I read of another gang fight in Singapore, this time, it was a group of gangsters pouncing on another group of youths in the Bukit Batok/Gombak area.
Gang fights in Singapore has hogged the limelight lately after a youth was killed in a “staring” dispute at Downtown East.
I think these gangsters are mostly delinquent youth who have joined gangs or triads because such association would lend a touch of power or superiority to them; most of these youths do not fare well in studies and suffer from a low self-esteem. Gang-links seem to give some little achievement to these youths that they crave.
Much has been said of the difficulty of these gangsters leaving gangs but I would also think that sometime it is hard for youths to say no to joining gangs.
Youth who join gangs come mostly from an environment where there is generally a low self-esteem among the youths. Such places include environments like the classes where the students are being grouped together due to their lower academic standing. Imagine if you are a dog being placed in a class of wolves, the dog would be cajoled to join the gang of wolves to hunt for preys else it would be bullied by sitting on the opposite side of the fence. The same is true for obedient boys and girls being placed in some Singapore classes or schools. It is either peer pressure to join the gangs or being bullied or taunted if you do not join the majority. I learnt of this experience from one of my loved ones.
I believe the Singapore police should step up patrols in all the neighbourhoods after 10 pm and pre-empt all such gang fights before they occur. I still recall back in my secondary school days when my friend and I were being “booked for nothing” (just loitering around in school uniforms) by some policemen in the afternoon during our outing at Pasir Ris Park. It was a routine check as the policemen claimed.
And I would also suggest film-makers stop making triad-related movies. The scenes of these movies: killing, hacking, whacking people are of bad influence to young impressionable minds.
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