All throughout our local education history, we have been taught that regardless of race, language or religion, everyone should be treated equally. That based on a meritocratic system, the best and most qualified person should be chosen to do the job.
When I started working, I too believe that meritocracy is the way to go, that your results will speak louder over the long run. Our country was run like a company, a well-oiled machinery with an open economy. We imported lots of cheap labour and also opened our borders to everyone.
In the current global environment, things have changed. Most citizens are becoming more protective of their home ground and immigrants are not so welcomed anymore. Our government had also been re-assessing the situation and had tightened the rules on getting Foreign Talent (FT).
Is this too late? Are we locals able to turn inwards now and protect ourselves from the foreign invasion, after so many years of open arms policy? We see certain overseas ethnic groups that fiercely protects their own kind but yet us locals don’t seem to even want to lift a finger to do likewise to support our fellow citizens. Is it because of our educational upbringing on meritocracy or is it due to our “every man for himself” attitude that is slowing killing us locals? We seemed too disunited and we become easy prey for FT.
Had lunch today with a long time friend. It seems that the government is starting to realise this. She told me about a training course done recently that invited the top 40 citizens currently working in the banking industry to attend. The objective was to hopefully cultivate a strong networking environment that will allow this group to actively steer a “locals first” initiative eventually.
I really have no answer to this issue. At the back of my mind, I still think that we should always get the best person to do the job. But I do feel jaded nowadays as I witness incidents of unfairness and also personally experienced it during my career.
Leave a Reply