clean fight

so once again, my facebook feed is flooded with people who wants to voice their opinions and listen to few. few other events get singaporeans so worked up and this is one of them - an election, or this time round, a by-election, the second one in 2 years.

happened to catch some of the news so far, and a short summary clip of the candidates, it's quite sad that most of their tactics is to pour shame and paint the opponents as incapable useless people. i remember reading a dan brown book, whereby one of the person running for the US presidential election didn't want to go down the road of digging up scandals of the other party. somehow, that really caused me to view at things in a different light since.

i still look forward to someone, who can convince people because he/she is capable, and not because he/she is better able to paint the opponent as a bigger failure. it easy for people to criticise others who are doing it, but what makes one think that he/she can do a better job if he/she is in the same shoes? "i promise that i can......" really.. talk is free, anyone can say that.

it's also amazing how people just so blindly buy into whatever their choice of party says. arguments that are so full of loopholes and ambiguity, it makes swiss cheese looks rock solid. a quote i just heard "you should vote more of us in so that we can make the others work harder".. it sounds ok on surface, but if you think about it, are they saying whoever is in is not capable to make the others work harder?

what are we losing just to gain that small little insignificant thing that eventually will fade away as time passes? is getting into office such an important thing that one has to do such things? i still remember the days of TPL, how many aquaintances, whom i thought were decent nice people chose to reveal their ugly side and make condemnation of TPL that went beyond just capability, but to something downright personal. at the end of it, she is someone's daughter, she is someone's granddaughter, she is someone's wife, she is as human being, as imperfect as anyone of us.

strangely, one of my ex-colleague which i find hardest to love once used a story that he said he witnessed during a training session in a primary school that really make me think about how we treat others.

i was walking to my next class when i passed by a primary one class. the teacher in charge was either absent, or left the class for a while, and left the class monitor in charge. so the class monitor was up in front at the blackboard, with a piece of chalk in his hand. on the blackboard were names of the students i presume. we are all so familiar with this sight, whoever misbehave, jot down the name and let the teacher know later. on the chalkboard were a lot of names, maybe the entire class. puzzled as the students were all so quiet and doing their work, i stayed a while until the class is over and asked the class monitor why did he write down all the names. it turned out that unlike most of us, the class monitor chose to write down the names of those who behaving obediently.

it took a primary one student to show us something that most of us forget. seeing the bad things about people is so easy, but you know, seeing the good in people often works some much better than the former.

sometimes, you dont have to put down others to produce good results. actually, most of the time more than sometimes..