Singaporeans, are they?

For the past few days since the Singapore's women team won the Silver medal in the women's team table tennis event in Olympics 2008, I have been either seeing or hearing comments made against them. Chiefly they were regarding issue of the women's team being not Singaporean, but 'imported' as so coined by one of my friend. Somehow this has somewhat hit on a raw nerve and I get very emotional every time I see or hear a similar comment. Probably because these comments comes from Singaporeans themselves! I would have understand if such comments were to be from non-Singaporeans, but to hear it from Singaporean themselves is really too much for me to bear!

Technically, these women are Singaporean as they have already been given Singaporean citizenship. So, case close on this issue! But then, I'm sure this will only shut the critics' mouth up but never really truly make them realise their flaw in their viewpoints. And so let me tell you a story, though I'm extremely bad at story telling, which I hope will convince the critics to see the light.

"Long long time ago, back in the days of 1965, a new nation was born. Together with her birth, her people was given a new status - as Singaporeans! No matter where her people were born, where her people spend their younger years, or what her people religion or races were, they were all given the title of Singaporeans. And for years, these Singaporeans with roots in many other places 'cept Singapore were pretty much condemned (by her ever so friendly neighbours etc), and Singapore's odds of surviving adolescence was next to nothing. But still, her people worked hard and beat all odds and even propel Singapore's ability beyond her physical size.

And now, 43 years down the road, a group of people of different background e.g. country of birth etc intends to not only make Singapore their home, but to bring sporting glory to Singapore. But, her people shut their doors to these new Singaporeans instead, citing among other reasons, that they are not even born in Singapore to begin with (in order to be considered a Singaporean)."

Moral of the story? Are you going to deny your grandparents or great-grandparents of their Singaporean status because they never grew up in Singapore but in China/India etc instead?