“Very fine people on both sides”

One of Donald Trump’s greatest moments came on 15 August 2017, when he was asked for his thoughts on the clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia between Neo-Nazis and normal people. The Donald proceed to stun the world by telling reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides.” The remark stunned the world because this was the leader of the nation that saved the world from the Nazis describing Nazis as very fine people, especially when its questionable if Nazis are people let alone very fine ones.

However, in fairness to Donald Trump, his words were only shocking because of the context in which they were used in. Take out the context and Donald Trump’s words would actually be an ideal of what most civilized societies should be about – very fine people on both sides of any issue. The highlight of what a civilized democracy came int 2008 when John McCain defended and praised his opponent, Barak Obama as a “Decent man, whom I happen to disagree with.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0u3QJrtgEM 

While McCain would lose the election, he has ended up winning in the hearts of people for doing the right things. Instead of trying to divide the nation, he united it and refused to go down the road of playing up to the fears and prejudices of the mob.

Unfortunately, 2008 is something of a memory. From 2016 onwards, the world entered an age of wild populism, which centred on a wonderful concept of blaming your problems on people who cannot fight back. In the words of an American customer at the Bistrot, “There is no neutrality.”

Singapore has seemingly escaped the most extreme forms of populism and in a world where calls for unthinking jingoism have become the norm, Singapore seems like an island of sanity in an insane world.

However, having been around Singapore’s “arty” and “journo” types for a good portion of my functioning life, I would argue that it’s not exactly a case of Singapore avoiding wave of populism that is sweeping the world but more of a case of Singapore’s politicians being more subtle and clever about harnessing the raw emotions of the masses.

The simplest tactic, is to label anyone who publicly questions the established way of doing things as “Anti-Singaporean.” As anyone who works who deals with any form of media will tell you, there is an art form to questioning the system in public without being labeled “Anti-Singaporean” or getting a nasty letter from a politicians solicitors and having your family’s dirty linen rolled in the mud and then washed out in public. The stories of the people who have tried to do it on a regular basis can be found at:

 https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/singaporeans-step-outside-lines-take-center-stage-naysayers-book-club/

In the old days, it was a case of being sued into bankruptcy and facing a number of potential charges on a variety of laws. I’m old enough to remember the General Election of 1997, which was a particularly good one for the ruling party. They managed to reverse a trend of a declining share of the popular vote and won a mere 81 out of 83 seats available in parliament. While a lot of credit was given to generous upgrading programs in the heartland estates, another was to target an unknown politician from the Workers Party called Tang Liang Hong (No relation) by labeling him an “Anti-Christian Chinese Chauvinist.” 

The internet has made things more interesting. Online media sites like the Online Citizen and TRemeritus (as a matter of disclosure, my blog pieces are picked up by TRemeritus) have given a space for alternative voices. However, the ruling party has also found ways to deal with this. Why label anyone “Anti-Singaporean” when you can get someone else to do it for you. It’s especially effective when that person happens to be a Pink Blotchy – the Fawning Follower comes to mind. Unfortunately, Pink Blotchies have a tendency to be listened to, even if they’re speaking gibberish. As a friend of mine noted, otherwise intelligent people actually bought into the arguments of the Fawning Follower on why it was a sign of success to keep dark skinned Asians in cages (ooopps, I mean dormitories) and how the government supported the rule of law by a law on the statute books but not enforcing it.

The Fawning Follower has been a particularly useful pawn in labeling people who disagree with the government as Anti-Singaporean or worse – Traitors. He’s labeled Kristin Han as having “a career in treachery” and his next favourite target is the play write Alfian Sa’at, whom he describes as symbolizing the egotistical rebellion of the no problem generation. 

While Kristin and Alfian have questioned things, neither have done anything that would count as “treachery” by any definition of the word. There is no record of either having said or done anything that called for violence in the streets or for a foreign nation to invade and so on. Neither have been picked up by the Internal Security Department, which would indicate that the government is well aware that the its “critics” are traitors or “anti-Singaporean” or dare I say “rebels” by any definition.

Why do these things when someone else can do them for you? You stay above the fray and the Fawning Follower and his ilk do it for you. So, when the likes of Dr. Tan Meng Wu start talking about how ethnic minorities should be grateful that they can get jobs and send their kids to school, there’s no outrage at the underlying but blatantly racist tones. The trolls have laid the ground work for you and whatever prejudices people might have become justified because, well, a member of the ruling party said so in public and it was OK.

Thankfully there are some signs of progress. I take my hat off to Professor Tommy, one of our most respected diplomats, who has stated that Singapore needs “loving critics.” Professor Koh has argued that as a strong society, Singapore needs to accept a diversity of views. Crushing the views of “loving critics” instead of accommodating them, can be bad.

Mr. Wham spent years campaigning for migrant rights. He was labeled a trouble maker. Well, surprise – surprise, Covid-19 proved Mr. Wham right (1,000 cases a day, contrary to the Following Follower is not success). Had the authorities engaged Mr. Wham earlier, they may have found the problem much earlier and instead of being with the likes of Ukraine on the list of most infected nations, we might be closer to the likes of Hong Kong or Taiwan. 

If there’s anything that we need to move away from in this General Election, it is this automatic, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality. This isn’t about who wins the most seats but whether we can move away from “Me teacher, you student” (or as my mother says “me right, you wrong) mentality in politics and more towards the politics of “You’re a good man that I happen to disagree with.”  

There is a hope for this. Two of Singapore’s better leaders from different sides of political divide have chosen to step out of the ring in this election. Apparently, both men have stated their respect for each other. Here was the message that our former Prime Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong left on his Facebook on veteran opposition leader Low Thia Khiang:

https://mothership.sg/2020/06/goh-chok-tong-low-thia-khiang-retirement/

Mr. Goh was labeled a “seat warmer” for our current Prime Minister. Despite having the pressures of the Old Lee above him and the Current Lee below him, Mr. Goh managed to do a few of his own things (As a long-term resident of Marine Parade, I have Mr. Goh to thank for getting MPs to try and beautify their estates. He was the first one to do so. As a beneficiary of Saudi-Relations and the Indian Business Community, I have to thank Mr. Goh for opening these markets up. – Lee Kuan Yew was quite open in his disdain for India after Indira Gandhi snubbed him). As such, I believe everyone contesting this general election should take note of his words and I think his final gift in politics is showing Singaporeans that it is possible to agree to disagree.  

You Know something is Overrated when…..

I used to have a dream that I would one day be able to place the letters MBA behind my name. The idea was sweet. I would get my first degree in the UK, work for a huge multinational for about three-years and then head towards Kellogg School of Management in Northwestern University to do my MBA. In short, I thought it would have been cool to be part of the great corporate network.

Well, things didn’t work out that way. I never got into a “big” corporation – I think the closest I’ve been to a multinational was two weeks at Rapp Collins. Didn’t have the credentials and earning enough for my next meal became a bigger priority to getting my MBA. However, as I continued to pound the streets looking for work, I still harboured the dream of calling myself “Tang Li, MBA”

That was until I meet “Chutiya Bhai.” My dreams of ever becoming an MBA went to the shit. Thanks to Chutiya Bhai, I realised that having an MBA was not everything it was cracked up to be – I lie – I realised that having an MBA might become detrimental to my state of mind. It was like fantasising over a hot chick for ten-years and then one day, you go on a date with her and you realise that she’s so rotten on the inside that shooting yourself before the date is over looks like a viable option.

Chutiya Bhai has an MBA amongst a host of other qualifications. He’s a very clever person. However, he is also unpleasant. Give him two minutes of your time and he’ll take two days telling you how rich and successful he is and how he managed to get to that stage by jacking over his professional colleagues. The man’s idea of saving money is to avoid paying his local coffee shop for food he’s eaten.

He did admit to me that he had a few personal issues to resolve with his family. However, you would imagine that someone with an MBA would have the education and
character to rise above it and succeed brilliantly. He didn’t – his only friends were the Old Rogue and myself – that was of course until Joyce decided she would rather be with me than with him (despite the fact that he makes loads more money than I do). If Chutiya Bhai was not bugging the Old Rogue about his issues in the office, he would bug me. We were meant to solve the world’s issues for him. Much as I did spend a lot of time in his company – I felt that, “If this is what an MBA does to you – thanks but no thanks.”

Ever since I’ve lost the ambition to get an MBA, I’ve been able to see things more clearly. I realise that MBAs do not make the best business people. Two of the best people I know are a Vietnamese girl and a Chinese egg seller. Both have debateable qualifications. Yet both have risen up from nowhere by having the right people-smarts. Both have helped bring prosperity to others and so have been rewarded in turn.

To be fair to Chutiya Bhai, he’s not the only person to shatter my dreams. One of the most prominent people to shatter my dreams was Professor Thio Lee-Ann, a former Nominated Member of Parliament and a Professor of Law.

Like the MBA, I had a dream of going to Oxford. Unfortunately, I was coming out of a bad love relationship and a drunken spree during my A-level year and so I didn’t get the grades required for Oxbridge. However, that didn’t stop me from admiring Oxbridge and holding up the place as an ideal of what a university should be. I suspect I didn’t make much of a student career at the University of London because I felt like a poor relation to the Oxbridge Universities.

The Professor Thio Lee-Ann came along and shattered my dreams about Oxbridge. I read her arguments during the debate on the repeal of 377A (the section in the Singapore Penal Code that criminalises anal sex between men) and was stunned.

This supposedly clever woman who had a professorship in law proceeded to produce pages and pages of drivel about how letting two consenting adults have sex in the privacy of their own bedroom would be bad for society. Her argument went along the lines of – if you let consenting gay adults have sex in the privacy of the bedroom, you will ruin society because everyone might turn gay. The clincher of her argument was – Anal Sex is like sticking a straw up your nose.

Not sure how she worked that one out? Throughout her ranting, she failed to provide a single, logical and legally sound argument as to why a private act between two consenting adults should be a criminal act. Her arguments were befitting a trash collector than a professor of law.

What was most shocking to me was finding out that the good professor had been to Oxford. I mean, I guess you could say that our local varsities have a way of passing certain people, but one would surely expect better from Oxford! How the hell did a woman with such an inability to think rationally and critically graduate from a University that is renowned for producing some of the greatest minds of our time.

Furthermore, my respect for the Oxbridge institutions were shattered when our Prime Minister, a Cambridge Graduate, and his cabinet (filled with Oxbridge graduates with MBAs) refused to recognise the drivel that Professor Thio was sprouting for what it is and proceeded to agree with her – they decided to keep 377a in the penal code but promised not to enforce it – which is a beautiful contradiction in terms.

I suppose I should be grateful to the likes of Professor Thio and Chutiya Bhai. These are people who help you to realise that sometimes the lost dreams that you had were lost for a reason. When you meet them, you suddenly become grateful for the things that you did not get and you bless your fortune for giving you the things that you had. When it comes to institutions, I think it’s always best to meet the products as well as reading the brochures.