'Sporting' gesture by PM emblematic of what Singapore stands for
By Chua Mui Hoong, Senior Writer
THERE comes a time in a nation's history when even the country's top leader must give way to youth, when experience and track record make way for the promise of potential, when politics bows out to sports.
This is when an entire nation roots for Team Singapore at the Olympics.
This year's National Day Rally will be remembered less for announcements on policy matters than for the unprecedented decision taken by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to delay the 'live' telecast of his English speech by a day.
The Malay and Mandarin portions of the speech were telecast live yesterday, ending at about 7.30 pm - just in time for hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans to watch the Singapore-versus-China live telecast of the women's table-tennis team finals at the Beijing Olympics.
Mr Lee's decision can be taken many ways.
As a gracious move by a politician.
It can also be viewed as a realistic assessment of just which event will win in a head-to-head ratings competition.
Each year, about 650,000 people tune in to the rally on television, giving citizens a chance to view and hear unfiltered and 'live', their Prime Minister speaking for over two hours.
But the ratings number will likely pale in comparison to the number tuning in to the Olympics final last evening.
I choose to view the decision to concede the live telecast time to the sporting event as emblematic of what August is all about in Singapore: when a nation comes together to celebrate being one nation, regardless of race, language, religion - or country of origin.
Politics is, after all, a means to an end: the end being the building of a nation. Sometimes, the smart leader understands that sports does a better job than politics of rallying people round the flag.
August is a special month in Singapore's calendar: Aug 9 commemorating Independence, and the National Day Rally taking place about two weeks later.
That Singapore is a nation of diverse races and religions is a creed drummed into every young citizen.
PM Lee's speeches in Malay and Mandarin and English are reminders of this, just as a swift look at the 1,700-strong audience at the University Cultural Centre - the tudung-clad women, turbaned men, Chinese women in cheongsam - is a visual reminder of the country's rich, diverse, heritage.
In Malay, he spoke of the need to upgrade ageing mosques and to devote more funds to religious education. In Mandarin, he spoke of cost-of-living pressures, reminding us that the Government had earmarked $3 billion in relief to help Singaporeans.
This year, Singapore as one nation regardless of country of origin was a leitmotif hovering in the background of Mr Lee's speech.
He addressed the concern that the country's open-door policy towards immigrants was discomfiting Singaporeans who fear foreigners are taking away their jobs, or depressing wages. He said this was not the case, since unemployment was very low and there were jobs aplenty for all, including older workers.
Foreign talent, in business as in sports, provided a leavening of Singapore society, bringing in a tier of top talent to 'strengthen our team', he said in Mandarin.
A country of immigrants, Singapore continues to be home to new immigrants who choose to call it home, continuing its magic of turning promise into performance, burnishing dull mettle into the glossy patina of champions in the world arena.
Feng Tianwei, the 21-year-old dynamo who won both singles games in the semi-finals against South Korea last Friday to clinch the Republic's spot in the finals last night, is a case in point.
She was a relative nobody in China, not making it to the top ranks of the national squad. Last August, she was ranked World No. 73. When she played in this year's Olympics, under the Singapore flag, she was No. 9.
As PM Lee noted, new immigrants make up half the 25-member team competing in the Beijing Olympics. This includes the entire China-born table-tennis team of Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu and Feng, who paddled their way with grit to a silver medal - the Republic's first Olympic medal in 48 years - and into the nation's heart.
It was apt that the table-tennis team event was an Olympic first, and apt, too, that after two near-misses in individual events in past Olympics, it was at a team event that Team Singapore managed a medal.
It was also apt that team captain Li, whose birthday falls on Aug 9, asked for and was granted the honour to be flag bearer for Team Singapore. 'This is my way of showing everyone that everything I've ever achieved is because of Singapore,' she said.
Some cavilling Singaporeans may sneer that Team Singapore was 'bought' foreign talent - but they may want to look back into their not-too-distant ancestry to recall that they themselves are probably children or grand-children of immigrants.
This country, built on the sweat of immigrant labour in the pre-industrial economy, cannot afford to close its doors to foreigners in the New Economy.
No matter their country of origin, what matters is that Li, Wang and Feng, and many, many more of those watching the finals at home, and their forefathers - made a conscious choice to be Singaporean and to be part of Team Singapore.
Or, as the late minister S. Rajaratnam, who penned the Singapore Pledge, once put it: 'Being Singaporean is not a matter of ancestry, but of conviction and choice.'
Team Singapore triumphed - because its members chose Singapore, and fought as a team. In the end, that is what the Singapore spirit is all about.
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