It's not new, but it seems more nowadays are asking to allow dual citizenship with some reasonings which are totally untenable when put to scrutiny.
First - an answer to brain drain of Singaporeans migrating overseas, as per last Friday's Straits Times report by economist Professor Hui.
I wrote to the newspaper a rebuttal but it didn't seem to be selected for publication.
First and foremost - allowing these Singaporean "talents" dual citizenship won't do Singapore any good. Most of the time, these Singaporean talents are already working overseas for years - so offering them dual citizenship wouldn't bring them back to Singapore.
Second, many of them found working and living environment overseas most condusive to fulfilling their potentials - bringing them back only underutilise their talents since Singapore cannot offer the same thing here.
Third, if they want to return in the future, it'd be because of friends and families here, not because they still retain nominal citizenship here.
So what's the point of getting more "phantom citizens" who aren't contributing here in the first place?
Prime Reason number 2- attract foreign talents to sink roots here without giving up their native citizenship.
Hey, if they got good reasons to be here, they'll be here, citizenship or not. And if they got no good reasons to be here or better reasons to go elsewhere, they'll leave and renouce Singaporean citizenship even if they had taken it.
Prime Reason number 3- to allow children of mixed nationality parentage a fair choice.
Heck, when children grow up, it is their own personal decision what citizenship to take up. It can be the father's, the mother's, or something else altogether.
Citizenship is not a requirement for children to inherit cultural legacies from their parents.
I'll teach my kids to be good citizens, but I won't tell them they cannot change their citizenship.
Certain countries can afford some of their citizens to give priority for national duty to another country - Singapore is not one of them.
Bro, I'm surprised you even write in to the newspaper, which I will assume is our government-controlled broadsheet.
ReplyDeleteDon't even read any local papers nowadays, not even Today. I get all my news from the IHT, NYT, FT, BBC and Irish Times.
Nowadays I find myself unable to stomach the propaganda in the broadsheets.
It takes some maturity to discern between silver and dross contained in all the local and overseas publications you mentioned. It's my aim to be aware of things local as well as global.
ReplyDeleteneed to read both sides of any story, even the one-sided ones., the avoidance of which only means you're just being one-sided from the other end.
ReplyDeleteA very good point ...
ReplyDeleteIn a recent course I attended on Service Oriented Architecture, I wrote in my feedback that the instructors should also familiarise themselves with criticisms of SOA - in particular, those coming from established figures in the industry.
I do read local publications, just not the headlines which I get from int'l publications, but for the occasional op-ed. Which invariably amuse me.
ReplyDelete