I heard a good question on the television today. It was on a trailer for a current event show, solicitating views from the public. The question was, to paraphrase, why do the government spend so much to commission new national day songs/spiffy mtvs each national day? Does doing so help singaporeans feel more "singaporean" and aid in building nationalism?

Interesting thought, especially while i was in the midst of copying out big copies of national day songs lyrics for my school national day celebrations. I think this nationalistic trend of singing national day songs such as "count on me singapore", "stand up for singapore" started back in the early 80s, when nation building was of paramount importance, in order to gel the increasingly detached population. I wonder if it worked. Or has it been made to become a habit, an expectation that we will have a new song each year henceforth?