COMMENT: In quiet reflection of SG50

Viswa Sadasivan is Editor-in-Chief for Inconvenient Questions, a former Nominated MP of the Singapore Parliament and a former TV current affairs host. The views expressed here are his own.

My late father was a tailor.  In keeping with his trade he decided to stitch our national flag in the lead up to our first national day.  I was barely seven as I observed how the crescent and five stars were carefully cut out from a large white cloth and stitched onto the red portion of the flag.  It was done with care and attention to detail, as you would with any task that truly matters.

The completed flag was hoisted on a plain bamboo stick and tied to a pillar on the five-foot way of our Kampong Bahru shophouse. It soon started to flutter.  I recall that as the crescent and five stars were revealed, I felt a sense of pride. It was our national flag flying freely and we didn’t buy it ready-made from the shop. We made it with our own hands.

Today, I woke up with the same feeling: a feeling of pride – pure, unabashed, reaffirmed.

I saw my daughter Maya chilling with her close friends who had stayed over at our home after celebrating her 16th birthday last night. It was delightful to see these children from such diverse backgrounds finding joy in friendship.  I am grateful that my wife and I are in a position to provide for this.

Then on my way to the airport to pick up my wife, I was mesmerised – possibly for the thousandth time – by the stunning East Coast Parkway landscape.  What a uniquely Singaporean welcome we get each time we arrive at the airport and drive past the trees that form a canopy and the stunning sun-drenched colours of the bougainvillea. What a vision!

And minutes ago, I received a few spectacular video clips of our SG50 celebrations culminating in this evening’s National Day Parade.  In particular, I was struck by the clip that displayed spell-binding aerial acrobatics by our very own Black Knights.  The maneuvers – especially the “inverted helix”, “double heart” and the “dedication display” – are extremely difficult to execute and require exacting skills and abilities in the fighter pilots. One can’t help feeling awestruck by how far we have come since the Singapore Air Defence Command was set up in 1968.

As I reflect quietly, today, I can’t help feeling immensely grateful and humbled.  Yes, we didn’t start from ground zero in 1965 – we did benefit from what the British had left behind – but it would be disingenuous to not accord credit to the leadership and vision that got us here.

Could we have done things better?  Certainly.  Many of us do feel that we could have done many things better – and rightly so. Did we have to suspend civil liberties to the extent we did for achieving economic progress and prosperity? Did we have to link intelligence and success so closely with academic acumen?

Could we not have better managed income disparity?  Shouldn’t the government/ruling party be more transparent in the conduct of the General Election?

Indeed, these are salient issues that must be discussed seriously and without fear of repercussion. To ensure this is as much the government’s responsibility as it is the people’s right.

However, we need to find a way to question the wrong without negating the right. The truth is that we – as a people – would not be in a position to question and engage on issues of fairness and transparency if our basic needs had not been adequately met, and if we had not been given quality education and exposure, or if we hadn’t had access to the immense opportunities that come with technology and modernisation.

We will be remiss as a society; as a people if we didn’t give credit to those who made it possible. Even as we exercise the right to question and challenge, should we not express gratitude for what we have and say a simple “thank you” to those who got us here? Not to do so, in my view, would amount to a deficit in graciousness and humility.

For me, as we celebrate 50 years of our nation’s independence today – 9th of August 2015 – it is important for us to pause to reflect, collectively and as individuals, on how we got here through a relatively peaceful and smooth journey. What is equally important is to acknowledge that while Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP government played an instrumental leadership role, there were many others who helped shape yesterday’s future – civil society and union stalwarts, senior civil servants with competency and conviction, visionary commercial sector captains, undeterred professionals and not least of all opposition politicians such as Fong Swee Suan, Lim Chin Siong, JB Jeyaratnam and Chiam See Tong who fought for what they believed in with fire-in-the-belly and steel in the nerves.  Most importantly, we mustn’t forget to acknowledge that no leader – no matter how visionary or capable he or she is – can achieve great outcomes without support from the ground.  Singapore would never have made it if not for the indefatigable and pragmatic nature of its people from all walks of life, regardless of race, language or religion.  We chose to believe.

We become truly worthy as a people – to celebrate today what we have achieved – only if we are able to go beyond the glitz and fireworks and acknowledge the selfless work by so many.

We need to ask if, as a people, we are now able to balance success with graciousness, magnitude with magnanimity, and pride with humility.

For me, what we are celebrating is not so much our achievements in the past 50 years, but that we did this in our own way, with our own hands.

Let’s make this a truly meaningful National Day!