Naive me

beach-yi said that i was naive to think that i can change what my country wants. i feel that i should address that in my blog proper.

yes. i admit that i am naive. but someone has to be naive. if we look back, i think a lot of things that a lot of people did were considered naive and idealistic. for example, if you were alive in india at the point of time when they were struggling for independence, you would have thought that Ghandi was naive to have come up with the principles of satyagahara. but he managed to win independence of India and showed the world that it can be done in non-violent ways. If you were alive in 1965, you might have thought that Mr Lee Kuan Yew was naive (perhaps even mad) to think that a small island, without natural resources (we don't even have enough clean drinking water for goodness sake) can survive and prosper. But he showed the world that Singapore can. so yes. i am naive.

so, what i meant about trying to reconcile the differences rather than just leaving is that it is a twofold process: change the attitudes of my fellow citizens (and thus changing the attitudes of the country as a whole) and also altering my own. i am not that arrogant and stubborn to think that everything i want is right and thus cannot be changed.

what i am also trying to say is that a lot of times we want this and that to be done in our country. we state so many different demands. but have we considered what other people are demanding as well? their demands might be diametrically (is that how you spell the word?) opposed to what we want. then what's the government going to do? rule by referendum? what if you are in the minority? leave the country? that is where i mean that i would seek reconciliation. how can both parties tweak our demands such that they are not so out of sync? this requires dialogue and debate.

is that being naive? yes it is. but if enough people, driven by the same passion, the same vision are just as naive, then perhaps this naive vision will become a reality. it has been done. it can be done.