I REFER to Wednesday's column by Professor Kishore Mahbubani, 'Get to know Singapore's stars'. Prof Mahbubani argues for 'a massive multi-billion-dollar global advertising campaign to sell Singapore as the great renaissance city'.

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At the age of 17 you are so disrespectful and revolting. With almost nil experience in life you are taking on a learned, aged starwart like Prof. Mahbubani. What to say of your upbringing?

I enjoyed reading Prof. Mahbubani.s feature.
I also enjoy reading Tan Ee Kuan's rebuttal.
One is written by someone with vast experiences with associating and working with ' WESTERNERS ' and 'Non Westerners '.
I assume that a 17 year old who writes so well in English is well schooled and well read in the ' western media '.
I have worked and travelled extensively in the west and Asia. Even in the newly advanced Asian countries like Japan, S. Korea ,China,India [ Singapore?] People there still put the ' white skins 'few steps ahead and they are treated differently . This is perpetrated by certain governments [ ours included ]. Westerners are employed in Singapore as ' expatriates ' with the assumption that they lower their living standards by coming to Singapore to work and live; therefore they must be compensated with ' expatriates 'allowances and housing allowances.

We Asians put ourselves down. We are bombarded by the Western media[ I regret that Asia does not have anything similar to CNN, BBC, CNBC, BLOOMBERG, [ CNA does abit].
Yes, we do need a 'National' agenda. What we don't need is for our politicians who continuously exhort the citizens to upgrade and earn more money so as to achieve a living std. of some Western countries.

Singapore has the foresight to build the infrastructure for it's citizen's [ in a small dot ] to enjoy.
We will have THE GARDEN AT MARINA ,have the connectors[ tracks], water city,parks, beaches,botanical garden,reservoirs and tracks. We have enough to fill a country hundreds of times our size and population tens of our size.[albeit man made; so what].

Asians are capable and willing but we somehow need the Western media and propaganda machines to tell the world; unfortunately! This too will change slowly, after the BIG economic crisis[started where???]is finally over.
The only Asians can stand up to the West is China [nationalism rising] We in Asia should not join the western media in running down their policies. 1.3 billions people is a huge number to govern and move along.

I don't agree with the strong words ' unewokle ' has written. Mr. Tan's piece is well written in English.
We must look at our achievements in Asia.
The West always throw 'DEMOCRACY ' at our faces. They have democracy for 2 hundreds plus years in USA; they want to change the world overnight[ if not; engineer a regime change; familiar?]Many more hundreds of years in France, U.K. Have the society there being better these last few decades? Should the Asians go there to change their system? I disagree with many policies here in Singapore but our system works very well for a country of five decades. The west should not keep harping on the lack of opposition or lack of ' democratic ' process here. We shall evolve.
As long as we ASIANS do not kow tow to the western media and their politicians and NOBEL LAUREATES for regime change.

For all the venom and hatred he is spewing on the westerners, I am sure this 17 year old immature kid will apply for U.S. work visa after completing his studies. Can he guarantee he wont do that? Talk is good; it is for others' consumption. When come to self, it is selfishness.

Before that multi-million dollar self-aggrandising campaign gets launched, my humble and personal ADVANCE apology to all non-Westerners and Westerners out there for having to put up with it.

That said, yes, we do need a new narrative. No, that narrative should not be just national, parochial and, least of all, self-promoting.

The writer is too quick to dismiss the 2 statements that we continue to have a colonised mentality and that exogenous (Western) sources can be and often are biased.

Look at our references in our speech and examples. Look at our taste in the arts and music. Listen to the names that we give to our real estate developments. See how Chinese Singaporeans distance thenselves from their own culture but bend over backwards to create commonality with the West, especially the U.S. ("If I could vote in the U.S. elections" - oh please.) Nor does it go unnoticed by Westerners themselves. In one of Colin Goh's articles in the Sunday Times, he reported the response of an American to the performance of a Singapore band. It was to the effect of "Why do you need to bring all the way here a group that sounds like any group over here ?" a.k.a. "You people have a serious problem with cultural integrity."

As for bias of exogenous sources, doesni't it strike you how the writer is so adamamt in marginalising the possibility of Western bias ? The recent attacks, occurring in a country the West wants to court, receives unqualified sympathy from the West. No insinuation of hastiness in precluding alternative resolution for the sake of hostages because of wounded national pride (I'm NOT saying that's a correct take ,) No gleeful expose of incompetence. No hint of it being attributable to an oppressed minority. No write up on the arguments and position of the other side. All this the West would have done had the attack been in China. And contrast how the West treated the tough response to the protest in Kashmir in August 2008 with the response to the rioting in Tibet earlier in March. You diagree with the statement of bias of exogenous (Western) sources ? If you are dismissing it pre-emptorily, Mr. Tan, you have yourself shown bias towards the same exogenous Western sources.

Asiaslider,

I don't think the writer is pouring scorn on the West. Quite the opposite. And what's so inconsistent about wanting to learn from the West and at the same time wanting our own confident identitty ?

I agree with Mr Tan that Kishore's arguments are based on two assertions or assumptions. "First, the minds of Singaporeans 'remain colonised' - our appraisal of our countrymen rests on 'external validations'. Second, these exogenous sources impose biased standards - hence the need for 'our own narrative'. "

Singaporeans are a diverse lot. To generalise that Singaporeans' minds 'remain colonised' is definitely bias. How does Kishore know that Singaporeans' minds 'remain colonised'? Did he take a survey? Does his statement mean that he (Kishore) himself and other anti-West Singaporean posters here have shown a 'colonised mentality', since they are also Singaporeans?


By the way, the writer did not dismiss the fact that exogenous( Eastern or Western) sources can be biased. In fact, he feels that these exogenous sources are often biased. Hence, the need to have our own narrative.

"By the way, the writer did not dismiss the fact that exogenous( Eastern or Western) sources can be biased. In fact, he feels that these exogenous sources are often biased. Hence, the need to have our own narrative."

Sorry, for the error. The writer did disagree with Kishore's second assertion.

1. #7, either you fell for it or you made a typo. asiasilder is not asiaslider.

2. There is some truth in Mahbubani's thesis that we are unnecessarily in awe of the West sometimes and that we are not always bothered to challenge the West. However, the solution is not a multi-million dollar PR campaign aimed at external audience, as Mahbubani suggested. Start instead by educating our Contact Singapore officers and other government agencies that are attracting FTs to our shores.