The Levels of Anointment

 One of the things that we, as a nation, like to tell the world, is the fact that Singapore is very firm when it comes to the rule of law. It’s supposed to be the one thing that makes us stand out whenever we are compared with our rivals in the region. I remember, then Deputy Prime Minister, Teo Chee Hean, making that point in 2013 when he was asked about Singapore’s higher costs when compared to the rest of the region. He said, “There may be hidden costs in the region but Singapore, what you see is what you get.”

This has been, what you’d call our key strengths when it comes to selling ourselves in the world. When it comes to the world of foreign investment, you’ll find that whilst the multinationals want to be in the bigger markets, they make a point of ensuring that contracts get signed under Singapore Law, because, well our legal system is that well regarded.

However, within the first third of this year, there’s been plenty of reason for us to question if we’re really a place of “what you see if what you get.” First, there was the fact that six-senior executives at Keppel O&M were let off with a “stern warning” by our Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) for allegations of corruption in Brazil, despite the company’s US arm entering into a plea deal in the USA. There was a decision not to name the six and our second Minister of Finance, Ms. Indranee Rajah got up in parliament and defended the decision of the CPIB not to prosecute the six because of a “lack of evidence,” despite what the international media was reporting.

More recently, there was the case of Mr. Karl Liew, son of former Changi Airport Chairman, Mr. Liew Mun Leong, who was jailed for two weeks for lying first to the police and then under oath in court in an effort to frame the family maid for theft. What makes Mr. Liew’s case particularly interesting was the fact that he only got jail time because the judge would not accept the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) acting like it was Mr. Liew’s defense counsel.

A lot has been written about these two matters and not much more can be said, except that as far as the ordinary member of the public is concerned, the belief that the system protects its own is confirmed.

To an extent, most of us have always understood that there’s always been some form on back scratching in Singapore. When we talked of “non-corruption” we were right in the sense that people like immigration officers and traffic policemen would not take bribes. In Singapore, if you get a speeding ticket, you pay the speeding ticket and not the traffic cop who issued it. However, we accepted that there would always be certain people who get treated a little nicer because they happened to be born who they were. However, it was usually done within the boundaries of legality and even the most favoured of people knew that they had to be seen playing by the rules.

Our first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew made it very clear that the “whiff” of corruption, let alone the actual corruption would not be tolerated. Sure, he saw to it that “his people,” like his ministers were well paid but should there be a hint that they were not playing by the rules, he’d deal with them in the most severe manner. We’re talking about a man who gave a minister accused of corruption the choice of suicide or being ruined. The minister in question realized that suicide was the better option.

His successor, Mr. Goh Chok Tong, offered a “kinder, gentler” Singapore and made efforts to reduce some of the elder Mr. Lee’s more brutal methods when doing things. However, Mr. Goh realized that any hint of corruption or fraud was to be avoided like the plague.

Take what happened when Mr. TT Durai, CEO of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) was found to have been very generous with himself with the funds of the charity. Mr. Durai who had been CEO of the NKF since 1992 was something of a star who raised funds for the public and offered affordable dialysis treatments. The government seemed to like him for finding a way to keep a potential health problem off the government’s bill.

However, when word of Mr. Durai’s misdeeds came out, the government came out, the government worked to distance itself from him. Mr. Goh’s wife who had publicly defended Mr. Durai’s generous salary as “Peanuts” faced a public backlash and vanished from the spotlight. Mr. Goh, who had just handed over the premiership apologized for his wife.

As for Mr. Durai, he quickly and quietly surrendered and ended up facing three months in jail. He was also sued by the organization he had once led and after he was released, he disappeared from the public eye.

https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/50-year-flashback-scandal-rocks-nation

 

 

Sure, Mr. Durai’s three months in jail might seem light compared to the amount he took from the NKF’s coffers. However, with the exception of Mrs. Goh (who has never held public office), no prominent figures tried to defend him and whilst the justice system may not have dealt him a harsh blow, he was named and shamed.

Compare that with what happened with the six at Keppel O&M and Mr. Karl Liew. Not only was there a visible effort to “protect” the accused parties but there was also an effort to “explain” why the crime wasn’t actually a crime.

In the case of the Keppel Six, there was the ridiculous defense launched by the Artful Bootlicker, who calls himself the Critical Spectator. According to the Critical Spectator, the Six at Keppel should have been given an award for making Keppel and by extension the rest of us rich out of Brazil’s corruption.

Then there’s a case of Mr. Karl Liew, whom most normal people might suggest committed the text book definition of perjury. However, instead of charging him for perjury, he was charged with giving false evidence to a public official, which carries a significantly lesser sentence. Why would the AGC do this?

Well, a few days after Mr. Liew got sentenced, we had a nice article in the Today Newspaper from a former Deputy Public Prosecutor explaining to us that “wrong evidence was not necessarily false evidence.”

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/explainer-law-giving-false-evidence-2156321

I can’t for the life of me remember anyone trying to explain in the public domain how Mr. Durai’s acts of fraud were not actually fraud the way there’s an offer to explain why Mr. Liew’s perjury is not actually perjury.

We always knew that certain people would be anointed. However, back then, it being anointed meant that you had to play within the rules. It would seem that in today’s world, anointment means that you play by separate rules. Surely this is not something you expect from a country that tells you that “what you see is what you get.”  

How Do You Say Sorry to A Corpse?

 Singapore has just scored another “Victory” in the war on drugs. Early today, we executed Mr. Tangaraju, a Singaporean who was sentenced to death in 2018. Much is being said on both sides of the debate and so I shall refrain from trying to add anything that the more intelligent and passionate have already said. I will however, make the point that it was rather ironic that we chose to execute a man so soon after the sentencing of Karl Liew for lying in court during the Parti Liyani case.

 

 Could we have been wrong? – Taken from the Linkedin Page of Mr. M. Ravi.

If you leave the argument on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent for drug use to one side, the biggest argument that proponents have for the death penalty is that, its very clear. The Singapore government makes it a point to let everyone in and coming to Singapore know that the penalty for having drugs on your possession is death. You can argue “extenuating circumstances” till the cows come home but if the fact of the matter is that you were found to have drugs of any sort on your possession, the only thing that will save you is the rope breaking three times. Anyone who has a brain cell or two knows the risk of carrying drugs within Singapore and I guess you could say that if you get caught with drugs, then you deserve what you get.

However, there is one major flaw with that argument. It’s based on the assumption that the system is infallible and always right.  If you work on the principle that the “State” catches the right guy all the time and then proves its beyond a shadow of doubt all the time, then I suppose that there should never be a problem. If anything, the people who believe in the death penalty will inevitably tell you that the guys who get caught are either caught red handed or confess. So, what’s the problem?

Well, as was shown in the Parti Liyani case, the “State” does make mistakes. The things that nobody imagined actually happened. The facts were clear in this case. The police investigation was sloppy. Evidence against Ms. Liyani was flimsy and a supposedly credible witness lied both to the investigating officer and under oath in trial. Then, there’s the fact that Ms. Liyani belongs to what you call, the less educated or at least the group that gets frightened easily by authority figures like policemen and so you got the inconsistencies in her statement to the police that our unconflicted law and home affairs minister was so quick to point to. Despite the obviously sloppy investigation and Mr. Karl Liew being exposed on the stand in the first trial, Ms. Liyani was sentenced to jail and lost four (4) years of her life.

Now, you could argue that Ms. Liyani was a “freak,” and that the Singapore Police Force (SPF) is right most of the time. However, the fact remains, the police are clearly capable of making mistakes and “credible” people are capable of lying on stand and its very clear that “innocent” people do get punished for crimes they did not commit because powerful forces were against them.

Then let’s not forget that Ms. Liyani’s case is a “freak” not because it was an oddity that the SPF made a mistake in its investigation or that a “credible” person lied on the stand. Her case is a “freak” because she had a lawyer who was willing to fight for her for no material reward and more importantly, she had a judge who could cut through the chase and made rulings based on solid facts presented in court (Namely realizing that Mr. Karl Liew’s testimony in court was not credible despite the fact that he is the son of a powerful corporate figure.)

Let’s remember that policemen and judges are humans and prone to human errors like throwing the book at “convenient targets,” like Ms. Liyani and most of the guys on death row. This isn’t unique to Singapore. In the US, you had the case of the Central Park Five, where five black and Latino teenagers were convicted of raping a white woman in 1989. The case stirred emotions, so much so that a then real estate tycoon decided to take an ad out in the papers calling for their execution. The police got confessions. They were convicted at trial in 1990 and nearly a decade later, the actual criminal was discovered in 2001.

Human errors exist and innocent people do get punished. In a world where the legal system is increasingly expensive, you will find that “convenient” targets will even go as far as to admitting to crimes they didn’t commit because they can’t afford to fight the system that they believe is against them. We have to accept that mistakes do get made and when people are wrongly convicted, they should be compensated (which would admittedly never quite compensate for years of their life lost). However, you have to ask yourself – how do you make restitution to someone that you have killed?

So, if you want the death penalty, you also need to look at making sure that the system is never wrong. You need to fix the system in such a way that human error and human weaknesses will never send the wrong people to the gallows. It is, as they say, pretty hard to say sorry to a corpse if mistakes are made

Shalom – Salaam and the Peace of Having a Meal Together – Benefits of Cute Card Continued.

 

I’ve just sent out my greetings to Muslim friends for the end of the Holy Month of Ramadan. As I’ve been doing for the past two-years, I got my favourite designer of “Cute Cards” to get to work. The Cute Card designer decided that she would draw cakes and sweets, which I thought was in a funny way appropriate.

 

I will always remember the Haji taxi driver who told me, what I believed was the wisest thing I’ve ever heard about religion. He said, “Islam is not the first religion of man – the first religion of man is salaam – when people shake hands and become friends and achieve peace.” To me, this man’s statement made more sense than the word of the multitude of religious leaders I’ve spoken to in the past decade. When it comes to the Abrahamic faiths you have too many so-called religious leaders trying to sell you that they have the only path of the almighty and they’re trying to get you to work up a hatred against the competition. When it comes to the faiths out of South and East Asia, its inevitably about how has the best magic spells.

I actually believe in a higher power and I do believe that one’s individual path to the Almighty is very personal. However, I’ve had too many experiences of decency with people of various faiths to believe that anyone has an exclusive on God. My beneficiaries in life have inevitably been South Asians and Muslims (my current employer being both). The most honourable man I know (as in his reputation was such that his staff described his word as being better than any signed contract) is a Wahabi Muslim. At the same time the most humble and decent man I know is a staunch Christian (think of a full colonel who gets out of his car to greet a lowly sergeant in his army camp). I’ve been told by a Saudi official that as much as the average Arab does not like Israeli policy, he’s found the Jews to be among the kindest people on the planet. I grew up finding peace in Buddhist environments as well as Christian churches.

So, whilst I am a horribly flawed character in so many ways, I’ve taken pride in being able to see the decency of people of all faiths and conversely, I’ve also seen the worst in humans of all faiths. So, when someone gets up and tells me that he (they usually are) has the exclusive on spirituality and that everyone is going to hell, I take the point that the person telling me that is selling something other than the divine.

Religious nationalist are, as a rule of thumb, anything but servants of God in as much as their aim is to collect souls for their version of God rather than to make humanity as a whole better. Ironically, this best pointed out by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as narrated on the Wikipedia page of his son, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the current president:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_bin_Zayed_Al_Nahyan

 

So, how can we demonstrate to each other that we are inevitably “All God’s Creatures?” The answer is through the sharing of our most basic need – food. All of us, regardless of race, language or religion need to eat and when we sit down and share a meal, we create a bond. Anthropologist like to talk about culture being about “shared experience,” and there’s nothing quite like sitting down and sharing a meal.

Now, there is this thing about Muslims and Jews being particularly difficult to cater for in as much as they have special dietary requirements and the inevitable question is, how do you sit down and share something so precious as a meal with that person when they have dietary restrictions on what you hold dear.

Interestingly enough, human ingenuity comes into play. Its now possible for enjoy Chinese food that is perfectly Halal, and this includes variations like “char siew” (which is normally pork but to clear the halal part, can now be done with chicken.)

 

 So, as the Holy Month of Ramadan ends, let’s look at how we can share meals with our Muslim friends. If we sit down and share food, we’re going to make friends. Let’s find ways of making food that all of us can enjoy. We need to create opportunities for all of us to be friends. When we create division and hatred against people of different faiths, we move away from the divine. When we bring people together, we move closer to the divine.

Will No One Rid Me of This Turbulent Maid?

 One of the earliest “famous” murders took place in 1170 in Canterbury England, when four knights hacked the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett to death. The story goes that the four knights had heard King Henry II remark “Will no one rid of this turbulent priest,” when he got the news that Thomas Beckett had excommunicated some clergy men who were supporters of the king.

Apart from the gruesome murder, the most prominent part of this story is the fact that the knights were never given orders to kill Thomas Beckett by the king. However, given that the king was venting to his household staff, there is good cause to suggest that the knights were fearful that displeasing the king would cost them and so, while no explicit orders were given, the knights interpreted the king’s wishes as such.

I’m reminded of this event in English history because we in Singapore have been seeing some parallels here. The case of Parti Liyani, the Indonesian maid who was acquitted of theft by her former employer, former Changi Airport Chairman, Mr. Liew Mun Leong, has taken a new twist. Mr. Liew’s son, Karl, who was a protagonist in case against Ms. Liyani has just been sentenced to two weeks in jail for lying to the police and to the judge in the earlier case. The full report o the story can be found at:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/karl-liew-admits-lying-parti-liyani-trial-3384201

 

 What makes this particular story of Mr. Karl Liew’s imprisonment so fascinating is that the same key element, namely the might of the state against a lowly maid in reverse. Young Mr. Liew is only going to jail because the District Judge, Mr. Eugene Teo intervened. Both the Attorney General’s Chamber (AGC) and the defence lawyers had agreed to a matter of a fine of $5,000, arguing that while the young Mr. Liew had lied under oath, no malice was proven and Ms. Liyani didn’t really suffer harm since the charge on two of the items she was accused of stealing were removed. This argument pushed the judge to make the point that the younger Mr. Liew’s actions were "brazen fraud", which cannot be tolerated by the court. More on the trial can be found at;

https://www.singaporelawwatch.sg/Headlines/karl-liew-son-of-ex-changi-airport-group-chairman-gets-2-weeks-jail-for-lying-to-judge-in-parti-liyani-case

Had it not been for the district judge, the younger Mr. Liew would have gotten off with a fine of S$5,000, which when you consider the fact that Mr. Liew’s family is considered one of the more prominent ones in corporate Singapore, a relatively small sum.

The facts of the case are not in dispute and in fairness, we cannot blame the defence counsel for using the arguments available to him to get Mr. Liew off the hook. A defence lawyer has a legal and moral obligation to give the best possible defence to his or her client.

What must be called into question is the AGC and its conduct in Mr. Liew’s case. Mr. Liew admitted to lying under oath and gave false testimony. This is the text book definition of perjury, which under Singapore’s penal code carries a jail sentence of seven-years:

 

You would imagine that this was an open and shut case and the AGC could have made a case for Singapore’s justice system by charging the younger Mr. Liew accordingly.

However, instead of charging him with perjury, the AGC went with the charge of “giving false information to a public servant knowing it would likely cause the public servant to use their lawful power to the injury of another person,” and he admitted to giving false testimony to the police. The consequences for these charges are significantly less than perjury. The $5,000 fine imposed and two-week sentence are the maximum allowable.

By going for the lesser charges, the AGC had effectively ensured that whatever jail time and fines he received would have been minimal.

The second factor that should be considered is the AGC’s behaviour in court. Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP), Mr. Kelvin Chong stated that Mr. Liew was well aware that he was lying under oath and the harm that it would cause Ms. Liyani. However, the DPP proceeded to argue that there was “no malice” on the part of Mr. Liew and then argued that no efforts to made to “bolster his lies.” In layman terms the prosecution was saying “Mr. Liew lied under oath but since he’s not a good liar, no harm done – slap him on the wrist with a fine and let’s move on.” As the Online Citizen reported – the DPP and the AGC were doing the job of the defence counsel:

https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2023/04/15/district-judge-says-prosecutions-submission-on-karl-liews-sentencing-reads-like-mitigation/

Some of the best and brightest lawyers work for the AGC. Outside the courts, it is one of the organs of our legal system, which we take so much pride in. However, if you look at the AGC’s arguments both in the original prosecution of Parti Liyani and in the prosecution of Karl Liew, the AGC has been made to look like it was a group of kindergarten kids playing at being lawyers.

What would make a normally proud and competent institution behave like this? I can look back at the 1170 incident in Canterbury, England. The king said something and the courtiers proceeded to treat it as a direct order. Think of Mr. Liew Mun Leong and his family as being like the king. They wanted to be rid of the “turbulent maid” who was not happy that they expected her to illegally do more work with no pay. It’s on record that the police did a shoddy investigation. Its on record that false testimony was given in court. Its now record that when the people who actually committed a crime were caught, an organ of state became too incompetent to do its job.

Parti Liyani did not become the proverbial Thomas Beckett in this case because there must have been a god smiling on her. That fact that her lawyer Anil Balchandani worked tirelessly and for free is one miracle. The other miracle is Justice Chan Seng Onn and now Justice Eugene Teo who stopped miscarriages of justice from getting worse.   

Unfortunately, the case in 1170 and the Parti Liyani case have one serious divergence. After Thomas Beckett was murdered, he became a saint and King Henry was vilified. The Pope (back in the days when there was only a single church under the Pope) demanded that the king do penance and got his way. The four knights who did the deed were excommunicated and fled into exile. In a sense there was retribution.

In the Parti Liyani case, the only form of retribution was public outcry. The elder Mr. Liew resigned from the Chairmanship of Changi Airport. However, there’s been no acknowledgement that a wrong had been committed. When Mr. Liew resigned, the great people of the nation urged us all to remember the “good” that the elder Mr. Liew had done. When the younger Mr. Liew admitted to committing a crime, the prosecuting authority acted like his defence.

In the words of our unconflicted writer and enforcer of laws, “something went wrong.” In this case, there’s no need to get to the bottom of things because its there for all to see. Now, are we going to understand that there’s a problem and fix it or will our “elites” who defended Mr. Liew as things were going wrong came to light, going to allow themselves to convince a sceptical public that all its suspicions of the system being rigged were correct?  

Phantom Workers with Real Pay vs Real Workers with Phantom Pay

 

One of the greatest phenomena of any given society is the ability of the human mind to get past regulations and to even make money from the said regulations. In Singapore, this is most visible in the area of hiring cheap labour from other parts of Asia.

Our situation is simple. There are industries like shipping and construction which depend on cheap labour from other parts of Asia. However, there is a quota on how many labourers a company can hire. The idea being that you can’t hire cheap labour from Asia unless you have hired a certain number of Singaporeans.

It sounds like the government is doing something to ensure the locals get first pick at jobs. To an extent, it works for small professional firms, which hire a number of locals before moving onto foreigners. However, it’s a different story when it comes to industries like shipping, construction and food. A lot of jobs in these industries are what you call “dangerous” and “dirty” and locals, particularly young graduates shun these jobs regardless of how much is on offer.

The quota system has created an industry where the industries that need foreign labour will make “CPF” contributions for local Singaporeans to ensure that they have quota to hire the labourers who are willing to do these jobs. While technically illegal, it’s a money spinner for the government. The local phantom will inevitably have a higher tax bill (to avoid suspicion, one declares the phantom wage as tax – Singapore’s direct taxes being relatively low) and the CPF kitty which is controlled by the government gets filled by workers who may not otherwise had CPF contributions.

However, you do get unscrupulous “entrepreneurs” who pay off the “phantom” workers but end up hitting the actual workers with all sorts of fines and fees to an extent when the guys doing the actual work don’t get anything. Then, it reaches a point when the guys who have been screwed complain visibly, thus denting the clean image that the government likes to present:

 

 Copyright The New Paper

When these things happen, the government will inevitably remind the rest of us not to sell our CPF quota and we are told that “phantom” workers are a social problem.

I’m going to leave the phenomena of hiring phantom locals to more intelligent people. I will however, suggests that the government is focused on the wrong phantom worker problem. The serious phantom worker problem that we have in Singapore comes from what I call phantom workers receiving real salaries but real workers receiving phantom salaries.

To be fair to the government, its not limited to government. You get this situation in the private sectors. I’m sure that plenty of us have experienced that person who comes into work, plays with his phone for two hours and then leaves. Instead of wondering about that person’s value contribution, the boss starts complaining that the other workers who are actually doing something that can be recognised as work that they’re not doing their part. Ironically, it’s a situation where the guy playing with his phone is earning more than the guys doing work. This is what you might you call a clear-cut case of the phantom worker earning a real salary but the real worker earning a phantom salary (defined as just enough to meet legal requirements without actually taking living expenses or contribution to the company into consideration).

Unfortunately, this isn’t something limited to quirky companies in the private sector. If you look at this syndrome, one is bound to suspect that the phantom worker issue goes far deeper than that.

Let’s start with the fact that for the longest of times, two thirds of the population were earning below the statistical median wage. Wages at the lower end of the scale were, well pretty low and whenever people said anything about it, the standard reply was that the workers needed to become more productive. You hawker centre aunty for example earns around $1,400 a month (before CPF deduction and this is considered as close to a minimum wage as it gets in Singapore). Nobody doubts that the hawker centre aunty is actually a real worker doing real work (you actually see your tables being wiped and your dirty dishes do get collected). Yet, should your hawker centre aunty find it hard to get buy on S$1,400 a month and ask for S$1,401, she will be undoubtedly scolded in the national media for not being more productive and upgrading herself. Classic example of a real worker earning a phantom wage.

However, if you look at the government, you can’t help but feel that we have plenty of phantom workers earning very real wages. We have, for example, five mayors earning on average of S$600,000 a year. Their wages are not exactly phantom like. However, what exactly is the work that they do? If you think about it, Singapore itself is a city. In most nations, the mayor of any given city does the actual work of running the city, pretty much like what our Prime Minister does. However, that’s not exactly the case in Singapore. Our “Mayors” run councils made up of several constituencies, which in turn are run by members of parliament (MP).

Clearly, we have a case of a job, which is to all intents and purposes “phantom.” However, the wages are not. Why do we need phantom workers earning real salaries. The purpose of a phantom is phantom and their wages should match.

We are constantly reminded that Singapore is a small place with no resources and that we need to conserve what little we had. Surely, addressing the issue as to why phantom workers are earning real salaries and real workers are earning phantom salaries is key part of doing this.

It’s OK to have a Different Opinion – You Won’t Get Punished

 

 Copyright – Vector Stock Art Images

I’ve just finished participating in a medical workshop and one of the key moments in this workshop was when the moderator asked us if anyone had a different opinion to what was discussed. There was an awkward silence and then she told us, “It’s OK to have a different opinion, you won’t get punished.”

This incident brings back memories to one of the biggest truisms of working in Singapore, namely the fact that gatherings of any sort, particularly if it involves a government organization, are not discussion sessions but an opportunity for the institution or person calling the meeting to speak a lot. Ironically, one of the most prominent instances of this happens to be the “press conference,” where the person calling the press conference does a lot of talking and the journalist are inevitably quiet. PR people in other parts of the world spend their time preparing the client for all sorts to face a pack of reporters shouting all sorts of questions. In Singapore, our PR people are actually challenged to effectively get the party started (though to be fair, our journalist get a bit chattier in one-on-one interviews).

To be fair, this isn’t exactly limited to Singapore. As a rule of thumb, East Asians tend to be a little reserved in public. If you look at a cross section of Western Universities, you’ll note that the East Asians tend to excel in mathematics and the sciences, where speaking out is not required. Very few East Asians take up arts or humanities, where group discussion is a must (though having said that, the only who got a first in my anthropology class in university was the Japanese girl who didn’t say much in seminars but did what she needed to in exams).

A lot of Westerners tend to understand our reluctance to ask questions and disagree in public down to the concept of “losing face.” I believe that there’s some truth to it but would go further and point to the culture that was formed around Confucius’s teachings, which placed the scholar-bureaucrat the top of society. How did the scholar-bureaucrat get there? He (they usually were), got there by studying and therefore having a better understanding of the perfect past. Challenging and having different opinions is in many ways seen as a challenge to very reason for existence itself.

If you look at the way Singapore is constructed, you’ll notice that Lee Kuan Yew’s genius was to create a Confucius society with characteristics of a Westminster Parliamentary democracy, with himself and his family of scholar-bureaucrats at the top. Sure, we have elections ever five-years but our parliament has no equivalent of “PMQ’s” in the Westminster Parliament on which we’ve modeled our parliament on.

As with most things around Singapore, its hard to convince people that this isn’t exactly healthy. Everything in Singapore seems to work like clockwork and one is inevitably bound to be told off by Americans and Europeans for not appreciating how good the system is in Singapore.

However, whilst things may look rosy on the outside, cracks are appearing in the system and as anyone who has had to do repairs will tell you, cracks if not attended to and patched up have a way of turning into potholes and worse. If you want to look at things from a medical perspective “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Unfortunately, you’re not going to fix a crack or get the ounce of prevention of cure from people who aren’t going to challenge the opinion that the crack is there if your opinion is that there is no crack. Everyone keeps quiet because, well, its only a crack and it doesn’t affect me and if I point it out, I will displease the man at the top who will in turn do this bit of squash me.

I think back to my first guard duty in National Service. There was a sign that said that the Battalion Order Sergeant (BOS) is “Always Right,” and if he (usually) is wrong, refer to rule No. 1.”

 

This is, unfortunately, extended beyond the realms of the military. Many corporations work on the concept of the man on-top being perpetually right. This system works when the man on top is a wonderful leader. However, when the said leader ages and goes senile and leaves the show to helpless successors, things go wrong. Absolute monarchies failed in most places because for every wise and wonderful monarch who did great things, there were ten awful ones who screwed up so badly that people took to the streets.

If you look at Singapore, we had Lee Kuan Yew, who was by most standards a decent enough ruler. He was strict and got things done. Ministers who didn’t deliver or screwed up were dealt with. More importantly, Mr. Lee in his early days surrounded himself with people who were willing to have different opinions. In the funeral of S. Rajaratnam, Mr. Lee talked of “furious debates” in cabinet. Not all the decisions made were perfect but they were at the time ones that had debated and argued over to the point that everyone felt that they were the best possible ones.

However, things changed. Nobody questioned or dared voice a “different” (note, I said different not dissenting) opinion and so decisions are now made on the grounds that it’s the right one based on the singular onion without having gone through any form of test. Just look at what happened when Mas Selamat, an alleged psychopathic criminal walked out of a highly secured facility without breaking a sweat. The cabinet rushed to defend the Minister of Home Affairs for not doing his job.

Sure, when you have a system which does not tolerate a “different” opinion, you have a system where nobody will point out the cracks because its just not worth it. It’s a system where you will agree with whatever the man on top says as long as you keep getting paid well enough because having a different opinion isn’t going to make a difference or even endanger being paid well enough. Why bother?

Unfortunately, bosses are inevitably human and make the same errors that the rest of us make. Bosses who are willing to accept different opinions have the capacity to think before they act. Bosses who believe they know it all tend indulge their mistakes rather than learn from them.   

“Our Greatest Strength is that We have No Alternative …….If Ukraine Stops Fighting – There is No Ukraine…..If Russia Stops Fighting There is No War” – Her Excellency Kateryna Zelenko, Ukrainian Ambassador to Singapore.

 

Copyright – Radio Free Europe

I had the privilege of attending a talk that was organized by a law firm today. The speaker was the Ukrainian Ambassador to Singapore, Her Excellency Kateryna Zelenko. The ambassador gave a speech on events in her homeland since it was invaded by Russian forces over a year ago.

In her presentation, she came up with two powerful soundbites. Firstly, she stated that “Our greatest strength is that we have no alternative.” Then towards the end, she stated “If Ukraine stops fighting, there is no more Ukraine.” These two remarks struck me because they hit on two very pertinent points. The first point is on the lack of alternatives. The second point is on the question of why do people do certain things even when it seems helpless.

For the record, I am a great believer in having choices. You could say that I never managed to build a career because of it but in a decade of freelancing, I learnt that one of the stupidest things you can do is trust your fate to a single organization or a single profession. Hence, I am very proud of the fact that I waited tables even whilst I was still working in corporate positions. Being a lawyer, doctor, accountant, architect shouldn’t limit you and your capacity to earn a living.

I guess you could say that it was the realization that the people who would “look down” on me for working a “low job” were simply not worth trying to impress (not that they were paying my bills) and it was better to have alternatives because, well the reality is that you can lose it all any day and loss usually happens when you think you’ve made it.

However, I realise that having the mentality that I have is a luxury that many people don’t have and I am very lucky because I live in Singapore. The problems that we face in Singapore inevitably evolve around money or rather the lack of it. While its no fun to be poor or badly paid but these problems can be solved. If, for example, you are forced to clean toilets for a living, then you do it and sooner or later you can pull yourself up. Not saying its easy but it is possible.

It’s not the case if you live in a war zone or you happen to be from a place where its constantly hit by natural disaster or you have a significantly more powerful neighbour who has a habit of kicking you and taking whenever he feels like it. In such places, being able to wake up the next day becomes a luxury.

So, what do you do in such situations? What are your choices? The sad reality for people in such situations, is that it’s often the choice of living in a state where life is a literal hell of earth or risking death in the process of trying to stop the cause of misery.

Let’s take out the politics of the Russian invasion and look at it from the view of the average Ukrainian. The fact that they are fighting against superior Russian forces for a simple reason. As far as they’re concerned, Russia is not coming to make life better but to make life a living hell.

If you find that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is too “Western,” there is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel is clearly the superior military power that has gone out of its way to screw an inferior force. Look at the recent unprovoked invasion of the Al Aqsa Mosque. Armed policemen stormed the place in the middle of the most sacred month of the Islamic Calendar as people were saying their prayers. As far as the average Palestinian is concerned, that message is simple – “You don’t register as human – we’re going to kick you because we’re bored.”

I’m not saying that the Palestinians are saintly. The Palestinian Authority has a terrible record in managing basic services for the Palestinian people. However, that does not make the Likud way of doing things right and whatever one might think of the Palestinians, you cannot be surprised when rockets get launched into Israel.

It’s been the same story for years. Israel has demolished anything resembling a Palestinian state for decades. Yet the Palestinians keep firing rockets and even throwing stones at Israelis. You can argue that the Palestinians are “bringing it upon themselves,” by not allowing the Israeli settlers to take their land. However, if you were to ask the kids throwing stones why they even think that stones will dent a tank, the answer will be exactly what the Ukrainian Ambassador gave – we stop fighting, we cease to exist; they stop fighting then the fighting stops.  

I’m not saying every insurgent in the world is a good guy fighting for freedom, liberty and so on. What I am saying is that people who have never had to fight for anything, should not judge and label anyone fighting as a terrorist to be eliminated.

Quite often, the people who are fighting despite impossible odds believe that there is no choice and that they’re very existence will vanish if they stop. So, one of the very best ways to get people to stop fighting is to remove their reason to fight against you. In the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the peace negotiations begin when Russian soldier leave what is recognized as Ukraine. Then the Ukrainians will have no reason to fight. In the case of Israel versus Palestine, we only need to look at the 2001 Sharm El Sheikh report chaired by former US Senator George Mitchell, which found that there was a direct link between terrorist attacks and settlement building.   

If Jesus could do it – Why Can’t You?

 

One of the things about coming from a country that has national service is that you have a sure-fire way of knowing that you’re turning into an old git. That is sign is when you meet up with your best mates and you grumble about how easy the kids have it in national service. The common refrain is “It wasn’t like that back then.” In the artillery it’s especially noticeable. In my time, the old gunners would talk about how they really had to dig and get the round into the chamber (the lightest round is 19kg) unlike the whipper snappers like us who had a “flick rammer” which the job for us. Now, my contemporaries talk about how “gun drill” was actually a physical drill and not the “push button” stuff that today’s gunners get involved in.

I bring this topic up because I met with one of my best mates over the Easter weekend and somehow, we ended up talking about how our respective kid just don’t get the hardships that we went through. Then in the midst of this session, I realised that my parents probably did the same thing, talking about how I had it easy when compared to them.

A former client of mine, who has become a venture capitalist made the point that when technology has reached a stage where people today don’t need to do things that we did in the past. Old people will tell you that they work out eight multiplied by eight in their heads unlike the kids who need calculators. However, the question is, why do people need to memorise things and do complicated sums in their head when they have everything in super computer at fits into their palms?

In a way, we, the aging folks need to understand that today’s issues are not yesterday’s issues. Sure, our kids may not have been through the things we did but that’s not to say that they don’t have their issues which are unique to their generation.

Having said that, where I do question the younger generation is on their expectations. Talk to enough young graduates about their expectations and you will get the impression that they’re expecting to be in the vice-president’s desk once they graduate.

This is most visible in the religious sphere. You get our youth being drawn to churches who sell what I call “McGod” where joining the church becomes a sure way to get into a glorious place called heaven. My ex-wife’s pastor had a way of seeing miracles in the shape of the car his congregation gave him. To be fair, this isn’t exactly limited to Christians. Talk to enough Buddhist and they’ll be sure to tell you about the master who accumulated so much merit that he could float in the air and do all sorts of magical things.

I’m not knocking wanting to find peace and spirituality. What I am knocking is the idea that peace and salvation can be found by joining a club with its membership fees. Spirituality and salvation come from pretty miserable places.

Let’s look at the basic fact that we commemorate “Good Friday,” before we have “Easter Sunday.” Thanks to Mel Gibson, we got to see the Bible made live in the Passion of Christ. Crucifixion is not a word but a brutal form of death. The man we know as “Jesus Christ” was turned into nothing more than a lump of flesh before he was even nailed to the cross (the idea of crucifixion being you suffocate to death).  

 

 He had to go through this (Copyright National Catholic Report).

It’s only after he was treated like a piece of meat and then killed that he was able to resurrect and get the glory of the divine:

 

 To get tot this (Copyright Nigerian Voice)

Too many people get caught up with the idea of the “glory” bit. Too few people understand that he could only get the “Divine Glory” by going through the suffering.

This isn’t restricted to Jesus Christ. The person that we know as the Buddha wasn’t born as the Buddha. He had to go through that process of discovery before he found enlightenment. Mohammed wasn’t born a prophet. He only started taking dictation from the angels after his 40^th birthday.

So, the fact is that the great religious teachers of humanity had to go through some form of challenge before they got the glory of the divine. Unfortunately, too many religious organisations teach this basic fact.

Nobody grows in a comfort zone. Why should I up my game when I automatically win? However, when you face someone who has a good chance of turning you into mincemeat, things suddenly change. You become forced to up your game. If you study organisations, you’ll realise that those who never face challenge end up killing themselves.

It’s as simple as this – if Jesus could through the misery and suffering of the crucifixion before obtaining the glory of the resurrection, why can’t we go through the discomfort of change in order to emerge stronger?  

An Old Lion is Still a Lion

 

I was looking through my Linkedin feed yesterday when I noticed that one of my groups had a picture of a long-forgotten childhood idol. That idol happened to be Mr. Roger Milla, who was the superstar of the Cameroonian Football team in the 1990 World Cup.

 

The 1990 World Cup, which was hosted in Italy was what you might call a “Grumpy” World Cup. The final, which was won by the Germans, was thanks to a penalty from a foul made in unfortunate circumstances. The Argentinians, who had won the previous World Cup in 1986 were a shadow of their former selves but thanks to the genius of Diego Maradona made it to the finals (I lived in England at the time and the English had not forgiven Maradona for the “Hand of Good” in the 1986 World Cup). The English lost a nail bitter to arch rivals Germany and Paul Gascoigne’s tears made headlines. My Brazilian friends left that World Cup stunned when Brazil was booted out of the second round by a surprise goal set up by Maradona, despite dominating most of the game.

There was, however, one bright spot for everyone from that World Cup. That was the presences of the Cameroonian National Team, lead by Mr. Milla. The Cameroon sensation started in the opening game when they beat Argentina, then the defending champions and then went onto make history as the first African nation to reach the quarter-finals. They were such a sensation that they became the default team to support when one’s national team wasn’t playing and if your nation didn’t have a team in the World Cup back then, Cameron became your default national team. This was a team that brought joy to everyone and even my English friends had to admit that they were damn lucky to beat them in the quarter-finals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynQ41HZdRf8

Mr. Milla was an integral part of that team. When he came onto the pitch, the team came to life and more importantly, he was the man who got them the vital goals needed to bring them into the next round. All of us remembered his celebratory dace after each goal scored:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrtWQSqD3A0

What makes Mr. Milla’s achievements so incredible was the fact that he was 38 in the 1990 World Cup. Given that most top-class players are in their twenties, Mr. Milla was officially a geriatric by the standards of top-class international football. Yet, despite his age, Mr. Milla proved that he still had what it took to be a sensation on the international stage. Furthermore, it didn’t stop there for Mr. Milla. While Cameroon wasn’t quite the sensation it was in the 1994 World Cup, Mr. Milla was still able to score goals and became the oldest person to score in the 1994 World Cup.

I bring up Mr. Milla because his sudden stardom on the international stage at the age when most professional footballers are moving towards retirement because I come from a country that doesn’t exactly have a great record when it comes to looking after old folks. Go to any prominent location in Singapore and you’ll inevitably see a group of old folks trying to flog you tissue paper so that they have enough to buy a cup of coffee. All the jobs that other people associate with as being “student labour,” are inevitably filled by grandpa and grandma.

What’s particularly noticeable is in the job market. Everyone frets about the lack of babies and how we need to create opportunities for the young. Yet, nobody seems to notice that the ever-increasing number of “old” people.

This is particularly noticeable when it comes to employment. Talk to enough employers about the state of their business and you’ll find that they all have one common complaint – namely the fact that they cannot find people willing to work for them. However, if you happen to be over 45, you’ll find that nobody will touch you with a barge pole. As an “over-45” I’ve had the experience of replying to “urgent” job ads and being told that they didn’t need people and then they’d repost the ad again. As one former senior army officer said “You got to do things before 45 because people over 45 are perceived as lacking energy.”

I’m not denying that young people bring things to the table but that doesn’t mean that people over 40 are nothing more than a walking collection of health problems. At the age of 35, I realised I was never going to play top class international football like Mr. Milla nor was I about to become a top-level boxer like Mr. George Foreman. However, based on the blood pressure reading I took yesterday, I am healthier at 48 than I was at 35, when the army medical officer freaked at the state of my blood pressure.

 

 While the over 35s may not put up with everything, we have things to offer and businesses and employers should look at how to utilise the over 35s. We may not be as pretty as those under 35 but we come with skills that we’ve learnt through trial and error. I take the firm I’m at, which hired a 60-year-old with lots of experience in managing accounts. Our accounting department has seen and incredible rise in productivity. How did this happen? The answer is simple, we had someone who knew accounting like the back of his hand. We didn’t need to train him.

Let’s not get caught up in self-imposed beliefs about people of a certain age. Instead, we need to look at what we can extract from this group. Just look this observation from Ogilvy & Mather:

 

 Mr. Milla and Mr. Foreman have shown that people over 35 still have plenty left in the tank. We should be thinking about how to utilise them instead of making them redundant. Instead of trying to solve the “Aging Society,” let’s look at how we can utilise the opportunities.