Reflective journal 4

Reflective Journal 4: Reflect on youth apathy. You may choose reflect on how far you deem yourself to be an apathetic youth by referring to examples from China, the United States and/or Singapore.

Speaking of youth apathy towards politics, I believe it can be defined as indifference and lack of passion towards political affairs occurring especially within the country itself.

As a Singapore youth, I personally feel that we are quite apathetic towards politics. Even though we may be following the news closely and constantly updating ourselves about the current affairs, I do not think that we are politically active. From my point of view, we seem more interested in what is happening rather than what is going to happen. We have no interest or will to participate in politics or try to dictate the future of Singapore. We are just like silent observers of a match merely sitting in front of the television and waiting for the results.

This can be attributed to many areas. Firstly, typical Singaporeans love to complain about almost everything, like the price of houses, ERP and etc. They always push the blame to the government and expect them to resolve the problems efficiently and make them satisfied. Yet at the same time, some of our parents may expect us to work in the government as the job is stable and the pay is favourable. Furthermore, the media and school encourage us to become leaders and stress that being a servant leader means to devote ourselves to the public and striving to make their lives better. I am not so sure about the others, but I get really irritated by this and developed a sense of disgust towards politics. 

Secondly, our interests to participate in politics have been dampened by our government. Singapore may be a democratic society, but in exchange for our stability we have forsaken our rights to freedom of speech to quite a large extent. We can condemn the government today, but if we go overboard the police will be coming after us. The government controls the media and education strictly, such that we will receive propaganda in one way or another. For example, in our social studies textbook, I rarely see any content criticizing the government’s policies, and these criticisms were usually kept minimal.

Secondly, Singapore’s economy is doing very well and stable of as now. Even though our Gini Coefficient is more than 0.4, the government is proving financial assistance in terms of subsidies, incentives and other forms. When the people have their stomachs fed and able to make ends meet, they generally would not want to participate or have anything to do with politics. From this point of view, it is quite similar to the ME Generation in China who are generally more interested in material benefits compared to politics. American Youths on the other hand seem to be more politically active when the nation faces a huge national debt as seen from the 2008 presidential elections. From here I can conclude that the economy of a country affects youths’ activeness in politics to a large extent.

Youths’ political apathy may be beneficial to society to a certain extent as their activeness can bring about dire consequences. Youths are still young and may be rash and impulsive while dealing with sensitive matters. During the Tian An Men incident on June 4^th 1989, the rallies organised by the youths were disorganised and they were too reckless in their actions and demands, which ended forcing the Communist government to send in the army and resulted in a massacre. I am not implying that what they did were wrong nor agreeing with the government’s method of resolving the issue. In fact, I do admire their determination and love for their country which many of us today lack. However, being youths, they lack experience and a calm mind when they tried to reform China. If they took a moment to think about the consequences perhaps the situation would not have ended so tragically.  However, if we think of this issue from another hand, youths’ activeness is also required in politics. They are and will be our future leaders and the pillars that support the nation. If the remain indifferent as it is towards our country’s politics, the future our country will be bleak.

In conclusion, youths’ political activeness is very much dependent on their surroundings and the situation and their surroundings as seen from how active American youths are as compared to the Chinese youths and us. Their activeness in politics can also be a double-edged sword. They are definitely essential for a country’s prosperity and survival and yet can be a potential threat to the country’s stability.  I believe that youths should be encouraged to participate in politics, but their participation should be kept peaceful as much as possible.

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