Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Ace's Political Views


With the recent hoo ha over the General Elections, and given that there are so many interseting stories to talk cock about in Singapore, everyone... including me, my sister and even my hubby who is still far far away in Dubai have been talking about the recent HOT TOPICS.

Be it Tin Pei Ling (Tin Tin), why Lim Boon Heng is crying, how Goh Chok Tong talks about how farmers are not aware of what is the quality of life... to even how our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has talked about why opposition wards to not enjoy upgradings, I must say it is an exciting time for the political scene in Singapore. Never in my many years would I think there would come a day where PAP will actually suffer from so many "hiccups".

As it is exciting, I have also been following news related to the GE at the various internet platforms and eventually, I went to one of my favourite bloggers, Mr Brown, at his blog at The Mr Brown Show . What I found tickled me to no end... and as Ace is also a fan of Mr Brown, he also wanted to listen to the podcasts that I was listening to...

And this is Ace's favourite song by Mr Brown at the moment... My mum and my sis love it too and we have been "paying it forward" very generously to all our family and friends.. hahahaha...

Anyway, because of the song, this sort of gave Ace some sort of political interest and he started having a somewhat political conversation with me.

Ace: Mummy, what is an MP?

Me: MP stands for Minister of Parliment. They are the leaders of Singapore. Because Singapore has many different places and each different place will choose one MP to be the leader of that place....

Ace: Then what about the Prime Minister?

Me: Oh, the Prime Minister is the leader of all these leaders. And together, they will make decisions to help singapore to grow...

Ace: Mummy, who made Singapore the Singapore now? Is it Lee Kuan Yew?

Me: Well, alot of people made the growth in Singapore possible. Everyone helped. Everyone was important. But we have done it so well especially because we had a very good leader and he is Lee Kuan Yew. You can say he helped the most.

Ace: So is our Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew?

Me: No, Lee Kuan Yew was our former Prime Minister... he is now Minister Mentor.. the current Minister is his son, Lee Hsien Loong.. That's the uncle with spectacles that we saw on TV the other day in the show, Wo Wen Zong Li.

Ace: Why Lee Kuan Yew make his son the leader? Why he cannot make other people the leader?

Me: I am not so sure. I think it could be because he feels that his son is the most suitable leader. But actually, after Lee Kuan Yew retired, Goh Chok Tong was the Prime Minister... only after Goh Chok Tong retired, then Lee Hsien Loon, Lee Kuan Yew's son became the Prime Minister.

Ace: So can you tell me who is the second leader after Lee Kuan Yew again?

Me: His name is Goh Chok Tong...

Ace: Mummy, why they have to retire? Why they cannot be leader forever?

Me: Well, that is because people grow old. As our leaders grow old, they may have less energy to run the country and do so many things so they pass the job on to another new leader...

Ace: Lee Kuan Yew is a great leader right?

Me: Yes he is...

Ace: Mummy, why people want to become MP?

Me: Erm.. people want to become MP for a few different reasons. For some people, they want to become MP because they want to contribute to Singapore and help the people of Singapore. For some people, they want to become MP because they want to become famous and want everyone to know them. For some people, they want to become MP because they want to make alot of money as MPs are paid quite alot of money for their job.

Ace: Mummy, is the Prime Minister like the KING?

Me: Yes, you can think of it this way since they are the most important people in the country...

Ace: Then why Singapore dun have King but have Prime Minister?

Me: That is because in the world, not all countries have kings. Kings can be found in countries like Thailand, Japan, England and many other europeon countries. These countries with Kings and Queens usually have a long history.. this means that they have had kings for long long time and so they pass the kingship from one generation to another till today. Singapore is very young and when we started out we chose to have a liberal government system instead of the system of the Kings which is called monarchy.

Anyway, I stopped him and asked him to sleep as it was very late already...

As I was writing this though, I asked Ace, "Would you like to be an MP when you grow up?"

"Mmm.." he gave it a thought for a good 10 seconds and told me, "No mummy, I want to be prime minister. After I be police, I will be prime minister.. because I want to be famous and I want everyone to know me.."

Hahaha.. so I had to remind him that leaders who want to be leaders to be famous will seldom be really popular because it is the leaders who really care for their people and contribute to their country tat will be remembered and be popular...

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