We forgot about democracy, justice and equality

The Sunday Times did a survey of 100 Singaporeans asking them to recite the National Pledge. Here were the results:

  • 35 people got it exactly right.
  • 14 people could recall only some phrases.
  • 12 completely forgot the Pledge.
  • 39 others fared pretty well but missed out on a few words, especially those in the third and fourth phrases – ‘to build a democratic society based on justice and equality’.

Gasp! So this means that many Singaporeans know the importance of racial and religious harmony, and are happily pursuing prosperity and progress, but have forgotten about democracy, justice and equality?

Truly sad. Since the PAP government is not making any effort to educate Singaporeans on these values, I hope that civil society and the Opposition would, for the sake of our nation!

Anyway, for the 65% who couldn’t remember all the words of the Pledge, here they are:

We, the citizens of Singapore pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, language or religion,
to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality,
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation.

Author: Gerald Giam

Gerald Giam is the Member of Parliament for Aljunied GRC. He is the Head of Policy Research of the Workers' Party of Singapore. The opinions expressed on this page are his alone.

3 thoughts on “We forgot about democracy, justice and equality”

  1. See earlier post. The operative word is to build. Maybe because we’ve stopped building, ppl have forgotten totally about justice and equality, or maybe, they’ve just given up…..

Comments are closed.