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AUG 4-10 :: The National Issue

Written by Low Lai Chow, on Monday, 4 August 2008

Published in : Life, Backword

While waiting to log in to the internet this morning (long story), I read The Straits Times. I'll be honest, like most people with a short attention span, I picked up Life! first, then went on next to the Home supplement. So that's when I happened to read about one guy's take on the National Day Parade ('Patriotism - can you put it on parade?', Yen Feng) in its YouthInk section:

"If you ask me, active political involvement... is a more meaningful expression of national pride.

"Standing in a field, or sitting at home watching the tube, is not."

That sparked off even more questions in my head. Can you be considered patriotic if you look forward to National Day every year? Perhaps you just have a thing for fireworks, which manifests in spades at the NDP. Maybe watching the NDP is a yearly ritual that gets your entire family in front of the TV set - more so than the National Family Week can do (ironically, that the NDP does this says something about our pro-family national values).

And maybe, just maybe, we feel for the passionate participants who put in so much effort to dance, parachute and skip into a grand visual spectacle for the nation.

Anyway, we just wish to say that you don't have to love the NDP to be in love with Singapore. Nor do you have to declare your love for Singapore to care and do something for the nation.

So, our next question is, how do you? And if you don't feel it, what's missing?

THE NATIONAL ISSUE

ARTY MONDAY
A night at the museums
One BIG man in a small house: A bizarre moment at the Night Fest
Paint the school red

POP TUESDAY
Racers revealed for TARA3
Simple Plan & The Click Five turn to anime
12 Lotus: Listen before you watch
Introducing… 1989
Introducing… Murder by Ska
Journey's so-so
When the Chinese are Mad About English…