These are recounts from my Junior College days (the
context is pretty important here, at least for one story), and they both
involve foreign workers whom I am quite sure are from Bangladesh. I apologise
if I got that wrong, but this is really a post about foreign workers in
general.
The first story is a funny one, and this is where the
context comes into play. My school uniform was a grey top and dark blue pants,
pretty darn ugly if you ask me, and us in school always mocked it as a uniform
for ‘factory workers’. My school, famous for students’ capability in ‘mugging’
– memorisation and regurgitation of textual knowledge – so the factory uniform
is actually quite symbolic of who we are and how we are perceived in society
(Think Lego Movie). Perhaps we are who we look like, just cogs in this grand
scheme of things and there is no such thing as individualism and personal
achievement. And it came this faithful day, I walked home from Fajar LRT
station. This particular Bangladeshi worker walking in front of me… was wearing
a grey top and dark blue jeans. I looked at him, and looked at me: THERE IS NO
DIFFERENCE.
There he was, on his 6 year contract to do nothing but serve
a foreign nation and help build their nation; this is one who is most
definitely nothing more than a cog, but does that bother him? I doubt it. To be
willing to leave his homeland and work abroad to build someone else’s nation,
means there is a greater drive behind him than seeking individualism. Maybe
individualism should not be a thing at all. Maybe individualism is not a means
to an end. In my field I study prostitutes; and many of them willingly sell
their bodies in hope of saving enough money to start their own businesses (not
always in the same field). Maybe the sacrifice of oneself’s individuality in
the present is for greater pleasures in the future – it is not wrong to hope
after all; maybe individualism has to be sacrificed for the ‘greater good’ of
the society (read my views in posts that discuss Unicorndia); but what we
should all agree that the form of individualism we believe in needs to be
modified to suit realistic standards.
Being individualistic does not mean you should do what you
want. I’ll develop this in another post, but the general idea is that we should
do what we want, as long as we remain courteous to one another. This is an
ambiguous word, and I’ll try my best to define it when I write that post. The
point here is that regardless of whether we like it or not, we are all cogs of
the grand mechanism of society, of history, and we are all in service of one
another. Offend the fellow who picks up your customer service call, tomorrow he
may be your customer on your cab or your restaurant.
It was really a strange sight with the Bangladeshi worker,
but it made me realise, if only a little, what I mean to this society, this
time in history… I don’t mean anything as of now, and if I really want to be
one of the greats I need to find something else to drive me than grades and
academic achievement, unless I wanted to stay in the academia that is. I went
on to pursue a dream to become an Academic, and at this point in time that
dream just died, and that’s the reason why I felt it is time to pen this story
down. I am finally ready to strip naked of all my past glories and move on to
new projects in search of myself again, I don’t know where this will lead to,
but mystery is part of the journey too, I guess.
And on the foreign worker himself, it also made me realise
how similar we are, we are both working for the sake of an unknown future, we
both understand that we are nothing but gears in the grand scheme of things,
and we are not doing what we are doing to claim we are contributing to the
nation building of this nation. We are all selfish cogs in this pretentious
society. We are both working for our own individualistic benefits, and if it
just so happens to aid nation building, so be it. It does not matter. So who
are we to act high and mighty in front of these people? I am glad to say that
our society as a whole has learnt to deal more kindly with these people, at
least in public places, and there is often public outrage if we see displays of
discrimination against foreign workers. This is a big step for the Generation
Revolution.
The second story is a rather depressing one. This was the
time when Fajar was getting an overhead shelter; not surprisingly, it was being
built by foreign workers, where the majority are from Bangladesh. So one day,
it rained, rather heavily. The shelter was not quite done, so I walked home
with my umbrella. In the distance, I saw 3 of these Bangladeshi workers trying
to get shelter under a metal board. Then it struck me: “These people are
building shelters for us, but who is sheltering them?”
We have all heard those horror stories about how employers
exploit these people, delaying their pays, making them pay for CPF
contributions of shadow workers; in a perfect world, in Unicorndia, these
cruelties will not exist. Similarly to the previous post, this will not be a
problem if we learnt how to deal more kindly with one another, be
individualistic and selfish and yet know how to extend basic courtesy to each
and every other being in the society. We need to stop donning those labels, I
don’t want to be seen as a local Chinese middle income student youth, these
labels are not important for our social interaction. It is important to
acknowledge differences and diversifications, but it is exceedingly detrimental
to base our actions and behaviour towards one another according to these
differences. Why can’t we just treat each other like human beings? This is
something that happened almost 10 years back, again, I am sure if they took
shelter under the flats these days the residents should be ok with it now.
Shame on those who lodge complains on foreign workers just because they are
just trying to say, get away from the rain, or get some rest at the void deck
benches.
I’m not a person with much empathy. However, it saddens me
to see human beings causing harm to other human beings when they do not have
to. Perhaps it is just because I am young and have not seen enough cruelties of
life, to be so ignorant and hopeful that we can arrive at an utopia where
people love and assist each other. But so what if the world is fucked up? Is
there really no way to change how this cruel world is? Why must we conform to
these world’s laws and not resent them. If we compare the nation’s situation
now to a decade ago, I’d say at least for the visible parts of society, people
have changed for the better. Maybe this is my optimistic observation, maybe I
am deluding myself, but if the situation is as I have observed, maybe we have
already kicked start a series of change for Bangladeshi workers to be seen as
equals in the far future.
