If You Believe that There is Class Nobody Gives a S**About – You Must be a S***

 

The hot news yesterday was the fact that the Court granted a stay of execution for Mr. Datchinamurthy Kataiah (“Datchi”), a Malaysian Tamil who was due to be hanged today (29 April 2022). What makes this case so newsworthy is the fact that Mr. Datchi was one of 13 inmates who had taken out a suite against the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) because it was found that the Prison Service had been copying letters between the prisoners and their then lawyer and forwarding them to the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) in April 2020.

The hearing against the AGC was set for 20 May 2022. However, Mr. Datchi was informed on 21 April 2022 that he was going to be hanged on 29 April 2022. Mr. Datchi was forced to go to court without legal representation to get a stay of execution and despite having no representation, he managed to get the stay. The AGC filled for an immediate appeal against setting aside this execution, which was subsequently rejected by the Court of Three Judges. The story can be found at:

https://www.singaporelawwatch.sg/Headlines/court-grants-stay-of-execution-for-inmate-who-has-civil-case-pending-against-a-g

 

 As with all death penalty cases, this was a highly emotive affair. On one hand you have the activist against the death penalty. On the other, you have the crowd that sees “Western Liberalism” as the cause of all ills and every death sentence passed down is a victory for “Asian Values.” As was reported by the Independent Singapore reported, attitudes based on online comments seem to have hardened in favour of the death penalty. The report can be found at:

https://theindependent.sg/netizens-sg-authorities-double-down-on-defending-nagaenthrans-execution-for-drug-convictions/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0SJq8JkOjxcuoQa0DZ9xemobBirwj4xZ2O9FcV_e5UKIq-WN6HKCxI-_0#Echobox=1651146921

I’m going to leave the legalities and moralities of the death penalty to people who are wiser and far smarter than me. What I will focus on, is something that is more troubling – namely the way in which this case has been pursued because it shows us something very fundamental about the rule of law in Singapore, which is supposed to be one of the key selling points of Singapore.

Let’s start with the facts that nobody disputes. Mr. Datchi was caught with 44.96g of heroin in April 2015. So, as per the penal code he has to be hanged. However, he has the right to go through various avenues of appeal, which are more often than not unsuccessful but because we claim to value the rule of law and we don’t want to make mistakes, we have to allow for various avenues of appeal until everything is exhausted. As this involves the court, the process can run into several years.

Just as nobody disputes that Mr. Datchi was caught with the amount of heroin that mandates the death sentence, it is clear that sometime in April 2020, Mr. Datchi and several inmates made a complaint that their correspondences with their lawyer, were being copied by the Prison Service and forwarded to the AGC. It is not in doubt that the courts have ruled that the Prison Service has no right to copy correspondences and forward them onto the AGC without the prisoner’s consent. Mr. Datchi and his group have launched a civil action against the AGC.

Its clear that there are two separate issues here. One, is Mr. Datchi’s crime of having been caught with heroin and the other is violation of the basic rights that should have been accorded to Mr. Datchi and his group. These are two separate issues that need to be resolved separately. One could say both are equally important to society – one involves the “scourge of drugs” and the other involves “violation of legal process.”

I will stress that I am not a qualified lawyer and I would be interested in what a qualified legal professional might say. However, as one of those issues involves ending Mr. Datchi’s life, it comes across as common sense that the civil action against the AGC be resolved before Mr. Datchi’s execution.

So, given that this was what would be the logical way of dealing with the two separate affairs, how was it such that Mr. Datchi was informed on 21 April 2022 that he was to be executed on 29 April 2022, when the court system knew that he was involved in a civil proceeding against the AGC on 20 May 2022. Logic has it that the civil action set for 20 May 2022 would be highly compromised if one of the key players in that action was to be removed. Why would the AGC, with all the resources of the state at its disposal need to go through all of this to hobble the civil action that is be heard on 20 May 2022?

The impression that the AGC was trying to hobble the Civil Action of 20 May 2022 was further compounded by the urgency in which an appeal against the court ordering a stay of the execution was filed.

An account of the dialogue between the AGC and the three judges is recorded on the Facebook page of Mr. Too Xing Ji, an activist who was at court on 28 October 2022:

https://www.facebook.com/too.xing.ji

 

 

 

 

I will qualify that I don’t know Mr. Too personally. I came across his post via the Facebook page of a cousin. As such, I can’t verify the accuracy of his transcription. However, I notice that some of the people who have liked his post are qualified lawyers.

What I will say from my personal reading and understanding of this transcription, it appears that the very senior lawyer from the AGC got a dressing down from the two of the three judges. One of the most damning statements came from Justice Andrew Phang states “Due process is a very strange but necessary creature.” Why would a judge need to explain the importance of due process to a senior lawyer from the AGC?

Throughout the exchange, the judges kept telling the AGC that this was not a hypothetical situation and that it was important to see through the civil action. Justice Judith Prakash states “There is no suggestion the facts are made up. The letters were disclosed when they should not have been,” and Justice Phang told the AGC “This is not a hypothetical question that we sometimes pose in law school for learning, and you would know about that, because you went to law school, and it is a good learning exercise. Here we have a real life person, and you cannot ignore that. It might be slightly different if the consequences were not so dire, but given that they are so dire, frankly I am surprised that the AG is pursuing this appeal.”

Throughout this dialogue, it is clear that the judges believe that something has not gone right between the prison service and the AGC. One of the key moments comes when Justice Phang says ,“ This is not the vanilla sort of action. It stems from our unusual observations in Gobi about breach of prison procedure. And then this action is filed. And it is unlikely it will be filed everyday. In fact, I hope this action will not be filed everyday, because they involve very serious allegations about the prison and what has been going on.”

To the common man, the Justice is saying that something, somewhere has gone wrong. Due process, which is one of the things that underwrites the “rule of law,” which in turn one of the things that underwrites Singapore Society, has been violated somewhere along the line.

Just as its clear that Mr. Datchi got caught with the heroin, it should be clear that the due process of law was violated. While it is unlikely that the civil action will have an effect on the outcome of the criminal trial, the civil trial is likely to show that the state did on act in the most above-board of ways, when it came to the judicial process.

It’s a good sign that the judges stood by the rule of law and ruled without fear or favour. In order for the rule of law to be maintained you need to have judges who are willing to rule according to facts. Judges who don’t do what is expedient for the rich and more importantly, the powerful.

However, its sad to see the AGC rushing to have a man executed, particularly when the man looks like he can embarrass the government. The AGC is effectively the government’s lawyer. It should be a body that people see as playing an active role in ensuring that the law works for people regardless of who they are. It should not, as it appears to be in this case, being seen as a body that protects the interest of powerful people at the expense of the poor and unfortunate.   

Does Killing Poor People Make Us Less Poor?

 

We’ve finally done it. On the morning of 27 April 2022, Mr. Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, a Malaysian Tamil who was caught with drugs in his possession was hanged after a decade in death row.

Mr. Dharmalingam’s fate was never in doubt. Despite the valiant efforts of his lawyer, Mr. M. Ravi and activist like Ms. Kirstin Han, the only thing that kept Mr. Dharmalingam alive from November 2021 onwards, was Covid-19. Despite international pressure and appeals from the likes of the United Nations Human Rights Office and Sir Richard Branson, countless postings on social media, letters to everyone outside of Singapore and numerous vigils, the Singapore Government was resolute and hanged Mr. Dharmalingam.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/04/singapore-urged-halt-two-imminent-executions

 

 The government, which normally enjoys basking in the praise of the international media, has had to take a few brick-bats like the following from the South China Morning Post:

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3175603/mentally-disabled-malaysian-nagaenthran-k-dharmalingam-due-hang

 

 This is nothing new when it comes to capital cases. Singapore proudly tells the world that it has a “zero-tolerance” policy when it comes to drugs and that is a policy that has made Singapore the nice, safe, green and clean metropolis that the world looks to with envy. This argument is best encapsulated by a Malaysian businessman I know who called us “Disneyland Under Martial Law.” We all want to live in Disneyland but we accept certain unsavoury things about the place because that’s how Disneyland manages to be Disneyland.

The government has milked this image for everything that it’s worth. For example, whenever, a Westerner ends up on the wrong end of our more draconian policies, there’s always a diplomatic row. The end result is that we end up popular with large segments in the West (people saying that their respective nations need to learn from the West) and the government does look like it is standing up to the Western world.

The activist can make a lot of noise but at the end of the day, the government always points to the fact that the death-penalty has plenty of support. The undisputed fact that Mr. Dharmalingam’s IQ is 69 (Below average) didn’t matter to our government. As far as they were concerned, Mr. Dharmalingam was an evil mastermind causing the downfall of Singapore by providing people with drugs. One only has to look at the Facebook page of former Nominated Member of Parliament, Mr. Calvin Cheng’s Facebook page to get a gist of the defence of hanging Mr. Dharmalingam:

 

 

There is, however, one question that needs to be asked. Are we, as a society, so eager to “uphold” the law that we end up breaking it? Are we really combating the scourge of drugs or are we merely waging a war on poor people?

I’ve argued in my November 2021 piece “DRUG DEALING 101” that the statistics do not support the argument that hanging is a major deterrent. While the number of arrests for drug abuse remains relatively low on the global scale, the figure has remained fairly constant, which would indicate that despite the obvious risk, people are still using drugs, which means that drugs are still getting into Singapore.

Why do people still carry drugs despite the obvious penalty they face? Contrary to what Mr. Cheng suggests, the real problem is poverty rather than “morals.” It’s been argued by the likes of Mr. Cheng that while slow, Mr. Dharmalingam had the capacity to tell right from wrong, hence he deserved it for breaking the law. The question we should have asked was – was he able to choose between the lesser evil or the greater good. In this case, it was risk getting hanged for getting drugs into Singapore or having no money to help his family.

Would I do it? The answer is no. I have enough wits about me to understand that getting hanged is not worth the price. I am healthy and witty enough to get a source of income. My IQ is above 100. My circumstances are as far away from Mr. Dharmalingam’s as possible.

If one looks at who is setting on death row, you will notice that the demographics are obvious. You are looking at Malaysian Tamils, who have the highest representation in what you could call the “Ghetto Class,” or more crudely put – the class that nobody gives a s*** about.

The Powers that Be in just about every country planet have realised that if you belong to the class that nobody gives a s*** about, they can do pretty much what they want to you. That is precisely the point that Black Lives Matter protestors were trying to make in 2020. Blacks get brutalised by the police because, well, if you ask enough people in White suburbia, they pretty much deserved it. The same is true for many Malaysian Tamils.

There is the case of Mr. Datchinamurthy a/l Kataiah (“Datchi”), who is set for execution tomorrow (30 April 2022). Unlike Mr. Dharmalingam, Mr. Datchi is not slow. If anything, knowing his rights is the problem as far as the state is concerned. It was found that the prison service was passing privileged correspondences between him and has lawyer to the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC). One doesn’t need a law degree to know that this is legally incorrect. It’s violation of privilege.

Mr. Datchi launched a legal challenge (which is within his rights) and the date for that hearing is 20 May 2022. However, his execution has been set for 29 April 2022. Nobody is disputing that Mr. Datchi was caught with the offending drugs. What is being challenged is the way in which the state has trampled on his rights. One would expect that while Mr. Datchi is probably prepared to be hanged, he’s also going to try and buy more time and if his basic rights have been violated, he should use that.

At the time of writing, the judge has granted a stay of execution until his legal challenge can be heard. However, the Attorney-General is pushing for an urgent appeal. Why is the AGC so keen to execute him? Time is on their side.

 

 Taken from M. Ravi’s Linkedin.

Have we reached a stage where we are telling ourselves that all of societies problems are due to “poor people?” There is no evidence to suggests that executing Mr. Dharmalingam and Mr. Datchi would stop the drug trade. It is apparently not important that Mr. Dharmalingam’s less than average IQ was a matter of consideration or that the AGC and Prison Service had committed a violation of Mr. Datchi’s rights. The law is in the favour of the state and the state has effectively won this fight. So, why is the state so keen to get rid of people like Mr. Dharmalingam and Mr. Datchi?

Would the state be as eager to wipe them from the face of this earth if they were from any other social class except the one, they are from? When six law students got caught cheating in the bar exam, the initial reaction from the authorities was to give them a “second chance” and their names were initially kept out of the public eye. Would the state be so keen to give “second chances” if they were from the class that nobody gives a s** about?

I’m not saying that drugs are not a problem. I am not even talking about the legalities or moralities of the death penalty. I just believe that we need to ask ourselves if we are really at war with drugs and poverty or if we’re merely at war with poor people for being poor. This is the question that needs to be asked if we are serious about dealing with the social problems we claim that we want to solve.   

Do You Really Need a Sledge Hammer to Get Your Point Across to the Fly?

 

Four days ago, a correction order was made against the Independent Singapore (as a matter of full disclosure, I have a working relationship with the Independent Singapore, which picks up my blog pieces on a monthly basis) under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma) for claiming in an article that Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam may be stepping down from his ministerial positions. More on the story can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/pofma-correction-direction-issued-independent-singapore-over-false-claims-shanmugam-may-be-stepping-down-1879166

As required by law, the Independent Singapore and the author, Mr. Toh Han Shih have appended a correction notice. I grew up in the media business. My dad is an advertising film director and my mum was an editor at the Straits Times. Hence, I grew up around people who worked in the media and I learned that factual accuracy was something that journalist take very seriously (this being in the 70s when our then Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew was at his most “sue-happy”).

Then, when I started working with media people, I understood that respectable news organisations always had a system to ensure that news was as accurate as possible. Writers are supposed to do their research and copy has to go through sub-editors who act as a final check on facts being published. However, mistakes do happen and when it’s brought to the attention of the news editors, a correction is printed in the next issue. I’ve seen correction notices in publications like the Economist and Financial Times.

So, if you look at the “slip-up” by the Independent Singapore, you’ll understand that what happened is part and parcel of being in the news business and if you look at the fact that the Independent Singapore does not have the same resources as say the Straits Times, its record of publishing accurate information has been pretty good.

So, the question that needs to be asked is why was it necessary to use a Pofma order to get the correction when a simple letter or phone call to the editor or publisher would have sufficed? Pofma is an act brought about to combat “fake” information from spreading and being turned into fact. Say what you like about Pofma, but it does have a purpose in the current “Covid-19” environment. It helps to stop false information or conspiracy theories (for example, scaring people from taking a vaccine that keeps you out of the ICU in the event you get infected by a highly contagious disease).

If you look at the incident with the Independent Singapore, you cannot argue that the news site was deliberately spreading false information that was against public interest. It is at worst a case of getting a simple fact wrong. They reported that the Minister said that he wanted to step down when he didn’t say that. How does one ague that this bit of inaccurate reporting is against public interest or that it maligns or defames the minister in question.

So, the question is raised – why did the government feel that it was necessary to use the heavy hand of the law when there were more efficient and cost-effective ways of getting the correction notice. The question also exposes one of the great flaws of Pofma – namely the question of who decides what constitutes an online falsehood. Did the Minister wake up one morning and decide that the Independent Singapore was publishing “Fake News” or did have several cabinets worth of documents to prove malicious intent?

Leaving the deeper legal issues aside, a glance at the simple issue of why the heavy hand of Pofma had to be used when a simple call to the editor would have done the trick, would give one the impression that something is amiss. It seems that the powers that be have gotten to used to being believed merely for being the powers that be, that they’ve lost the ability to communicate disagreement without taking the hammer of the law to it.

Sure, our ministers are highly intelligent people with great credentials. However, since none of them have never actually had to face an environment that one could describe as “hostile.” There’s never been a need to get down on the ground and to explain your policies to the people who are affected by them. Its merely enough to speak them and beat everyone who disagrees with you with a law against fake news.

When compared to their global counterparts, our policy makers have it easy. Just look at how recently re-elected French President, Emanuel Marcon went to talk to people who were openly booing him. Say what you like about the man but he was willing to enter a hostile environment to talk to people who violently disagreed with him (while Mr. Macron has a reputation for being aloof – he has gone into crowds where he’s had eggs thrown at him and he's also been slapped):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgxYDYGR-is

 

At the age of 78, an age where people are expected to be too set in their ways to discuss things, US President Joe Bidden also goes out to talk to people who oppose not just him but what he stands for. He comes to them in person to try to get his side of the story across:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPig-AllQe8

 

Sure, both Mr. Bidden and Mr. Macron have flaws but this is the most effective way of ensuring you get the right message across. Yes, I understand that laws against online falsehoods are necessary. However, the heavy hand of the law doesn’t make you more credible. If anything, it helps fuel conspiracy theories. However, having the courage to face people who are openly hostile to you and to sit down and tell your side of the story makes you credible. Sure, you may not get mass conversions to your side but you earn respect and that in turn gives what you stand for support. It’s something that our leaders need to remember.

How Sad Can You Get?

 I must admit that I am, like many heterosexuals' men highly attracted to the female body. I have been guilty of "checking out" attractive things in a too obvious way and there's nothing like a compliment from an attractive lady to boost the ego.

Men, as they say, will be men. Somehow, no matter how smart we might be, we end up doing the stupidest things just to a glimpse of certain parts of the female anatomy. We, as a group, are obsessed with the size of the wrong head. If I take myself as an example, I suspect I would have been a lot better financially if I had, at certain moments, had better control of the small head.  

My only defence in this aspect is the fact that I am in rather distinguished company. I live in Asia, which is filled with normally intelligent and highly successful men who end up getting themselves twisted in knots of a young "hot-body."

Sex, as they say, is a primal urge. Napoleon Hill went as far as to argue that a high sex drive was healthy if a man could use it to drive himself to better things. However, the key here is controlling it and many of us tend to only get control of the little head after 35. 

If I take myself as an example, I had a fantasy of wanting to be the ultimate lover (not husband or boyfriend) to every woman I encountered. However, now that I am at the wrong end of my forties, my priorities have changed. Sure, sex is important but its not the be all and end all. I understand that certain fantasies should be just that.

Let's put it this way, when you are in your twenties and aggressively courting chicks, you can be seen as virile and the chicks might appreciate your enthusiasm for the hunt. However, once you hit forty and your still slobbering over everything that walks, you became a slobbering old man and the girls are more likely than not to find you creepy.

So, with all of this in mind, what is one bound to think of the latest scandal coming out of the United Kingdom. British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson and his gang in the Tory Party have openly accused the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Ms. Angela Rayner of distracting them during Prime Minister’s Question Time by crossing and uncrossing her legs in the same way that Catherine Tramell, the sexy femme fetale, played by Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct did. More of the story can be found at:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10746873/Tories-accuse-Angela-Rayner-Basic-Instinct-ploy-crosses-uncrosses-legs-PMQs.html

 

 Ms. Rayner and most of the women I know have decried the misogyny and sexism of this entire incident. This incident can only irritate any woman with a brain and a bit of ambition.  I mean, here you have a deputy leader of the country in waiting, and all you can complain about is her physical form? Women are a presence in the modern workforce and they should be judged for their capabilities in the workplace rather than what you hope they'll be like in the bedroom.

My take is a little different. Boris Johnson and his gang are not so much sexist but showing off their incompetence. I mean, how do you square the fact that the man is at an age where he should be able to control his little head. He's reached the pinnacle of a political career. Yet, there he is complaining he's being distracted by how a woman crosses her legs or what she's wearing. Seriously, this is what you'd expect of a teenager discovering penis growth - not of the Prime Minister of a major player on the global stage.   

Sure, I don’t doubt the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has human urges. Who is to say that he doesn’t find Ms. Rayner attractive? However, the British public didn’t vote for him to express his inability to control his fantasies when he’s doing his job. They’re paying him to do a job – i.e. to do things that make life better for people.

I don’t doubt that there are women who weaponise their sex appeal. The infamous crossing legs scene in Basic Instinct is precisely about that – Ms. Tramell, ensures that the cops are too taken back by the fact that she’s obviously not wearing underwear. Her victims cannot control their little head and end up with a pick in their skull.

 

 So, tantalising – so dangerous – Pure Fantasy

However, that’s a movie and regardless of whether Ms. Rayner wears underwear and how she crosses her legs in parliament should have no bearing on Mr. Johnson’s ability to get things done. Mr. Johnson should be at the age where he should be able to control his little head and if he’s distracted by Ms. Rayner’s wardrobe from doing his job, one should question what else he’s easily distracted by?

The Sanction of Cheating in a Public Professional Exam.

 

Around four days ago, the legal fraternity in Singapore got a nasty shock when the news broke that there were six law students were caught for cheating in their bar exams. This new has been a shock for Singapore.

We are proudly “non-corrupt” (we are officially the fourth least corrupt nation on the planet – the only Asian nation in the top five, ranking with New Zealand and the Nordics) and we revel in the reputation of being the best exam takers in the world. Why would any of our kids’ “cheat” when they had everything at their disposal to ensure they passed fair and square?

This incident has put the powers that be in a peculiar position. The government, which normally has a lot to say about incidents of “cheating” has been silent and left most of the talking to the judiciary. The Attorney-General’s chamber has recommended that five of the candidates have their admission to the bar delayed whilst one of them be delayed for a year. The Law Society has said that it would object their admission. The judge at the centre of the case, Mr. Choo Han Teck has stated that “something has gone wrong,” but at the same time has kept the names of the young offenders out of the public eye so as not to “prejudice” their futures. More of the story can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/culture-cheating-judge-delays-bar-admission-6-law-graduates-caught-cheating-exams-1875451; and

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/law-society-lawsoc-trainee-lawyers-cheat-bar-exam-2635466

This incident and the way that it’s been handled does raise several questions about one of the key points about Singapore’s entire system – namely the question of integrity and rule of law.

As mentioned earlier, Singapore is famously “anti-corruption,” and in fairness, the example was set by the top. Lee Kuan Yew, our first Prime Minister, held his ministers to such a high standard of integrity that suicide was actually the better option than being exposed to a hint of scandal and in way, you could say this has been institutionalised. My former Battery Commander, once told me that when he took the post of “Chief Supply Officer” of the Army, the anti-corruption people told him that they would be keeping an eye on him because he was in a “corruption prone” office.”

Our methods of keeping people on the straight and narrow also involves carrots as well as sticks. The best example is seen by our Ministerial Salaries, which are the world’s best. Whilst everyone knows about our ministerial salaries, the salaries of officials down the food chain are not to be sniffed at too.

So, how did six young people from “good” families get involved in a “cheating” scandal particularly for a profession that places ethnical practice as one of its main requirements? How is it such that the proposed sanctions sound more like a “slap on the wrist” or a “go stand in a corner” rather than a punitive sanction?

Well, let’s start with the definition of what counts as corruption. The corruption that Singapore fights so hard against, is inevitably the money variety. Public officials for example, are paid well, so that they don’t need to shake people down for bribes. People who get government contracts are actually supposed to deliver something of a reasonable quality rather than pocket the money and leave the nation with unusable infrastructure.

Tackling money corruption has made Singapore a shinning beacon. As a prominent Emirati businesswoman once said to me – “Singapore washes the face of the Oriental.”

However, as Professor Mushtaq Khan from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS – which as a matter of full disclosure was my first-choice university) argues, there are different forms of corruption. In an interview with “Hard Copy” of Nigeria, Professor Khan points out that in some states, corruption doe not need to involve money and provided the example of how a state can take your property by merely passing laws to do so without demanding a bribe. The state has the power to make what is illegal – legal. More on Professor Khan’s interview can be seen at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H1SSyIxLLY

 

 Professor Khan also argued that the problem that many developing countries had was the fact that corruption drives tended to focus on grandstanding or the arrest of several prominent figures without addressing the rout cause of the problem – namely the fact that its not in the interest of the powerful and elite to follow the rules and that in the more advanced economies people followed the rules because it was in their interest not to.

Professor Khan, who is British-Bangladeshi, argued that in the UK for example, people followed the laws and stayed on the narrow because what they were afraid of was being shunned by their peers rather than the state. By contrast, in less developed economies, the elite used “informal” ways of enforcing contracts and nobody really told on anyone because everyone had “dirty laundry.”

In way this bar exam cheating scandal does put this under the spotlight. It’s not corruption in the sense that no money has changed hands and that the young people in question are not joining the civil service.

However, one has to ask several questions. Why, for example, did they feel that they could get away with cheating in an exam? Is there a culture of cheating in our judiciary? Then, there is the fact that whilst the Judge had stated that cheating in a professional public exam, dishonesty and lack of propriety were not the only vices on display, the sanction against the six was sought not as a punishment but as a form of reflection.

Sure, I get that we should allow young people a chance to redeem themselves. The crime in question is not like that of Brock Turner, who raped a woman in 2015 and was let off because the judge didn’t want to ruin his future. I also get the fact that the young people in question are not peddling drugs, which can be harmful to those they sell to.

However, why do we feel the need to protect them by keeping their names out of the public domain? We’ve argued that we need to hang drug couriers because regardless of the circumstances (whether they are medically slow or not) because they damage the fabric of society. We have no problem giving each drug courier a name and when activist like M. Ravi or Kristin Han try to humanise them, they get labelled as being less than patriotic or in Mr. Ravi’s case less than sane.

Well, these young people have damaged the integrity of the judiciary and for that, they need to be punished so that no one else gets the idea that they can cheat their way onto the bar. Nobody is calling for them to be jailed or hanged but at the very least, their acts need to known to the wider world. We need to create a system where people who cheat get shunned by their peers rather than waiting for the state and the judiciary to slap them on the wrist.

We need to be serious about maintaining our judicial integrity. We should understand that that the children of middle-class families, who are more often than not of lighter complexion, can do damage to the fabric of our society and we need to have the same zeal in holding them to account the same way we are so eager to hold the children of poorer people, who are more often than not from ethnicities of a dark complexion, to account for their actions.   

  

Dangerous Dogs or Stupid People?

 

This morning I got a message from a friend about the former heavyweight champion of the world, Mike Tyson. Mr. Tyson has allegedly been filmed punching another passenger on a plane. More of the story can be found at:

https://www.tmz.com/2022/04/21/mike-tyson-repeatedly-punches-man-face-plane-bloodies-passenger/

 

I grew up watching Mike Tyson in his prime. His reputation was such that the guys he fought had already lost before they entered the ring. I remember his fight against Michael Spinx, who was a restable fighter who had beaten a former heavy weight champion (Larry Holms) enroot to facing Mr. Tyson. The fear in Mr. Spinx was obvious and it only took a matter of seconds for Mr. Tyson to end his misery.

Mr. Tyson was so fearsome that he actually terrified men who were bigger and stronger. Since I was living in the UK at the time, the fight that comes to mind was the first fight against Frank Bruno. The fight turned out to be like a Singapore election. The fact that Mr. Bruno lasted five rounds was considered a victory of sorts. Mr. Bruno did get one good hit (which Mr. Tyson did admit was the hardest he had been hit) and many of my friends talked about the boxer who nearly beat Tyson. However, the result was a forgone conclusion. Mr. Bruno ended up as a bloody mess at the end of the fight:

 

 

 

Well, they ended up meeting again. Despite having spent a few years in jail, Mr. Tyson ended up doing more damage to Mr. Bruno. Whilst Mr. Bruno put up a brave fight for five rounds in the first fight, this time he could only manage three rounds and after the beating he received, he was advised by doctors that he should retire or risk going blind from too many beatings to the head.

What’s particularly interesting about this fight was the fact that Mr. Bruno was actually a bigger and physically stronger man. He had a 9 cm advantage in terms of height and he outweighed Mr. Tyson by a good 12 KG.

 

 Taken from Wikipedia

Mr. Bruno had the size advantage but Mr. Tyson had something more powerful – the psychological advantage. He terrified people he fought and he enjoyed going in for the kill, whereas Mr. Bruno did not.

To put it crudely, most us would happily meet up with Mr. Bruno for a drink and for a friendly chit-chat. His image was that of a gentle giant. In his spare time, he did pantomimes (saw him in Aladdin in the West End.) Sure, you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of his punches (British TV once did a study, which stated that a punch from Frank Bruno would be like being hit by a motorbike at 30 miles an hour) but he was not the type of guy who would throw a punch at you for no reason.

Mr. Tyson by contrast was by contrast, has never been known for being gentle. He was devastating in the ring and his personal life was turbulent. Violence followed him out of the ring. One of the more famous incidents being a 1988 street brawl with Mitch Green, whom he had previously outpointed in the ring. The fight in the ring was a boxing match. The fight on the street was more “interesting.” Mr. Tyson fractured his hand in the process of rearranging Mr. Green’s face:

 

Mr. Tyson was simply someone most of us would not want to meet in broad daylight let alone in dark lane. He’s the type of guy who could turn violent over nobody quite knows what and if he can damage Mr. Bruno and Mr. Green, who are big well built hardened fighters, one can only imagine what he could do to the rest of us. The man had a reputation of being a beast rather than a normal human.

He did mellow. Mr. Tyson eventually met defeat at the hands of Buster Douglas and while he did make an interesting comeback, he was not quite so fearsome. After the “spanking” he got from Lenox Lewis, his lust for the kill in the ring started to mellow and in 2005, he retired. Mr. Tyson has reinvented himself as an actor (Hangover) and a marijuana entrepreneur. His reputation has mellowed.

However, whilst Mr. Tyson has mellowed for all, he remains who he is – which is a beast at heart. He’s no longer the all-powerful 21-year-old who became the youngest heavy weight champion in history. However, at the age of 55, he’s still physically imposing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I9Iv89xQPc

 

 I tend of people who get into alterations with Mr. Tyson like people who claim they get savaged by Pit Bulls. As much as they may be gentle, they can also snap. Still remember a report in the eighties about a pit bull savaging someone. The guy admitted that they were teasing the dog until it snapped and savaged one of them. The dog is undoubtedly dangerous in that it has a vicious side. Its bread to fight. As such, you should respect the fact that it will do as its nature. Don’t go and tease it until it snaps.

You could say the same is true for Mr. Tyson. He can be very friendly. However, when he asks you to leave him alone – leave him alone. Don’t do things like throw bottles at him and then expect him to sit there and take it:

Whilst I don’t doubt that there are dangerous dogs and animals, there are probably an equal number of stupid humans who think nothing of provoking fights without understanding that there are consequences. If a pit bull is minding its own business, leave it be – don’t provoke it. In what world do you expect people to lie there and take things whilst you goad them on? That is not the law of nature.

What’s the Difference between a B** and a Wh***?

 

There was a discussion with a couple of friends tonight, which centred around an acquaintance’s feelings towards a former colleague. This reminded me of an old joke that one of my best friends at university used to tell. This joke has a tinge of political incorrectness but it tells us a lot about how the way the world works.

The joke is essentially the question of – “What’s the difference between a b**ch and a W***re?” The answer is “The W**re sleeps with everyone. The b**ch sleeps with everyone except you?

 

 What makes her so different from

 

 

Her?

The first point about this joke is that it hits on something very fundamental between men and women and their relationship to sex. We salute men for the number of women they sleep with. However, when it doesn’t work with the other side. A man who sleeps with multiple women is known as a “stud” while a woman with a high sex drive is known as a “w**re.”

It’s clear that we hold women up to a very different standard. Men get certain licenses that women don’t get and somehow, when women appear to behave in similar ways to men, we try to pull them down.

However, as this joke implies, we have to ask ourselves if our disapproval of women who behave like men has a tinge of jealousy to it. Why do we feel that “lose” women are awful whilst we cheer on “lose” men?

OK, I am a reasonably healthy heterosexual man and even if I’m pushing close to the five-oh mark, the thought of getting laid does cross my mind. Sure, getting laid is no longer the same priority that it was when I was in my 20s, that thought does come into my mind whenever I look at some of the more attractive things that cross my path in my daily life in the Central Business District.

So, with that in my mind, I understand this joke. Let’s be honest, if a woman has a reputation with being “easy,” my first thought is not about her morals but whether I’ll be able to get into bed with her. Let’s face it, whilst we find “w**re’s” socially unacceptable, the only reason why the entire vice industry (the oldest industry in the world) exists and continues to do so, is because men have been out to get laid. We complain about women being “w**res” but we are the ones who create an industry for them.

So, let’s be honest – a woman that has a reputation for being “easy” is only easy because a “horny guy” thinks she’s an “easy” opportunity to get laid. Then, when the said “easy” woman turns you down, despite sleeping everyone else except you – it produces a rather frustrating feeling and there’s a feeling that you’ve been suckered (experiences which I can speak from on a personal basis).

Whilst this joke focuses on male-female relationships, we do see plenty of this in other relationships. The feeling that everyone else “except you,” is getting something that you believe you’re chasing for can be very frustrating and “resentment” can build up.

I’m generally open to the idea that we need people from elsewhere in our economic system. Given that the highlights of my working life were provided by Indian nationals, I personally don’t have issues with the influx of Indian nationals. I am very open that I dislike “far-right” populist who use the “anti-migrant” drum to whip up fear against particular ethnic groups. I took history of A-levels and I understand that the Nazis, Klu Klux Klan are the “bad-guys” for a good reason.

However, I do get where this is coming from. If you listen to enough people online, you’d get the idea that Singapore is providing jobs for everyone – “except” the local Singaporean graduate. No matter how you spin economic statistics, its not going to really gel with guys who believe that everyone else except them is able to get a well-paid job in Singapore.

The latest Prime-Minister-in-Waiting, Mr. Lawrence Wong, needs to understand where the feeling of “everyone except us” is coming from. Why do people on the ground feel so resentful? Sure, we may have to be like “w**res” in the sense that we have to sell ourselves to the foreign investor community. Foreign investment does generate economic growth and in turn jobs.

However, whilst the population can accept that we may have to be “w**res” and be open to the world, the population should not accept that the government is a “b**ch” that provides opportunity to everyone else except the local population.

 

 

A Sexy Devil is Still a Devil

 

Let’s be perfectly honest here but men have a way of getting turned on by the most peculiar of things. One of those peculiarities is what you’d call a “bad girl” or the type of girl who you know is bad for you but somehow there’s something very appealing about her. This attraction was best expressed by the 2000 movie Bedazzled, staring Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil.

Instead of giving us the usual “fearful” and “gruesome” devil that has been part of mythology, the producers of the movie decided that the devil would be sexy and Ms. Hurley’s voluptuous figure in limited and tight clothing became the visual highlight of the movie:

 

 Taken from Reddit

Whilst looking at Ms. Hurley in not very much was an enjoyable experience, there was an important lesson from that movie. The character she plays is the personification of all that’s evil and even if that personification is dressed up in a very “attractive package.” Hence, the male lead, played by Brandon Fraser gets screwed throughout. Simply put, he gets an attractive proposition (the girl he’s infatuated with) from an attractive package (Ms. Hurley with with not very much on). He only gets out of his predicament towards the end of the movie when he goes for what he needs (his dream girl’s happiness rather than his desire to be with her) and looks beyond the attractive offer from the attractive messenger.

The producers of Bedazzled probably never imagined that their movie would be anything more than that. However, as things turned out, the movie turned out to be prophetic. Sixteen years later, the Western World would see the rise populist politicians like Donald Trump in the USA, Nigel Farage in the UK, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and let’s not forget Marine Le Pen in France.

All these politicians found a niche – the forgotten working class or the “losers of globalisation.” They tapped into the anger of this group and found an “attractive” message, “Your plight is not your fault, its fault of a corrupt elite trying to replace you with dirty, dark people from elsewhere, who will rape your women (literally) and you (figuratively by stealing the job that should be yours).”

Say what you like about that message, but it resonated with a large number of people, and whilst only Trump managed to win power, all of them have become key players in their respective nations. The “message” like the Devil’s message in Bedazzled has become not just addictive but “normal.” As mentioned in a previous posting, while Trump may have messed up Covid (says something when the world’s most advanced nation has higher cases than proverbial S**holes), he still commands a near religious following who, as he said, would forgive him even if he shot someone in public.

Whilst Trump generates the most discussion, the most interesting far right politician is in fact Ms. Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally in France. At the time of writing, Ms. Le Pen has made it to the second round of the French Presidential Election, where she faces the current President, Mr. Emanuel Macron. This is what you call a rematch of 2017, when the then unknown Mr. Macron got two thirds of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s third.

 

 Taken from Times of Israel.

At the time of writing, the polls have indicated that Mr. Macron should probably be returned to power. However, unlike 2017, Mr. Macron cannot take victory for granted (a Le Pen presidency cannot be ruled out) as the margins will be significantly tighter (Ms. Le Pen is expected to get 47 percent of the vote).

So, you can argue that regardless of what happens, Ms. Le Pen is the actual winner of this election. She has pulled off what nobody ever imagined possible – she has made the National Rally or the National Front as it was known, electable. Ms. Le Pen inherited the National Front from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a far-right politician who was quite happy to describe the Nazi Holocaust as a mere detail of history.

The older Le Pen was what you could call part of the “Crazies,” and whilst he did have an audience, the National Front was essentially unelectable. Nobody in their right mind would give actual power to Mr. Le Pen. When, Mr. Pen had a freak-streak of luck in the 2002 Presidential election and eliminated the Socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin in the first round, the Socialist party’s voters rushed to vote for the incumbent, Jacques Chirac. Blocking Le Pen senior from power became imperative for voters.

 

 French – For Crazy – Taken from the Guardian

Ms. Le Pen has changed that. The National Front has been “rebranded” as the National Rally and Ms. Le Pen has “de-demonised” the party, including removing her father. The thugs have gone and if you listen to Ms. Le Pen, she sounds like a Singaporean politician – reasonable and rational.

Ms. Le Pen has done much better than her father ever did and in the 2022, she’s run a savvy campaign, hitting Mr. Macron where it hurts the most. She focused on rising prices and how they’ve hurt the most vulnerable. She’s found a way to resonate with “normal” voters.

Mr. Macron has not helped himself. Whilst he has presided good economic figures and lower unemployment, he’s come across as out of touch:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-2021-economic-growth-strongest-52-years-7-2022-01-28/#:~:text=Economists%20polled%20by%20Reuters%20had,coronavirus%20lockdowns%20were%20in%20force.

 

 https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/FRA/france/unemployment-rate

 

You could say that Mr. Macron gets what Singapore’s ruling party gets online. When he talks about strong economic growth, Ms. Le Pen hits him with “Economic growth for whom?”

So, credit to Ms. Le Pen for rebranding her party and becoming an attractive candidate for “normal” voters. Like the Devil in Bedazzled, she’s packaged an attractive message well.

However, one needs to ask if Ms. Le Pen is really an attractive person deserving of power or is she like the Devil in Bedazzled, still the devil no matter how she may look or sound. Let’s face it, even if Ms. Le Pen has “de-crazied” the message of the National Rally (Front), her message is still pretty much the same. Yes, the message can sound reasonable and it may resonate, but should it be normal? Just take a look at the following from Politico:

https://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-french-election-france-in-her-own-words-macron/

She’s not sending mindless thugs onto the street but her solution remains similar to the simplicity of Trump’s – focus on the minorities and brutalise them with the force of the law when possible.

Sure, Ms. Le Pen has tried to soften some of her more extremist stances like leaving the EU and NATO (the institutions that guarantee economic and military security) and she’s also tried to soften her support for the villain of the year – Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61073894

 

 Credit where credit is due – Ms. Le Pen has pulled of an incredible rebranding exercise and run a very savvy political campaign and Mr. Macron has in some ways not helped himself.

However, as anyone who works in marketing communications or branding will tell you – no amount of branding or communication can change what a product is. Ms. Le Pen is at heart a snake oil saleslady pushing for the worst in humankind. In 2017, the French voters defied a trend to keep the ultimate prize away from Ms Le Pen. Say what you like about Mr. Macron but he’s not brought out the lowest in people and has kept France on the path of sanity. The French voters should remember that a sexy devil is still a devil.

He Did – Why Can’t You?

 

It’s Easter Sunday, the day when Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whilst Easter tends to get overshadowed by Christmas and we think of Easter as a great day for chocolate eggs, it is in fact the most important festival in the Christian faith. This is the festival that commemorates the key point of Christianity – namely the fact that Jesus overcame death and following Jesus was the only way to everlasting life.

This is the only well-known record of anyone coming back from the dead in the last two thousand two hundred years and its likely to be the only one of its kind. However, whilst it’s highly unlikely anyone else is going to come back from the dead in a literal sense, the art of coming back from the dead in the metaphorical sense is going to be something many of us will need to master.

Just look at the last five-years, where we’ve been hit by events nobody could have predicted. It started with technological disruption that was changing industries. Then we got hit by a global pandemic that shut down the world and now we have a war in Europe, a continent that expects peace and prosperity to be a given, that has the potential to become a world war.

All these events have ended “life as we know it” for many people around the world. Ending “life as we know it” is likely to happen to an increasing number of people. The life that you know today can be terminated by events beyond your control. So, what can you do about it?

As with most things, the starting point is being aware of your own proverbial mortality. Regardless of what you do for a living, you can be replaced and the life that you know will come to an end. Once you accept that that you can and will be replaced if your employer has a chance to, you are more likely to anticipate and prepare for it.

One of the most damaging phrases in East Asia is “Iron Rice Bowl.” It gives people the idea that what they need to do is to get into a certain profession and work for a certain employer and they’ll never have to worry about where the next meal comes from in as much as the monthly cheque and pension payments are guaranteed. The idea of the iron rice bowl made working for multinationals and to a larger extent, the bureaucracy all the more valuable. Entrepreneurship was something for the few and taking on the bureaucracy and large corporations is frowned upon.

Whilst East Asia has been the centre of much the global economic growth in the last few decades, this mentality has proven to be a crutch. As was seen in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, what prosperity that was gained in the region was dependent on Western innovation and Western markets. East Asia was only prospering because it was doing things cheaper than the West and when Western money markets (specifically Bonds) chose not to smile on Asia, the party collapsed.

The second point is that this mentality has psychologically damaged generations. Think of Japan, which was the most feared economy. When the boom times ended in the 1990s, a generation of Japanese salarymen, who had grown up with the concept of working for a single paternalistic employer for life got stuck. Life as they knew it ended and Japan’s suicide rate in 1995 started to spike. Something similar happened in South Korea at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, when South Korea was one of the hardest hit nations during the Asian Financial crisis.

 

 Taken from Wikipedia

Accepting that your professional life can end abruptly makes you prepare for it. If you know that your main source of income can evaporate overnight, makes you understand the need to have alternatives. One of the most prominent examples in the last week came from the Canadian actor Simon Liu, who found fame and fortune in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” The impetus to get into Hollywood came from the fact that he was a failed accountant who got fired by Deloitte’s. His safe and respectable job wasn’t giving him happiness, which meant he probably wasn’t much good at it. Being fired ended the life he knew and he had to be “reborn” into something that made him happy. The story can be found at:

https://radiichina.com/simu-liu-from-accountant-to-marvel-superhero/

 

 However, whilst we should be grateful that Deloitte saved Simon Liu from being a mediocre accountant and helped propel his movie career, most of us should rush to terminate jobs. We should prepare for it by doing things like having a side-hustle and financial investments that can provide a secondary source of revenue. As they say, “only fire your boss when you can afford to do so.”

For me, whilst my corporate career never really took off, I’ve always looked at having more than one job. Hence, when possible, I wait tables. I’m also trying to get more readership and therefore more advertising revenue for this blog. Sure, waiting tables pays badly but even if I get $50 a month, its still $50 a month more than what I would have had otherwise. Same goes for the blog. It took me six-years to make $155 in advertising revenue but it was still $155 more than I would have had otherwise.

I’ve been lucky in the sense that my day job boss allows me to work a second job, so I turn I try and return the favour by trying to develop business through the people I meet in the menial jobs. My various hustles, which may never pay me much, do provide me with content to write about.

Change is constant and events in the last five years have only served to underline that fact. The sooner we except that life as we know it could end at any moment, the more likely we are to be able to adapt and build a new life for ourselves. Jesus rose from the dead to show us that we could achieve a better life than the earthly life we have. We need to understand and be prepared to accept that the life we have could end anytime and we need to be prepared to make a better one.