Recently, I had a conversation with one of my friends regarding the singing of the National Anthem. He observed that many - especially the RGS people don't sing it. I concur. He went on to say that he found it odd that they should sing the school song, but not the Anthem. A case of a lack of patriotism? I wonder. But when I asked a few of my female friends, they replied that they were 'too lazy' to sing it. Hmm...Maybe they may see no point in it, but by the same logic - what's the point of the school song? Nada? The song is there for the reason, and I wonder how many people think about that.

This set me thinking. Do people in general care about the socio-political environment of Singapore and the world in general. So I conducted some sort of straw poll in which I quizzed some of my friends with regards to their knowledge about leaders, situations and such. I was quite disappointed with what I found out.

Most of them hardly know who holds what position in the Parliament.Speaker of Parliament - who the hell is that? Minister for Education - huh?! You get the drift. Not surprisingly, the same scenario arose with regards to the world scene. None knew who Abdullah Badawi was (Malaysian PM - our closest neighbour at that). No one knew that Britain and France are undergoing changes in their political leadership. A common question was; who the hell is Barack Obama? But, they did know HILLARY CLINTON (for the sole that she is the wife of Bill Clinton - who was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal)

I mean come one, general knowledge/concern about current affairs. Do people even bother about what's happening around them? With such an attitude, how are we (RJ) to produce leaders of the nation? Leaders who care about global issues and pay heed to their counterparts. What's the point of GP and leadership skills workshops and such if this is how our youth are turning out? If this trend continues, there wouldn't be much of a political base to talk about in the coming future.