such a good idea’ only now? It’s like a military general pushing a button to drop an atomic bomb, holding it down afraid to let go, and thinking ‘Hmm, maybe we shouldn’t have designed it to kill people, maybe just maim them a bit’. How many families do our decision-makers want to see destroyed before they concede that a ‘difficult decision’ is, quite simply, a ‘horrendous mistake’?100, 1000? If it happens to one of their relatives or loved ones, perhaps? The international community may have some thoughts about our ‘timid’ reputation, but they don’t care about how we deal with victims of gambling addiction. Some things, in my opinion, are worth being ‘kiasi’ about, and SM Goh must have had a very broad definition of ‘Remaking Singapore’ if it means destroying some Singaporeans in the process.
As for the Facebook analogy, perhaps SM Goh was putting a layman spin on it when he says a knife ‘can cut fruit and also kill people’, but I believe the word he was looking for was ‘double-edged sword’. He of all people should also realise by now how candid status updates can be taken the wrong way. I think most Singaporeans would get the drift, without the need to resort to heartland hawker centre fruit stall imagery. Here’s another analogy for you, SM; To make the omelette that is Singapore, you have to ‘break some EGGS’. When it comes to gambling debts, maybe some LEGS too.
Filed under: 2000s, 2011, Bloggers, Casino/gambling, Fun and games, Politicians | Tagged: bloggers, casino, facebook, george yeo, lim boon heng, Politicians, SM Goh Chok Tong | Leave a Comment »
