The Big Bang

I'm so excited.

I was watching BBC News on TV last night when they reported that scientists in Geneva or thereabouts have launched the world's largest experiment to simulate the 'Big Bang' in order to uncover the origins of our universe. How cool is that?

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known for its French acronym CERN, successfully fired particle beams in the astronomically expensive 27-km Large Haldron Collider, a tightly sealed particle-smashing machine buried 100 meters under the Swiss-French border.

In successive tests, they fired a particle beam at close to the speed of light in both directions around the tunnel.

This paves the way for the researchers to send beams in both directions simultaneously in order to generate a high-energy particle collision that would briefly produce temperatures 100 thousand times hotter than the sun.

As these particles keep traveling and colliding with each other in the tunnel, the scientists postulate that more and new particles will be created, allowing them to find some of the universe's building materials that have gone missing.

Within two years, they hope to prove the existence of the Higgs Boson or 'God particle', which is supposed to be responsible for creating dark matter, part of the mass that went missing at the beginning of time.

According to BBC News on the radio this morning, 96% of our universe is missing or invisible to us. Imagine that!

There is so much to learn and discover from this experiment, and I can't wait to see what mysteries will be unraveled.

Townships for foreign workers

According to ChannelNewsAsia, Foreign Minister George Yeo said that the Ministry of National Development is considering the creation of sustainable and self-contained townships for foreign workers to solve the housing problem faced by the increasing number of foreign workers in Singapore.

This throws us back to colonial times when separate townships or enclaves were marked out by the British for the different ethnic groups. And where did that lead us?

Segregating foreign workers may make it easier to manage them initially and is a simple solution to appease the population, but how would it help the workers to integrate into Singapore society? More importantly, how would it help to change Singaporeans' attitudes towards them?

No doubt the view is that most of these workers are transient migrants, but as their numbers grow larger, they will become a bigger social force.

Keeping them out of sight of Singaporeans may, I fear, be a mistake. We need to learn to live with foreigners in our midst. Just as how we have embraced the other ethnic groups and expatriates among us, we also need to learn to accept our 'guest workers'. Where do you draw the line between these different groups? Race? Gender? Income status? And where or how will this line be redrawn in future?

It perturbs me that there were even some teenagers and young Singaporeans among the vocal Serangoon Gardens residents who voiced their concerns about having foreign workers as neighbors. What does this say about us as a nation? What values are we imparting to our children?

We are after all a nation of immigrants so the issue of co-existence between cultures has always been critical to our development. So far, the government has done well to maintain racial harmony among citizens, but as the number of non-citizens continue to rise, it must take the initiative to set the tone for our relations with them. 

We need to develop measures that contribute towards tolerance, and not just resort to simple short-term measures that only sweep the differences under the carpet. 

I seriously hope the government would reconsider these townships. It's our attitude that needs to change to adapt to the new reality.

Winds of Change

These are rather interesting times. What with socio-political developments in Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, USA, Hong Kong and elsewhere around the world. The winds of change are definitely stirring.

Why, even in our little red dot, we are getting some semblance of socio-political action, and I'm not talking about the ERP (ha!).

I read with interest and concern about the residents of middle-class suburb Serangoon Gardens who protested vehemently against the setting up of a dormitory for foreign workers in their area. Concerned residents galvanized other neighbors to sign a petition against the proposal, and they even organized a special meeting with their member of parliament to voice their displeasure with the proposal. They cite safety and security (how will they ever be able to leave their parents and children alone at home), as well as economic (the value of their property will decrease significantly) reasons for their protest.

Foreign workers, in the Singapore context, usually refer to the thousands of men and women from China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh and Myanmar, who work in low-paying, manual jobs such as construction or domestic help.

The lack of special housing and recreational facilities for these workers drive them to spend their weekends (mainly Sundays) in large numbers in various 'enclaves' throughout the island. You can also sometimes see them resting in open fields or at the void decks of HDB flats in the vicinity of the worksites. They are definitely hard to overlook when they congregate. With the greater influx of foreign workers due to the increased demand for their services, it is indeed laudable that the government is looking into meeting their basic needs (such as housing) with plans to convert unused government buildings into dormitories for these workers.

However, as shown in the Serangoon Gardens case, such plans may not be welcomed by the populace. Fear and suspicion are not uncommon emotions when dealing with people of other cultures or ethnic backgrounds. More so, when these same people are perceived as being of a lower socio-economic group.

The perfunctory acknowledgment of the workers' important contribution to the Singapore economy, which prefaced most residents' arguments against the dormitory ring hollow and do little to mask their deep-seated prejudices. Indeed, Singaporeans would not be the first to go to arms over increasing numbers of foreigners in their midst. This issue brings to mind the tense relations between Europeans and Australians with their own immigrant populations.

Today's article in the Sunday Times titled "Where 5,000 expats call home" about the warm welcome experienced by expats in Serangoon Gardens only serve to highlight such prejudices. I thought the paper did a good job of revealing the residents' double standards when it came to welcoming foreign talent to their neighborhoods.

Indeed neighbors (though admittedly probably not the same ones who signed the petition) were quoted as being happy to have expatriates (usually white, white-collar families in the local context) in their midst. A former teacher even has fond recollections of playing with European kids while growing up.

Although the foreign worker dormitory will house mainly single, male workers who form a rather different demographic than the welcomed white families, one can't help but note the difference in acceptance levels that these two migrant groups arouse in the community.

I'm not sure if this has to do with race or gender (what if the foreign workers were Caucasian or female?) discrimination, but it is indeed sad that we are unable to see them for who they really are. Human beings who are like us, and who should be treated with a bit more respect and less suspicion.