Why I gave up my Pink IC

Hi readers, this post is in response to a question that the admin of TRS asked me in one of my earlier posts this week, he seemed surprised that I no longer have a pink IC (ie. Singaporean nationality). Oh and yes, I gave up my Singaporean nationality years ago in 2007 - because there was really no benefit to holding on to my pink IC. I know I have talked about the process several times over the years on my blog, but since I have been asked, I will deal with the topic again. I think it is important for me to talk about as I think it is important to let the PAP know that well educated and highly skilled ex-Singaporeans are so dismayed at the way the PAP is running the country that they have left for good: it is the ultimate statement that says, "I have so little faith in the PAP that I believe I'm better off elsewhere."

Let me tell you a little bit about how I came to the UK and settled here. I first came to the UK as a student in 1997 for university, I applied for many scholarships and had received several offers. I chose to accept one from my university as it didn't come with a bond - I was wary about committing myself to a job even before my starting my degree. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do at that age, so. I opted for a scholarship that didn't come with a bond so as to keep my options open. So in the last year of my university, I started applying for jobs and got an offer, which I accepted and started working in London. I truly enjoyed living and working in London - it is a brilliant city and the thought of returning to work in Singapore became more and more remote. After all, I had spent the first 21 years of my life in Singapore - it was now my chance to see the rest of the world! I since went on to work in many more cities around Europe and the Middle East on various contracts (Istanbul, Bratislava, Frankfurt, Dubai, Prague, Geneva to name a few) and the more I worked abroad, the more I liked it. Oh some the adventures I have had over the years.

Limpeh in Istanbul. 

Here's how it works in the UK - once you have worked in the UK for 5 years (time spent as a student under a student visa does NOT count towards these 5 years), then you can apply for permanent leave to remain (Singaporeans refer to this as 'permanent residency'/PR). After you have held permanent leave to remain status for 2 years, you can apply to be a citizen. At every stage of the process, you're subjected to tests (standard of English, knowledge of life in the UK, your ability to earn a living, how much money you have etc) to ensure that you are the kind of person the UK wants. There is a points system to make this evaluation more straight forward and this has been modeled on the immigration system of other countries like Australia and Canada which have been using it for years.

So why did I choose to take on British citizenship? After all, at one stage, I was a Singaporean expatriate in the UK with permanent right to remain in the UK (ie. as a 'permanent resident' in the UK) - there was no restriction on my rights to work or step up a business in the UK, so why did I take the next step to take on British citizenship, knowing that I had to give up my Singaporean citizenship in the process since Singapore does not allow for dual-nationality?

Life in Britain has so much to offer. 

Firstly, it was far easier to work all over the EU with a British passport and I was able to take advantage of so many more opportunities, take on so many more contracts with a British passport thanks to freedom of movement of labour within the EU - I can get off the plane in another EU country and hit the ground running with full rights to work. With a Singapore passport, it would've been more complicated, far more paperwork involved etc. It wouldn't have been impossible, but it would've been more difficult and I didn't want to be disadvantaged in the job market.

Secondly, it's far more advantageous to work in Singapore as an FT than a Singaporean! Don't hate the player, hate the game - blame the PAP, don't blame the foreigners. The PAP created a regime whereby I was far better off working in Singapore as a British expatriate than as a Singaporean returning to work in S'pore - NS reservist liability, CPF etc.  The system was geared towards attracting talented expatriates at the expense of locals who were expected to put up with the injustice in the name of being patriotic.  Given that I am not interested in buying a HDB flat in Singapore (I already have two properties in London), can someone please give me a reason to hold on to my pink IC?

NS for Singaporeans, jobs for FTs. 

Well, I hear a lot of you saying, "yeah but your parents are here right? My parents are here too, that's why I am still here." If I may be painfully blunt, I never got along with my mother - I had a terrible relationship with her ever since I was a child and we drove each other up the wall. She was impossible to please and her approval was impossible to get - everything I did seemed to make her angry. My academic records (not one, not two, but three scholarships) coupled with my achievement in sports would have been any Singaporean parents' wet dream - but she still hated practically everything I did and was never satisfied. There was no mutual trust, no mutual respect.

It took us such a long time to learn how to have a civil relationship as an adults and if I may be blunt, I will never feel close to her, she will never understand me and I think it's just way too late to try to foster anything more than a superficial, polite relationship as we spent my formative years so distant and not understanding each other. It sounds really cold of me to say that, but that's the uncensored truth. Not everyone has happy childhood memories of getting along with their parents but few of us dare to talk about it publicly - here's a song from my childhood that really captured that feeling of frustration I had with my mother as a child.

Many Singaporeans do not think about just how very disadvantaged they are by the system - male Singaporeans get a particularly bad deal, being doubly disadvantaged by the liabilities of NS (and many years of reservist liabilities) and CPF contributions when having to compete with FTs who come with none of those liabilities. So it isn't surprising that many who are in a position to leave do leave and this brings me neatly to my next point.

The PAP would rather people like myself who do choose to leave just shut up and disappear - because the anomaly of me returning to S'pore to work as an FT simply exposes just how disadvantaged locals are under the PAP's system which is so pro-FT and discriminates against local Singaporeans (CPF, NS liabilities). Why am I being rewarded for giving up my Singaporean passport by the Singaporean system? Why aren't Singaporeans who were patriotic and held on to their Singaporean passports rewarded instead?

How important is one's nationality anyway? 

Many Singaporeans are simply playing into the hands on the PAP by labeling people like me quitters and unpatriotic, but they don't pause for a moment and think - hang on, there is something wrong with the system if this guy is better off in Singapore as an FT than as a Singaporean. The government did invest a lot of money in me (2 scholarships in my JC days: humanities scholarship + SSC scholarship) and the fact that I chose to develop my career abroad (rather than say returning to work for a statutory board like the URA) represents a brain drain from Singapore that has been going on for years - Singapore has been hemorrhaging talented, well educated people who can leave and do move abroad for a better life after having benefited from the Singaporean education system.

Thus these Singaporeans who do not have the option of leaving often lash out at individuals like myself who do have that option and have taken it - that's terribly misguided to say the least. Why blame us when you should be blaming the government who created such a system in the first place? If these people had the option to leave, many of them probably would as well - but that's a hypothetical question which they will often claim, "Never! I love Singapore and am patriotic, unlike you turncoat traitors!" And I'm like, yeah dude, you're stuck there, no other country will take someone like you, so you may as well love what you're stuck with. 

You love Singapore but does Singapore love you?

Mind you, I knew this person back in Singapore... let's call her MK. Now I mean no disrespect to MK but she would never gain enough points on the Australian/Canadian/British immigration system to ever gain entry to these countries, so she used to tell me, "Singapore is where I grew up, it is where my heart is, it is where my family is, I will never abandon it. I may not like the PAP, I do not support the PAP  - of course things are not perfect here but I am staying and fighting for a better Singapore because I love Singapore and the people here, this is where I belong... blah blah blah." Guess what? A few years later, she married an Australian and was on the next plane out to Australia. (As a spouse she gets to by pass the entire points based entry system.) She is now an Australian citizen and has given up her pink IC. What happened to all her ideals about fighting for a better Singapore now eh? I suspect there are probably many Singaporeans out there like MK who would do exactly what she did if given the opportunity to leave.

This brain drain of individuals like myself leaves a gap which the government is gladly filling with foreign talents from China, the Philippines, India and other countries. Now this is leading to all kinds of social problems, upsetting the locals who have been taken aback by this influx of migrants in recent years. Allow me to point out the obvious please: rather than desperately trying to replace the brain drain with new migrants, why not try to instead retain Singaporean talent whom the government have invested so much in? How about leveling the playing field when it comes to Singaporean males who are trying to compete with FTs in Singapore with the odds stacked against them?

Does this bring back memories guys?

So who do you blame in this situation? The government may claim, "if people like Limpeh didn't leave Singapore in the first place, we wouldn't need all these foreigners to come and work in Singapore. The brain drain has created a gap that we have to fill one way or another." To which I would reply, "if Singaporean males were treated more fairly under your system, then I might have considered working in Singapore as a Singaporean. Fix your system first, don't blame us for leaving when your system is so inherently unfair and discriminates against male Singaporeans." Is it a chicken and egg situation? Why hasn't this unfair system been challenged yet after all these years?

But no, the government is simply not going to do anything about the situation for the simple reason: the vast majority of Singaporeans are not able to simply leave and move to another country because countries like Australia, the UK and Canada have raised the bar of entry over the years. It was far easier to emigrate to such countries in the 1990s and 2000s, but ever since the recent recession hit, many of these countries have raised the bar of entry to try to protect their locals who are facing raising unemployment. Thus the PAP can quite easily sit back and say, "你有本事走你走啦!" (translation: feel free to leave if you think you have the ability to do so!) knowing that the vast majority of Singaporeans in 2013 will probably not have the 本事to 走 and have no other choice but to remain in Singapore.

Can you move to Australia? It depends on how highly qualified you are.

Hence those of us who do leave are subjected to so much resentment... It's like poor people waiting at a bus stop in the pouring rain feeling resentful and angry when they see a rich man driving down the road in a beautiful, expensive car. "How dare you drive to work in such a nice car when the rest of us are suffering, getting wet in the rain, waiting for the bus which is crowded and already late? Get out of that nice car and come and suffer with us in the bus stop!" The driver in the nice car would turn around and simply say, "Life's not fair, I can afford a car - you can't. I could take the bus like you, but why would I when I can drive my nice car to work? Why should I suffer like you when I don't have to?"

By that same token, I get the feeling that a lot of my haters expect me to return to Singapore and suffer the same injustices they do under the Singaporean system - what can I say, misery loves company. (I did serve my full 2 years 4 months of national service from January 1995 to May 1997.) Perhaps in highlighting my story and experiences, I am reminding them just how screwed they are under this very unfair system - but isn't this simply them shooting the messenger for the message? Okay perhaps there's an element of me rubbing salt in the wound for them, but would you rather everyone kept quiet about just how inherently unfair the system in Singapore is? Ask yourself this: how much are you willing to put up with before you finally say, enough is enough, that's it, I am leaving because the government has gone too far this time. Remember the way they sneaked the MDA's Broadcast Act into the law without even debating it in parliament - what next? Are you going to turn the other cheek and keep silent every time this happens?

At the end of the day, I am a rational, pragmatic person who considered the pros and cons of holding on to my Singaporean passport vs giving it up - and after having considered all the factors I came to the decision I did and became a British citizen, especially given how I mortified I am in the way the PAP has been running Singapore in the last 10 years and the direction they are heading. For the sake of a balanced argument, I have come up with a few reasons to hold on to a Singaporean passport to conclude this piece.

1. It would be easier to buy a HDB flat. (But then again, if you're able to meet the criteria to obtain nationality in the West, you should be able to buy property on the private market without any government subsidy.)

HDB flats in Ang Mo Kio - do you want to buy one of these?

2. Singaporeans don't need a visa to visit many countries - China, Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia etc - whilst British travelers need to pay for a visa.

3. Really highly skilled individuals don't really need to worry about what passport they hold - they will be able to get the necessary visas wherever they go. Eduardo Saverin is a resident in Singapore (which country wouldn't roll out the red carpet for a man like him) - but he is not taking Singaporean nationality.

Eduardo Saverin

4. Holding on to a Singaporean passport means still being able to vote in Singaporean elections and influence the outcome of future elections, even standing for elections if that's what you want (but it's not what I want).

5. The luxury of avoiding long queues when you land at Changi Airport - goodness me, when you see me stuck behind a bunch of PRC tourists at Changi Airport, give me a sympathetic smile please.

6. I suppose there are those growth dividends from the government, but all those CPF and Medisave contributions do cancel those out - so I am not sure if they're worth hanging around for given that they're only given out sporadically.

How much are those growth dividends worth?

What other benefits are there to hold on to a Singaporean passport? Have you considered moving abroad? Would you if you had the chance? Would you simply acquire PR in another country but still hold on to your Singaporean passport? And more importantly, how much crap from the PAP are you prepared to put up with before you leave, assuming that they still go on and win the next three or four elections? Please let me know by leaving a comment below, thanks!

Update: Part 2 http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/part-2-moving-abroad-answering-your.html