Wee Shu Min Affair

It is more than 5 years since the Wee Shu Min Affair happened.  I was idly doing a google search.  Shu Min was a JC2 student in Raffles.  She was also in the gifted education.  Academically, she is a shining star and is a pedigree offspring.  Her daddy was a scholar and MP.  Her infamous concluding statement is "Get out of my elite uncaring face". 

Shu Min wrote a response to Derek Wee's article on his fears for the over 40's in Singapore.  You can read his original articles at http://derekwee.blogspot.sg/ .  At the height of the furore, her father said "some people just cannot face the brutal truth"  A couple days later, he appeared on the newspaper to apologise for offending some people with his statement.

This whole episode came back to me after watching Jared Diamond's TED presentation here:

Diamond is a professor of anthropology and studied why societies collapse.  The causes are complex but Diamond brought out several key points.  One of the key points is the elites in the society ignore the issues as they are not affected or they have short term gains.

Singapore Gini's Coefficient is one of the highest in the world.  Gini's Coefficient measures the equality of incomes.  The higher the coefficient, the greater the inequality.  So the average income for Singaporean is one of the highest in the world.  The reality is there are a few super income bring the average of the low income up.    Many tourists from the developed world are always amazed by the number of elderly in Singapore working as cleaners in the food courts and hawker centers.  B1 is in Canada now.  He is observing live the seniors are in the malls drinking coffee and socialising among themselves.  We have the largest SWF in the world and many of our elderly are living in abject conditions scavenging or working low skill jobs to make ends meet.

What will become of Singapore as a society?