9th August, the day where Singapore celebrates her birthday. Today in 2016, she is 51 years old, crossing her 50th Golden Jubilee year with many big celebrations and events throughout the year. Celebrating 51st birthday seems to be toned down after a massive Golden Jubilee celebration year, that is totally understandable, just like a ball reaching its peak at the top, it would drop down and bounce up again.
Many things can happen in a 1 year time frame, year 2016 has been a turbulent year till date, on a personal basis and Singapore is facing some challenging economic times currently and times ahead. SG50 was an achievement and also a reflection on how much Singapore had grown, changed and transformed in the past 50 years, sometimes too fast and furious, putting a lot of strain on our many different infrastructures and society. We had also seen the good, in people coming forward to be the change and make the changes for society.
Year 2016, SG51 is like a turning point for Singapore. We are facing more challenges, domestically and internationally. The economy is slowing down, not just in Singapore, around the whole world too. This might be the time for everybody to reflect and look ahead, how we can change as an individual, as a society and as a country, to prepare, change, innovate and adapt for the future? We might have transformed from version 1.0 to 2.0 in 50 years of modern Singapore history. However, are we doing the necessary things for our future? The decisions, the actions that we must and need to do, for us to reach version 3.0 and beyond? Or have we become too complacent, comfortable and lazy, totally bo-chup?
The rise and growth of social media has allow us to read, see and learn a lot more about the good and bad of Singapore, sometimes on the extreme ends of the spectrum. Hopefully, this would allow us to move away from the ugly and working towards more of the good.
In Prime Minister Lee National Day 2016 Message, he spoke about unity, we have to unite together and meet the upcoming challenges and difficulties that Singapore face. This is a message that I resonate with deeply. We have to unite together for the future growth of the country, we need to innovate and change.
As we embark on another new chapter in our modern history, another new journey has begun since we turned 50 during our Golden Jubilee year. We are still a very young nation in the world today and it’s up to everyone of us, to help write the new chapters, the new version 3.0 of modern Singapore.
We still have a long way to go, if we make the changes, innovate and adapt for a new era ahead.
Happy 51st Birthday Singapore!