Home, sweet home

So the thing about doing my research on something like national identity is that I've been paying a much keener attention to news related to issues like immigration and what it means to "belong" to a nation. Just in the last week alone, I've come across two Singaporean news articles related to this: one was about how the new expatriates who work in Singapore today are no longer the same as the ones who came a generation before (see "For new expats, integration may not really work"); unlike some of our forefathers who were running away from abject poverty and harsh conditions in their homeland, and who intended to remain in Singapore, many expatriates today fully expect to return to their home country after they've made enough money. Singapore may give them incentives to stay- they are after all, "foreign talent"- housing rebates, education rebates for their children, or simply monetary incentives, and these expatriates will gladly accept. Who wouldn't? But they will not stay. For them, Singapore is not a potential home, it is a marketplace. The writer of the article concludes that in this day and age, rather than attempt to integrate these educated foreigners into our fold and hoping that they will help to diversify and expand Singapore's talent pool, we should instead adopt a revolving-door policy with regards to them, and concentrate on "building and growing a core of people who believe in the soul of this nation".

But the other article seems to contradict the lofty ideals of this dear writer. In "Singapore is leaking talent", we find out that Singapore's Senior Minister is well aware of the statistics which show that some of our bestest and brightest citizens are staying away from our fair country, choosing instead to work and make a life for themselves and their families overseas. He laments the loss of this talent and talks about how, "This is a very big problem for us because if we lose the top 0.5 per cent from the next generation, Singapore will have a much lower 'peak'. The world is now competing on human resources and talent."

But our Senior Minister has a solution. To make up for this loss of local talent, Singapore will simply look for workers and citizens elsewhere. We will attract them to Singapore, get them to work here, encourage them to raise their children here, buy property, and magically, we can turn them in Singaporeans. Easy. Q.E.D.

Or is it? I'd like to think that difficult problems like these don't always have such easy solutions. Instead, why not also think about what keeps the Singaporeans who make up the "top peak" from coming home? Admittedly, encouraging steps have been taken to make sure that Singaporeans abroad will always have a tether to home; the Prime Minister's Office set up the Overseas Singaporean Unit specifically for this purpose- to engage and connect with Singaporeans working and studying abroad. In his last National Day Rally speech, the Prime Minister also made sure to talk about the Singaporean diaspora and what the country needs to do to maintain strong links with her citizens overseas.

And yet, the bulk of the rest of the speech as well as much recent public rhetoric suggest that an aggressive immigration policy is still primary when it comes to solving the brain drain issue in Singapore. Yes, we have always been a multicultural nation, a nation built by immigrants, and we're proud of it. I am proud of it. This is what has given us the unique identity few other Asian nations possess. But simply courting more immigrants and hoping that they can be easily transformed into Singaporeans, rather than spending more time thinking about how to bring home the Singaporeans who have been born and bred on our sunny island seems a little myopic. It's easy to pick a couple of thousands of people from faraway lands, give them a bunch of rebates and turn them into one of our own. It's harder to figure out carefully how to inculcate a grounded yet thoughtful notion of citizenship and national belonging in the 4.3 million we presently have.

Consider the reasons why increasing numbers of Singaporeans move overseas completely, why those who are already abroad may not want to return home to raise their families, and then do something about it. Rethink the stifling competitiveness that defines our nation. Take pains to reconsider our education system and how hard it is for so many of our young children. Re-evaluate hallowed notions of power, control and expression. It's not just about playing catch-up and making sure that our economy can compete with the biggest and baddest boys in the game. It's not just about numbers and reaching that tipping point in our population in order to produce a Nobel Prize winner. We need to be guided by principles of rootedness and memory, belonging and identity. We need people- citizens and immigrants alike; they are our resource. But more importantly, we need Singaporeans- they are our soul.