Standing on a stage to speak to hundreds and thousands of people can be quite intimidating to most people, at least for first timers.
This is very different from giving briefing to a small group of people.
But such fear could be overcome by consistent practice and training with proper guidance and coaching.
However, for me, I didn’t have such luxury and good fortune to have any mentor to teach me public speaking or delivering rally speeches.
My first “rally speech” was made in 1985, when I was first contesting for Student Councilor in front of the grand assembly of my fellow peers. Well, I have a written script but when it was my turn to step up to stage to give my speech, I decided to put that piece of paper away because my hand was shivering and that piece of paper with my script would make it too obvious!
Nevertheless, I must have performed well as I was elected as the Vice Chairman.
Although I became the Chairman after the original Chairman was forced to step down due to some reasons, but I wasn’t really having a good time with the disciplinary masters. By then I realized I am a rebel at heart even though my look might be deceiving as someone who will “follow orders”! I resigned just shortly after.
It was because of this bad experience I had in my secondary school that I decided to refrain from participating in Student Council during my JC days as well as NUSSU.
But my father had planted in me the seed of paying more attention to current affairs from daily reading of newspapers and I could say that I have more current affairs knowledge than most of my peers while they knew more about fashions and pop culture than I do.
I have watched almost all the important speeches LKY had made during the 80s and 90s, marveled at his skill of delivery even though I didn’t agree with many things he had said.
I had initially selected double Maths, Double science with computer science as my core subjects in JC. Although I have great strength in Maths but I lack the interests in it.
I made a bold switch of subjects after 3 months in HCJC, dropping Further Maths and took up a totally new subject Economics.
It was the best decision I have made in my life although I suffered bad results for the first 6 months. My initial substandard results didn’t deter nor demoralize me at all but instead, I got more interested and intrigued by the economic theories. I have even spent unnecessary time in library reading up “out of syllables” topics on economics.
Economics coupled with my indulgence in current affairs had given me a great foundation in understanding politics.
My subsequent study in Philosophy during NUS 1st year has further nurtured me in Logic 101 as well as Philosophical perspectives on social ethics and morality.
No one could become a politician overnight. It has to go through a long process of nurturing not only with certain essential knowledge but also the important skill sets.
At this stage of my life, I am trying my best to provide the necessary knowledge and training of skill sets to the next generations of potential political candidates which most politicians would not share.
Critiques of various policies are easy to make but to understand in-depth of the rationale, especially economic rationale of policy stance will need a lot more efforts.
To read a scripted speech on rally stage isn’t difficult but to DELIVER a speech effectively will need training and coaching, apart from past experiences.
Some people are natural speakers and some are not, just like me. But with consistent efforts in learning, practice and coaching, I believe most people could eventually give a decent speech on a rally stage.
Of course there are still things which cannot be taught but can only be self enlightened.
But at the very least, I would have done whatever I can in my capacity to contribute to the process of nurturing Democracy.
Goh Meng Seng
