They are coming

You see them everywhere.

They could be your computer programmer colleague from Bangalore, India. They could be the electrical engineer contact from Dalian, China whom you liaised with in your job. They could be the Malaysian cook at the economy rice stall you always patronise for lunch. They could be the Bangladeshi worker who sweeps the corridor outside your HDB cell. They could be one of the hordes of Indian workers on bus service 960 heading towards Kranji on a Sunday night. They could be the pretty Vietnamese girl sitting six seats away from you in your Electrical Engineering class in NUS. They could be your Canadian boss in the public relations agency where you slog 8am to 8pm, five days a week. They could be the German researcher who fancies an Oktoberfest swig away from his day job at A-STAR. The list can go on and it is not exhaustive since globalisation and an increasingly ‘open doors’ policy adopted by our government have resulted in people of various nationalities streaming onto our shores.

Decades ago, our forbears arrived forth on our small undeveloped island, disgorging from barges, catamarans and sampans and what-have-you from places like China and India. Today, we are witnessing an influx of another sort –from all corners of this planet, all hoping to get a slice of the rich pie called Singapore.

Our forbears came, laid down their roots and built up the Singapore of today with their blood, tears and sweat. In the process, they became citizens, natives of the very soil they slogged on – they became Singaporeans. It is as if by some form of osmosis, their blood, sweat and tears had seeped into the ochre soil and naturalised them.

Today’s foreigner is either one who is here to take up a lowly-skilled job no self-respecting Singaporeans want to do, or one with a reasonable level of talent which the government ‘welcomes’ – all of them a means to an end in helping to drive Singapore’s economic growth and driving us true-blue Singaporeans mad and heading for the exit’s door.

A Permanent Residency or citizenship used to be the Holy Grail for most new immigrants, but in this new world order (uniquely Singapore’s own, I would say), getting a PR or citizenship now is as easy as reciting the 26 letters of the Alphabet in world-record time.

As we welcome this foreign pantheon to be our 'brethren' - and share the crowded SMRT trains, join the queue for HDB cells, jostle one another at the I-Phone 3G launch and compete for priority for our children’s education in primary school – what is the meaning of being a Singaporean? A Singaporean born and bred in and, if war comes, may need to bleed for his country?