This is one of the most sensitive topic but I am deeply saddened by an interaction with one my close friend (who holds masters and Dr from world class schools). We are having a conversation and there are few words came out of his mouth that gave me his views about the social class system in even developed economies.
Believe it or not, or blame it on conspiracy theorists or matrix, the conclusion I ended up is we humans need to evolve lot more. Whatever assumptions we make, and whatever masks we wear, end of the day the real feelings (heart truths ??) can be quite different.
For example, one of the basic assumption in Singapore society I encountered is alcohol and Indians. Similarly laziness and malays, money and chinese. All these are quite funny topics over a meal or bear. But it is not when we see it on a serious note.
Indians are not alchoholics and probably one of the lowest consumers of alcohol in the world barring muslim countries. Per capita consumption of alcohol is quite low and based on the WHO report , the lifetime abstainers are ~82% and including stoppers are ~ 92%. So the 8% are the one who are consuming lot more and probably creating the misconception. Similarly, I have seen dozens of my malay friends who are much more hard working than any other race or nationality. In fact the productivity of the friends is much higher given the balancing act of family and community they do.
Nevertheless, I am not trying to defensive or show some examples and jump to conclusion (or stereo type ;)) but recently I had enough of these things and the horror to me is its happening in Singapore. Not with friends but even at work.. One of the most sickening conversation I ever had is with an executive in an MNC (HQ in USA and Fortune 100 firm). The view shared was it's good to keep a Chinese person to handle local customers. I am flabbergasted by that view, and hearing from a company which talks about equality, and global view. So all the materials and so called CSR topics are just for publishing and the decisions are made based on specific views.
I really wish that we can move on and put these behind.
Believe it or not, or blame it on conspiracy theorists or matrix, the conclusion I ended up is we humans need to evolve lot more. Whatever assumptions we make, and whatever masks we wear, end of the day the real feelings (heart truths ??) can be quite different.
For example, one of the basic assumption in Singapore society I encountered is alcohol and Indians. Similarly laziness and malays, money and chinese. All these are quite funny topics over a meal or bear. But it is not when we see it on a serious note.
Indians are not alchoholics and probably one of the lowest consumers of alcohol in the world barring muslim countries. Per capita consumption of alcohol is quite low and based on the WHO report , the lifetime abstainers are ~82% and including stoppers are ~ 92%. So the 8% are the one who are consuming lot more and probably creating the misconception. Similarly, I have seen dozens of my malay friends who are much more hard working than any other race or nationality. In fact the productivity of the friends is much higher given the balancing act of family and community they do.
Nevertheless, I am not trying to defensive or show some examples and jump to conclusion (or stereo type ;)) but recently I had enough of these things and the horror to me is its happening in Singapore. Not with friends but even at work.. One of the most sickening conversation I ever had is with an executive in an MNC (HQ in USA and Fortune 100 firm). The view shared was it's good to keep a Chinese person to handle local customers. I am flabbergasted by that view, and hearing from a company which talks about equality, and global view. So all the materials and so called CSR topics are just for publishing and the decisions are made based on specific views.
I really wish that we can move on and put these behind.
