Singapore Democrats

keep up the good work comrades. Go engage the young at the polytechnics and the universities. Fill the void in their lives and organise to help make Singapore a better place for all. Lets start early to reclaim our beloved nation.

Thanks for a well written article, Khalis. The self-confidence that you exude is very warming. You are correct to say that:

"No organisation, be it political, sports or even in the arts, that does not have a long-term plan can be a solution. A long-term plan is to invest in today's youth, with the aim of creating tomorrow’s thinkers and leaders that will benefit their organisations or groups."

I had previously written up on the six functions of political parties. I'll reprodoce it here:

1. recruitment of political leaders

2. aggregation of interests

3. formulation of public policy

4. integration and mobilization of the mass public

5. structuring the vote

6. organization of government

Basically, the above means that the normal and proper activities of political parties can be described by one or more of the above descriptors.

In this post, I want to focus on the first function, that of recruiting political leaders.

In most countries, it is not only potential future leaders that political parties go out to recruit, but a genearl membership that can be involved in other activities like administration, organization, voluteering etc. Indeed, the bulk of party membership is purely to raise funds - because annual membership costs and members are asked to renew their memberships - and people are willing to do just that.

That is why I have a slight disagreement with your statement:

Re: "Before getting involved, one should understand, or at least have a basic knowledge, of politics."

I reckon that it is the other way round.

It's very positive that bright young Singaporeans like Khalis are coming forward to stand together with Dr Chee and the SDP.

Anyway Robox, I liked your expansion and explanation of the first of the 6 functions you stated. I would love to read your explanations on the rest of the points.

Sorry Khalis, but I think I will make some adjustments to my post.

I wrote, "I reckon that it is the other way round", but you would probably have intutively felt the rigidity in that statement. Here's my newly adjusted view:

1. It's not a large percentage of people in any society who actually have an understanding of politics; it's far worse in a depoliticized environment like Singapore's, even where basic knowledge is concerned or where it forms part of a person's academic background. (This is not to say that Singaporeans don't know about specific issues because they do.) Thus to make either interest in or a knowledge of basic politics, while very desirable, a prerequsite for membership would be very limiting.

Instead, there could be instruction on basic politics and political processes provided to new members within the SDP from time to time. (Or the more committed could take a university-level introductory course in political science by correspondence and I should be able to provide information on that.)

2. I won't go on at any length here because I have already mentioned it in my post but there are other things that members of a political party could be doing. (I neglected to mention things like fund-raising and research in that post.)

In other words, both of us are right; we just need to combine the two priorities.

Thus in any recruitment exercise/membership drive, it would become very important to infoorm prospective mebers of the full range of things that they can be involved in if they don't want to pursue a career in politics. Indeed, from comments I have read online, it does seem a ver common perception that if one joins a political party, s/he is gearing up to run for elections at some point. Nothing could be further from the truth in a fully functioning party system, and I hope that working towards the objective of a fully functioning party system is part of the vision that YD has.

Seelan, I'll start working on a write up on theother 5 functions. Glad that the first was of some use.