'Where we are, there's daggers in men's smiles'

The day draws nearer for Singapore to welcome 16,000 foreigners, or more aptly put, delegates of the IMF-WB conference 2006. Singaporeans from all walks of life have been patiently but persistently encouraged to smile for these people.

Let us zoom in to look at what has been happening in this sunny island of smiles.

SITNews: Found: 18 corpses, some with throats slit
by Tanya Fong

"ANIMAL welfare groups are offering a $2,000 reward to anyone who can help catch a cat killer who has slaughtered at least 18 animals in Jurong East over the past two weeks. Since Aug 20, cat corpses, many with their throats slit, have been appearing with disturbing regularity in drains, at void decks and under bushes. A cleaner in the area said he found 10 dead cats in the vicinity of blocks 323, 344 and 354 in the space of a week"..........

This has been what is happening to the foreign species of animals in Singapore. Foreign to the humans, that is. We treat one foreign group with great care, hailing their arrival with smiles and plenty of pampering services, and in the shadowy underbelly of the society, we slit the throats of the other foreign species, species which are voiceless and helpless. Species which are non-intrusive in our lives.

Singapore, wake up. Such great hypocrisy betraying an alarmingly high level of non-tolerance to subjects that are different from us serves to disgust all the more when dished up and served on a pretty platter.

This non-tolerance group refers to not only cat killers, but people who incessantly complain about the presence of cats in their vicinities, leading them to be, guess what, legally culled in an eerily systematic fashion by our efficient government, while we continue to smile for foreign visitors.

This non-tolerance group also refers to the law-making people who slight the implications of this issue by carving out a pittance of an 8 week jail term for persistant and cold-blooded animal abusers, while working frantically on the other side to pave a road of smiles for influential foreign representatives.

In the days to comes, when our esteemed foreign visitors smilingly compliment us for being a great city, we shall do well to remember that over here, there's daggers in men's smiles.