Inuka is NOT leaving!! YAY!!!!!!!!!

Heard the news recently? Inula, our friendly locally born Singaporean polar bear is not moving anymore!

I am so glad to hear it! I was so afraid that Inuka's mom was going to die in the 1/3 of a year that I am gone from Singapore so I specially made a trip down to the zoo, just in case it was the last time I ever saw him.

I am so glad that the zoo decided to listen to the opinion of the public and allow Inuka to stay. Apparently 67% of the public hoped to see Inuka remain in Singapore, from a poll done recently.

On a more serious note, I can't believe how the Singapore Zoo could actually seriously consider sending Inuka away from Singapore to go and live in Germany where his dad came from. Inuka is Singaporean for goodness sake! Simply because he is now a misfit in the zoo's ideal of a Tropical Rainforest theme, Inuka being a polar bear therefore has to leave? What on earth are we signalling to the younger human Singaporeans of our generation? That we must all fit into this glove that has been set out for u, and that we would have no place in this society if we were deemed as a deviant misfit? Is there no longer freedom to be different?

And if a polar bear in the Tropics is unsuitable and an obvious misfit, then isn't a green polar bear in Germany a misfit as well? Is there then no place for poor Inuka?

Worst, isn't it completely cruel to tear Inuka away from his birthplace shortly after the death of his mother? Think about it. If we applied the human emotional aspects to Inuka, our Singaporean polar bear, then consider this.

You spend the last few weeks of her life with your mother. Happy, content. You see that her health is failing. She is steadily growing weaker and somehow you know that her time draws near. One morning, you wake up and seeing your mother still asleep, you gently nudge her as you always do. Unlike every other time where she opens her sleepy eyes and yawns a huge yawn, this time she remains motionless. Her body is still warm, but slowly and surely, it is growing colder and stiffer.

Then it dawns on you. Mother is dead. She has gone to the nether regions to leave you alone. You turn to your best friend for comfort and your guardian for advice. Instead of offering you a comforting shoulder, they tell you, it is time to leave.

"Leave this place," they tell you. "Go to your aunt in Germany, you will be happier there." You are surprised, in shock even, and without further ado, they take your silence as consent, and without your knowledge, you are packed off in a cab, onto a plane, with no friends, no comfort, thrown into a distant land, unwanted, unloved and perhaps even forgotten.

Poor Inuka, that would have been his plight in distant Germany if the plans of the Singapore Zoo had gone through.

Thankfully, Inuka is now safe, home where he belongs. A green polar bear in a tropical garden zoo!