Uncontroversial issues

Over the years, starting from the old Sintercom forum, which was shut down in 2001, and soc.culture.singapore, I've been involved in numerous online arguments with people. While I find some of the issues to be thought-provoking and interesting, many of them should have been decisively settled by sheer weight of logic and evidence. I am tired of arguing over the same things again and again, so I will be starting a series of posts to discuss some uncontroversial issues on which I have very strong views. I consider them uncontroversial because it is no longer possible for a well-informed rational person to sustain an argument over them. This does not mean that they won't touch some raw nerves. Nevertheless, arguments will continue because some people will hold on to their positions for irrational and emotional reasons.

In some sense, the series of posts will be a repository of arguments that I have used for nearly a decade. In my opinion, my arguments are still good and I have not found the need to change them.

Here is a list of uncontroversial issues that I will like to discuss:

1. Mother tongue and ethnicity
2. Foreign students in Singapore universities
3. Gender equality and national service
4. Homosexuality and the consequence of legalizing it
5. The scholarship system
6. Promoting bilingualism in Singapore
7. Racism in Singapore

Hopefully, I will like to finish discussing all of them before the year is over.

ST: Appoint a woman to Cabinet? Base it 'on ability'

Got this from the Straits Times (3 Apr 2008)

Appoint a woman to Cabinet? Base it 'on ability'

MS GRACE Fu would very much like to see a woman appointed a full Cabinet minister, but not 'just to satisfy some gender or race requirement'.

Ms Fu, the Senior Minister of State for National Development and Education, is the first woman office holder to comment on the Cabinet changes announced last Saturday.

On women ministers, she said: 'I am sure when PM sees someone who has that capability and competency, there is no doubt that he will put one of us in that position.'

Speaking to reporters at an event at Pathlight School yesterday, she said that, as for herself, she would much prefer to move up 'at a steady pace where the PM is comfortable with my ability'.

Ms Fu, who was promoted in the latest round of changes and given a new role in Education, plans to visit schools and talk to people to better understand the issues.

I don't get it. More Singaporean women go to university than Malay Singaporeans or Indian Singaporeans. This probably has been the case for most of Singapore's history since independence. Yet, we have Indian and Malay (male) full ministers but no female full ministers. Statistically speaking, it is impossible. The only way that can be possible would be that the variance in the distribution of 'talent' in the Indian and Malay male population is much wider than that of the general Singaporean population but that is very unlikely.

The conclusion is obvious. Either people are appointed to the cabinet on account of their race or women are discriminated against. Of course, it could be both but it is impossible to have a selection process that does not take race into account and discriminate against women but yet gives us a cabinet with ethnic minorities but not a single woman. Impossible.