Energy and Ecology: Biofuel and its social impact

Biofuel, or fuel produced from recently dead biological material (such as corns and soybeans), compared to fossil fuel, has been said to be possibly the next alternative energy. This is simply because it is a renewable source of energy. Plants can be replanted, unlike fossil fuels which would take millions of years to form small quantities. Despite a promising start as an alternative energy, Biofuel has run into criticism recently.

The most notable criticism of biofuel is that it competes with crops as a source of food. According to a confidential report from the World Bank obtained by The Guardian, biofuels caused more than 75% increase in world food price recently¹. The increase in food prices resulted in a shortage of food, especially in many developing countries. Most of the developed nations, such as Britain and United States, started to point fingers at large biofuel producers such as Brazil for producing too much biofuel. The irony in this situation is that countries like United States, France, Sweden and Germany, who are the largest biofuel consumers, start to point their fingers at the producers, rather than at themselves. I feel that in actual fact, it is the drive and initiatives of the developed nations to find cleaner and renewable energy that has caused the surge in food prices. Hence, it would be unfair to place all the blame on major biofuel producers.

This again leads to the development versus environment dilemma. The trade off between sustaining human development and protecting the environment is clear. To protect the environment, such as the use of biofuels, human development has to be compromised, as seen in the increase in the price of food.

In this dilemma, I feel that there is a need to try and sustain the environment more than human development for now. With the current rate of degradation of the environment, IPCC indicate that average global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C³. Without a sustainable environment, it would be pointless to have human development. Some might argue that after human development, it is possible to engineer the environment for the better. Let us not forget that it might be possible, but it is still just a possibility. Furthermore, it is likely to cost more to engineer environment than to sustain it, with the trade off only being a slower rate of human development. Besides, compared to nuclear energy, it is much safer.

In the biofuel debate, should we continue producing biofuels as we had witnessed the potential social effect on society? To decide on the issue, we would have to not only look at the economic factor, but the social implications as well.

Undeniably, the greatest social impact is that it slows down the degradation of our environment. Note that it does not reduce, but it slows down the process of global warming, as research have shown that combustion of biofuel does not produce a net increase in carbon released to the atmosphere.²  Hence, like nuclear power, the consumption of these energy produces little or no waste to the environment.

Secondly, Biofuel could be the solution to poverty. Even though the recent price hike in food is attributed to biofuel use, the demand for biofuel itself could provide employment to those unemployed in developing nation. Countries with natural resources such as fossil fuels tend to fare better (if there is no corruption and exploitation) and that natural resource could well be the most important source of national income. For countries with no fossil fuels and other valuable natural resources but possess the ability to produce crops in mass, this could be their ‘black gold’. If international demand for biofuel increases due to endorsement by international organisations or a breakthrough in development occurs, the poorer countries tend to benefit.

In summary, we should really seriously consider the usage of biofuel in the future. Let us not discount the fact that future development could result in cheaper more efficient biofuel that does not harm the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Aditya Chakrabortty, July 4 2008, “Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis, Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy, The Guardian

2 United States Environment Protection Agency, October 2006, “SmartWay Grow & Go: FAQs”, http://www.epa.gov/smartway/growandgo/documents/faq.htm#i_05

3 The Working Group I (2005), “A report of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Summary for Policymakers”, http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_SPM.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technology and Energy: Second Class Citizens of Technology

 

Sernau describes technology as Prometheus’ Fire and Pandora’s Box, a realm of uncertainty that might bring benefit to mankind, but yet mishandling it could mean severe detrimental effects. Despite the fact that technology has brought much benefits to people, second class citizens of technology¹ seems to have appeared, even today.

What are second class citizens of technology? Imagine a circle of society which is totally technology illiterate and we introduce technology. Even though they might benefit from the technological advances, they are just passively accepting the technologies rather than actively participating in the development, improvement and implementation of technology. This situation of technological is negative simply because whatever technology developed by outsiders to solve their issue would never have the greatest impact as the technology might just be alien to them.

Another reason why second class citizens of technology should participate in the development of technology rather than become a consumer is because technological master plans do not always succeed. When these master plans fail, the second class citizens (usually from developing nations), tend to suffer. However if participation takes place and the project fails, there are still positives. They would have mastered part of the skills required to develop the technology.

A good example would be GM subsistence farming in Africa and Asia. “The technology is delivered in the seed”² to the poorer nations in Africa and Asia and it is supposed to benefit the farmers by producing more yields, such as a projected 40% increase in Philippines. Again, this scenario clearly shows that these developing nations become passive receiver of technology. If the crop fails, it is likely that they would be at a loss of what to do. However, if these farmers are much more involved in the development and cultivation of the crops, things would be different. They would have at least understood what is GM farming and some basic GM crop knowledge, such as what GM crops are suitable for which lands.

One point to note is that second class citizens of technology do not necessarily mean that they must come from the poorest, least developed part of the world. More often than not, they appear as ‘technological slaves’ in developed nations. Emails, web conferences, fax, long distant call are some of the tools that technology has developed. A large number of people are using these technologies every day, but how many of them actually know how it works? The ability to manage and use them does not equal to the ability to understand and use them well.

As mentioned by Sernau, virtual technology tends to alienate people from one another due to the elimination of face to face meetings and communication. People can simply pin the blame on technology, but it also a sign of passive acceptance of technology. Virtual technology increases convenience of communication, but if one really understands it, they should know that physical human interaction is just as important. If meetings are only held through Skype, the person on the other end would just appear as a voice to u. Author George Bernard Shaw once said, “The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”³ Hence if we are not careful, miscommunication might simply just occur.

Lastly, by relying so much on technology, social control seems to permeate society much more easily.  Technological controls, such as “video and audio surveillance, heat, light, motion, sound and olfactory sensors, electronic tagging of consumer items, animals and humans, biometric access codes, drug testing, DNA analysis and the use of computer techniques such as expert systems, matching and profiling, data mining, mapping, network analysis, and simulation”⁴ are now much more readily available. These technologies provide objective, substantial and just results. However, if we were to interpret it in a social aspect, it often infringes personal interests, such as privacy. Worse still, there is a magisterial, legitimacy-granting aura around both law and science. (Ericson and Shearing 1986)⁵ and when people uses them, the legitimacy is further enforced by society itself.

 

Social Control

Hence, being a second class citizen can have many implications to society. It is thus important to know how to manage technology rather than use it. This prevents Pandora’s Box from opening again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Carlos Miranda Levy, 14 November 2005, “Social Impact from Technology”, http://fellows.rdvp.org/sift, Reuters Digital Vision Fellowship

2 Dr. Clive James 2007, “THE CRITICAL NEED FOR GM FARMING TECHNOLOGY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES”,  http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/asp/topic.asp?id=SustainableFarming, Monsanto Company

3 Meeting Guru 2004, “Your Meeting Resource”, http://www.effectivemeetings.com/guru/solution48.asp, SMART Technologies ULC

4 Gary T. Marx & Professor Emeritus 2001, “Technology and Social Control: The Search for the Illusive Silver Bullet”, In the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, MIT

5 Ericson R, Shearing C 1986 “The Scientification of Police Work.” In: Bohme G and Stehr N (eds.) The Knowledge Society: The Growing Impact of Scientific Knowledge on Social Relations. Reidel, Dordrecht

Population and Health: What are the consequences of a globalised disease?

 

Throughout history of mankind, deadly diseases spread throughout the world, such as the bubonic plagues and HIV and AIDS. With globalisation, I feel that it is likely that any other major diseases would spread at a more astonishing pace, due to the ease of travel through airports and seaports. Diseases would no longer be local, but global. Hence, a deadly strain of virus found in the far reaches of Asia, might be a cause of catastrophe in North America. These diseases bring about widespread chaos, deaths and uncertainties to societies, but what are the social consequences of these diseases besides all the negativity mentioned above?

 

Of course there would be the conventional negative social consequences. Let us look at the example of SARS. The pneumonia-like disease affected a wide number of countries (as far as Canada) and it has been discovered to have originated from China. Throughout the whole period of SARS, many countries have attributed the pace of the infection to the slow announcement of discoveries of SARS cases by the Chinese authorities. (Besides the fact that the virus is very hardy, water-borne and air-borne) They believed that should the Chinese made known to the world of the cases earlier, it could be prevented. This belief eventually led to discrimination of the Chinese, sometimes even Asians in some nations. There were reports that Canadians shunned Chinatown in Toronto, and racist slurs by non-Asians towards Asians appeared in the Chinese press. Some people argued that the lack of human traffic was not only evident in Chinatown but all other parts, it still echoes the fact that racial discrimination might exist, and the disease in this case could well be the catalyst for the social framework to collapse, even before the diseases wipes out the society.

Besides discrimination of different race of ethnic groups, there appears to be discrimination towards medical workers who come into contact with the diseases. Famous cases of Taxi drivers in Singapore refusing to pick up nurses during the SARS period; a gynaecologist refusing to provide consultation to a nurse was again in the Singapore press. The discrimination of the medical workers is obvious, but is the discrimination justified?

Opponents to the stand say that medical workers should not be discriminated, for they are the few noble ones willing to put their lives on the line to save other lives. They are the brave one who should be lauded for their efforts, rather than discriminated. But proponents suggests otherwise. Instead of being ‘discriminating’, they justify their actions as ‘for the good of the society’. It is an undeniable fact that medical workers are the most vulnerable group of people and we cannot discount the fact that they might be virus carriers. By refusing service to them, it minimises the chances of a person being a new virus carrier unknowingly and infecting the healthy population. In short, proponents defend their stand by arguing that they do it for the sake of the society, rather than to protect themselves. How true is it?

Firstly, I think we have to consider the number of people who really thought that way (‘for the sake of society’) rather than for themselves. My first thought was that the number would definitely be low due to the general mentality of Singaporeans (I know I am stereotyping here) and with the panic that is around Singapore at that time, it seems that not many people would be able to sit down and think in-depth as to why they should discriminate.

Nonetheless, there are positives out of the situation. In face of adversities, society tends to work more closely and be more bonded. IN the case of SARS, Singaporeans united against the fight of the virus. Despite the small group of people, Singaporeans generally supported medical workers in their job. Morale support was at an all time high. Childcares centres that were closed down sent teachers to homes of children to provide care when parents had to go to work as usual.

Hence, a single deadly globalised disease is likely to trigger various social consequences, both good and bad. There might be deaths and economical implications, but positive consequences can still be taken out of these situations as lessons for all.

Democracy in Singapore…?

Hey people, just something additional i found interesting on the web. Related to Democracy.

Defamation suits necessary, Singapore tells rights group

AFP – Saturday, October 18

SINGAPORE, Oct 18, 2008 (AFP) – Singapore’s government has defended itself against a charge of using defamation suits to stifle dissent, saying they are necessary for protection against unfounded allegations by political opponents.

Human Rights Watch on Friday urged Singapore’s leaders to stop using libel suits to silence its critics after an opposition party was ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.

“In Singapore, opposition politicians have the right to criticise the government and government leaders, but that does not entitle them to tell lies or defame,” said information ministry spokeswoman K. Bhavani late Friday.

“If they do, the leaders must either sue to clear their names and be prepared to be cross examined in open court, or allow the lies to stand unchallenged and the public to believe that the defamations are true.”

A judge this month ordered the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), its bankrupt secretary general Chee Soon Juan and his sister, a party member, to pay 610,000 dollars (413,000 US) for defaming the country’s leaders.

Human Rights Watch said using defamation laws against critics “makes a mockery of Singapore’s claim to be a model democracy.”

Urbanization: New Haven for our Rural Neighbours?

Urbanisation

has been a long debated topic of pros and cons. Critics of urbanization has suggested that urbanization comes along with other social problems, such as cultural erosion, increase in crime rates, the poor living conditions when overcrowding occurs, the lack of jobs and many more social issues. But is it really that bad? If it is indeed that bad, why do rural settlers keep coming back to the city for decades and centuries?

 

In my opinion, the benefits of urbanization outweigh the negativity associated with it. Rather, it’s a matter of how the government or state handles the situation of urbanization.

Instead of thinking urbanization as a cause of cultural erosion, it seems more appropriate that it creates a cultural melting pot. As mentioned by Sernau¹, there are various sociologists such as Hubert Gans  who identified dwellers who became “urban villagers”. Hence, they bring their culture to the cities and not all of their culture is lost. With globalization, more cultures come together in a city due to the ease of travel. The city therefore becomes a city of various cultures, where an urban dweller can actually experience other cultures. The University of Illinos at Chicago held a conference themed ‘City Futures’ and talked about the need to ‘embrace diversity and culture’. In fact, it has come up with 3 concrete reccomandations as to how to engage and immerse them. Singapore, an urban concrete jungle, has celebrated diversity and it has become a unique identity to us.

High crime rates are associated with high unemployment or under-employment. Because of the lack of jobs and means to sustain them, they turn to crimes such as robbery and burglary for economic gains. Hence to lower crime rates, it is important to maintain a low unemployment rate as well. Undeniably, it is difficult to control influx of rural people settling in the cities. Hence to prevent the huge shantytowns from proliferating, what the government can do is to shift different specializations to different areas of the city, rather than a concentrated city centre. This prevents overcrowding in a single city and with this, crime rates are likely to lower as there would not be a single area where many unemployed people looking for employment would be concentrated.

 

There must be a reason why rural people still come to the urbanized cities to work or settle down despite all these negativities. Sernau also identifies the reason is that the rural people faces even more hardships and uncertainties in their rural hometown compared to urban cities. They also need to find sources of income for their families back in villages when sources of income within the villages are diminished or non-existent. However, there are some people who prefer to live a simple life of self-sustenance without materialism. Hence, they would rather stay in the villages. What I feel drives people to cities could be the influence of us – city dwellers. People in villagers might not have the idea of how tough it might be for them to settle in a city due to various factors, but what they see is the benefits it could give. Money sent back by sons working in cities could buy villagers many things in the villages. What they don’t see is the pain and hardship of how it is obtained. Even if they have seen the pain, they still felt that it was worth it, for the rest of their families could live better. Hence, it the influence of rural villagers who had gone into cities to work and settle on fellow villagers that could have caused this cycle to be continued for centuries.

 

 

 

 

 

Sernau S. (2006) ‘Global Problems: The Search for Equity, Peace and Sustainability’, Indiana University South Bend, Pearson Education, Boston

Robin Hambleton, January 2006, ‘US Public Policy for Cities – Insights from Abroad’, Report to the Joyce Foundation, University of Illinois at Chicago, http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/cityfutures/joycereport.html#2

Globalised identity: How did Singapore managed the situation

Within a nation or society where different ethnicity, race and religion co-exist, there always seems to be conflict. Shiite and Sunni Muslims of Iraq, Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, Muslims and Buddhists in Southern Thailand and Palestine’s and Jews at the West Bank area are classic examples of these conflicts. However, there exist successful co-existent examples, such as Singapore. So let us examine how did Singapore do it and is it really that successful.

Shiite Muslims

Since Singapore gained independence, besides the 1960 racial riots, Singapore has played the race and religion cards well. The post independent government recognizes the need to maintain racial and religious harmony within Singapore. One of the steps they took was to create opportunities for the different races and religions to mix and interact with each other. Example of these includes the HDB inter-racial policy. Each block of flats would have to have a ratio of different races stipulated by HDB.  This creates more chances for the different races to understand each other.  The government also uses the most powerful tool – education, to in build in young students the importance of racial and religious harmony. Mandatory National Education for students last all the way to tertiary educational level.

Another step taken by the government is not to marginalize any religions or race. When the September 11 attacks occurred, the government pinned the blame on extremists taking the wrong path, rather than blaming Islam as a religion. All these steps hopes to get the message across that all races, religions poses equal importance and stature in the society of Singapore.  So how successful are these measures?

Of course, as proven by history, all these have been rather successful. For the last 40 years, Singaporeans of different races and religious group co-existed peacefully. There have been little or virtually no riots, major disputes arising because of these differences. Leaders of each race and religions also encourage more understanding and do so by example, such as visiting each other’s religious institution.

However, there are still factors that I feel, will still create differences and more measures can be placed to overcome this issues. The government does try to segregate ethnic groups till today, which has been proven to be quite hard to determine. The ethnic groups are stated while in actual fact, it is difficult to determine. Inter ethnic group marriages would have produced a ‘combination’ of ethnic groups. And with the clear segregation of these ethnic groups, might it be a cause for ethnic unrest in the future?

Another measure of how successful is what Singaporeans really feel about other races and religions. On the surface, everyone seems to be tolerant and understanding of one another’s race and religions, but what about deep down within? An example would be me. My secondary school, which was a SAP school during my time, had little or virtually no members of the minorities group (Malays, Indians etc). The school was also a Chinese school. Hence, even though there was much National Education and the need to understand, all these were in theories. What was lacking was the practical aspect. How could we really understand other races when all we came in touch were theories and once-a-year visit to religious institution? Hence, this leads to many of my friends being racial intolerant (Not racist) since we do not have friends of other races. Theories are good, but when they cannot be put into practice, it is kind of useless. I felt that elitism might have played a role in this case.

In conclusion, Singapore has been successful in maintaining racial and religious harmony. With the changing ethnic and globalised identity, there is a need for new measures to be put in place to minimize conflict, such as terrorism.  What needs to be done is not on the surface, but rather deep down within each individual. In this case education could be a powerful tool, but there is also a need for the young of the nation to really experience diversity to understand the importance.

Democracy: Does the people really hold the true power?

Democracy, a political system which originated from ancient Greece, has been adopted by most of the countries around the world. The name is derived from the Greek language, which simply means ‘people rule’. But do the people really hold the power?

Some basic characteristics of democracy include the ‘majority rules’, Freedom of political expression, speech and press. ¹ So let us look at these basic assumptions of democracy and see if democracy is truly what it is supposed to be.

Most liberal countries adopt the majority rules, where the government is elected by the people. However, despite the fact that the majority does get representation through the election of government, the minority in some cases stand to lose. They are marginalized as their political rights have been overlooked, most of the time intentionally, by the majority, which forms the government. Examples include The Australian Aboriginals, whose status was only really recgonised after the 1967 Australian Referendum.² It was only after that that laws could be made to benefit the aboriginals. Another overwhelming example was the Ainu people of Japan, who were indigenous Japanese. They were only officially recgonised on 6 June 2008, where they were officially governed by Japanese laws rather than hereditary chiefs.³ Hence it can be seen that even though governments were elected by majority, not all people were represented fairly. There is always a constant need to review if democracy did really give all people representation power.

Another fundamental of democracy is the freedom of political expression. Sometimes, there are a lack quality political oppositions and political means for the people to express them. This is due to the tight control of the already in-control government. Strict regulations are in place to ensure that opposition parties do not form easily. This also diminishes the power of the oppositions as there is a lack of people willing to step up to oppose to the government. Hence, many people ‘elect’ a representative government which do not have qualities oppositions to keep them in check and decisions made might not be the best for the people. Oppositions to these decisions are inadequately represented.

Linking to the above point, due to the strict regulations, there is also a lack of freedom in press and speech.  Some countries have strict regulations and control over their press, where all publications would be strictly censored. The freedom to speak has also been regulated strictly and damaging speeches made could result in arrests. An example is the Internal Security Act of Malaysia. It was established in the 1960s to arrest communists without trial and to be detained for an unspecific period of time. Recently, it has been used to tackle the problem of terrorism. However, the ISA was infamously turned against politicians and reporters. They were suspected to have incited racial unrest through their reporting and hence arrested under the ISA. Datuk Zaid Ibrahim of the Prime Minister’s office resigned over this matter. He said “At the same time, my views (on the use of the ISA) cannot be compromised”⁴

With these strict measures in place, it sometimes proves that freedom of press and speech is indeed difficult. Speech and press releases might no longer be the means which people can make their views be heard, which is a fundamental of democracy.

With all these being said, these problems seem to occur in Asian countries, which are not exactly fully liberal about being totally open. The government might fear that once challenged, they might lose their footing in the political stage, which they could have dominated for very long. To achieve full democracy- would likely to take at least a decade or two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1         A .Barak,The Judge in a Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 27, ISBN 069112017X, Google Books link

2         L. Lippmann, Generations of Resistance: Mabo and justice, Longman Australia Pty Ltd, Melbourne 1994

3         Fogarty, Philippa (2008-06-06). “Recognition at last for Japan’s Ainu“, BBC News, BBC.

 

4         “Zaid criticises use of ISA, prepared to quit“, Sharon Tan, TheEdgeDaily (2008-09-15).

 

War and Terrorism: legal violence or illegal violence?

War, can be defined as a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation. (Modern Language Association (MLA): “war.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 12 Sep. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/war>. ) Many have termed war as a legal form of violence endorsed by the state or nation. People are given the license to kill and hurt other parties. But how legal is it?

Different countries have a different basis to declare war. War can be declared on several basis: infringement of sovereignty, the need to defend other nations due to treaties or simply because another nation has declared war on her. Let’s look at the instance of the United States. The president has the power to declare war unilaterally without the approval of congress, such as the war against Iraq in 2003. So how can it be legal to declare war on another country just because one person feels that there is a need to do so? (What are the Limits of Presidential Power?, John C. Yoo and Neil J. Kinkopf debate, 14^th November 2005, http://www.legalaffairs.org/webexclusive/debateclub_presidentialpower1105.msp)  Firstly, some people would argue that in fact many people, without the benefit of hindsight, felt that the war against Iraq was necessary to search and destroy weapons of mass destruction. This was supported by the US Congress when it passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002. With the support of the majority of the nation, United States deem it ‘legal’ to invade Iraq.

On the local or national level, it is hence defined as ‘legal’, as the county’s constitution approves it. But on the other hand, we have to look at how the international society thinks. On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, said of the invasion, “I have indicated it was not in conformity with the U.N. charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal (“Iraq war illegal, says Annan“. BBC News (2004-09-16).) Despite clearly infringing the U.N. charter and lacking the support of its major allies such as France, United States carried on its attack.

 

What it shows is that there is a lack of regulations and clear guidelines as to when it is legal to declare a war or who has the rights to declare a war ‘legal’. United Nations, supposedly the global governing body, termed the Iraq War of 2003 illegal, but yet it did not stop the United states. Hence, can what the United States have done be termed as a war crime? There was also a lack of punishment on U.S. and most of the oppositions only ‘strongly condemn’ the actions. Other examples like the invasion of Georgia by Russia, Israel attacks on Lebanon did not prompt actions from the U.N. as well.

It can be seen that it is difficult to coin war as legal or illegal. A legal war on a national basis might be illegal on an international basis, or another unaffected nation’s view. On a personal note, I feel that all nations should actually follow strictly to the U.N. charter. If nations decides to do things their own way when it comes to the acts of wars, chaos would reign in. Maybe in the near future United States or South Korea would declare war on North Korea; China might invade Taiwan. Undeniably, Rouge nations, especially Superpowers, would exist. What is really needed is the unity of the international community to oppose or punish the nation. A superpower cannot survive on its own. United States would not be able invade and occupy Iraq without the aid of Great Britain and other bigger nations. With the supplies from other countries, the war would not have been successful in the first place.

 

To summarise, whether war is legal violence depends on the perspective where one views the situation. Maybe a single international standard is needed to determine if war is legal. Difficult as it might seem, it is the only way to ensure that we are on track to what every human being wishes to achieve – world peace!

Crime: What are the solutions to crime?

Crime: What are the solutions to crime?

Firstly, let us define what is crime and classify them. Crimes is defined by American Physcological Association as an action or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public welfare or morals or to the interests of the state and that is legally prohibited. (crime. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved September 07, 2008) I feel that crime can be classified into the following few categories: Economically-motivated, Physcological, and Political. Why do we need to care about crimes in our society? It is simply because these crimes present some kind of inequalities in socities or problems that we as a whole should look to correct. The effects of crime would affect us directly such as causing bodily harm to us or loss of personal assests; indirectly as it could just have affected someone around us or it means society has failed to provide for some groups of people that caused these group to commit crimes.

Everyone tries to prevent crimes from happening in every societies, by formingneighbourhoodwatch groups, imposing stricter penalties for offenders, and hiring more manpower in the police force. When criminals are arrested, the prison and rehabilitation facilties aim to change their way of thinking and to minimize the chances of them committing the same type of crimes or any other crimes when they are released from prison.

But one question that everyone forgets to ask is what happen to the people, or ex-offenders, who are released from prison? What policies do we have in place not only to prevent them from committing crimes again but also to help them settle in? Are these policies effective?

Let us look at the context of Singapore first. AS most of us know, Singapore has the Yellow Ribbon Project in place. The Yellow Ribbon Project seeks to engage the community in giving ex-offenders a second chance at life. It hopes to inspire a ripple effect of concerted community action to support ex-offenders and their families. (Yellow Ribbon Project, Help Unlock the second prison, http://www.yellowribbon.org.sg/). The project, funded by donations, provides employment, social and financial, counseling and support assistance to ex-offenders. These aims to help them settle back into normal civilian life. However how effective is it? In my opinion, much has to be done.

Most importantly, we have to remove the stigma that people have of ex-offenders. The project tries to remove the stigma by letting non-supports see that there are people who are willing to give them a second chance (by wearing the yellow ribbon) and hence encouraging the rest to do so. However, I feel that what we see might not be necessarily true. People sometimes “show” their support for the cause due to social and ethical pressure. It is deemed right by ethics and society to give offenders a second chance. Hence, people would do what society deems to be right but deep down in their hearts, there is still some form of despise and doubt over the possibility that they can really turn over a new leaf, countrary to the cliché “a leopard never changes its spots”. What we, society, need to do, is truly convince the public that ex-offenders DO change. In my opinion, there is still a lack of publicity of how the ex-offenders have performed. We have been always talking about giving them a second chance, but why are we not proving to the public that they can do it? Success stories published are far and few. Examples need not be big entrepreneurs but simple everyday examples. These examples should be targeted not only to companies to re-employ them, but to the general public as a reminder.

It takes 2 hands to clap. Hence, there is alsothe need for ex-offenders not togive upon themselves. This is especially important as if they were togive upon themselves, it could simply mean that they would go back to their old way of crimes. It would alsomean an extra burden both socially and economically to the society to support this group of people. This would rely moreon the strength of the family structure morethan what society can do. With the support of a strong family unit, they would see morehope and purpose in why they should change for the better.

In summary, we need tolook after what is going to happentoex-offenders after their release. This would be a win-win situation, as not only are we giving them a new lease of life, we are also reducing the chance that they would become an economic burden to society and them committing crimes again.

 

 

Women and the Family: What is the solution for working mums and their family?

In the olden times, such as Victorian time, women have been thought to be better off staying at home to do domestic work and to look after the young. However, as women attain higher level of education and know of their rights, especially after the 2^nd world war, they began to do jobs which used to be exclusive to man only. More women move from doing their ‘original’ tasks of domestic work to working in the society, sometimes becoming the sole-bread winner of a single family. Hence, some issues arise and affect the society. Let us look at some issues and see if they really affect the family.

 

Now, the most common problem cited with working women is that they tend to spend less time with the family, especially the kids. Coupled with the fact that their spouse are also working to provide income, the children are usually left to the care of nannies or day care centre. Hence, they might lack parental love and this case, maternal love. How true is this? It is undeniable that the kids do get less love from their mother, but what about the material gains and comfort that they gain from the extra income provided by the mother? The income could have been given to the child as form such as better living conditions, more nutritious food, better education, or simply more toys. To this, some people argue that even though physical gains are provided to the kids, they ultimately lack love. This might lead to truancy in school, committing petty crimes to gain the attention of their parents, or simply feel dejected and unloved. Statistics from Singapore Children Society has shown these instances have increased. (EMOTIONAL MALTREATMENT OF

CHILDREN IN SINGAPORE: PROFESSIONAL AND PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS, John M. Elliott, Chua Yee Sian,

Joyce I. Thomas, February 2002, http://www.childrensociety.org.sg/doc/Monograph4.pdf) Emotional Neglect (defined by World Health Organisation) is the failure to provide for the development of the child in all spheres: health, education, emotional development, nutrition, shelter and safe living conditions, in the context of resources reasonably available to the family of caretakers and causes or has a high probability of causing harm to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. This includes the failure to properly supervise and protect children from harm as much as is feasible (World Health Organisation (Eds.). (1999). Report of the consultation on child abuse prevention (pp. 13-16). Geneva: World Health Organization.) Isn’t it contrary that a family has to both provide emotional yet the best material comfort for the children? It is every parent’s wish that their child get the best of both worlds but to cope with the rising cost of living; they have to make a difficult choice.

 

What can they do? What I can suggest is that they find the fine point of balance between work and family. For a working mother, see work not as a main career, but a supplement income sufficient to aid and give their children a better living condition. I am not being sexist here by saying that it must be the mother but children DO respond better to motherly love rather than paternal love. For women who already have their careers established, maybe they could first postpone their careers and care for their children. When they have reached a certain age sufficient for themselves to actually care for themselves like bathing or eating, they can re-enter the workforce. Keeping in mind that this is the period of time which they require more material needs such as better educational materials, it might be a better choice. Motherly love can be given when they most need it and the same for the material needs.

 

Again, some people might disagree, saying that it is intrusive to a mother’s career and they might face difficulty re-entering the workforce. Love to children might not be complete, as in their teenage years, they do still need ample love. A radical idea might be for the father to stay at home instead. Why not decide who, the female or the male of the family, can provide the family better economically and let her or him be the breadwinner? In the first place, the idea that women should do domestic work is conceptualised in the olden days, where women lack physical abilities to do manual labour.  However, this problem has been long gone with the development of machineries. Maybe there is a need to rethink this concept and actually decide which the best for the family is. Women can do most of what men can do today. Fatherly love might not be as powerful as maternal love, but again, a compromise has to be reached.

 

Hence, as we can see, problems do arise from women going out to society to work. However, what they are doing are still in the best interest of the family. What we really need is a solution that benefits the family in this fast globalising world, though compromises have tobe made.