Special needs and white horses
In light of the minor kerfluffle over the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum (wah! Now I can boast that Mr Lee Kuan Yew visited my uni!), I decided to shed some light on something most of us on campus are aware of, but never really paid attention to. (For more info on the kerfluffle, go here.)
There is a guy in my year, my faculty. He is an albino, so I bet everyone on campus has noticed him at least once. We in the Arts fac have grown used to him. He has poor vision, so he has to sit up front during lectures. Not just in the front row of seats, but at the table normally used by lecturers (although in this age of slideshows, the table is quite redundant). I usually sit up at the back so I don’t really come close to him, but last Tuesday I arrived late for my lecture and got a seat near the front.
As a result of his poor vision, this guy has the lecture notes printed out for him in a large font. And if there are PowerPoint slides, they’re printed for him one to a page, while the rest of use generally use 4 or 6 to a page. This probably means that one set of lecture notes for him, for one lecture, is equivalent in terms of paper to what we have for half the semester.
He is (from what I have heard) also autistic. This probably explains why he doesn’t really mix around with others. I have nothing against autistic people. I have known a few. Although their behaviour can be sometimes disruptive, I accept it anyway. And this guy has a milder form, so his language skills are quite alright. (Someone please correct me if I’m wrong in thinking that autistic kids generally don’t learn to speak very early or very well.)
Sometimes in the lecture he’ll just ask the lecturer a question straight out of the blue. (We don’t do that here. Lectures are for sitting through quietly.) Then the whole lecture hall laughs. I don’t really know what they’re laughing at. Is it because his behaviour is slightly inappropriate, in our context? Or is it because his questions sometimes are quite trivial?
There’s a third reason they could be laughing. Any Singaporean reading this post will already have recognised who the albino is. You see, he isn’t just an albino in university. He also happens to be the current Prime Minister’s son. And the grandson of Singapore’s Founding Father. Perhaps the locals feel some resentment at what they perceive to be preferential treatment, as he is somewhat a ‘white horse’ (a term used in the Army to describe sons of VIPs going through national service). Never mind the fact that (or perhaps because) he never served NS, the resentment of the locals is still there. So they laugh, because that is as close as they will ever get to laughing at the Lee dynasty.
As an outsider, I don’t know what it’s like to live under a pseudo-democracy where one family holds the power. It does seem that NUS is going out of its way to serve the needs of a white horse. But read the above again, and think: Is he getting all the extras because of who he is, or is NUS being special-needs friendly? They are just making his academic life more comfortable and accessible, the same way they accommodate wheelchair users by providing ramps and lifts. He couldn’t help being born an albino to a powerful father. We can’t change the fact, but we can learn to view people for who they are, instead of whose son they are. Don’t blame the son for the sins of the father (or grandfather).
It may seem easy for me to say this, because after all I am a foreigner and I will never have to forgo casting my vote. But I am also campaigning for greater awareness and acceptance of the ’special’ people in our midst. (I don’t like that word, it’s a bit condescending, but it’ll do.)
Number of times a phone rang during lecture: 4
Leave a Comment
Trackback Address Feed for this Entry