End of the Muslim Monopoly on Violent A*** Holes

One of my fans on TRemeritus decided that I was fanning the flame of racial politics and called upon the government to keep and eye on me so that if there was another riot in Little India, I would be held accountable:

 

So, in light of this, I am morally bound to continue being a shit stirrer, safe in the comfort that the government actually does keep an eye on trouble makers. This was made very clear by the news that a 16-year-old boy had been arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for plotting to carry attacks on two mosques. The young boy had apparently been influenced by the perpetrator of the 2019 Christ Church Shooting and had allegedly tried to emulate his “Kiwi Hero.” The news report can be found at:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/16-year-old-singaporean-detained-isa-planned-attack-2-mosques-14052400 

As a “shit-stirrer who self-champions the cause of dark-skinned South Asians,” I’m very happy that the government has made this arrest because it proves an uncomfortable point – namely the fact that Islam does not have a monopoly on arseholes and that Muslims are as much victims of terrorist intent and actions as they are perpetrators.

While this point may seem like an obvious one, it isn’t, particularly in an age where ugly stereotypes have become fashionable. This trend of being ugly and proud of it was best summed up by the former occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who got the job by promising to ban Muslims from entering the country and thought it was perfectly acceptable to complain that the people coming across the Rio Grande to cause social unrest by doing jobs no one wanted were rapist.

As awful as the message was, it made him votable. People thought he was “telling it as it is,” and there were certain copycats around the world. You had the likes of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marie Le-Penn in France making major strides in elections. Bashing dark skinned immigrants suddenly stopped being disgustingly racist but refreshingly honest.

While the most prominent terrorist in recent years have been Muslim (think of Osama Bin Ladin and Abu Bakar Bahdadi), there have been plenty of other communities that have indulged in what can only be described as “terrorist” activities. In the USA, we had the rise of White Nationalist like Neo Nazis, Proud Boys and those who loved the Confederate. In India, you had the rise of Hindu Nationalist and so on. I think of the Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC, who tried to convince me that Trump had America safe. Well, yes, he was correct, there were no Islamist terrorist attacks but then there was Charlottesville and the now infamous storming of the US Congress of 6 January 2021. The President who was so good at condemning Islamist violence was rather reluctant to condemn violence when it was carried out by anyone who was a shade lighter than pink. 

These guys are only wearing different cloths

This is a shame because everyone noticed that the apparatus of state was more interested in solving only one type of terrorism whilst giving a pass to another. So, instead of solving the problem of terrorism, it was a case of giving fuel to another side.

 

From these guys

Unfortunately, in “secular” systems of government, a certain amount of neutrality is required when approaching a problem. Personal prejudices have to be set aside and subordinated to certain ideals for the common good. Crimes, whether they are petty or terrorist, need to be dealt with regardless of race or religion.

Take the example of the United Kingdome. When I went to school in the UK, it was understood that there was a terrorist group known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which was happily bombing parts of the UK and finding ways to do as much harm to British military and civil organizations as they could. They played on Ireland’s historical grievances against the British and raised money from Americans of Irish decent, which they promptly used to buy weapons against the British.

As bad as the IRA were, they had a rival known as the Ulster Defense Association (UDA). While the IRA were fighting to make Northern Ireland a part of the Republic of Ireland, the UDA were fighting to keep Northern Ireland part of the UK. While the UDA did to the Catholic Community what the IRA were doing to the Protestant and British communities, the UDA were for the longest time not designated a terrorist group while the IRA were.

 

Spot the Difference between this group and

 

This Group

It was only in 1996 when the British Government designated the UDA as a terrorist organization and this suddenly gave the British government the ability to sit down and negotiate a peace for Northern Ireland.

There could be a lesson here. Honest brokers need to be just that and governments need to take the lead in being the honest broker amongst the various communities that make up the nations that they run.

Governments also need to understand that it is now time for them to promote values. I think of the former Superintendent of the US Air Force Academy, Lieutenant-General Jay Silveria, who told the class at the Airforce academy that the only way to beat a horrible idea is with a better idea. In the age of Covid-19, it’s time for governments around the world to promote better ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU0RfhvYN8s

 

Loyalty is a Virtue?

 Everyone agrees that loyalty is a virtue. As children, we are taught that we need to be loyal to our families. Schools do their best to ensure that we are loyal to the school and our friends look for loyalty form us. Later on, life, we go to work for people who expect us to be loyal to them. Politicians take great pride in reminding us that we need “loyalty” to the country. Just about every society on the planet turns “loyal” foot soldiers into heroes.

Having said that, I do believe that loyalty is a wonderfully misunderstood concept and one which is often abused by people in power, who seem to forget that loyalty runs both ways. This was brought home to me by an article in the Independent on the now homeless former Vice-President, Mr. Mike Pence:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/pence-homeless-couch-surfing-indiana-b1793261.html

 

 As a matter of disclosure, I actually oppose much of what Mr. Pence stood for (extreme religious conservatism that spills into the public sphere). However, I’m sympathetic to how Mr. Pence’s tenure in office ended because it is probably the most visible example of how loyalty is often abused. In the four years of the Trump Administration, Mr. Pence was an exceedingly loyal vice-president who worked for a boss who had built his very public image on being exceedingly difficult to work with. Mr. Pence, who is known for being exceedingly religious to the point of being dull (there are a range of jokes which centre around him thinking of women in pants as being undressed) even stuck by Mr. Trump in the moments when Mr. Trump was behaving in a manner that one can only be described as being contrary to Mr. Pence’s religious beliefs.

How was Mr. Pence rewarded for being loyal to the point of being a slave? The result was visible on 6 January 2021 with the storming of the Capitol Building and crowds calling for him to be hanged. Why was Mr. Pence unable to do as his boss asked? Well, let’s start with the fact that it would have been legally dubious. Now, Mr. Pence has to stay relatively hidden, not from his political opponents on the left of the political spectrum but from the people whom his former boss cultivated. He remains loathed by the left/liberal wing for his loyalty to Mr. Trump and now he is loathed by Mr. Trump’s followers for not “helping” their boss stay in power.

Mr. Pence’s story of having his loyalty abused, is only the most extreme example. The corporate jungle is filled with horror stories of ground level workers who give their lives for a company. Then, one day, the company either find cheaper labour or in this modern age, a machine that does not need to be paid or take lunch breaks or leave.

One of the saddest examples used to be found in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). You had members of the Specialist and Warrant Officer Corps who would spend their lives trying to help the armed force function. Then, after 30-odd years of loyal service, these men who more often than not join the army with minimal academic qualifications, find themselves out in the open market without a recognizable and employable skill.

 

Men who wore these, held positions of high-level management

 

Unfortunately, they lack a skill and they end up here as a retirement plan.

In fairness the Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) is giving signs that it does recognize the problem. The ranks of the “non-unformed” sector of the Ministry are being filled up with former non-commissioned members of the armed forces. Then there’s the created post of “operation manager” in schools.

However, while the treatment of former Warrant Officers is improving, the loyalty shown by their employer to their service, it pales in comparison to the loyalty that the Ministry shows the officer or specifically the scholar core. One only has to think of how two “Chiefs of Defense Force” have ended up as the CEO of SMRT with a small S$2,000,000 annual salary. What did these men do for the armed forces? They planned and strategized and gave members of the Warrant Officer and Specialist Corp things to get done.

 

Highest Rank in the Singapore Military?  

Every nation has a story of how years of loyal service get burned in the name of corporate profits or the “national good.” What can we do about it?

My personal theme has always been than people need to learn how to work cross culturally and find ways of earning “side-hustle” money. One of the major problems in the “loyalty” equation is that it mirrors the power equation. Corporations for example are only loyal to their shareholders and have an obligation to make money. Workers in the system are only a means for them to earn money for their shareholders. By contrast, a worker needs the corporation in order to support his or her livelihood and in many cases the well being of their families. Who needs who more? The answer here is to find ways for the people lower down the food chain to have more “power.” That’s probably something that the people at the top of the food chain are not about to try and solve.

The Convenience of Ethnic Tensions - Why We Won't Lead the Charge to Change?

 Six-months after the election, the topic of whether Singapore is ready for a “Non-Chinese” is back in the news, thanks to Dr. Janil Puthucheary, our senior minister of state for health, who was speaking at a panel discussion organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). In that discussion, Dr. Puthucheary said that when it came to topic of whether Singapore would have a “Non-Chinese” Prime Minister that it "It will be up to the people of Singapore to decide ultimately, about this matter." The full report can be found at:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-non-chinese-prime-minister-up-to-singaporeans-14039290

 

The topic on whether Singapore is ready for a non-Chinese Prime Minister is an emotive one. It is also a rather strange one to have in Singapore because Singapore is in so many ways a paragon of race relationship management. Native born Singaporeans have not had a communal riot since our modern state was established in the 1960s (I stress native born as opposed to migrant workers from China or India). Unlike our neighbours over the causeway, we do not have laws that discriminate in favour of any particular ethnic group and the government does clamp down on “hate speech.” One of the great things about Singapore is the fact that you can find a temple, church and mosque side-by-side and my favourite if seeing crowds of Chinese Devotees outside a Hindu Temple, worshiping as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

 

However, while everything looks good on the surface, the scenario is not perfect and while the government has made tremendous progress in terms of communal tensions and keeping the peace, it’s protected us from the tensions of the 1960s rather than the social tensions that exists today. You could argue that we’ve regressed. Take the story of the presidency as an example. When we first started out in the 1960s it was understood that the President would be from a minority community in order to show that minorities could get to the top in Chinese-Majority Singapore. Then, when the constitution changed in 1991 to allow for an elected presidency. The rationale was simple – the presidency would move from showing the world that minorities could rise, to being about a custodian of our reserves. Race would no longer be a major issue. Suddenly, in 2017, we needed to reserve the presidency for a Malay. Why was that? How was it such that race would not matter in 1991 but it mattered in 2017. The Prime Minister did argue that race still matters as was reported in the following article:

https://www.todayonline.com/govt-must-ensure-minorities-get-elected-president-pm-lee

If you follow the Prime Minister’s argument, the only conclusion you can have is that after 26-years, we have failed to create much of the harmony that we talk about.

The Presidency is primarily symbolic and one can understand why it’s used to maintain ethnic and religious harmony, the same cannot be said of the Prime Minister, who is effectively the man running the show. The only criteria to be Prime Minister remains to be the leader of the largest political party. There has never been any public talk about a specified requirement to be Chinese in the same way that there have been legal actions to specify that the Prime Minister has to be a Chinese. To do so would run counter to the much-heralded notion that Singapore is a meritocracy where the best man gets the job regardless of race or religion.

In the initial years, it was more than likely that the Prime Minister would be ethnically Chinese given that the Chinese were and still remain the dominant ethnic group. Lee Kuan Yew only became Lee Kuan Yew because the majority of voters (and revolutionaries) were Chinese speaking. Harry Lee realized that he would simply not go anywhere as a “Banana” (Yellow on the outside but white on the inside) and his Chinese name became the public one and he forced himself to learn Mandarin and Hokkien to rally the streets and get into power (where he then devoted the rest of his life to a hatred of Chinese dialects as he realized that the revolutionary fervor of dialect speakers that brought him to power could do the same to him).

However, we’ve been a “multi-ethnic” nation for more than a generation, where Chinese, Indians (specifically Tamils) and Malays have lived side by side quite happily. Does this generation still have the same expectations of the generation that grew up in a more segregated world? Majority of online commentators have argued that that this is rubbish. The most popular politician in Singapore is our Senior Minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam. Ministers like him are from a generation where having a boss of a different ethnicity was not an issue.

Admittedly, there are people who do think like a “bygone” generation. A member of an opposition party, who happens to be ethnic Indian, mentioned that he simply could not communicate with potential constituents and then there is an online commentator who explained my ignorance on the matter of race:

 I’ve argued that PAP governments have on the whole done a reasonable job at keeping the peace and preventing tensions from becoming flammable. A certain amount of harmony between communities has evolved naturally and that’s a good sign.

However, what successive governments have done has been to maintain things as they are. They have not led to “create” harmony, which is sad for a government that has been proactive in about everything else.

Rather than sitting back and saying that the people will decide eventually, surely our very well-paid elected leaders should be leading the discussion on racial harmony. Surely, they should be saying that what we want to achieve is a situation where our national leaders can be of any colour and nobody would care. Ireland, which was known for being conservative Catholic has a Prime Minister who is ethnically Indian and openly gay. Mr. Varadkar’s race and sexuality are not an issue in Irish politics. Isn’t that what Singapore should aim for?

I’ve argued that rather than pander to the resistance to change, the government should lead the change. The venue to do so is to create works for fiction through TV and other mediums. Show the public what can happen? The fact that the government is not actively doing so might suggest that it does find potential ethnic and religious harmony convenient.

Is Good Governance Really Good?

 

Saw an interesting letter in the Straits Times Forum (letter page – which I sometimes contribute to), entitled “Don't take good governance for granted,” which talked about how Singapore needed to take to remember that trust in a good government was something that could not be taken for granted.

Interestingly enough, I do recall being sent similar message from my favourite Young Muslim Politician during our General Election in the Middle of last year.

 

 The message can be summed up as “PAP = Good Government,” and Singaporeans should be thankful that the government they have is good. The further message is this simple – everything that one enjoys as a Singaporean is due to “Good Governance,” which in turn means “PAP Governance.”

Before any assessment can be made on whether the PAP deserves to be credited for good governance, one should perhaps try and define good governance. A helpful definition could be found in the following diagram from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (“UNESCAP”).

 

In fairness to the PAP, it does measure up pretty well on most things. We do have elections that are fairer than say North Korea’s. The government is famously efficient and effective and there is something called “rule of law,” in as much as courts are officially supposed to look at the evidence rather than to look at who the participants in the trial are.

One of the most interesting things I experience, is that everyone else seems to think that we set the standard in governance and the people saying it, are not just people from “shithole” countries. I think of the boys from the US Navy looking at me in the middle of Geylang and telling me, “If this is your worst area – come to America and we’ll show you a bad area.” I have a friend from Holland who, when asked where he wanted to settle down, said without a moment of hesitation “Singapore – where else is there?”

Covid-19 has also allowed the government to look good when compared to other places. For example, all our leaders have had the good sense to wear mask in public and our Prime Minister did lead by example in getting his vaccine jab. While our numbers spiked in April of last year thanks to the infection cases in the dormitories, our numbers and deaths remain low and our health system has remained functioning. You do not see images of doctors and nurses walking around in trash bags.

Having said all that, the question remains – can our ruling party claim to equate itself with “good governance,” based on the fact that it wins elections and everywhere else seems to be worse?

My personal take is that a government which needs to talk about how it provides “trust,” and “good governance,” is like a restaurant that needs to tell you that it makes “delicious” food. The problem lies not in whether the “good governance” is delivered but the fact that even needs to be said in the first place. This is particularly true when you consider the fact that Singapore’s ministers are the world’s best paid (because they’re supposed to the world’s best). Why does a political party running a rich and clean city where the opposition campaigns to be opposition need to tell its voters that they are lucky to have good governance?

Perhaps the answer is that things are clearly not as shinny as the ruling party imagines them to be. Our economic model is still over reliant on exploiting cheap labour from elsewhere in unproductive industries like construction and shipping (though since I work in liquidations, I should not complain). The Singapore government is struggling to find a winner. The last grand idea was “casinos,” which we had to dub “Integrated Resorts,” and rather than developing smart (as opposed to educated) people who come up with life changing solutions, our economy depends on the simple idea of getting people from elsewhere to pump money into the economy (A banker I once ran into called it “money laundering.”)

This struggle is visible in the complaints that the local population is being drowned out by people from elsewhere snapping up the cushy jobs and the government, who have helped to push up the price of everything except wages. Singapore is, as is often said, becoming expensive for Singaporeans and the government sees this as a problem during the election as was seen in the slate of immigration restrictions after the slap in the 2011 general election (the first time every seat got contested).

Then there’s the feeling that rule of law is not applied universally and accountability is….well, getting a little worn. The most famous incident was back in 2007 when a man with a limp walked out of a highly secured facility and while the guards were sacked, the minister and head of internal security kept their jobs without a hint of remorse. In fact, our then Minister Mentor started telling us off for being complacent in expecting the Minister to be accountable. The latest “bru-ha” involves the government reneging on its promise to use data collected from the “trace-together” app only for contact tracing of Covid cases to other things.

Government in Singapore is by no means rotten (though I’m sure the brickbats will come out for me) but it is by no means perfect. Let us say that the flaws in the governance we have are like little scars, which are little but if left untreated have a way of turning sceptic. Instead of applying treatment (more space for alternative voices etc), the ruling party appears more interested in trying to convince us otherwise. Think of this effort to remind the people that “good governance” is something we cannot take for granted as a dressing of a scar that will only make the scar come true.

How Do You Choose?

 

The end for the Trump Presidency was the “American Carnage” that the Trump had talked about in his inauguration speech some four years ago. The time in between the election in November 2020 and the swearing in of Joe Biden as President, we had countless lawsuits (all of which were thrown out for lack of evidence) for electoral fraud and then there was the infamous storming of the Capitol Building on 6 January 2021, the day that Congress was to certify the electoral college vote.

One of the most prominent features of this period was the resignation of several very loyal cabinet members, in particular the resignation of Mr. Bill Barr, the Attorney-General. Mr. Barr had proved to be so loyal to Mr. Trump that many of Mr. Trump’s critics accused him of colluding and giving him legal cover. The most noticeable moment came during the reveal of the Muller Report. However, the accusations of electoral fraud were a step too far for Mr. Barr, who declared that there was no such fraud despite the President’s best efforts to say so.

Then there was Mike Pence, the Vice-President, who had until he became the subject of the January 6, 2021 crowd’s ire, been exceedingly loyal to Mr. Trump. So much so that most people barely thought of him as a shadow.

The last minute turning of Mr. Pence and Mr. Barr opened them up to accusations by Mr. Trump’s critics of only acting to save their necks. However, in fairness to both men, one has to say that they are not the first people to have stuck by their boss, even when the boss was showing himself to be a difficult one.

Let’s put it this way, many of us have been put into situations where we’ve been unhappy with our bosses at the workplace. Yet, despite our unhappiness with the job or the boss, we’ve soldiered on. The simple reason is this – in communities where men have it drilled into them that they a “sacred duty” to provide for the family, they are, more often than not, going to do what it takes to stay on the right side of the person controlling their livelihood. In the current economic downturn, those with jobs are going to stick even more closely with their bosses as it’s a case of “rough job being better than no job at all.”

While I don’t have statistical evidence, people with “high post” and are not in need of money are less likely to rock the boat than their counterparts lower down the food chain. Cabinet Ministers, as a rule of thumb rarely resign or get fired (the one of the reasons why the Trump Administration was so newsworthy was because so many Cabinet members often resigned or got fired).

This dilemma that was faced by the former Vice-President and Attorney-General, highlights one of the key issues of management that gets overlooked – namely “upward management.” There have been tomes written about managing downwards. It seems that everyone knows about managing downwards and getting the best our of subordinates. I have yet to see anyone try and write a book about “upward management,” and managing superiors. I remember this when I was at SISPEC (School of Infantry Specialists – now known as SCS or Specialist Cadets School). We had a good two months of field training and learning how to lead a section of men. It was only on graduation day when the SSM (School Sargent Major) told us that we’d need to learn to be diplomatic when handling superiors (OCs, CSM, PCs and so on).

Learning how to manage one’s boss and balancing the needs of loyalty to the boss and to ones personal beliefs is a challenge that many people fail at and one only learns how to balance and manage bosses through trial and error and it becomes really tricky when you have one as tricky to manage as the Trump, who is famously erratic.  

Thankfully, there was a member of the Trump Administration who seemed to know how to tread the fine line between the boss and his beliefs. That person is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley.

General Milley, is a career solider. Career soldiers are essentially hardwired to never question their superiors. A soldier’s loyalty is considered the individual’s greatest asset. As an example, Singapore’s national service army tells its troops to “Do and Die – Don’t Ask Why,” one can only imagine how much stronger that ethos is drilled into the heads of professional soldiers in the American and British Armies.

So, one can only imagine the dilemma that General Milley faced in June of 2021 when he was seen walking along Lafayette Square for the Trumps now, infamous Photo Opportunity. The General was criticized for taking part in the photo op and there were clear political implications for him. Yet, at the same time, not taking part would have opened him up to criticism of being disloyal to his big boss. How did General Milley do it?

The answer was a clear and unreserved apology for appearing in the photo op without any criticism of his boss. He states that he was wrong to have taken part because it opened him and by extension the entire military to accusations of partisanship. His apology was personal and it stated very clearly that his job was to protect the military. Yet, at the same time, General Milley did not complain or attack the Secretary of Defense or the President, thus showing that he was loyal to them.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-06-11/joint-chiefs-chairman-mark-milley-apologizes-for-participating-in-trump-photo-op; and

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

 

In his public appearances, the general was always very careful not to say anything about the political leadership. He never commented on policies or gave his opinions. Nobody could accuse him of playing politics or trying to undermine his boss.

However, at the same time, he was clear that was the law and order general. He was clear about it – the military in the US takes an “Oath to the Constitution – not to a king or a dictator” He stressed that he and the military would not follow illegal orders. He set out his terms quite clearly.

General Milley has stated that one needs to have a keen sense of situational awareness. I believe this is something worth learning from him. We need to be aware of situations and how to navigate them. Isn’t it time MBA courses started teaching “Boss Management,” and “Situational Awareness”

How Many “Preneurs” do we need?

 

One of the things that the Singapore government is very good at is coming up with quirky terms and coining phrases. When the late Indonesian President called us “a Little Red Dot,” we proceeded to turn it into a catch phrases of sorts of things. Then there’s the word “hub,” which when used by Singapore’s elite often refers to the fact that we are a “hub” for all sorts of things.

The most inventive contribution to the English language to come out of Singapore is in the play on the word “entrepreneur.” In the early 1990s, when the government tried to get Singaporeans to be more “entrepreneurial” in the technology sector, we had the term “technopreneur,” which was essentially an entrepreneur who had set up a business that involved some sort of technology. In the Singapore context, Silicon Valley is filled with “Techopreneurs.”

The latest group of “preneurs” that the Singapore government is trying to breed are known as “Hawkerpreneurs.” Thanks to UNESCO, the Singapore government has suddenly realized that Singapore’s food vendors or hawkers form an invaluable part of Singapore’s cultural landscape. Hawkers have fed generations of Singaporeans and are the very reason why Singapore is described as a “food paradise.” More importantly (particularly from a government calculation of revenue from elsewhere perspective), whenever friends from abroad come and visit us, we always feel the need to bring them to a “hawker centre.”

 

There is, however, one tiny snag to this most Singaporean of institutions. Old Hawkers are getting too old to continue doing what they do and the kids simply don’t want to sit over a stove 24/7 to make a basic living. It’s true that many outdoor hawker centres are giving way to cooler airconditioned food courts, but even then, the life of a hawker is tough. It’s long hours and physically demanding. While you do hear stories of how there are hawkers who have made enough for a Mercedes and to send their kids to university; you’ll find that the hawkers who have sent their kids to university for the very purpose of ensuring that their kids will not have to be hawkers. As Tan Tee Seng says in the following article, being hawker was a way for the less fortunate to earn a living and not to set up a “legacy” business:

https://www.tremeritus.net/2021/01/19/hawkerpreneur-simi-sai-is-this/

So, the government has a dilemma. It has “hawker culture,” which gives it a source of revenue and the reality that people are not rushing to set up hawker stalls. What can be done about it?

The answer that the government has come up with – is pretty much its answer for everything else. Throw money at the problem until it is no longer a problem. If you look at what the government is proposing for “hawkerpreneurs,” it is pretty much the same as what it has done for “technopreneurs,” as can be seen by the following link:

https://www.nea.gov.sg/our-services/hawker-management/programmes-and-grants/hawkers-development-programme

As in the case of “technopreneurship,” it’s a case of offering money, either through direct grants or subsidizing venture capital, as well as making mentorship more easily accessible. The following link from the National Environment Agency (“NEA”) provides an outline of the government’s plans for developing an already developed hawker culture:

https://www.nea.gov.sg/our-services/hawker-management/programmes-and-grants/hawkers-development-programme  

The latest game is to come up with a course, to qualify young people for “hawkerpreneurship” as is outlined by this article:

https://mothership.sg/2021/01/young-hawker-work-study-post-diploma-nea/

 

Yes, there actually is an assumption that since you can get a qualification in “hawkerpreneurship,” bright young things will want to enter the industry. Details of the program can be found at:

https://www.tp.edu.sg/wsphawkerpreneurship

Unfortunately, our bureaucrats haven’t quite understood that there is a key difference between a technology start up and a food stall. People set up high tech-start ups and slog their guts out because there’s a hope of selling out to a bigger company or through IPO for an untold fortune. There’s the satisfaction of the possibility of changing the way people live through your technology. By contrast, being hawker involves a lot of hard work for a more work and the odds of being bought out by a huge company are nonexistent. Even if you have a qualification in “hawker,” the reality of operating a “hawker” business remains the same.

I’m not against having courses per se. Its good to have people in the food business trained to a recognized standard of things like hygiene and service standards. However, a course and qualification are not going to change ground realities and you’re not going to attract your best and brightest into a business until certain ground realities change.

As I have argued previously, the biggest factor affecting hawkers is rent. Rents for a small stall remain high and as long as they do, the healthy portion of the hawker hard work will end up going to feed the landlords. Think about it, a stall in United Square can be something like $5,000 plus a month. A hawker selling chicken rice at $4 a plate will need to sell 1,250 plates of chicken rice every month just to cover the rent (and food cost hasn’t even been deducted). Perhaps it’s me being what my biggest fan on TRemeritus calls being “inferior,” but I don’t see the prospect of needing to sell 1,250 plates of chicken rice a month just to pay a landlord being attractive to anyone coming out of any of our educational institutions.

So, instead of trying to “glamourize” what is by its very nature a tough business, perhaps the real solution is to look at the original purpose of being a “hawker,” which was to give the poorer people an opportunity to develop a means of making a living.

Singapore currently has plenty of less educated workers from “developing” Asia, who are willing to do the “tough” jobs that our locals won’t do. Perhaps we should make it easier for this group to become hawkers. Sure, they’ll bring certain flavours from their original nations into our food mix but then again, isn’t that a natural part of culture, where people adapt and change things accordingly.

Government is missing an opportunity to use the hawkers to integrate people and cultures. Instead throwing money at the unwilling, shouldn’t it be trying to cultivate the willing?

Where the Fortunes Are

 As historians get ready to debate Donald Trump’s legacy, one of the things that they should put on his list of achievements is the fact that he made “being rich” a focus of our attentions. We've always been fascinated by the elite but the Donald took that innate fascination that we have with the rich to a new level. In his winning presidential campaign, the Donald would repeat endlessly that he was very rich. We, the mere mortals struggling to pay our mortgages thought that this was fascinating. I remember someone explaining to me as “You know …..he’s a billionaire……he can’t be bought,” as if there was an automatic connection between the Donald’s place on the Forbes list to his character.

The Donald understands that we, the mere mortals are fascinated by the very rich and if you study the Donald, you’ll understand that there’s a very good reason why he made it a point to cultivate an image of being “vulgarly” rich. Truth be told, those of us who follow the rich list have done so for similar reasons to why we would watch porn. It took a while for me to understand that the tens of billions made the yearly differences to Bill Gates's place on the Forbes list didn't actually put pennies in my pocket. 

However, while the fluctuations of a persons wealth may not add any wealth to my pockets, the list of "richest people," can be very instructive about the nature of wealth and what it says about the economy of a particular nation. Let's start with the basic nature of wealth:

In the 1980s, the richest man in the world was Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, chairman of the Seibu Corporation, who had a fortune of some US$18 billion. Mr. Tsutsumi’s fortune was based on vast holdings of Japanese real estate, which was at that time one of the most expensive in the world. A decade later, he was replaced by Bill Gates of Microsoft, who held onto the top spot for nearly three decades until he was dethroned by Jeff Bezos on Amazon in 2018. Mr. Bezos in turn has just been dethroned by Mr. Musk last week. 

You can argue that a part of this surge in wealth is due to stock market exuberance. Global stock markets do react emotionally and they don't necessarily reflect the real life economic situation. However, if you study the "richest man in the world," from Mr. Tsutsumi to Mr. Musk there is an outline of where things are heading. In the 80s it was all about holding expensive real estate. However, wealth creation moved on to being about creating change in the way we do things and creating value. 

If you had money in the 80s, it was about buying the right property, collecting rent, developing and then selling it for many more times than you bought it for. Then along came Mr. Gates who made our access to the computer easy. Thanks to Mr. Gates, it is understood that we do use a computer for most basic task. Even IT idiots like myself do things on a computer. Messers Bezos and Musk have merely brought the IT and innovation drive further. Mr. Bezos gave us a way to do things over the internet that we never thought were possible and Mr. Musk is now applying advanced technologies to create cars that don't need fossil fuel and space travel - turning the original fantasy into a reality. More Mr. Musk's aspirations can be found at:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-06/musk-close-to-surpassing-bezos-as-world-s-richest-person

National "Rich List" are particularly instructive. Just look at one of the biggest emerging markets to shake up the world order - India. The “sexy” business story from India is technology and IT outsourcing. India, which seemed to miss out of the manufacturing boom that made East Asia, suddenly produced companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro and Infosys, which partnered with the likes of Cisco and IBM on the global stage. You also had smaller companies like Intellect Design Arena and 3i Infotech, which called themselves "product companies" that innovated and created specially for big banks (As a mater of full disclosure, I have provided services to Intellect Design Arena's predecessor company - Polaris Financial Technology Ltd and 3i-Infotec).  

While India has pushed itself as an “IT” centre, a glance of the rich list in India suggests that the "real" money lies elsewhere.  If you look at the top five richest people in India, you’ll notice that the only tech-based fortune belongs to Shiv Nadar of HCL Technologies. The richest man in India remains Mukesh Ambani, who inherited a good old fashioned oil refining business and the second spot belongs to Gautam Adani (As a matter of full disclosure, I did work on a project that involved in-laws of the Adani’s) who made it in ports and infrastructure. What does this suggest about the Indian economy?

On a positive note, if might suggests that the biggest source of fortune from India’s domestic economy by providing for basic infrastructure. However, the less positive note, might stem from the fact that very few people have a stranglehold on India's basic infrastructure. A list and description of the wealthiest in India can be found at:

https://www.forbesindia.com/lists/india-rich-list-2020/1877/all

 

The story in the other Asian giant is slightly different. China built its status as the world’s other necessary economy based on manufacturing. When one thinks China, the automatic assumption is that China is the world’s sweat shop and plenty of the Chinese giants have become so by being the outsourcing manufacturer of choice for international brands. Think of how IBM sold it’s hardware business to Lenovo or how Geely took over Volvo.

However, a look at the top fortunes in China tell a slightly different story. The top two richest men being Jack Ma of Alibaba who went from basic e-commerce to payment systems (though the Chinese Communist Party has recently decided to teach Mr. Ma a lesson) and Ma Huateng of Tencent Holdings, which owns WeChat.

While the Chinese internet giants have been helped by the Chinese government protecting them from foreign competition in China’s massive domestic market, these Chinese have developed technologies that the world recognizes as being of a decent enough standard. As one local Singaporean venture capitalist said to me “WeChat is good,” and both AliPay and WeChat pay are going international.

China does have infrastructure issues but it has been far more successful at using private enterprise and available technology to overcome these problems. China’s banks are notoriously bureaucratic and the fintech provided by the likes of Alibaba's Ant Financial and Tencent Holding's WeChat pay have given China's savers a viable alternative to the problems they'd face when dealing with banks. Technology and innovation are being applied in China to solve every day problems and a list of China's richest can be found at:

https://www.forbes.com/china-billionaires/list/

 

How does Singapore compare? In the last few years, the Singapore government has been working very hard at finding a “winner” to propel the Singapore economy into the next level. With electronics manufactures finding cheaper locations and global trade slowing, the government has been desperate in its search for an “economic winner.” This sense of desperation can be seen in the way in which Singapore is promoted as a “hub” for this or that. Singapore’s government is famously aggressive about promoting foreign investment. Whenever Singaporeans complain about outsiders, the government inevitably panics and starts going on about how necessary foreigners and foreign investment is to the basic survival of Singapore.

The government has trying to promote itself as a great hub of advanced technological entrepreneurial activity in the same manner as Silicon Valley. Technology start-ups are supposed to be the new buzzwords and there’s plenty of excitement whenever there’s an investment by a “sexy” industry like Lucas films.

The real story might be a little different. The richest person in Singapore, according to Forbes is Zhang Yong who set up a restaurant and plenty has been said about Eduardo Severin, one of the founders of Facebook. However, despite the hype surrounding Mr. Severin's relocation to Singapore, he's not actually created anything particularly sexy. He's donated some money to start-ups and he's thrown some lavish parties, which I suppose is good for the local catering industry. 

As for the local-born fortunes, the bulk of the top ten remain people who inherited a property or banking empire that was built by someone else.  

The only person on Singapore’s rich list who can claim to have done anything vaguely innovative or game changing if Forrest Li, who came from China.  A list of Singapore’s wealthiest can be found here.

https://www.forbes.com/singapore-billionaires/list/#tab:overall

 

Now, there’s nothing wrong in not being the most innovative place. However, as a small country, Singapore has to create or find ways to do things differently. I keep looking back at how Covid-19 made people work from home and the landlords got worried and so you noticed that there was a load of stories about the value of returning to the office instead of promoting new ways of working.

Government can spend money on innovation and have the most beautiful laws to attract SME investors. However, these laws are meaningless if the interest of established businesses are protected. Look at the much heralded “fintech” sector, pioneered by our quasai-government bank “DBS.” As Emanuel Daniel, one of our most prominent commentators on the banking industry has pointed out – while DBS has won all sorts of international allocades for developing fintech like PayNow and PayLah, the regulators have made it such that Fintech will never challenge the banks and bright, young, developers are often at the mercy of the bureaucrats in the banks. You need a bank account to use PayNow. By contrast, you don’t need a bank account to use Alipay.

It’s the time the government went beyond talking about innovation and actually took the crucial steps of allowing bright young minds to find ways of disrupting established players. Only then will we have a really sustainable economy.

What Makes You Think You Can Be a……….?

 

As mentioned in my last posting, one of the best things about being picked up by Tremeritus, is the fact that one is inevitably bound to pick up people who can’t help but comment on the things you’ve ranted about. I’ve always found that the guys making comments on my rantings to be a valuable source of material and one of my more regular commentators did not disappoint with this comment:

The commentator asked me a valuable question, which was “what makes me think that I can be a writer?” She complained that I was a “ugly” and “inferior” specimen” of the male species and couldn’t quite understand why I would have the confidence to bash out the “awful” drivel that I bash out.

My personal answer is that I never imagined that I’d be a writer. I merely found things I wanted to rant about and did so on paper. Eventually, I found someone who was willing to publish and pay me for my rants and eventually my byline became a regular enough feature both in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. Then I started blogging and a few larger sites picked me up and someone from Reuters offered to quote me for a piece. So, the answer to her question is that there was nothing in particular that made me think I could be a writer, I just wrote and somehow a few people decided to read whatever I wrote.

The second point about that question is that it actually goes beyond me and whatever I’ve done. With employment cycles becoming shorter and technological disruptions being a fact of life, an increasing number of us will need to ask ourselves the question “What makes you think you can be……..”

Singapore’s early formula for success was fairly simple. The place was positioned as a stable haven for multinationals looking for cheaper labour than what they had at home. Lee Kuan Yew, our prominent founding father, made it a point to tell the likes of Texas Instruments that he would never allow strikes to take place. Our education policy, which everyone outside of Singapore gushes over, was geared towards training people for lifetime employment in either a multinational, the civil service or the government-linked sector. We excelled in process driven subjects like engineering and subjects that trained you to question but didn’t qualify you directly for anything (things like philosophy) were encouraged to die a natural death. Philip Yeo, A-Star’s former chairman famously derided the teaching of English Literature as useless.

However, the multinationals discovered outsourcing and AI and the civil service and government-linked sector followed suite. The concept of the “iron rice bowl” is becoming an increasingly distant memory. Singaporeans, like or not, need to make career decisions for themselves, even if it means choosing “self-employment,” or in an industry that is unproven (start-ups or unproven technologies) or famously unstable (anything creative). These are often paths that contradict conventional wisdom and the wisdom that “well oiled” Singapore has been trained to except as gospel. Anyone entering the job market in the post Covid normal needs to ask “What makes me think I can be a x,y or z,” and inevitably “Can I succeed in x,y or z industry.”

My personal take is that the best way to answer these questions is to follow Nike’s famous “Just do it” slogan. Most of us don’t really know what we can do when we’re starting out or where are strengths and weaknesses are. However, as we do more things, we’ll get an inkling about what we can and cannot do. So, the best point is to actually start being whatever you think you can do.

The second point is probably to get an inkling of your limitations and talents. My family is filled with creative people. Yet, nobody has made it to Hollywood or dare I say the Hong Kong silver screen. However, the creative people that I grew up with found a way of making a living from their passion in the advertising agency. I have an uncle by marriage who writes great ad copy, my stepdad had a lengthy career as an art and creative director and my dad made advertising films. So, the point is that if you go ahead and do something, there are ways of making a living from what you choose to do even if the expected paths are blocked.

It’s this simple, if you think you can do something, just do it. Sooner or later, you’re going to find out if you can do it and if you can get someone else to pay you to do it. Don’t worry about not being qualified. You can get qualified along the way. When someone ask you – what qualifications do you have to be a x,y or z or what makes you think that you can be an x,y or z – just remember that Steven Spielberg spent 35 years making blockbuster films for 35-years before he decided to get his degree in Film Production from the California State University, Long Beach. I wonder what made him think he could be a film maker all those years ago?  

Shit Stirrer or Shit Cleaner?

 

One of the most important developments to happen to me was to become a regular feature TRemeritus, one of our prominent socio-political websites. Along with the Online Citizen, TRemeritus forms what you’d call the backbone of Singapore’s alternative media or the place where the voices that the mainstream refuses to acknowledge go to vent. The way it works is simple, I rant on my little blog that’s struggling to get a reader beyond me, myself and I and then TRemeritus picks it up the posting and my struggling rants get beautifully amplified, so much so that when someone told me that I was “known as a political writer,” I had problems comprehending the fact that I was known at all.

One of the greatest joys of having your work published in sites like TRemeritus is the fact that you’ll develop a “fan” base of sorts. I am referring to the group who will inevitably have something to say about whatever you’re ranting about and they’ll do their best to make their opinions known. As a rule of thumb, the majority of comments will probably be offensive and be said in the most offensive way possible. However, I enjoy reading the comments and I get a certain thrill in returning the favour and republishing the most offensive ones on my social media. My ego is inevitably stoked when I realise that I somehow provoked someone into a new level of being “interesting.”

One of my biggest fans is called “Tracy.” She inevitably makes it clear that she detests me to the core. Her hatred for me has reached the extent where it’s taken a curious sexual undertone and a part of me suspects that this is an ex-wife who hasn’t forgiven me for not treating a “normal” middle class life as a means to an end. I’ve had offers to be on the receiving end of a golden shower and been challenged to have thing done to me with her private bits. I just that if I were to take Tracy on her offer, that she’s presentable (I’m past the age of expecting “babes”) and washes down there.

Anyway, Tracy is the inspiration for this current posting because I noticed that in three of my last post, Tracy decided that I was a “shit-stirrer” who was always picking quarrels and that I should suffer a horrible fate for being a “shit-stirrer.” Tracy then proceeded to expose me as an ignoramus by telling me that whatever happened to “Zhang Zhan” should happen to me.

I got to confess that I ended up having to Google Zhang Zhan because I didn’t know who the heck she was and I realized that if Tracy’s dreams were ever to come true, it would be a good thing. Sure, I’d suffer a horrible fate but at least, my little life would have been of some value to the greater good – as in the type of good that more than makes up for whatever you didn’t do in terms of material achievement.

Zhang Zhan is probably what you’d call the “unsung” hero of Covid-19. She is the “citizen journalist” who exposed the Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to cover the full extent of Covid-19. For her efforts, Ms. Zhang was arrested and thrown into a gulag. However, thanks to her, the world got a much clearer picture of the virus and its effects. The story can be found at:

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-55473501

While the comparison with Ms. Zhang was flattering, I am, unfortunately an insignificant speck on the scale of things. Ms. Zhang braved a brutal communist regime’s attempts to cover it’s shit so that people would be informed about what has effectively been one of the most prominent issues of this new decade. I by contrast, merely made the point that we should never justify certain prejudices that we have and allow them to be made into public policy. The regime I live under, is not China’s CCP. 

Tracy also helped me to understand that society does need “shit-stirrers.” Sure, most of us try to avoid swimming in the smelly stuff because nobody wants to be covered in the smelly stuff. However, while nobody wants to get covered in shit, there is a need to deal with it because if shit left alone to fester, there is a potential that it will cause diseases.

Case in point – treatment of foreign workers. We had a shit-stirrer called Jolvan Wham who spent years talking about the horrible conditions that foreign workers were being housed in. He was, as they say, a shit stirrer because he was upsetting the construction industry by publicly suggesting the industry pay more for humane housing for workers, upsetting the government by insisting it do something about a group of people who didn’t vote and he probably upset a few foreign workers who got scared that his agitations would bring the wrath of employers onto them. Most people didn’t give a shit and didn’t exactly think this shit stirrer was doing anything useful to their lives other than to throw shit at them.

Then Covid-19 broke out in the dormitories. Whatever money the construction companies saved by keeping the workers housed in unsanitary conditions was spent in lost days as workers could not go out to work. The government realized that it had to act of risk losing its star status in Covid Crisis management that it had garnered from the international press. More importantly, the general public was forced to confront the fact that the workers were housed in shit and were a real threat to their well being because they were in position to spread the infection to the wider society, 

Far from being a “shit-stirrer,” Mr. Wham was in fact trying to be a shit cleaner, who saw the shit and tried to get the rest of us to clean the shit. However, we saw him as a shit stirrer and have labeled holding up a smiley face as the biggest threat to national security since the Japanese Imperial Army marched into Singapore.

If you look at people like Mr. Wham, who have been charged in court for all sorts of interesting charges, you have to appreciate the fact that being a shit stirrer is not a bad thing. Quite often shit stirrer’s are in fact shit cleaners that we choose to ignore because we’re convinced that own shit does not smell and everyone around us will benefit from the shit rather like manure. So, it becomes easy to label the shit cleaner is a shit stirrer and we keep beating up the shit cleaner for being a shit stirrer. Then one day the shit explodes and before you know it, we’re covered in shit, flies and disease. So, the next time you think someone is being a shit stirrer, it’s probably best to hear them out and to see if they’re actually shit cleaners trying to get us to clean shit rather than shit stirrers trying to throw shit at us. Listening for a few minutes to discern whether someone is a shit stirrer or a shit cleaner is cheaper than having shit explode in your face. 

 

He Cleared the Crap that I Created

 It’s the first day of work for the new year and the first thing that struck me about the new year was when I went to the toilet. As I was washing my hands, I noticed the guy who was paid to pick waste paper out of the bin to be placed into another bin.

It struck me that this guy, who probably worked longer hours and for less money than me, as a “working professional,” was the guy who cleaned up crap that people like me created. This was a guy who was doing something very important – he was making sure that my work environment was clean and pleasant. I, by contrast, added utterly no value to his life (unless he eats at a restaurant I’m serving at or if his employer gets liquidated – in which case he’d probably be at the wrong end of whatever I do.”)

Yet, despite the fact that his existence involved adding value to my life and my existence added f**all to his, I was the one in the position of being able to simply not notice his existence while he had a social obligation to look at smile at people like me.

Sure, I appreciate that the guy in an office has always earned more than the guy doing physical work. I also appreciate the fact that some jobs will always earn more both in terms of recognition and prestige. In the medicine, everyone loves doctors. These are the heroes that save us when we are sick and Dr. Susan Lim aside, nobody bats an eye-lid when doctors earn big bucks, because, well they save us when we’re sick. By contrast, nobody notices the nurses who do the grunt work like clean up after you puke or shit all over the place so that you are vaguely presentable when the doctor looks at you. Nurses have to study hard and know things. They have to be understanding to all sorts of lousy people in lousy modes. Yet, the only time one really appreciates a nurse is well….in some sort of sexual fantasy.

The disparity between the guys whom everyone lavishes praise and money upon and the guys who do the grunt work, was best summed up by one of our high court judges at a trial that I was working on. The lawyer introduced himself, then tried to introduce his paralegal and the judge barked “Your paralegals are not part of the bar, as far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist.”

Sure, the paralegals are not part of the bar and perhaps the judge in question didn’t want to “waste time” on certain formalities for the trial. However, the way she said what she said, summed up the attitude that our society. Certain forms of life don’t exist. As far as we’re concerned,  only doctors exist in hospitals and lawyers in courts. As far as the powers that be are concerned, the military consists only of generals.

I get that there is a reason for the pay disparity between a doctor and a nurse in as much as the doctor has had to go through certain training and is responsible for certain things that nurses cannot be held accountable for. The same is true between lawyers and paralegals or generals and foot soldiers. So, one shouldn’t begrudge the proverbial higher ups what they are getting.

However, for us as a society to lavish everything on the guys in the limelight and simply not recognize the existence of the people behind them is also a mistake. Nurses do the ground work that make it possible for doctors to shine. The star lawyer in court could only be a star because there was a team of junior lawyers and paralegals to support him. While the generals come up with beautiful plans, it’s the NCOs who get the men to fight.

Look at what happened in Covid-19. We were doing fine and were being praised by the world for conducting a master class in disease management and then there was a wild outbreak in the dormitories. Contrary to conspiracy theorist, there was probably no ill intention to our migrant workers. In the words of that high court judge “they simply didn’t exist,” and our government, which is so famous for good planning simply didn't include them in part of the plans. They didn't exist. 

Our education system has to stop stigmatizing certain people. Think of the number of times kids are told “better study hard or else you become a street cleaner.” We got to change that. The role of the forgotten people helps those of us at the front of the stage to shine. At the very least, we need to acknowledge that they exist. Perhaps, we should follow what the Japanese do and make our kids clean up after themselves so that they learn to appreciate the most basic of task and the people who have to do the  said task for a living.

Remember, they wouldn’t be making the big bucks:

 

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