Life – Fenced Protection Against The Waters

Posted by kairospix (Singapore, Singapore) on 9 August 2007 in Landscape & Rural and Portfolio.

This is a shot of a rest spot along one of the nature trails that one can walk along the MacRitchie Reservoir in Singapore.

Here we see a fenced protection against the waters.

As I reflected on this shot I’m reminded that sometimes in life you may need to ensure that you have some fence to protect you or else you will be in danger.

Forty-two years ago today, 9th August 1965, Singapore became an accidental nation. Accidental because we never had ambitions to be an independent nation knowing full well that being just a tiny island with no natural resources and scarce land it is very hard to survive on our own perhaps maybe even suicidal to try to be an independent sovereign nation. We are that tiny that someone once nicknamed us the Little Red Dot because we were that small that on the world map we are just represented by a little red dot.

Being a small little fish in a sea of many bigger fishes made us pretty vulnerable. So I guess it made a lot of sense that 42 years ago besides tackling creation of jobs and housing, defence was a very high priority since the British Army (we were a British colony) would likely pull out in due time. When that happens we would be in the “mercy” of other powers.

So with much foresight and fortitude Singapore’s first Defence Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee helped build up our own citizen armed forces known as the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) today. Every able-bodied male citizen when they turned 18 would have to undergo what we call the National Service and spend the next 2 to 2½ years trained to serve as a full-time soldier. After those years we go back to civilian life but continue to go back to our military unit at least once a year for military exercises to make sure we are always operationally ready to defend our country. So we are given the name Operationally-Ready National Servicemen.

It’s true that our armed forces is tiny compared to other nations but I always remember the words our first Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Rajaratnam, who said that although our SAF is tiny we must have it so that should any foreign powers with a bigger armed forces intend to poke their fingers into our sovereignty, they will think twice because they know that if they put their finger in they will get a one big nasty bite from our tiny armed forces. :)

I guess it made a lot of sense to have our own armed forces as so to protect ourselves against any unwelcomed and unreasonable intrusions so as to ensure equality, peace, prosperity and progress for all regardless of race, language or religion.

Happy 42nd Birthday to Singapore!

p/s For those interested in viewing the Singapore's National Day Parade over the internet go to this link here.

Camera - Canon Powershot G1
Lens - Canon 7.0 - 21.0mm (approx. 35 - 105mm)
Capture date - 13 Nov 2004
Aperture - f 4.5
Shutter speed - 1/500 sec
Shooting mode - aperture priority
Exposure bias - 0EV
Metering mode - Center-Weighted Average
ISO - 100
Focal length - 14.6mm (approx. 73mm)
Stabilization - Hand-held
Lighting? - Outdoor Natural Light
Flash - Not fired
Post-processing? - PS LRoom processed
Cropped? - Yes

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