National Service Dodging

Recently, there has been a new trend going on: the cat and mouse game between Singapore’s Defence force and the young and energetic citizens that are due to serve National Service. In this game that is somewhat similar to modern dodgeball, the result is almost always that the citizen leaves the country and is not allowed to ever set foot on Singapore soil again, or else that he lands his butt in jail.

Perhaps the main reason of all the dodging of National Service, NS, is because of the difference in viewpoints between the Ministry of Defence and the 18 year olds. While the officers and sergeants in the army feel that it is the duty of every Singaporean to serve his homeland by learning jungle warfare and wilderness survival, and ultimately protect the citizens of Singapore when a war happens, if it ever will. This viewpoint is contrasted one hundred and eighty degrees by what the dodgers of NS think. In their opinion, NS is another useless skill much like Home Econs that is and is going to be useless and obsolete in the peaceful world we have ahead of us. In the past, whenever superpowers were not happy with a particular country, they would call war, but now, to solve international issues, they form conventions and summits that will effectively and peacefully solve all the political differences that different nations have, and furthermore, it is not like Singapore would ever openly oppose those superpowers, but maybe only Malaysia over water supply problems.

Therefore, with this difference in mindset, it is no wonder why so many of the young Singaporeans decide to dodge NS by all means. I myself think that pursuing other things in life such as overseas education and finding a job is tons more important than learning how to assemble a rifle and getting a medal for being the fastest to do so. After all, what are the main skills learnt in NS? Camaraderie, Physical Fitness, Psychological Strength, Responsibility. Carefully thinking, which one of these cannot be learnt somewhere else? This is the reason why many people think that NS is something that is not required for life, and while the main attracting point of NS in the past is duty to serve the nation, we all know how much that applies to the new self-centred and politically apathetic generation.

Due to all the problems, solutions must be created to tackle the problem of dodging of NS. I personally do not think that the hard way of increasing penalties on those who dodge NS is a feasible way, as it involves human rights and it is the right of every individual to decide for himself. So, a possible and effective solution would be to split NS into different aspects, where not only painting faces and shooting targets counts as National Service, but also practicing medicine, creating enterprises, doing volunteer work and so on. In all these activities, most of the skills learnt in NS can be learnt, and the time we put to learn obsolete skills such as shooting targets can be put to better use such as learning how to serve our own people. Therefore, the problem of dodging NS can then be alleviated.