Hey Bro – F** You Bro

 Whilst I may not always express it in my postings, I’m actually very blessed. One of my greatest blessings is being a “big-brother” to three amazing siblings. Although I am significantly older than my siblings (age difference being five, 14 and 17 years apart) and we’ve lived in different parts of the world for over two decades (I’m in Asia, two of them live in London and one lives in Chicago), I’m close enough to them to trust them with certain things that I wouldn’t others with. My siblings and I are protective of each other and I've understood my role as the "big brother" has being like the one in the photo below:

 

Being an older brother made me understood that the term “brother” goes beyond normal friendship. Being a "brother" is about sharing experiences and looking out for each other regardless of the inconveniences and material costs.  Outside my blood relatives, it's my army friends who were there for me during shitty times and are still there for me. With few notable exceptions, its not like that with the people I work for. The relationships in business are simple - once I am no longer of value, there will be no reason for them to be there for me when I'm down.

So, with this understanding of what it means to be a brother, I was rather perplexed by what our Minister of Manpower, Mr. Tan See Leng, meant when he talked about our "brother" migrant workers. Mr. Tan is an only child and I wondered if he really understood what it was to be a brother. Did he intend the term to imply he had brotherly concern for the workers? 

Well, there was a worker who didn't believe that Mr. Tan understood what it meant to be a brother and so, he offered to give Mr. Tan a tutorial in what it meant to be a brother. The tutorial is listed below:

https://theindependent.sg/migrant-worker-calls-out-tan-see-leng-for-slave-like-conditions-in-jurong-dorm-says-please-do-not-call-us-your-brothers/

 

Unfortunately, Mr. Zakir's tutorial was wasted on Mr. Tan. Let's just take a look at how Mr. Tan looked like when he decided to visit the workers in the dormitories after the mess that took place in the Westlite Dormitory in Jalan Tukang, some two weeks ago:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/community/beds-set-aside-for-foreign-workers-recovering-from-covid-19-more-than-97-of

 

Seeing the brotherly concern that Mr. Tan and his Senior Minister of State, Dr. Koh Poh Koon showed the workers reminded me what my Dad sad to me at the end of my national service when I told him I had volunteered to go for a live firing exercise after a 155mm gun howitzer exploded and killed a friend of mine. I argued that the exercise would be fine because the colonel was going to fire first and we would be behind an armored vehicle. My Dad replied "If they felt it was that safe to fire the gun, why are they doing it from behind an armored vehicle?"

A version of my Dad's wisdom comes to mind here. Mr. Tan has talked about our "brother" migrant workers. Both Mr. Tan and his senior minister of state, Dr. Koh Poh Koon felt that despite what the dormitory owners were saying, that they would only be safe entering the premises in hazmat suits. How much more telling does it get.

Now, here's the question - what type of "brother" is Mr. Tan? Will he act like a brother to the workers now that he's made it clear that he knows that they live in places where he's only willing to enter if he's wearing a hazmat suit?