Winning Loyalty

I am, what you’d call a late entrant in the area of watching Korean dramas.  With the exception of a few meals at Korean restaurants and enjoying the odd bit of eye candy of Korean girl groups, I was never into Korean soft culture until the circuit breaker, when I found myself with sometime and easy access to Netflix.

One of my most recent discoveries was a series called “Whisper,” which tells the story of an honest judge and policewoman who team up to bring down a very corrupt but very powerful law firm that has built up its business in the arms trade. The most interesting character in this drama is the head of this law firm - main villain. He is the son of a “slave” who built an empire through brains and hard work. The man is a spider in a web of connections with those with power. If he wasn’t a character in a Korean drama, he’d probably be on the cover of Forbes Magazine.

The crux of the entire series is the scene when he teaches his daughter how to gain the loyalty of person to the extent that the person will do literally anything for them. His advice is as follows:

1. Take Away EVERYTHING they have;
2. Help them climb up when they reach rock bottom

If you look at this advice, you’ll realise that the man in a genius. Who wouldn’t want to be loyal to the people who helped them when they were down?

Every bit of “feel-good” and “self-help” wisdom tells you that the people who really care about you, are the ones who are there for you when you are down and out and are unable to offer yourself, let alone anyone else anything of any possible value. The human brain is such that once we get out of the proverbial doldrums, we’re bound to think better and act more favorably to those who bothered speaking to us when we were down.

The villain in Whisper is correct in his second point. We are inevitably loyal to those who helped us when we were down. What most of us tend to don’t do is to question the first piece of advice, especially when it comes to our “friends” who are in positions of power and influence. I mean, who on earth would even question the person who was there for us when we were at our lowest point?

Yet, its an important piece of advice, especially when you apply it to the current global economic disaster caused by the current pandemic. Most of us have reached or are reaching low points in our personal finances. Jobs and other sources of income are hard to come by, yet bills like mortgages need to be serviced. Nobody has any clue as to how when an economic recovery will happen and even then, it will be sometime before any of us see a recovery in our personal finances.

In such situations, we’re bound to accept a helping hand regardless of where it comes from. If you look at “talking points” and conversations that people had before the circuit breaker in April, it was on the topic of government assistance.

Singapore’s government was perhaps one of the more sophisticated in dealing with this. The government announced in February that was preparing for an economic slowdown and proceeded to make sure that the public knew that it was asking the president permission to draw down from the reserves (which is a “given” in practice as the president is “selected” by the government). There were also great pains to announce there were an unprecedented four budgets, which were designed to help us get through the economic storm.

It was only at the end of June, when the government decided to call for a snap election and it was only after the election that the government announced that the economy had been in a double-digit recession. You have to hand it to the government to timing things well.  The first payout came in April, while we were getting used to life under lockdown. The second was in June, a month before the election.

In fairness to the Singapore government, it’s not the only one to try and pull this off. Donald Trump’s biggest political stunt was to try and get the stimulus cheques sent out to have his signature. Think about it – you can say what you want about the man prescribing medications he has no business prescribing and mismanaging things because the feelings that matter are not the ones that you talk about but the ones you have when you look at that cheque and then look at your bills.

Politicians know that we’re less critical towards our “benefactors” in downturns. We’re in no position to start questioning sources of money, when the need to pay bills remains pressing and money is a scarce commodity. Who in their right mind is going to question the motives of the guy offering something that you need most?

The saying that we should always remember the people who helped us in hard times rings true. However, at the same time, it’s also important to remember how we got into the hard times and the role that our benefactors may have had in putting us there.

Don’t Cancel "Cancel Culture"

One of the most amusing things to come out of the Singapore General Election, comes from Singapore’s most (in)famous blogger, Ms. Wendy Cheng, who blogs under the name of Xiaxue, locked the blog that made her so famous. The story and the reasons for locking the blog that made her so (in)famous can be found at:

https://mothership.sg/2020/07/xiaxue-harassment-lawsuit/

You could say that I have jealousy issues when it comes to Ms. Cheng. Her daily readership is probably more than what I’ve achieved in a decade and while I struggle avoid being turned into a digit in office land so that I can blog without worrying about advertisers, Ms. Cheng earns from advertisers what I can only dream of from winning the lottery. It goes without saying that she is significantly better looking and I guess people would rather look at a young girl with a halfway decent figure than a tubby bald man. Call me a snob, but despite her “success,” she writes drivel designed to turn on the lowest common denominator or white men (who as a rule of thumb have strange taste in Asian Women)

Just as my fellow writers on TRemeritus and Independent Singapore take on the Singapore Government and its supporters, Xiaxue has famously taken on foreign workers for having the audacity to be on Orchard Road (because they might molest our girls – which in this case should read the Chinese variety) and the disabled (especially those who have the audacity to take issue with the able bodied taking what is theirs – things such as specially reserved parking lots. – Ms. Cheng even got herself published in the Today newspaper by writing a piece on the joy she got taking a piss in toilets reserved for the disabled.).

In short, Ms. Cheng is a little like a non-political version of Trump – awful but strangely addictive.  Even people who loath her can’t help reading the stuff she writes. Her commercial success is in part thanks to her awfulness. It draws people to her blog like flies to shit and traffic in turn leads to greater interest in advertisers.

Having said everything that I have just said about her, I think of Xiaxue as I do of Donald Trump -chemotherapy. Her very existence is actually representative of something good in Singapore – namely greater participation in the public discourse. When Xiaxue says something, people react – even if it is to take a view that is contrary to hers.

In Singapore, we’re a little obsessed with “harmony.” Sure, harmony is on balance, wonderful. However, when officialdom is given the power to define harmony, it becomes open to abuse. Harmony is often described as anyone who disagrees with the official version of what life should be – no matter how mild that disagreement may be.

I take myself as an example. I’ve been bashing out pieces for public consumption for the last decade or so. I don’t consider myself particularly extreme in any shape or form. Nor do I consider myself anti-establishment. I am, on the whole, quite OK with PAP as the government. I don’t think they’ve done enough to “lose elections.” However, I have disagreed with policies that various governments have come up with. I don’t think the government’s handling of Covid-19 was a disaster (immediate comparisons being with the US and Brazil) but I took issue with their handling of issues involving home based businesses and more importantly their refusal to take a closer look at foreign manpower.

Yet, despite not being terribly political, I have been told by close friends whom I’ve worked with that I am a “political writer” and “anti-establishment.” Why would that be? The problem here is the fact that I’ve disagreed with certain policies, made my stance relatively clear and therefore disrupted “harmony.”

The second problem with harmony is that it leads to complacency. When you don’t have problems to deal with, you don’t think. Life will be fine. I think of Mike Tyson, once the most fearsome boxer on the planet. In his biography, Mike Tyson admits that he took winning as the natural state of affairs to the extent that he never bothered to train. Buster Douglas on the other hand trained like a madman and so, Buster Douglas won. The same applies to harmony. Too much of it has unintended and unhealthy side effects.

Xiaxue is funnily enough healthy because she disrupts us from our harmonious slumber. She says something about migrant workers and we react. Suddenly, we start thinking about the issue, because she’s said something about it.   

While I generally don’t encourage mob rule, I also think that there’s something positive about cancel culture. I see cancel culture as a sign that people care enough to react to something. I know that there are arguments against cancel culture:

https://mothership.sg/2020/07/xiaxue-harassment-lawsuit/

However, I believe that cancel culture helps brands think. In Singapore, its been too easy for big brands to disregard opinions as irrelevant to the larger picture. I remember the Straits Times once ran a piece on how big brands didn’t need you the insignificant consumer. Cancel culture shows that this is not true. Consumers have the right and the power to tell brands who they want them to associate with. People do buy according to values and this can only be a force for good it forces brands to behave.

Xiaxue, will no doubt find a way to survive. While there are advertisers who will abandon her, there will be those who continue to support her.  While she may not be pleased with being on the wrong end of cancel culture, its clear that the good that she’s done for Singapore is being enhanced by her being part of cancel culture.

Where Do You Draw the Line when it comes to Basic Needs?

I’ve just blocked a former girlfriend from texting me. We had gotten along well enough and then Singapore’s Covid-19 circuit breaker measures came in. I could not keep in touch and then for reasons best known to her, she thought it was appropriate to send my daughter inappropriate messages. The kid told her to stop and after running into her, I told her to stop harassing the kid. Despite that, she persisted in sending me messages about how she would invite my daughter to her office for drinks and would come to the house to meet the kid. At that point, both the kid and I thought enough was enough and so she was blocked.

I’m made to think of this incident because of the recent arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell on the charge of providing underage sex-slaves to the disgraced financier, Jeffrey Epstein. As well as being excessively rich and having a preference for young girls, Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell (I’m old enough to remember the yacht that was named after her) counted the rich and influential, including the current Occupant of the White House and the Duke of York, as part of their social circle.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/07/21/heres-every-time-donald-trump-and-ghislaine-maxwell-have-been-photographed-together/#66f4691a183d 

The case of Mr. Epstein and his associates raises one of the oldest and most common issues faced by people all over the world – namely the issues of sex, power and money and in the pursuit of sex, power and money, are there any issues of where we draw the line.

As I’ve confessed in previous postings, I’m a self-professed cad. I hate the idea of being exclusive to anyone (a case of why stick to one when there are so many) and I can’t help to look at the nubile things that walk past me when I’m in the office area (Singapore’s financial district). Looking at a woman’s body and being able to enjoy a woman’s body is like getting to look at a piece of art and enjoying a tasty meal at the same time

My only defense to saying everything that I’ve just said is that I’m probably no different from most heterosexual men. The need to get laid is one of the few recognized human needs that transcends race, religion and so on (as a Jewish architect said – “My dick isn’t racist”).

However, human nature is such that the simple male need to release sperm is complicated. While the male brain is wired to release sperm, the female brain is wired to ensure that any offspring she produces are well taken care of. Hence, while men look for nubile young things, women tend to look for signs of strength and stability or as my mother would argue – you want the guy who will be hanging around once the kid comes out. Hence, the history of the human sexual experience has been about women trading their bodies in return for men providing for the well being of them and their families. In prehistoric times, this meant the guys who got laid were inevitably those who could bring home the biggest share of the kill.  These days, it inevitably means the guys who earn big bucks.

It is socially acceptable and many cases a status symbol for an older man to have a much younger companion. Say what you like about Donald Trump but having Melania by his side has not harmed his social standing. By comparison, Emanuel Marcon gets a few funny looks for the fact that he married a much older woman and has stepchildren who are his age. My Uncle Richard, who was a cad of the highest order, used to tell me, “No such thing as a good-looking woman over 25 and make sure your next wife is half your age.”

It’s even more acceptable in Asia, where levels of poverty are high. Asia’s red-light districts are filled with young girls hopping to escape poverty and a girl who marries a much older (and often Western) man is considered a hero for finding a route out of poverty for her family.
I get the attraction trade off here. Which man doesn’t want to wake up next to a hot bod? Which woman wants to reject the guy who can provide a good home for her? As an old friend used to say of Prince Charles, “What man kicks out a beautiful blonde for an old hag?”

Yes, I get the attraction and the trade-off. Yet, despite that I also believe that there have to be limits. There needs to be mutual respect and both parties need to be able to able to understand what they’re getting into.  Hence, I get repulsed when I hear of a “trade in children.”

I take myself as an example. As I get older, I notice physical attraction more and the issue of “age-appropriate” seems to matter less. My main defense is usually, I’m not the first 40 plus something to look at young nubile things with a certain amount of lust.

Yet, I remind myself that I am first and foremost a father of a young woman and my initial thoughts always go back to the question of who do I want her to find in life. If she’s meant to find love and happiness with an older man, then I won’t stop it but do I want her to be the plaything of an old man? The answer is clearly no and that always brings me back to normalcy. I become conscious that my behavior might affect her perceptions on what a man should be. Hence, while I might find a younger girl attractive at a glance, I remember that I’m dad before anything else.

Mr. Epstein, the Occupant and the Duke crossed a line in their pursuit of young, underage girls. There’s something not quite right about people with power, money and influence using children for their own needs. I understand the need to get laid, I’ve been guilty of succumbing to that need on too many occasions. However, a line has to be drawn and people who have said no and are unable to give consent should be protected with the full extent of the law.

Tapping on the Diaspora

I mentioned that I met Professor Yu Wei Shin, nearly a month ago in my piece “I KNOW I AM ATTRACTIVE – I JUST DON’T KNOW WHO I AM ATTRACTIVE TO.” (15 July 2020), via my Linkedin feed. Professor Yu had mentioned that he had read my pieces on TRemeritus and that he was an ex-Singaporean. My brief acquaintance with Professor Yu got me thinking about who these ex-Singaporeans are and whether we as a nation could tap onto people like him. I’ve invited him to give us a glimpse into his life and his feelings towards Singapore. In the brief glimpses that I’ve had of the man, it is clear that Singapore is failing to make the full use of our diaspora. Here is a well-educated man, who is building a high-tech product in his later years (A point I stress as Singapore is a place that considers you ancient and useless after 45).

The Professor has given me a short blurb, which I hope you will enjoy.

Tang Li – Singapore 20 July 2020

According to reports in Singapore’s Parliament, there are around 1,000 Singaporeans give up their citizenship every year. Many of those who have given up their citizenship and moved elsewhere are well-educated and found success in their new homes. Many also yearn to return to Singapore to share their accumulated knowledge, skills and experience, to semi-retirement, which they would do so at no cost to the tax payer.

Unfortunately, our current immigration system does not recognize that there might be a diaspora out there who could do many things for Singapore. Once you leave and renounce your citizenship, you are deemed to be like every other foreigner and if you wish to return to Singapore to work, you need to apply for an Employment Pass. In my experience, this is a discriminatory process. Ex-citizens are regarded as “traitors” for having the audacity to give up their citizenship and the system seems to prefer those who never had ties to Singapore coming in. I take myself as an example, despite have two PhD’s and conducted ground breaking scientific trials, I was advised twice “Do not apply, and if you do, your application will be rejected.”

This is sad. I think of other countries that have prospered because they tapped on the skills, experiences and even capital of their diaspora. China, for example, tapped on the diaspora in its early stages of development. India has a system known as the “Persons of Indian Origin” (PIO) card, which makes it easier for anyone of Indian origin, regardless of passport to come and contribute something to India.

Why do most of us give up our citizenship? We do so for a variety of reasons and I believe that most, if not all, of us give up our citizenship as a last resort. However, our heart is still very much anchored in Singapore- a little red dot of their forefathers, and where they were born and spent many years growing up. 

In my case, my father is Singaporean, though he returned to China to die. I was born and grew up in Malaysia, went to New Zealand to study, worked, then immigrated to Australia to work, before coming to NTU to teach in 1984.   You could say Singapore got a good deal from me. None of my education was paid for by the Singapore tax payer and I came with a PhD and with 10 years heavy engineering industrial experience. Apart from my 19 years of lecturing, I was very active as town councilor (in charge of environment matters), presidents of learned societies and consultancy to SME's, PSA, Philips, Seagate, Mobil Oil, Mindef, MFA, CleanSeas,

I only applied for Australian citizenship because of my mother's dying wish and my wish is to return to SERVE SINGAPORE UNINTERRUPTED!

While I may have renounced my Singapore Citizenship, I’ve been able to contribute in the following ways:

1.     At 56, I studied Master of Occupational Therapy at the University of Sydny and then PhD (Medicine) at University of New South Wales, graduating at 60 years, so that I can help solve some of the chronic disorders of the elderly in Singapore (-- stroke, elderly falls, etc).

2.     Even before I graduated, I returned and conducted a major clinical trial for hip fracture prevention together with Tan Tock Seng Hospital, for several hundred HDB residents, under a Government grant, using Prof Cameron's hip protector invention (USyd).  He is the internationally renowned "Father of Hip Protector".

3.     From 2012-2016, I returned as Visiting Consultant at Nanyang Polytechnic, and conducted 3 major clinical trials with TTSH using my invention: Robotic Lower Limb Rehab System, for sub-acute and chronic stroke patients, and elderly falls prevention -- all very successful!

4.     Now, together with my PhD university mate Dr Wong (www.apppliedrobotics.com.au), and Nanyang Polytechnic, I am inventing a revolutionary wheelchair system that even the Brits have no solution. It will solve many of the social economic problems in Singapore and beyond, ease the manpower shortages in nursing homes and hospitals and create many skilled jobs in Singapore!

5.     Going forward, we plan to establish a virtual Disabled Mobility Technology Research Centre, combining the expertise of University of Wollongong in Australia and NYP. 

Singapore spends millions on educating and nurturing "foreign talents" in its education system. We work hard to attract expatriates from the West and India.  We should also not overlook people like me. We have the talent and the desire to serve. Why can’t you make it easier for us, people who have the established emotional connection to come back to contribute?

Incidentally, my father served in the British Navy to defend Singapore during the war and suffered PTSD, which lead to family violence and divorce! Also, two of my children were born in Singapore, and three of them attended primary and secondary schools in Singapore. It hurts to be told on twice, "do not apply, and if you do, your application will be rejected"???

Prof YU Wei Shin
PhD(Medicine)(UNSW), PhD(Mech ENgg)(Canterbury, (BE(Hons)
Sydney

The Value of a Token

During Singapore’s recently concluded General Election, I received a few notes from friends commenting about the lack of diversity amongst the ruling party’s candidates. While the ruling party did field candidates with Muslim sounding names, there were no noticeable Indian faces. To compound matters, the Deputy Prime Minister (or Prime Minister in-waiting) had said that the public was “not ready for a non-Chinese Prime Minister.” These words were repeated endlessly thus portraying the ruling party as a bastion of racial privilege.

Having lived as an ethnic minority in the UK for my formative years, I get the criticism of the ruling party’s lack of diversity in its candidates. When you are part of a minority, there’s something strangely appealing about being with and speaking with your own kind. In nearly a decade of living in the UK, London’s Chinatown always felt like a comfort zone. Although English is to all intents and purposes “my language” and my friends from that era of my life were all white Anglo-Saxons, there was something comforting about being with people who looked like me and hearing and communicating in something other than English.

However, as I’ve grown older and moved around more, I’ve come to question the value of having a “token” minority around. Do people of a different colour with a seat in a national legislature or on the board of directors make a country’s minorities more comfortable or business more appealing to different customers? If I take myself as an example, I was told that by my Western friends that I should brush up on my Chinese and become a bridge between East and West. However, if I look at myself objectively, I have to ask what type of bridge would I be. The only thing I have in common with most Chinese is the colour of my skin. While I can communicate in verbal Mandarin and Cantonese, I do so badly and I am Chinese illiterate (I communicate with Chinese via Google translate).

Instead of being a “bridge” between East and West, my real value was the fact that I was once an ethnic minority. The only time I get obvious delight from people is a professional setting is when I meet English lawyers and speak to them in a recognizable accent and understand that London is not the only part of the UK. Instead of being the bridge between the Occident and Orient, I gel most easily with people who don’t look like me – being able to discuss the value of Wasim Akram as a fast bowler or Sachin Tendulkar’s batting has proved to be invaluable from a commercial relationship building exercise.

If I look at my own experiences as an example, I have to question the value of tokens. What does the token this or that in the cabinet or on the board of directors actually done for their community that they are supposed to come from? Sure, there is an extreme of people feeling most comfortable with their own kind. Hence you have Chinese hiring Chinese, Indians hiring Indians and as an Australian friend pointed out, short people preferring to hire short people. I am a bald man who got hired by another bald man.

However, with tokens, the opposite is true. Chances are, they become so grateful to be part of what they perceive to be a “selective” group that once in the group, they do their best to ensure their own kind don’t get in. One merely has to observe how immigration officers of South Asian decent treat South Asians trying to enter the UK. It is, as one Englishman put it – a case of “drawing up the drawbridge.”

The most famous example of how a “token” ethnic minority has worked against her own community can be found in the form of Priti Patel, the British Foreign Secretary. The nicest thing about Ms. Patel is that she is pretty to look at.

Pretty but Not by Policy.

However, if you look at her actions, you will notice that they are anything but pretty. Ms. Patel, who is the daughter of Gujurati migrants, who came to Uganda after they were thrown out of Uganda (the people who made the Ugandan economy tick and would later reward Britain for generosity by doing for the British economy what they had done in Uganda), has famously been part of the “hard line” Brexit faction of the Conservative Party and has supported the scrapping of various human rights and environmental protection policies. Ms. Patel’s career in both the private and public sector have involved speaking up for the unsavory. She has helped her husband, a marketing consultant to the tax payers kitty and as Home Secretary, she has notoriously come up with the most hardline immigration policy the UK has ever implemented. By her own admission, her own parents would have never have been allowed to enter the UK.  A concurrence with my views on Ms. Patel can be found at:

https://www.quora.com/Is-Priti-Patel-the-most-attractive-UK-MP 

I am admittedly racist in favour of South Asians trying to enter the UK. In the years that I lived in the UK, these were the most hard-working group who created businesses and made a better life for themselves. The guys begging me for small change were never people of colour, they either opened corner shops or hustled to get you into a mini-cab. It was inevitably the native-born whites who hustled you for small change and got uppity when you refuse to give over the pennies that had been worked for. When someone like Ms. Patel comes with a hardline immigration policy and bleats on about “taking control of OUR borders,” I read it as “Enhancing racial superiority of the lay abouts who would happily murder people who look like me.” I think of a talk given by the British High Commissioner at a law firm that I’ve worked with. For the better part of the talk, she went on about how Brexit was great because we were “taking control of OUR borders.” Then, a White Anglo-Saxon asked her about the “Weaponising of Racism” and described how his wife, who is “non-white” was frightened about returning to the UK. Her Excellency didn’t seem to think that policies set by Ms. Patel were in anyway damaging to this man’s family.

In fairness to Ms. Patel, she isn’t the only ethnic minority who has made a career screwing her own kind. There’s Nikki Haley (Real Name - Nimrata Nikki Randhawa), former US Ambassador to the UN, who is the daughter of Sikh Immigrants (read – people who set up businesses and go to work). While Ms. Haley has been significantly more calculated in her policies than Ms. Patel, she’s also supported hard line policies on immigration, particularly those of the Trump Administration (read – tough fighters who run away when it comes to fighting people who can fight back)

Closer to home, there’s the example of Mr. Samy Velu, who was chairman of the Malaysian Indian Congress for 30-over years. Mr. Velu was very good at staying in public office. He was very good at ensuring that he and his cronies got very rich of public contracts (he was famous for collecting tolls). He was rather less good at doing anything for Malaysia’s Tamil population, who continue to be a kicked upon minority.

In Singapore, we have token ethnic minority ministers who have become very prominent for being, well good spokespeople for the establishment. I think of our often law and home affairs (apparently there’s no conflict of interest between making and enforcing laws), Mr. K. Shanmugaratnam, who accused to rappers from an ethnic minority of stirring racial tensions because they had the audacity to call out a tasteless add which involved someone from the ethnic majority painting his face brown.  It takes an ethnic minority to tell ethnic minorities to stay in their place – you are not allowed to get upset when the majority makes offensive remarks about you.

This isn’t just at the minister level. It’s always visible at immigration. Think of the South Asian immigration officers at any British port waiting to humiliate potential migrants from South Asia. I think of the time when I had a US Green card and wanted to snap it in half and fling it at the immigration officer. It was no coincidence that the officer in question was …..Chinese. In all my years of traveling to the US, I’ve never had a problem with anyone else.

It’s not just about race. It also applies to sex. For all of Donald Trump’s obvious sexism and bragging about sexual assault (grab them by the pussy), he was actually supported by an alarming number of women, who didn’t want another woman in power. Think about this, men will help women, particularly attractive ones. Put it crudely, we’ll do anything to have a woman consider us worthy as bed partners. The worst enemy of woman on the rise (particularly an attractive one), is another woman, who will inevitably view her as competition.

I believe in diversity. I think of places like London or New York, which stand out for economic vibrance, innovation and artistic creativity. Places like these tend to be diverse in more than one way. However, you can use tokenism to create diversity. You have to grow it from the bottom up. The token black, white, Asian, Latino, woman, homosexual etc, tends to do the opposite of create diversity. They’re there to ensure nobody takes their place as the only this or that in that position. Rather than worrying about more brown faces during an election, I’d prefer to hear more Yellow faces talking about giving Brown faces a fairer deal. Rather than a token woman on the board, how about more men promoting women. Tokens exist to enforce the status quo.

I remember an Indian security guard at my Dad’s condo many years ago. He actually took pride in explaining why it was correct that the company he worked for had a policy of not hiring Indians. If that doesn’t say it all, what does? 

I Know I am Attractive – I just don’t Know Who I am attractive to.

I remember when I first started going bald, my second stepfather (who happens to be bald) assured me that it was perfectly OK because, he said, “Women still love you.” I didn’t know what he meant and I never thought of myself as being particularly attractive in any sense of the word. Despite wanting to be known as the worst sort of cad, I’ve never actually had many women in my life. I’m unfortunately miles closer to Jimmy Carter, who only committed adultery in his heart than Bill Clinton who couldn’t stop committing it.

So, if you consider my history of being a man who wanted to be unquestionably attractive but lost hair at a young age, reading articles in the “gossip” press about how “bald men are more attractive,” was always a bit of boost to the ego. It was kind of a “gee, I have hope” type of feeling. However, as I got older, I suddenly realized that I was attractive, the question was more of, who was I attracting.

This has been a question that I’ve been asking myself lately, especially whenever it comes to this blog. I started the blog with no thought of where it would lead me. At the time, I started, the blog was more of a hobby. There was no particular focus of who I wanted to attract. My PR freelancing work had gotten a big boost from the Saudi Embassy job and I was being published regularly by Today (which paid commentary writers back in those days) and I also got paid for some of the work I did for Arab News. The blog was a place where I could place articles that the main stream did not publish and I didn’t think of what I wanted to call it – the original name was a misspelling and I figured that people would be interested enough in anyone who had the gut to have a crappy name in the public domain.

I never set out to “sell” myself as a blogger. I only noticed that I had an audience of sorts one fine day when I discovered that Google was tracking the analytics. Then I reached forty and was reminded on a few occasions that my working life span was getting shorter and I’d need to develop some form of intellectual property to earn me a few pennies as the income from actual work diminished. It was then that I took developing this blog a bit more seriously. It was, I guess the one thing I had been consistent at. I also remember my favourite litigator telling me that this was the way I would attract people like me to me.

So, the question is, who is like me? I don’t have a solid answer to that and I may never have. I also haven’t made pots of money. My advertising revenue is sad, I barely have enough for an ice cream at the end of the month. However, if I look at the people who have approached me through the blog and where the pennies have come from, I have an interesting snap shot.

Let’s start with the fact that I’ve actually had an offer to buy over the rights of two blog postings. The buyer is the owner of a small but dynamic law firm, run by a lawyer who takes great pride in being a lawyer for the small and medium enterprises. This is a lawyer who has at times struggled against the established order of his profession but instead of worrying that the approval of his fellow professionals, he prefers to focus on the most important people in any business – the customers and rather than focusing on the opinions of his profession, he’s trying to make life easier for the people who use his profession, as can be seen by his latest piece of intellectual property.

His philosophy towards the law is pretty similar to mine when it comes to public relations, advertising and promotions. Too many people in PR are obsessed with working for some multinational and the awards that they’ll win. For me, who cares if you’re employed by Hill & Knowlton or Webber Shandwick, when you could be doing things for the people who there are other people willing to pay you directly and the press people appreciate you for getting someone who could tell a good story.

My friend is far more successful than I am in his business but we have a similar philosophy and we share a dislike for people who think that kicking the crap of people that society neglects is part and parcel of life.

The other thing that I noticed were the numbers of the Ad Sense analytics. A glance at the readers and impressions by country, within the last week is as follows:

My primary audience remains Singapore and the people who help my ad revenue are from Singapore. Online advertising is primarily a numbers game and the money comes from where the most clicks come from, which in turn comes from where the most impressions (as in the number people looking at your page long enough to decide if they’re interested in the ads on the page) come from, which in turn comes from where the page views come from.

Makes sense that someone writing about Singapore would attract the most readers from Singapore and it goes without saying that I push my pieces to people in Singapore because this is where I’ll get the most traction.

What’s particularly interesting is the countries that come in next, which my case is the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. I have some family in America and Australia, though, with the exception of my thoughts on the Trump and Middle Eastern politics, most of what I write would be of little interest to anyone who has not lived in Singapore. Off the top of my head, I only know of one school friend living in New Zealand and nobody from Canada. Yet, these countries have been the most consistent in providing me with a source of readers.

So, who in these countries would want to read about the socio-politics of Singapore? I suspect, its former Singaporeans, who still have some interest in what goes on in their “country of origin.”

I don’t have any hard evidence for this. Google Analytics does not reveal deep details of the people who click on a link and I remain blissfully insignificant for anyone to commission to study.
However, around three weeks ago, I Linked up on Linkedin with a professor, who used to teach at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), who had moved to Australia and doing his own thing in the robotics industry. In his message to me, he said he had been following my writing on Tremeritus.

If I take my new friend’s Linkedin profile at face value, I realized that this is the type of person that Singapore needs. Someone who was willing to give up a conventional path in academia to try something in a new and dynamic field of study and business (robotics being the high-tech future making stuff that Singapore’s civil service appears to drool over). The man is apparently doing very well for himself.

The question that this new friendship has got me asking is – how many are there like him. Good sons of Singapore who had to move and settle overseas to make their mark. I think of this question because the issue of “foreign talent” crowding out locals in Singapore has been a consistent one in the last decade. It’s been the thorn in the side of the government and they’ve always said that they’ve needed to bring in people from elsewhere to get things done. The argument is that we don’t have the people to do the jobs of the future.

I have nothing against brining people in. There are skills that need to be imported and I believe that on balance, greater diversity can only lead to better things or as I often say when I’m in a crass mood, that I don’t have an issue with 10 million more people if it leads to an improvement in the gene pool.

However, if my new friend is anything to do by, I don’t think its true that we are not producing people capable of making the future. I suspect that we are but somehow these people get stifled and discouraged from actually doing it. I’m not saying that life in the US, New Zealand or anywhere else is necessarily better but there is obviously a group that has done significantly better once they’ve left Singapore.

Now, some of it could be financial. It’s been going on with Westerners for years. I remember two of my best friends from England complaining about the “Barrow Boys,” who had come over to Asia to become bank CEOs – their point being “You guys must be desperate – I wouldn’t hire any of them.” Then again, why would you blame any Westerner for moving here? As a friend of mine said, “Wouldn’t you move to a country that worshiped you for being short, fat and bald or all of that?”

 However, we’re not talking about people who had the “expat” life. We’re talking about people who did world renown stuff. Think of Kevin Kwan, the man who wrote Crazy Rich Asians or Melvyn Tan, the pianist. These guys are well renown in their craft by the entire world, except the country in which they were born.

Why is it such that people like that, don’t stay? Why hasn’t someone done a study on why such people don’t stay or what can we do to keep them doing something that works for Singapore. Sure, I get it, Singapore is a small place and for certain things one should explore and take advantage of what the wider world has to offer.

Yet, I can’t help feeling that there’s a part of officialdom that doesn’t want to admit that the natives can be excellent at something. Officialdom is out there buying talent from elsewhere but at the same time trying to stifle what we have at home. I think of the Ben Davis saga, where MINDEF practically tried to turn this boy into a national traitor because he wasn’t giving up the chance to play for one of the biggest names in football. In the modern age, its easy to find flexibility, especially if benefits the nation’s brand.

I think of the millions we spent on foreign athletes in order to win a medal on the international scale. If memory serves correctly, we got a silver in one of the Olympic Games. The medalist in question took the money and promptly moved back to China. Then, there were the Schoolings who practically sold their flat to ensure their kid would pursue his dream. Luckily for Singapore, he chose to swim for us and we have a gold medal and a moment when Majullah Singapura was played around the world.

Again, I don’t have hard proof or statistics to show this and that. What I have is purely anecdotal, however, I don’t think I’m wrong. I remember Lee Kuan Yew once giving an interview on how Singapore could never produce anything worldwide, world-class or world anything because the harsh truth is, we are a tiny nation with limits.

That was so sad to hear because, this was the man who made us something to be proud of on the world stage, telling us that we had to stay in our limits and just be content to be a digit for some multinational or some government agency.

We spend an incredible amount of time and energy to get lots of foreign things (talent, investment etc) in the name of making things work for Singapore. Yet, at the same time, we spend an enormous amount of time going to war against the local population whenever a section of it chooses something different from the norm. We could save so much and gain so much if we stopped trying to force everyone into a tin can that needed to hire pale and blotchy people to tell them what was good for them.

There are Singaporeans out there who have managed to make something of themselves in the wider world. Even if they may no longer have Singaporean passports, they still have some interest in the affairs on their home land. Surely, tapping on this diaspora would pay dividends in so many ways.

Who are the people like me? I like to think it's Singaporeans who love this country and the home it gives but want to do something other than what officialdom deems Singaporeans capable of doing. We are not asking for anything. We merely want the chance to do our little thing, at ease with whoever is in power. Leaving us alone is simple and it pays. Find a way to work with us and everyone wins.

Why Won’t They Join?

I got a call from the Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC yesterday. He was intrigued by my last posting which asserted that the last election results had shown that the roots of a two-party system in Singapore had been developed.

As with all intellectual discussions with the Young Muslim Politician, he ended up answering his own question and then it came to the topic of the quality of opposition candidates. He rightfully observed that the quality of opposition candidates was exceedingly good. First there was the news that Professor Paul Tambyah, Chairman of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), had been elected to head the US based Society for Infectious Diseases (see - https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/paul-tambyah-first-singaporean-infectious-diseases-isid-12847020) and then came the performance in of the Dr. Jamus Lim of the Worker’s Party (WP) in the debate against Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, our Minister for Foreign Affairs. An excerpt of the debate can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5B6w7YGuwo

Dr. Balakrishnan is a former school debater and considered one of our more articulate ministers. The PAP must have been hoping that Dr. Balakrishnan would wipe the floor in the debate and he did not. Dr. Lim’s performance in the debate was exemplary. He was articulate and consistently on message and somehow, that gave the Young Muslim Politician a great moment of insight, when he told me to look at Dr. Balakrishnan’s expression throughout the debate. The expression was – this guy should be on our team, why the hell couldn’t we recruit him.

Apparently, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) had tried to recruit Dr. Lim when he returned from Abu Dhabi, after serving as an economist for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which is the third largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the world. Apparently, Dr Lim turned the PAP down.

This is a problem for the PAP. Like every good business, political parties need to attract good people, and the PAP used to have a monopoly on the brains. The government’s scholarship system was designed to ensure that smart people stayed within the system. The system worked like this, sponsor a bright kid through to university, get him or her into the civil service for a few years and then, after they had cut their teeth, get them to stand for election. 

The Singapore government has been very open about the fact that it competes with the private sector for talent. Our Ministers are the world’s highest paid. Political salaries are comparable with those from top private sector organisations.  The official reasoning is that this prevents corruption (there’s no need to think about dipping your hands in the cookie jar when you’re being well paid) and that its necessary to pay well because if we didn’t pay our public figures well, they’d run off to the private sector and make their fortunes elsewhere instead of working for the betterment of the nation.

Professor Tambyah and Dr. Lim are living proof that Singapore has the people who can compete on the international stage. The problem for the ruling party is that they’re not on the side of the PAP, which given the PAP’s hold on the government, is the only party with the resources to give them things. If you want money, the PAP is in the position to give it to you. If you want the backing of the state to get things done, only the PAP can give it to you.

So, the question that the PAP needs to answer is why aren’t people like Professor Tambyah and Dr. Lim not flocking to join the side of the PAP?

The government has traditionally used the purse strings to attract people. Personally, I don’t disagree with paying people in public service well. Why should you expect people to work for some higher ideal if it doesn’t put food on the table? I know that the guy with the backing of the state machinery can get things done in a way that the guys protesting on the streets will never be able to do. Our entire system has been based on this. Whenever a smart guy even gave the appearance of being interested in joining “the other” (which means any side other than the government approved one) side, the government and PAP would inevitably “buy” them over.

Now, there’s a problem. Bright guys are turning them down to work for the “other” side. These are the people with the expertise needed for the future. Think about this, we are in the middle of a global pandemic that has ravaged the economy. Who else could be better to be leading the charge against these things than a world recognized expert on infectious diseases and an internationally recognized economist? Yet, these people are not joining.

So, the PAP has to ask itself, why can’t it recruit people like this. It’s been doing it successfully and suddenly you get flawed candidates like Ivan Lim. By contrast, the opposition, which lacks the resources to offer great things is attracting brains like these. The ruling party needs to do some soul searching on why it has been unable to get great minds like Professor Tambyah and Dr. Lim instead of trying to demonise the great minds that won’t join if it is serious about ensuring that Singapore’s machinery has the best minds working for it.

Slow but Steady Wins the Race

It was an election result that everyone expected. As usual, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (“PAP”) ended up with 83 of the available 91 seats in parliament and 61 percent of the popular vote. Yet, despite winning an election margin with more resemblance to a North Korean referendum approving the hair style of Kim Jong Un than what might consider a democratic mandate, Singapore’s Prime Minister appeared like a chastened school boy appearing before the principle. He muttered some words about how the electorate had made its intention for more diversity in parliament and talked about external conditions like Covid-19 that damaged the economy. The Prime Minister’s post election comments can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlxfbE2VvfY 

Why would a Prime Minister of a ruling party in the middle of an economic meltdown appear like a chastened school boy after a thumping electoral win? The answer could be found in the fact that instead of wiping out the opposition, the ruling party lost another Group Representation Constituency (GRC – a particularly unique Singaporean feature Westminster Democracy, which involves four constituencies being molded together and you get four MPs for your vote – which means that its possible for a heavy weight minister to bring in fresh blood into parliament on his coat tails). Just as the loss of Aljunied GRC had come with the costs of losing then Foreign Minister, George Yeo, the additional loss of Sengkang GRC came with the loss of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Secretary-General of the National Trade Union’s Congress (NTUC – our only union), Mr. Ng Chee Meng. The party that celebrated the most was the Workers Party, which had up to that point received minimal press coverage.

You could argue that Singapore politics has had a turning point. The ruling party can no longer take winning GRC’s for granted and future election results are more likely to be like 2011 rather than 2015, which saw the death of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the Nation’s 50th anniversary. The bad news for the ruling party is that the main opposition party, the Worker’s Party has been very good at holding onto seats that it has won. Mr. Low Thia Khiang held onto their first win in the Single Member Constituency (SMC) of Hougang for nearly 20-years before jumping over the Aljunied GRC, which they have held onto in the last two elections (2015 and 2020).

The benefit for the ruling party is that ministers no longer guarantee electoral success, which means that new candidates will have to fight harder and smarter to gain votes. The ruling party, which has gained a sense of belief that elections are a given, there is the reality of having to change its mindset to a changing world. Policies will have to be sold in a more consultative manner rather than in a “Me, smart and you stupid” manner.

While the ruling party will have to go through a bit of a cultural change, the biggest change that the election gave us was in the nature of opposition. The biggest winner of the evening was the Workers’ Party, which had its position as our main opposition party cemented. While the Workers Party has remained the only other political party to have seats in parliament, it had been quiet throughout the election.

The attention was focused on the Progress Singapore Party (PSP), which was led by former Presidential Candidate, Mr. Tan Cheng Bok who had been endorsed as “the leader that Singapore needs,” by non-other than Mr. Lee Hsien Yang, the Prime Minister’s Younger Brother.

The story of the Worker’s Party’s success his highly instructional for entrepreneurs. The party has worked on the “slow but steady” strategy, a strategy that should be credited to its former secretary-general, Mr. Low Thia Khiang. The strategy is simple, to win seats one at a time. The Worker’s Party faces criticisms on a regular basis from both sides. The government has a way of lambasting Worker Party MPs for being quiet in parliament. The more radical elements criticize the Worker’s Party for being “PAP lite,” and not proposing anything terribly different from the PAP.

Despite this, Mr. Low and his team have understood that the most important element in the game is seats in parliament. For the Workers Party the key is to win seats and hold onto them. Speeches in parliament and talking about holding the executive to account are pointless if you don’t have seats in parliament. Hence, Mr. Low ensured that his team worked hard enough for their respective constituents to ensure they would hold onto their seats.

What makes this such an effective strategy is the fact that the PAP has been effective in running the show and takes great pains in drumming in the message that its not worth changing a winning group. The subtle message (which is not very subtle in as much as the government has famously withheld funds to opposition held constituencies) has been voting opposition will turn things to crap. 

Hence, while we may want to irritate the ruling party or we vote opposition to protest certain things, we’d always give the main votes to the PAP to ensure our standard of life continues. However, by winning seats and holding onto them, the Worker’s Party is showing that it can run things despite the handicaps of lack of resources, law suites etc. This counters the ruling party’s argument that it holds a monopoly on managerial competence. 

The seeds of change in the nature of opposition politics have been sowed. Within three elections, it looks very likely that there will be an opposition party that campaigns on the premise that it is capable of forming and running a government, as opposed to the current situation where opposition parties’ campaign on the premise that they’re there to be opposition to the ruling party.

The business analogy best explains Singapore’s political landscape. We have the former monopoly player in the shape of the PAP, which dominates just about everything. There is the sexy start-up which looks good and has a great visionary founder in Tan Cheng Bok, with the backing of a rich VC in the shape of Lee Hsien Yang. This is the player that everyone talks about.

The Workers Party is by contrast, a slow growth business. The initial founders have spent their fortunes building the ground-up infrastructure and product and the current and future generations test and expand markets. 

The records speak for themselves. Sexy start ups are sexy but unless they’ve built a real business and prepared for life after the hype, they tend to fade. Think of We Work as a cautionary tale. Then there are the former monopolies that have had to undergo painful changes in order to adapt. Those that have succeeded have continued to thrive, like SingTel, those that failed have ended up costing tax payers billions – think of the Detroit Big Three. Finally, there are the businesses that grow slowly but steadily, getting their products right. Think of Apple as a positive example. The lessons are there, it’s just whether we want to take them.  

Why Are Trade offs Necessary?

On the 28th of June, 2020, my step-uncle Michael (younger brother of my first step-dad, Lee) passed from Covid-19. While, I wasn’t close to him (the last time we met was a brief meeting eight years ago at Lee’s 80th birthday party), his passing had the effect of making the Covid-19 pandemic real to me.

Prior to that, Covid-19 was something I knew from the media. I knew it as a reason for changing my lifestyle for two to three months. Covid-19 was statistics and something the wife and kid talked to me about but it still wasn’t real. Then Michael died and suddenly Covid-19 became real. It was no longer a statistic; it was the end of a life that had touched mine.

It wasn’t just a case of someone I knew from my childhood getting the virus. It was the account of how he got it. He had something else that needed treating, so he went to hospital to get it checked out and it was there that he got the virus. It was as easy as being in the wrong place at the wrong moment.

While he didn’t plan for it, I believe that my step-uncle’s passing should remain a cautionary tale. We should be reminded as the world tries to return to “normal,” that the virus is anything but under control. Countries that thought they had it under control and opened up have seen sudden spikes and have had to quickly reimpose restrictions.

I do get the need for some opening up. I’m back to the office and no matter how much I’ve not wanted to return to an existence that is clearly unhealthy (offices being places that encourage sloth of thought and body), I’ve accepted that the income that comes along with this primitive existence is something that I have to earn in order to keep afloat until I can create something better.

The facts are simple enough. There are bills to pay and economies around the world do need to have some activity in order for enough cash to flow round the system. I also understand that the population at large cannot survive on handouts from the government – even governments with large fiscal reserves can only give out so much.

Yet, despite the obvious need to make a living, we should tread carefully. The virus is still floating around quite happily and you never know where it might float into an area where you are. The last thing my step-uncle expected was to breath the “wrong” air in a hospital of all places.

I think of the people protesting the need to wear mask when they go outdoors and wonder how willing would they be to lie in a hospital bed or a few dollars. I remember joking with the wife about how I should get Covid-19 so that she and the kid could their hands on a $30,000 grant. Her reaction was “You want to die? If you don’t die, your body will never be the same again.”

Which leads to the point of why the hell do we still stick onto brain numbing and physically degenerative forms of work like insisting that people come to offices. Technology has reduced the limitations set by geography. Work can be done anywhere. The question remains, why should it be a choice of staying safe from a pandemic and making a living. Surely, as a society, we have the means to ensure that people don’t have to make such tradeoffs.

Shutting Up and Doing Nothing is one of the Hardest Jobs in the World – Queen Elizabeth II on Netflix’s “The Crown”

I’ve just stumbled upon a wonderful dialogue in “The Crown,” which tells the story of the British Royal Family. The scene involves a conversation between a young Prince Charles and his mother, right after the investiture as Prince of Wales. In this moment, the young and anguished Prince tells his mother, “I have a voice,” to which his mother replies, “Nobody cares,” and then goes onto explain, “shutting up and doing nothing is the hardest job in the world.”

This dialogue has stuck in my mind and as Singapore’s General Election draws to an end (it’s cooling off day – i.e. the day before polling day, a day when you’re not supposed to utter anything remotely political so a to ensure people can focus on the issues without anyone trying to influence then unduly – or in simple terms without anyone trying to stop the voters from doing the right thing), this dialogue has started to beat around the brain furiously.

As I’ve watched this moment on Netflix, it’s dawned on me that Singapore has adopted the Westminster System of government from the British in more ways than one. Our Prime Minister functions pretty much like the inhabitant of 10 Downing Street and our President behaves in a similar fashion to a combination of the House of Lords and the Sovereign (She does as told by the elected Prime Minister but doesn’t have to wear the wigs, gowns or live in a palace). What most people realise is that we’ve also inherited a similar relationship between the governing and governed.

The only adaption between our system and the one we took, is there is an inversion of the relationship. In Britain, the Sovereign, who technically rules her subjects is bound by convention to shut up and do absolutely nothing.

If you’ve followed “The Crown” on Netflix as often as I have, it is a point that the Queen repeats time and time again. The Queen, as those who have dealt with her have mentioned in the gossip pages, is always fully aware of what is going on. The government of the day sends her daily briefings and even in her 90s, the Queen makes it a point to be up to speed. The sharp, politically astute woman as shown in the series is not an exaggeration. Yet, despite what she may feel about a Prime Minister or whether she knows the Prime Minister is creating a disaster, she keeps her mouth shut. As she says on Netflix about dealing with an incompetent Prime Minister’s, “That’s not our job, its up to the voters.”

The Queen takes her role very seriously and famously does not comment about any of her Prime Ministers, not just in the United Kingdom but all over the Commonwealth – a point which was made in Tom Platt's book about Lee Kuan Yew.

This has worked brilliantly for the British Monarchy. By keeping mum and doing as she’s told, the Queen has been a dignified symbol of the British Nation. She avoids getting into the grubby world of politics and while things are done in her name, the people know that she’s not the real decision maker and she doesn’t get blamed when things screw up.

The Singapore version of this relationship has an interesting twist. In this relationship, it is the governed, who are expected to shut up and do absolutely nothing. It is the people that we elect to run the show that are expected to make the noise and we, the governed are expected to shut up and do absolutely nothing.

In a way, this system has worked as well for the people of Singapore as it has for the British Monarchy. We, the people elected a government that did everything for us and as many foreigners, including those from the developed nations of Europe and the US have said, “What are you complaining about, whenever I’ve mentioned something that suggested that Singapore’s politicians were less than perfect.”

I think of PN Balji, the former editor of the Today Newspaper, who argued that if you look at things objectively, “the successive PAP governments have got about 75 to 80 percent of things right.” Most of us have plenty to eat and have a roof over our heads. While not all of us live the lives of “Crazy Rich Asians,” we don’t have homeless lying on the streets of Boat Quay the way they used to line up outside my front door in Soho. As a very senior member of the Indian Business Community said to be once, “Why worry?”

In a way feeling sorry for Singaporeans for their apparent lack of rights is like feeling sorry for Prince Charles complaining that he has a voice and he’s being allowed to be himself. Does Prince Charles ever had to worry about things like food and shelter? The answer is no and nobody cares if a man who has no worries about food or shelter having no voice of his own. Many foreigners tend to look at us the same way. Even with Covid-19, the world is looking as if we’re deliberately trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Sure, our cases surged to unprecedented levels overnight, but hey only 26 people have died and unlike the American or Brazilian scenario, our leaders are at least pretending to take things seriously.

Yet, like the lives of Britain’s Royal Family, the life for people in Singapore is not perfect and there are tensions beneath the surface. Just as the Queen’s family have behaved as badly as the average man if not worse (think of Prince Andrew’s friendship with Mr. Epstein), Singapore’s governed have taken some pretty hard knocks that people elsewhere experience. Think, for example of the wage disparity between the billionaires whom buy holiday homes here and the average construction worker whom we begrudgingly give a thousand dollars a month to after working a 12-hour day for 28 plus days a month and that’s before we deduct things like agent fees.

Furthermore, times have changed and tried and tested solutions that worked in the 60s may not necessarily work now. It would be nice to believe, as a recent PAP slogan, which was sent to me implies, the PAP did everything and will continue to do everything in a wise and good manner but it won’t be that way.

Like Prince Charles, we have a voice and voices need to be heard. Prince Charles, who is duty bound to shut up and do nothing, had raised issues like the quality of farmed produce, architecture and the environment. Seemed quite nutty at the time but then when issues like climate change started to bite – well he didn’t sound so nutty after all.  The same can be said for our “nutty” voices. We had people like Alex Au of Yawning Bread or Jolovn Wham, who made a song and dance about the conditions that migrant workers lived in. They were nutty leftist and then Covid-19 struck.

We have a strange system where one party has the voice and the others are expected to shut up and do nothing. I think, Singapore is the only democracy where the opposition campaigns to be – opposition. We seem to like it that way because, well the PAP has done OK by us and we like to think this will continue forever.

Unfortunately, the single voice won’t be the only right one forever and there comes a time where we need to listen to many voices to solve the more complex issues of the day. We need to except that the more ideas out in the market place, the better and we need to accept that the best ideas don’t always come from one source and we will need to test conflicting ideas – even if it means that one day the opposition will have to campaign to be the government rather than being content to b opposition.

A Disreputable Son

I got to confess that I am an unsuccessful son of a very successful man. My father was at one stage, one of the top advertising film photographers in town. His success was such that it reached the stage where hiring my father was considered a higher status symbol than flying in an expatriate to do the job. I, by contrast have had a rather different checkered career path. Whereas my father went from rags to riches, I went pretty much the other way. I think of the “horny aunty” who asked if I was a reformed Yellow Ribbon Criminal because the fact that I worked as a waiter and spoke the way I did, did not quite add up. You could say that I am a “disreputable” son.

I bring this personal discussion up because it seems that I’m not the only so called “disreputable” son walking around. In the five years I’ve worked in the insolvency industry, I’ve noticed that there are plenty of them around. There are a number of boxes of documents that I’ve read through, which were once thriving enterprises that were started and built up by a tough, street wise entrepreneur, that turned south after the old man died and left things to the much better educated son. Whenever these boxes ended up on my desk, I’ve often found myself asking “what happened?” How did an enterprise go from thriving and unbeatable to a box of documents for me to go through?

Succession is what you’d call the single greatest challenges facing family businesses. How do you ensure that your good work stays and grows when the main qualification for your successors is family ties? It’s obviously succeeded as many of the greatest fortunes come from family businesses that have lasted generations. However, more often than not, a thriving enterprise ends up as a box on my desk.

With the prominence of family businesses on the global stage, it’s worth studying the things that make them tick and the things that screw them up. I live in a nation that is, in many ways, the classic family business. The current Prime Minister is the son of the Founding Prime Minister and he is also the husband of the CEO of one of our sovereign wealth funds. Our national story does offer some guidelines on what to do and what not to do.

There was never any doubt that our current Prime Minister would become Prime Minister. It was only a question of when. In fairness to the late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, he generally demanded high standards of the people he chose to serve him and there are enough accounts to show that he made it a point that his family were not to cash in on his political office the way the families of his contemporaries in Malaysia and Indonesia had done. The current Prime Minister needed to have the brains to get into Cambridge (where he was regarded as a brilliant mathematician) and when he was in National Service, he did go through basic military training (BMT) and Officer Cadet School (OCS). He did not get 12-year deferments to study soil as a matter of national security.

Our Prime Minister was brought up knowing what there were expectations for him to perform. In a sense, the original Mr. Lee “trained” him up by making him go through national service, getting into Cambridge and when he entered politics, he did win his seat in a single member constituency (SMC).Before taking the top job, he did serve as his father’s successor’s deputy. In a sense, he was given time to grow into the job and we were prepared for him to take over.

The obvious comparison is Saudi Arabia, where the world knew King Salman would be the next king after his brother, King Abdullah died in 2015. What we were not prepared for was Mohammad Bin Salman, who came out from nowhere to be given a range of portfolios and before we knew it, there was a 30 plus something with no prior experience of running a fire hose, running the entire country.

However, while our current Prime Minister has been a competent enough manager, he’s been nothing. Unlike his predecessor who called for a “Kinder, gentler Singapore,” or his father who went through the independence struggle with the British and the Malayan Federation, our Prime Minister has never once articulated his vision.

At best he’s been guided by GDP growth figures in the same way that a CEO of a commercial company has been guided by sales targets. If there is a criticism to be leveled at this Prime Minister, it is that he’s been a little too preoccupied with the growth statistics than what those growth statistics mean on the ground. His signature policy of opening the floodgates on immigration was the prime example. It brought growth but it also brought a host of other issues, which Singapore is still trying to cope with.

Part of the responsibility with this, lies with the Old Patriarch. The younger Mr. Lee had to contend with the old one in his cabinet as “Minister Mentor” and somehow there was a never a chance to stamp his own mark onto the government. As is often argued, the problem with brilliant founders is that they never know when to let go.

One of the greatest causes of failure in families is the failure to let go. While Singapore has not been run to the ground and I don’t believe its in any danger of going down the tubes anytime soon, the unwillingness to let go has allowed the things that set Singapore apart to quietly vanish. Unless a new leader with a passion to set out a vision emerges, Singapore will decline.

Just as I started talking about my personal experiences, I shall end on them. I’m grateful my father allowed me to do my own things. All though I’ve not been the roaring success he was, my success and failures are mine. I was not molded to take over something that was not meant to be mine. I wonder how many family businesses might have survived if the founder had let go and allowed his successors to be their own people. 

If Big Business Diversifies Income, Why Can’t You do too?

I’m going to side track and shock my more liberal friends by defending a member of the ruling party in Singapore’s General Elections. The member is Mr. Murali Pillai, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bukit Batok Single Member Constituency (Bukit Batok SMC), who apparently said that he didn’t see why MPs were expected to serve the people full time and couldn’t keep their day jobs.

This call has given the opposition plenty of opportunity to accuse PAP MP’s like Mr. Murali of being greedy opportunist who are more interested in extra money than in devoting their lives to serving the people. On the face of it, being an MP is a wonderful money-making scheme. If you’re elected into parliament, you get a monthly allowance of some $15,000 (three times the national average) and you are only work one day a week when you meet your constituents and even then, you have an army of grassroots volunteers who are so eager to please, they’ll do all the heavy lifting for you. Given this scenario, it’s only logical for one to take on another job as this job officially pays you to do not very much.

When the Worker’s Party made Singapore’s electoral history by winning a single GRC (Group Representation Constituency – a concept unique to Singapore but it’s basically a case of voting for a single MP but getting four) in the 2011 General Election, the first thing that the Workers Party did was to announce that their MPs would only be MPs and live off the single income of an MPs allowance.

It was a brilliant political move that was designed to show that the Worker’s Party MPs were going to be dedicated servants of the people as opposed to the ones from the ruling party, who were made to look like they were treating the MPs job as a summer getaway on the tax payers dime.

While I get the political master stroke that this move is, I believe that the concept of making people work only one job is faulty. This is especially true in a time where innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) and robots are changing the job market in ways that we never imagined possible. Jobs that we thought of are no longer going to exist. Gone are the days when you joined a single department in a single company for the next fifty years.

Tying people down to a single employer at any given time made sense when people worked for a large organization that would take care of them for life. However, in an era where organizations can dump you at a drop of a hat and be praised for creating “shareholder value,” this does not make sense. The only thing this does is to create a sense of insecurity among people and create a generation of neurotics who will do anything to keep onto that ever-precious job. It works beautifully for big time employers who haven’t exactly been good about raising salaries to keep up with inflation.

I take the example of Singapore’s migrant worker population as an example. Thanks to the explosion of Covid-19 cases among are migrant worker community, the world became very aware of the sub-human conditions that our migrant workers were being housed in. It took a global pandemic for people to even pretend to understand that there was a gross mismatch in the power between the employers and the employees, which led to a national health crisis.

One of the reasons for this mismatch in power between the employer and employee is the fact that the migrant workers are tied to the employers by law. The employer controls their right to stay in Singapore and the migrant worker has to put up with it. An employer can easily terminate the pass of migrant worker for the smallest infringement and choose other workers. By contrast, the migrant worker faces plenty of legal hurdles designed to give jobs to emasculated tin cans sitting in an office jacking off over spreadsheets, should he want to change his (they are mostly men) his employer because the current one is screwing him. I speak as someone who once had to fire 30 of them in a liquidation scenario.

There are of course arguments that one has to be careful about conflicts of interest. For example, you cannot expect someone working in Human Resources at Coke to moonlight in the same role at Pepsi. Doing this would put most employers at risk – trade secrets would no longer exist.

However, as long as you avoid such situations, there should be no reason why any worker should not be allowed to take a job on the side? I think of one of my best friends, who is a Nepali chef. He used to work for a hotel but on his spare days would cook at other restaurants. Didn’t please his HR but he had a reasonable argument, which was – “I can knowledge when I work other places, which I bring back.” It assumes that the knowledge of an employee is a monopoly of the employer. Contrary to what you might be told by the Singapore government, knowledge is not a static block but a flowing river and when people work in many places and in many different roles, they learn and share best practices.

I had a relatively enlightened employer, who allowed me to keep working at the Bistrot.  At first it was a little uncomfortable for him when common friend did point out that I was clearly happier in the Bistrot environment than in the office one. However, I had the chance to repay his kindness when I could introduce potential clients to him through people I had known at the restaurant.

No sensible businessman who will depend on a single customer, so why should human beings depend on a single employer?

The issue with our MPs is not so much a case of them having two well paid jobs. It’s a case of one of the employers not being willing to ask for more value. Mr. Murali is right, why can’t an MP hold down another job. The key here is that in return for the $15,000 monthly allowance, we should make Meet the People sessions every night. The MP can finish his day job at 6pm and then deal with constituents from 8 to 10 at night. That would be worth the money.

Making people get tied down in an age of mobility and fluidity is to create slavery to an organization. The last time I checked, slavery was the antithesis to a normal society.

“Very fine people on both sides”

One of Donald Trump’s greatest moments came on 15 August 2017, when he was asked for his thoughts on the clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia between Neo-Nazis and normal people. The Donald proceed to stun the world by telling reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides.” The remark stunned the world because this was the leader of the nation that saved the world from the Nazis describing Nazis as very fine people, especially when its questionable if Nazis are people let alone very fine ones.

However, in fairness to Donald Trump, his words were only shocking because of the context in which they were used in. Take out the context and Donald Trump’s words would actually be an ideal of what most civilized societies should be about – very fine people on both sides of any issue. The highlight of what a civilized democracy came int 2008 when John McCain defended and praised his opponent, Barak Obama as a “Decent man, whom I happen to disagree with.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0u3QJrtgEM 

While McCain would lose the election, he has ended up winning in the hearts of people for doing the right things. Instead of trying to divide the nation, he united it and refused to go down the road of playing up to the fears and prejudices of the mob.

Unfortunately, 2008 is something of a memory. From 2016 onwards, the world entered an age of wild populism, which centred on a wonderful concept of blaming your problems on people who cannot fight back. In the words of an American customer at the Bistrot, “There is no neutrality.”

Singapore has seemingly escaped the most extreme forms of populism and in a world where calls for unthinking jingoism have become the norm, Singapore seems like an island of sanity in an insane world.

However, having been around Singapore’s “arty” and “journo” types for a good portion of my functioning life, I would argue that it’s not exactly a case of Singapore avoiding wave of populism that is sweeping the world but more of a case of Singapore’s politicians being more subtle and clever about harnessing the raw emotions of the masses.

The simplest tactic, is to label anyone who publicly questions the established way of doing things as “Anti-Singaporean.” As anyone who works who deals with any form of media will tell you, there is an art form to questioning the system in public without being labeled “Anti-Singaporean” or getting a nasty letter from a politicians solicitors and having your family’s dirty linen rolled in the mud and then washed out in public. The stories of the people who have tried to do it on a regular basis can be found at:

 https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/singaporeans-step-outside-lines-take-center-stage-naysayers-book-club/

In the old days, it was a case of being sued into bankruptcy and facing a number of potential charges on a variety of laws. I’m old enough to remember the General Election of 1997, which was a particularly good one for the ruling party. They managed to reverse a trend of a declining share of the popular vote and won a mere 81 out of 83 seats available in parliament. While a lot of credit was given to generous upgrading programs in the heartland estates, another was to target an unknown politician from the Workers Party called Tang Liang Hong (No relation) by labeling him an “Anti-Christian Chinese Chauvinist.” 

The internet has made things more interesting. Online media sites like the Online Citizen and TRemeritus (as a matter of disclosure, my blog pieces are picked up by TRemeritus) have given a space for alternative voices. However, the ruling party has also found ways to deal with this. Why label anyone “Anti-Singaporean” when you can get someone else to do it for you. It’s especially effective when that person happens to be a Pink Blotchy – the Fawning Follower comes to mind. Unfortunately, Pink Blotchies have a tendency to be listened to, even if they’re speaking gibberish. As a friend of mine noted, otherwise intelligent people actually bought into the arguments of the Fawning Follower on why it was a sign of success to keep dark skinned Asians in cages (ooopps, I mean dormitories) and how the government supported the rule of law by a law on the statute books but not enforcing it.

The Fawning Follower has been a particularly useful pawn in labeling people who disagree with the government as Anti-Singaporean or worse – Traitors. He’s labeled Kristin Han as having “a career in treachery” and his next favourite target is the play write Alfian Sa’at, whom he describes as symbolizing the egotistical rebellion of the no problem generation. 

While Kristin and Alfian have questioned things, neither have done anything that would count as “treachery” by any definition of the word. There is no record of either having said or done anything that called for violence in the streets or for a foreign nation to invade and so on. Neither have been picked up by the Internal Security Department, which would indicate that the government is well aware that the its “critics” are traitors or “anti-Singaporean” or dare I say “rebels” by any definition.

Why do these things when someone else can do them for you? You stay above the fray and the Fawning Follower and his ilk do it for you. So, when the likes of Dr. Tan Meng Wu start talking about how ethnic minorities should be grateful that they can get jobs and send their kids to school, there’s no outrage at the underlying but blatantly racist tones. The trolls have laid the ground work for you and whatever prejudices people might have become justified because, well, a member of the ruling party said so in public and it was OK.

Thankfully there are some signs of progress. I take my hat off to Professor Tommy, one of our most respected diplomats, who has stated that Singapore needs “loving critics.” Professor Koh has argued that as a strong society, Singapore needs to accept a diversity of views. Crushing the views of “loving critics” instead of accommodating them, can be bad.

Mr. Wham spent years campaigning for migrant rights. He was labeled a trouble maker. Well, surprise – surprise, Covid-19 proved Mr. Wham right (1,000 cases a day, contrary to the Following Follower is not success). Had the authorities engaged Mr. Wham earlier, they may have found the problem much earlier and instead of being with the likes of Ukraine on the list of most infected nations, we might be closer to the likes of Hong Kong or Taiwan. 

If there’s anything that we need to move away from in this General Election, it is this automatic, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality. This isn’t about who wins the most seats but whether we can move away from “Me teacher, you student” (or as my mother says “me right, you wrong) mentality in politics and more towards the politics of “You’re a good man that I happen to disagree with.”  

There is a hope for this. Two of Singapore’s better leaders from different sides of political divide have chosen to step out of the ring in this election. Apparently, both men have stated their respect for each other. Here was the message that our former Prime Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong left on his Facebook on veteran opposition leader Low Thia Khiang:

https://mothership.sg/2020/06/goh-chok-tong-low-thia-khiang-retirement/

Mr. Goh was labeled a “seat warmer” for our current Prime Minister. Despite having the pressures of the Old Lee above him and the Current Lee below him, Mr. Goh managed to do a few of his own things (As a long-term resident of Marine Parade, I have Mr. Goh to thank for getting MPs to try and beautify their estates. He was the first one to do so. As a beneficiary of Saudi-Relations and the Indian Business Community, I have to thank Mr. Goh for opening these markets up. – Lee Kuan Yew was quite open in his disdain for India after Indira Gandhi snubbed him). As such, I believe everyone contesting this general election should take note of his words and I think his final gift in politics is showing Singaporeans that it is possible to agree to disagree.