SINGAPORE, Feb 18 — Six Singaporeans have banded together for a ground-up initiative to bring their countrymen closer, with plans for visits to boys’ and girls’ homes, and schools as part of their activities.

Headed by television personality and former 987FM radio deejay Divian Nair, the initiative known as “We Are Majulah” saw a video it posted online recently gaining traction on social media, with some netizens praising the move, while others dismissed it as fluff.

The eight-minute video, I Will Not Die For Singapore, calls on citizens of the Republic to reflect on what it means to be Singaporean. It went viral after it was posted on the group’s Facebook page on Total Defence Day on February 15.

As of yesterday, the video had been viewed over 400,000 times and accumulated over 10,000 shares.

Nair, 28, said he started thinking about his Singaporean identity and about a unifying principle that binds the citizens of a country, after he was asked by an American this question: “Would you die for your country?”

“I began a search for one (unifying principle), until one night during supper, one of my team members, Hafiz, brought up the word ‘Majulah’... It was at that moment that everything fell to place in my head and (I) knew that was exactly the bridge we needed to create that unifying principle,” said Nair.

Apart from Nair, the other team members are Muhammad Hafiz, Leon Kleinman, Arun Karthik Visvalingam, Samantha Gabrielle De Mello and Lee Yao Cheng. They have all been assigned different tasks, from filming, writing and editing materials for their campaign, and administrative tasks.

Of the “We Are Majulah” video going viral, Nair said: “We are shocked, more than anything, at how far it went. We were probably thinking to ourselves that a good result would be maybe 20,000 to 30,000 views after one day.” Instead, it garnered 360,000 views within 24 hours.

Nair felt that the video attracted a lot of attention because the question posed in the video — “Would you die for your country?” — “forces people into a place where they feel like they have to decide”.

He added that the group is looking at the comments made by netizens about the video, including “the worst of the worst”.

“The amount of effort some people have taken to construct their opinions around it (the video) — it just shows how much time and effort they’ve invested in a topic like this.

“... We don’t think it’s negative at all that people think it’s (the video) fluff... It’s their honest opinion and we value them so much,” Nair added.

Apart from planning visits to schools, as well as boys’ and girls’ homes, to motivate young Singaporeans, the group also hopes to launch a counter on the “We are Majulah” website next month.

Visitors will get to increase the counter each time they agree with the title “I will live for Singapore” and click on the button, “majulah”.

When asked how the group would measure whether its campaign to unite Singaporeans has been a success, Nair said they would avoid using quantitative measures traditionally associated with campaigns and marketing strategies.

“The campaign in itself is quite unique in what it offers — because it’s not a direct, tangible product... I think one of the more concrete ways that we actually want to look at is to see the results from a micro perspective…”

For example, the group hopes that the campaign will eventually come to a point “where you sit down, order a kopi siu tai and say ‘Majulah!’ to the person who serves you, and he or she says ‘Majulah’ back”, said Nair. — TODAY