My brother was all hyped up last week when he rushed home from camp specially for his much awaited SimCity. Over the weekend, I caught up with him over dinner and inquired about the health of his ‘baby’, as he so endearingly calls his virtual city. He told me plainly that it was simply, ‘collapsing’ because everyone’s complaining. I then asked just how long did the city run in prosperity before everything turned sour. He said offhandedly, ‘a couple of hours?’ I had to laugh.
If only running a country were as easy as playing a computer game. How much would politicians give to have the option of resetting to a previous save point I wonder? If only time could be turned back and the missteps undone. It’s not just the government isn’t it? You and me, normal people everywhere would love to have this option and live our lives again to perfection on hindsight. Sometimes I really wonder why we can accept our mistakes, fix them and move on by telling ourselves that we’ll just think of it as a life lesson, then why aren’t governments allowed the same liberty? Did you think governments were supposed to be perfect? That they somehow just know what to do or have a road-map to follow? Men are fallible; much less a whole bunch of arguing men in parliament. We can only do the best we can; us and the government. True that we suffer to a degree for a government’s mistakes, but can you imagine an alternative where there is no government? In accepting that we need a leadership, we should follow through thick and thin no?
At this juncture, I’ll insert the analogy of Chelsea changing managers over and over and over in a season. Did that do more harm than good? The club is slipping away; the owners at odds with the manager, the manager with the fans, the owners with the players. No unity, no identity, no passion, no motivation, no goal. My opinion is that if everyone cut each other some slack and held on together to work things out given some time, would it be better? It’s incredibly sad to see a club with such heritage run itself into ruin like this. Nobody likes nobody anymore and the club is but a shell and a name that feebly, meaninglessly trudges on with no real support from anyone. On BPL fanzone over the weekend, a Chelsea fan called in to say he would rather have seen his club lose the FA Cup game just so they’ll wake up. Another fan said that even if the current manager brings home the FA Cup, he wouldn’t be accepted no matter what! Really? Even if it means for once you have a manager who delivers? How is this rational? Even as players have stepped forward to cajole the fans into treating their manager better, the fans are stubbornly adamant that they don’t care. What is this attitude? Can you really say it’s good for the club at all?
Citizens all over the world are petty, resentful and have amazingly long-lasting memories when it comes to a government’s faults. Just like Chelsea fans, I’ll ask you what good does it do other than making you feel better when you rage and vent? The government is fixing their wrongs and need our support. Can we give them as much when they’re doing their best? Have they not already put their heads down in shame and apologized and accepted all our ranting? Are we appeased yet? I say again that a nation needs its people as much as it needs its leaders. Work together and achieve more with less. I think we’ve heard that saying many many times in Asian culture haven’t we? Just look around at Europe and the US. France is facing a 3rd recession since 2008. Italy has a joke of a leadership. Greece is essentially fighting a civil war. The US is shutting down their government services because their leaders cannot compromise. We’re doing good in Singapore; we really really are. Do we for one second appreciate that? We have actual reserves running into so many zeros that the US can only dream about. We have accomplished so much as a small nation and yet, we don’t seem to understand how amazing it really is. Have we applauded our leaders even once for that? If we’re so stingy with the compliments, why so quick with the criticism? Are we such incorrigible people?
