London 2012 vs Beijing 2008

The Olympic Flame was extinguished. The Olympic Logo Flag was passed on to the next hosting city, London. The renowned red double-decker bus entered the stadium. The extravaganza performances by the Chinese suddenly transformed into a hip-hop dance by the British. China had officially passed on the Games to the next hosting country England.

After watching the thrilling closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games 2008, I was awestruck by the brilliant performance from the patriotic Chinese volunteers. Not only me, but the whole world which had witnessed the amazing show. China had shown everyone that this was the best Olympic Game ever and they had used this opportunity to prove to everyone too that it had finally emerged into one of the world superpower. The over-the-top pageantry of the 2008 Beijing Olympics has left many Londoners wondering how London can live up to expectations when it hosts the next summer Olympiad in 2012.

What really amused me during the ending ceremony was none other than the next hosting city's eccentric mayor, Boris Johnson. He promised that 'London 2012 is going to be a hoot'. He also added, "We (Londoners) have been dazzled, impressed, and blown away by these Beijing Games but we have not been intimidated". Brave words, but the London mayor knows he's got his work cut out to match what International Olympic Committee Chairman Jacques Rogge rightfully called an "extraordinary Games".

I personally feel that Beijing will be the last Olympics of its kind and London will not be able to repeat the good organization skill and creativity shown by the Chinese.

As can be seen during the closing ceremony, the performance done by the British was pathetic, and to me, a joke. Britain's eight-minute chance to tell the world what the London Games would offer the world in 2012 featured guitarist Jimmy Page and British pop-singer Leona Lewis, who launched into the riff from "Whole Lotta Love" This is something rather unoriginal, and it definitely was not able to enlighten anyone about London. I mean how can a song about love tell us about London? Simply put, there is no connection. Maybe it was not their fault, as China had a five thousand years of history, they are not able to match China in terms of cultural performances. And in a quest for authenticity, the iconic London bus also took ages to travel the short distance around the Bird’s Nest Stadium. No one anticipated that the 2012 organizers would strive to recreate London’s traffic crawl quite so accurately. By the time the bus arrived, most of the spectators had given up and left in black taxi.

The ‘highlight’ of London’s mini-presentation was undoubtedly the emergence of the global superstar formerly known as a footballer. To me, it is the most anti-climatic sporting moment in the Beijing Game, when David Beckham appeared on top of the bus. I mean we never heard of the ‘superstar’ anymore, since he announced “After Man United and Real Madrid, my next club will be… LA Galaxy!”, yet he was chosen to be the dude who represent London. Ironic. Worst, it was a disappointment to see him with his lame kick, which did not reached the spectator, but the nearest volunteer below the bus. This sounds like a funny teaser to parody of Olympic from the next hosting city to me. Talking about a ‘witty’ London 2012 Olympic, I doubt there was anything close to witty in this short-performance.

Other reason why London should not boost before the Game begins is their notorious history of project delays. The British capital doesn't have the best track record for managing multi-billion dollar projects. Most recently, the new Wembley Stadium was completed a year late and roughly $200 million over budget. The so-called Millennium Dome similarly cost $1.3 billion to build in the late 1990s, but after a brief series of events around the turn of the millennium, it sat unused for years before American billionaire Philip Anschutz bought the tent-like structure at a huge discount and turned it into a successful concert venue. If they cannot even make a proper stadium in time of the Game, they will not even come close to competing with the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Ice Cube, yet become the better host city.
With less than half of the Beijing Game’s budget, estimated 45-billion dollar, and much lesser volunteers to help out during the event itself, the London Game will not be expected to have a grand performance like Beijing and most likely, there may even be lesser games to compete.

Boris Johnson should start doing something about the London Game 2012. Not only had Beijing started a new standard of the Olympic Game, he had also foolishly challenged it, with a mocking tone and complacent attitude. Instead of boasting and mocking the Beijing Game, he should be more worried with the opening ceremony performance, how the ‘witty’ performance will leave an impression on everyone and more importantly, how they are going to solve their organizing problem in their history of project delays.

Action still speaks louder than word.

Democracy

"Democracy creates stability in society"

Democracy is a system of government in which citizens(21 years old and above) within a country can vote to elect its members. Today, almost every country takes up this governance. Not only it allows each and every citizen to have the right to choose his or her leaders, but it also ensures liberty and freedom in other aspects, such as economic freedom. I believe that democracy, as a system in itself, creates stability in society, because the system values every single individual citizen's opinions, allows citizens to elect their own leaders that they believe in, serves as a balance and check for the ruling government and ensure equality and freedom within the country.

Democracy believes in every citizen's choice and opinions. The basic fundamentals of democracy are to ensure the equality of citizens, economic freedom, individual rights and citizen participation in the political arena. To put forth simply, democracy allows the people to take into hands their own fate and how they want their lives to be governed. Ultimately, the leader who will lead the country
is the one that the people choose. Society will only become stable only if the government has the same values that its people believe in.

With opposing parties and different ideologies, democracy promotes a healthy competition which benefit the country. Different parties will try to reach the needs and expectations of every citizen so that in return, the citizens will vote for them. In so doing, they will have to bring up new and better ideologies which will attract the citizens' needs. This pushes the ruling government to improve and provide more for the people to win support for the next election. Hence, not only democracy spurs development of the country, it also ensures that the authority of the ruling party is maintained. Moreover, dictatorship will not happen. If the people are appeased with the government, then the political stability is fulfilled. If political stability is fulfilled, then social stability will be fulfilled too as the government will definitely ensure that all citizens get what they need. However, there may be a case when the most influential party manipulates smaller parties to achieve its own agenda. In this case, the seats taken by the other small parties will not be of any use. Thus the authority will only be left with one party, and in long-term, it will lead to corruption and dictatorship.

Democracy also allows freedom in economy. Economic freedom means that the government allows some private ownership of property and businesses, and that the people are allowed to choose their own work and join labour unions. I personally feel that this is very important as citizens will not be bound to jobs that the government decides. With a free choice of jobs and steady progression in economic, we are safe to proclaim that the citizens would certainly benefit, as more jobs would be created and citizens would enjoy a steady income. Moreover, economic growth will increase if more private ownership of property and businesses increase. Economic freedom will enable citizens to enjoy their incomes and careers, thus this will lead to stability in society as they are satisfied. However, the state should also play a stronger role in country's economy where there is great income disparity due to past discrimination or other unfair practices.

Since democracy takes on the belief of utilitarianism, it is fair only to a certain extent. If the majority wins, there will be less social unrest. However, there will be inequality if there is a tyranny of majority. This is when the majority try to vote for government that favor them and oppress the minority. Not only it is unfair, it will also brings social unrest in the long run. Take Sri Lanka as an example. The Tamils are oppressed by the Sinhalese, which are larger in populations. Democracy is used to oppress the Tamils, which many bill of rights are favored towards the Sinhalese. In an effort to prevent the Tamil political parties from gaining control in Tamil-dominated regions, the government broke these regions into several parts to be roped into Sinhalese-dominated constituencies such that the Sinhalese still had the majority in elections. This kept the Sinhalese in power. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam retaliated with violence against the government forces, disrupting the stability of the whole country. In this case, democracy has failed to create stability in Sri Lanka.

However, there is no loop hole in a system of democracy itself, but it is actually the misuse of it. The Sri Lanka's government actually did not practice equality at all. They merely use the system as a mean to discriminate the minorities, which contradict the system of democracy. There are many countries that uses democracy but the society is still chaotic because they actually misuse democracy. Likewise in Taiwan, a change to democracy from authoritarian has never brings the country forwards, but instead, cause a stagnation in the country progression. As democracy needs to hear from many different point of views and perspectives, it will leads to disagreement and then politicking. Disillusionment has set in as the political parties are increasingly being locked in vicious bickering. In this case, democracy never brings any good to the country due to misuse of it. Let's look at the United State of America. It is also a country with democracy for the system of government. Unlike Sri Lanka, there is no rule that oppress the black, which is the minority. Unlike Taiwan, there is no petty bickering within the government and no politicking. This is the reason why the USA is able to create stability within their society.

In conclusion, I believe that democracy, as a system of government, creates stability in the society.

My personal opinion on Bully

The Article

"Something's not quite right" published in The Sunday Star by Seah Chiang Nee.
Jun 25, 2006

taken from http://www.littlespeck.com/content/people/CTrendsPeople-060625.htm
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SINGAPOREANS have been shocked by a widely circulated video of a teenage schoolgirl being brutally beaten by three older girls.
This came just as a survey showed that bullying in schools has reached an epidemic level, with 70% of primary and secondary students reporting being physically abused at some time or other. If non-physical harassment is included, bullying is felt by nine-tenth of all students, which means that the bullies are themselves also being bullied.In the four-and-a-half-minute clip, the attackers, who were slightly older, were seen viciously kicking and punching the 13-year-old girl after removing her shirt. Like many such cases, the dispute was over boys.
The beating, which happened in April, was blatantly bold, with the assailants daring to film it and probably distribute the video.
Surprisingly, the police, who have a low tolerance of public violence, have said they will not take action without the victim making a report, although the identity of the assailants is known. This is the latest - and more serious - case of juvenile delinquency that has caught the country by surprise.
In recent years, cases of bullying, including assaults, in schools have been inexplicably rising, with a few even involving teachers who complain that today's students are generally harder to discipline. The Education Ministry considers it serious enough to launch a Bully Free Week to encourage victims to report bullying. Most are too afraid to do so.Educators this week held a two-day meeting on the subject to help them understand it better.
The serious cases often take place in "neighbourhood" schools, which have more than their share of children from poor or broken homes where parental care is low. Many troublemakers are girls.Among the 4,000 students surveyed, some 2,800 or 70% said they had been victims of physical acts such as kicking, hitting, hair-pulling or pushing that often happened in the classroom, canteen or in the toilet.Discipline among Singaporean youths has undoubtedly dropped, but the situation is probably nowhere as serious as the survey statistics imply.For one thing, violent assaults such as the video case are few and the use of weapons is even more rare. Most cases of bullying involve teasing, name-calling or harassment, which may be described as horseplay elsewhere. They are a far cry from the violence in the United States or Japan.Nevertheless, it is a concern because research has shown that habitual bullies have a greater chance of growing up into violent adults or criminals. Why are teens becoming so intolerant or flare up so easily? Some attribute it to the high pressure of a competitive exam system (reforms are being implemented) and high parental expectations. But most acts of bullying stem from peer or boy-girl conflicts that have little to do with national issues or even considerations of right or wrong.It is caused by a clique system that forces conformity, in which a group bands together to ensure individual compliance. The victims are often loners who refuse to cooperate or who opt to remain apart. The methods used can range from slaps to vandalising schoolbooks or bags and, of course, cyber-threats.
A world report has said this high-tech city has the highest incidence of Internet bullying among kids in any country outside the US.It entails sending insults, pornographic images and threats of bodily harm. "Singapore has far more cases than anyone would have expected," says Wired Safety, which monitors 76 countries. On a per capita basis, it had received far more reports of "cyber-bullying" from Singapore (except the US), with 80 reports last year.
"Having been to Singapore and seen how well-behaved the children are, the results came as quite a shock," said Parry Aftab, its Washington-based executive director.
Others use cell-phone SMS to harass classmates. Bullying is not the only concern; another is teenage sexual promiscuity. Earlier this year, a 19-year-old Polytechnic girl videotaped herself making love with her boyfriend. The video was stolen by someone who uploaded it on the Web, and it became the most sought after item in the world's search engines.
Despite these shortcomings, the new generation of Singaporeans is largely rational and well behaved, with most teens seriously pursuing their studies and getting good results.
Bad teenage elements, however, merely mirror the worst part of an ill-tempered adult world where road rage and marital violence are a frequent phenomenon, and an unintentional stare can result in a severe beating for the innocent.
For Singaporeans young and old, the lifestyle is one of high cost and fast pace, where competition starts from kindergarten (age six) to university and on to the workplace. The leaders often remind them that the world doesn't owe them a living. The outcome is an increasing number of people with shorter tempers and flying fists.
At last count, road rage cases had reached 96 a year, which resulted in stricter punishment for serious offenders - caning, a maximum of a year's jail plus a S$1,000 fine. Singapore's tight living space and over-crowdedness are also helping to create an exaggerated sense of being squeezed or aggrieved by others.
A youth social worker, Carol Balhetchet, is concerned by youths who turn to bullying as a means of managing their problems or merely passing time.
A more serious letter warns: "If physical bullying continues, we will wake up one day to find ourselves having to search students for hidden weapons at the school door."

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The Commentary

I came across this outdated but relevant to current issue article, "Something's not quite right", online and I suddenly had an urge to share my experiences and personal opinions with all of you that are reading out there.

The article is mainly focusing about Singapore's teenage issue concerning the increasing bully cases in schools. There is a report on a case of bully that shook nationwide then. This is actually very common if you are a student in a highly competitive school, where bullies are far worse, frightening, and definitely more disturbing than normal school.

Bully comes in many different forms, mostly are physically and psychologically. Bullying by other people occurs when they harrass you consistenly and consciously. in other words, bullies actually know what they are doing and often, even though they know by right that it is wrong. Physical bully is mostly punching or hair-pulling, while psychological bully is often name-calling or teasing. Bully seems minor as adult thinks that it is just a bit of rough play. However, it is actually very serious as the effect it has upon the victims can be deathly. Some of the effects are losing self-confidence and becoming very emotional all the time.

The three girls that commited these inhumane acts towards their fellow schoolmate were very selfish and immoral of them. Moreover, the victim was their junior. Are not they a baunch of cowards and losers, ganging on a victim who was physically and mentally weaker than them? Their immature and unthoughtful actions surprised and left the whole country flabbergasted.

I was once a bully. When I was young, I often resort to fighting when I was offended in some way, even for an unreasonable reason such as a boy cutted my queue. I made up stories to friends and classmates to shun the poor boy out of vengence and my side-kicks an I often team up to tease or even beat him up when he was alone. I remembered crystal clear that he had low-self esteem not long after, and tend to become red-headed occasionally at every small little things. Now thinking back, I regretted and felt shameful of my meanful and thoughtless actions.

After I came to Singapore, ironically, I was able to witness one of my close friend became an easy prey of bully. He used to be a cheerful and worried-free boy, but after entering one of the prestigious secondary school on Singapore, and thanks to the consistent name-calling and humiliating, he became a totally different person. Unfortunately, after many complains to the teachers by his fellow classmates, the deal was still undone. In fact, it got worse. Even now, currently in Secondary 3, he became emotionally weak and his grades were decreasing evidently. His results got a full effect from being bully, so did his live.

Bully is actually very hard to avoid, 90% of the pupils surveyed said that they were bullied before, making a person who was bullied before to be a bully later too. Even when measures were taken by the schools or parents to promote anti-bully practices in the UK, bully cases had actually increased and got worse. It becomes a phenomenom, and it is increasing rapidly. We can only hope for friends and family to be more understanding with the victims, and not making him feel even more inferior that he already felt.

Please, if you are a bully, please remember the golden rule of ethic:
"Do not do unto others as you would expect they should do unto you"