The Spirit of Volunteerism is very much alive in Singapore. Do you agree?

For as long as I can remember, Singapore has been described as a cold, heartless society, devoid of compassion, love and kindness. Long have we been described as a country of self-obsessed individuals with room in our heads for only one thing: ourselves.

But all that has seemingly changed. If it takes a crisis to bring out the best in people, then I’ll be looking forward to more disasters like the recent Tsunami, which ripped across the Indian Ocean and killed more than 168,000 unsuspecting people from South-east Asia to Africa, with a gleeful smile. Yes. All it took was just one ripple in the ocean before we here in Singapore could liberate ourselves of our humiliating brand of selfishness, and showed the world that we do care. Never mind about the thousands massacred by the killer wave. They’re just unfortunate casualties.

We read the papers about Singaporeans spending their New Year holidays doing volunteer work, helping out the Tsunami victims. How so? By packing canned-food and used clothes other kind and compassionate Singaporeans have no use for. Since the oxford dictionary defines the word "waste" as objects "no longer useful and are disposed of", we could very well say that this thoughtful bunch of volunteers have spent their holiday packing other peoples’ trash. But all in the Spirit of Volunteerism, of course. It doesn’t really matter if we’re sending our trash to the victims, does it? At least we’re giving something, and the world should know.

It is indeed touching to see the number of volunteers rising in Singapore. And all the increment is originating from our young! This shows that our youth, as statistics say, around the age of fifteen, are showing an increased zeal to help out the less fortunate. That is good news for our country, and we should ignore the fact that the government has inevitably made volunteer work compulsory for the youth in Singapore under the Education System (which virtually means ALL the youth), in implementing the compulsory Community Involvement Program for its students. In this program, the compulsory syllabus of the year included doing at least 6 hours of volunteer work. But for the sake of the statistics remaining good, I shall ignore this fact and assume that our students would take the initiative, and somehow or other involve themselves in volunteer work, amid their extremely busy schedules.

In the recent Ren Ci Charity Show, we have witnessed several local artists perform harrowing, breath-taking stunts that prompted viewers to donate to the charitable organization. These artists should be saluted for volunteering to appear on National Television to boost their ratings among Singaporeans for appearing compassionate, and at the same time get a chance to train their acting skills. Some of their tears, grimaces while performing their stunts, and looks of sadness mixed with a tinge of pity, were actually quite convincing. Oh, did I forget to mention that it was all done in the name of charity? Yes, of course, and the Spirit of Volunteerism.

So as you can see, the Spirit of Volunteerism is very much alive in Singapore. We Singaporeans never fail to volunteer where can, at the same time, get rid of unwanted itmes, OR are forced to by higher, unchallengeable authorities, OR see personal benefit in the whole package. Yes, the Spirit is alive indeed. It is as alive as road-kill.