It’s officially Christmas Eve and I’ve already started
having attend the various celebrations that one has to go to as part of the corporate
scene. Company lunch and Middle Eastern restaurant was excellent and I left the
place rolling – so much for the year’s efforts to look that bit slimmer.
I love Christmas or at least I love the good food and
opportunities to drink. If I were in Europe, the highlight would be the family
goose, which my mother has turned into an art form (or as the Evil Young Woman
said when I brought her back for Christmas – “Oh Grandma cooks good). I’m not
big into presents but I guess that comes from the fact that I’ve been into shopping
– never understood the thrill of owning things.
However, as much as I love Christmas revelry, I’ve always
found it strange that we would celebrate the birth of Jesus by endless
consumerism. The man that we call Jesus Christ, was from a family so poor that he
had to be born down in a manger with the animals. I guess in modern terms, he
had to be born in a petrol station because there was simply nowhere else for
him to be. If you read all four gospels, you will note that Jesus preferred the
title “Son of Man” as opposed to “Son of God,” and he hung out with social
outcast (tax collectors and prostitutes.) His teachings cheered on the lowest
of the low and he admonished those in power. Jesus of the gospels wasn’t
exactly a capitalist by traditional definitions, let alone a member of the Tucker
Carlson fan club that is the modern American Republican Party.
So, if you look at who the gospels tell us Jesus is, it
goes without saying that celebrating his birth with endless consumerism shouldn’t
be the way to go (not that I’m against good food for the season). Instead of
trying to benefit retailers, our Christmas celebration should be more in line with
that of Mr. Gilbert Goh, one of Singapore’s better-known activists, is doing:
I guess you could call Mr. Goh a “Social Welfare
Entrepreneur,” who spends his time serving an ignored market – only in this
case he’s giving food to those who are unable to help themselves rather than
selling a product or service.
Whilst there is nothing to suggest that Mr. Goh is doing
this in the name of any particular faith, he is doing that the early Christians
used to do – go out, heal the sick and feed the hungry free-of charge.
One would imagine that Mr. Goh would be the type of person
that the rich, famous and powerful would want to be seen with as part of their
efforts to burnish their credentials with the people by being around a guy who is
doing what he can to ensure the vulnerable have things a little better.
However, this being Singapore, Mr. Goh is considered
something of a trouble maker by Singapore’s elite. I thank Thambi Pundek (aka,
Singapore’s Young Muslim Politician who believes in feasting on pork on a
Ramadan Day), for explaining it most clearly “Why you want to do these things –
there’s the government and grassroots?”
Well, whilst I am not “Anti-Ruling Party” (though I
wish I really had the millions some of my fans on TREmeritus imagine I’m being
paid to write ruling party propaganda), per se, Mr. Goh is providing a
necessary service to market that is tragically only going to increase – namely a
growing army of dispossessed old folks.
Let’s state the obvious, these are not “welfare louts”
or “druggies” that make the number of destitute in the Western world. They are
not the tramps who lived on the same street as me in London’s Soho. If
anything, these were the guys who made Singapore what it is. They didn’t have
much but they slogged hard and sent their kids to school. As a rule of thumb,
these guys don’t beg or ask for spare change. They try to sell you tissue paper
at the hawker centre or they rummage through the dustbins looking for cans that
they can sell to a recycling agent. You’ll see them trying to flatten drink
cans with a rock even if they barely have the strength to lift the rock.
Then, as was part of my lunch conversation, a good
portion of them end up getting screwed by the kids they devoted their lives to.
It’s a classic case of the kid and his family see that the old man or old lady
has a property that can be turned into cash (this being the land of very
expensive property) and before you know it the old person is conned into moving
in with the kid and the his or her property is sold. Then somewhere down the
line there is fall out with the child or the in-law and before you know it
grandpa or grandma gets turfed out.
Then, as another client of mine explained to me, there
are government programs to assist the poor. However, many don’t know how to get
them and need assistance – let’s not forget that we are talking about a
generation that had it imprinted on its DNA that seeking assistance was the
greatest act of shame.
Something needs to be done and when you consider the
fact that Singapore is officially one of the richest nations in the world:
https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/
In a strange way, solving this issue would probably help
solve a few others. Let’s put it this way, every time one sees a homeless
elderly person, one is bound to get the idea that ending up like that is a
reality. Would you give your all to contribute to a place that will toss you
aside once you are old and vulnerable or would you take what you can and then
get out to look for more welcoming pastures the moment it looks like you won’t
be able to pee straight? If we are to learn anything this Christmas it should be
the fact that looking after the vulnerable is not an airy fairy concept created
by politicians but a practical and essential element of building a resilient
nation that people want to contribute to.
No comments
Post a Comment