On Citizenship Day

It was recently announced by DPM Wong Kan Seng that August 18th would be earmarked as a public holiday in the not-too-distant future, to be christened Citizenship Day. Which set me thinking: just what constitutes genuine citizenship?

The establishment would have us believe that citizenship is best represented by a designated date for hundreds of individuals and families alike to take up Singaporean citizenship in an official capacity. Yet, if the tabloids are anything to go by, such an event was mentioned over about ten lines, hardly noteworthy by any stretch of the imagination (the Straits Times fared slightly better in terms of coverage it must be said). Clearly, a cursory inspection of the evidence shows that citizenship goes far beyond that pink plastic card known as the National Registration Identity Card or NRIC for short.

I do not mean to denigrate the significance of changing one’s passport to the red one that is unmistakable to the untrained eye.  What I do mean is that citizenship could perhaps be better understood as a state of being. Let’s consider the rather ludicrous example of two Christians who meet up, chat about their respective denominations, discover that both of them are Presbyterian-Baptist-Democrat-Sundayschoolgoing-teetotaller-tealoving devotees, yet call each other heretics when they find out that one loves Earl Grey, and the other English Breakfast! Clearly, citizenship is not really a function of what one does, but rather what one is (and the never the twain should meet, to borrow an ancient phrase). 

It doesn’t really matter whether or not one holds a pink or a blue IC, loves the taste of durians, screams vulgarities while watching soccer matches, or indeed sings our national anthem out loud during each National Day Parade, and I’m not saying that I do all of these all the time either 😉 What may matter more is the extent one goes after the countless C’s of materialism in the name of excellence or progress, passes disparaging remarks at one’s neighbours while proclaiming our right to self-expression, or rants each time one disagrees with the establishment but fails to make one’s vote count. Perhaps we may want to learn from the folk at the last kampung in Punggol how civil our society can be, and indeed just how genuine citizenship works in practice.

Happy Citizenship Day everyone, and may the kampung spirit live on in substance, if not in form…