“Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.” – Jesus of Nazareth

This post is curtesy of my favourite Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC, who shared my last posting “http://beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com/2019/11/system-failure.html,”with his friends. He told me that I was “biased” in favour of the Indian expat community in Singapore because I had received money from them.

I was tickled, both by the remark and by the implications. I openly disclosed my relationship with the community and I don’t think my favourable experiences with the community should have detracted too much from what I expressed.

I also work on the principle that it’s only natural for me to have a favourable view on the community that has provided me with the good things that I have enjoyed. I ask myself whether anyone would have thought differently had I defended the British or American communities instead?

Perhaps it’s just me but I am unable to see how “foreigners,” particularly dark-skinned Asians have damaged my chances in life and I am from a demographic that should feel “displaced,” the “open-door” policy that Singapore had in 2004.

Statistically, I should be burning with resentment against the people who have moved to my country and displaced me. I am a graduate (from the apparently highly respected Goldsmith’s College, University of London) and I belong to the ethnic majority. I never got a plush job in a big company that one assumes my qualifications would have gotten me. I don’t understand how my personal situation is anyone else’s issue other than mine.

It was this simple, when I couldn’t find a job in my chosen field after I left my first job after 5-months in the 2001 recession, I decided to employ myself. A friend from the UK advised me that rather than spend money on searching for an agency to work for, I might as well go and get the money from the client directly.  So, with only four months of work experience, I went to get my own job.

Self-employment is tough. Employees tend to forget that that the business process is larger than their particular scope. An employee merely does his or her job and gets a cheque. However, a self-employed person needs to get the job, do the job and get paid. While there are “windfalls,” there are more moments of poverty.

I had ten-years of struggle and I’ve managed to stabalise my income and financial situation by balancing part-time jobs with side hustles. However, I remember the years of struggle with a certain amount of pride. There were jobs where I was compared favourably with multinationals in the USA (classic line being  “You did more for us than …….in the USA).

When I look back to those moments, I remember the people who gave me work. It started with a great Tamil chap called Raymond, who was the regional operations director for Polaris. Raymond and I would have lunch on a monthly basis. He’d ask how I was doing, then think of something and a few days later, Raymond would call with a job. It wasn’t a princely sum but it was a job that money in my pocket.

When Raymond left Polaris, I worked with Supriyo, who recommended me to his alumni associations, which got me the jobs with the Indian Institutes of Technology and Management respectively (IIT and IIM). When I met the IIM group, I was told, “You don’t need to sell yourself, Supriyo has already done that.”

So, it was the Indians who gave me work. They were there for me when I needed it. By contrast, “my people” were nowhere when I needed work and money. I didn’t have the “respectability” of a big agency behind me.

With a few notable exceptions, “my people” wouldn’t give me a chance. This was brought home to me in 2013, when I was invited to pitch for a government related job. I didn’t get the job, but the fact that I was even invited to pitch was an achievement. I later learnt that my chance came from a man who was born in India, who promoted my name passionately. The Singapore born chairman of that organization had thought of me as “That Blogger.” The man born in India had to stress “He Delivers.”

So, while I understand that everyone wants to have a job in order to feed their families, I find it very hard to internalize and understand the resentments that “My People,” have against the “darkies” for stealing “their” jobs. Where were “My People,” when I was struggling in a way that wasn’t a threat to anyone fighting for a spot in the corner office.

I’m not the only person with this experience. I checked with one of my juniors who had started his own agency. His first big break came from someone from somewhere else. This wasn’t limited to the PR industry. I checked with a liquidator (who for the sake of full disclosure, hired me for five-years) and his first big break came from someone from somewhere else.

“My People,” complain that the “foreigners” are “helping their own kind.” They complain that they’re being shut out from the plush jobs in multinational firms and so on. Yet, when they’re in a position to give a shot to someone struggling against multinationals, they preferred to support the multinationals (For the record, I am not against multinationals, including the ones I took jobs from and lost jobs to). There’s always going to be a limited supply of opportunities from the “big players,” of any industry. However, the opportunities increase when you have people willing to do something for themselves – some of those people may grow into people that can hire others.