“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.  

Don’t Forget the Hippos

The current geopolitical scene today is dominated by two elephants, namely the USA and China. The USA remains the world’s largest economy and the American military remains the only military force on the planet that can fight two wars in the world at any given time. The other elephant is China, which in the last four decades has grown its economy to being able to challenge that of the USA (even American policy makers admit that it’s a question of when China becomes the larger economy) and with growing prosperity, its invested in its military, so much so that American military planners don’t take assume that they’ll automatically win any potential war with China.

Unfortunately for the rest of the world, both elephants have character flaw. China, under President Xi has become especially mean, nasty and secretive. Whatever growing rights that China’s citizens enjoyed under his predecessors have since vanished. In the handling of the Covid-19 outbreak, scientist in China who tried to warn the world ended up vanishing, which was something that didn’t happen during the SARS outbreak of 2003. Mr. Xi has used anti-corruption drives to consolidate power to such a point that he has decided that he’ll do away with the tradition of leaders handing over power after a decade.

While the USA under Trump isn’t nasty, it become something of an incompetent buffoon, which has become particularly noticeable in its handling of Covid-19. America, which used to be a donor nation in any disaster has needed to get mask from elsewhere and the world has been transfixed by images of American doctors begging for basic protective equipment. As this happens, you get daily scenes of the President bragging about the great job he’s doing. Even before the outbreak of Covid-19, the Trump Administration was unashamedly transactional in its foreign policy and its high staff turnover suggested that it could barely get its act together.

So, what can the rest of the world do? How do you choose between a nasty elephant and an unpredictable and stupid one? I’ve previously argued that small nations need to work more closely together, as in the case of the European Union. There’s another solution, which my favourite litigator reminded me of in a recent article that he shared on Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/small-world-big-thinking-exporting-your-brand-services-mark-goh/?trackingId=

The answer is to remember that while the elephants are by far and away the most dominant animals in the jungle of geopolitics, there are other large animals who can help small insects. For my favourite litigator, the two animals are the United Kingdom (the dominant global power before the USA) and Japan (the dominant power in Asia, before China). You could say that if the USA and China are elephants, the UK and Japan are hippos.

Hippos may not be as domineering as elephants but they have the potential to offer the world. Britain may not have the firepower of the USA; the British armed forces have been an invaluable ally in America’s conflicts. The British Armed forces are considered to be amongst the world’s most professional and experienced, so much so that I remember one of my favourite Englishmen reminding a group of Singaporeans that American Navy Seals go to the UK for training by the SAS and SBS. British Armed forces have defended British citizens in troubled spots and have shown themselves more than capable of defending their interest.

The economy of the UK isn’t something to be sniffed at either. London remains New York’s only competitor as the world’s main financial centre, even with the loss of unfettered access to Europe through Brexit. The UK remains the sixth largest economy in the world with a nominal Gross Domestic Product (“GDP”) of US$2.83 trillion and a Purchasing Power Parity (“PPP”) of US$10.4 trillion. It’s not the largest economy or largest market but it is still in the top ten places of markets to be.

The United Kingdom has serval key strengths which cannot be rivalled. It is the home of the English language; the language used in global commerce and has strengths in soft power exports like music and sport (90 percent of Manchester United Fans have never been to Old Trafford). The UK has the Oxbridge Universities, which are consistently in the top ten of the world’s best and British Universities have trained many global leaders. The Commonwealth of Nations, which was formed from the empire provides the UK with relationships to a quarter of the known world. Furthermore the “Common Law” Jurisdiction allows British Entrepreneurs to operate in a wide variety of familiar legal jurisdictions, a fact that my favourite liquidator is banking on. Britain is in many ways incredibly flexible and friendly for entrepreneurs.

In Asia, the forgotten player is Japan, which is the world’s third largest economy with a nominal GDP of US$5.1 trillion. While this is dwarfed by the US$14.1 trillion of China, the average Japanese remains wealthier and Japan has advantages in high technology manufacturing. Japan is in many ways a very futuristic society that has embraced technology in ways that no one else has done, as this video from Drew Binsky explains:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzIBbF-8lAU

Japan may lack the sheer mass that China has, it has one crucial advantage, stronger soft power. While Japan has yet to atone for many of its crimes in the Second World War (which is a source of tension with its neighbours), it is perceived as a more benign force that China. Everyone in the ASEAN region worries about China swallowing their territory in the South China seas. There are no corresponding fears about Japan.

Furthermore, the most obvious friendship in Japan’s favour is India, the only country that competes with China for sheer mass. India is what you’d call the proverbial third elephant that never quite lives up to its potential because of its schizoid politics. Like Japan, India has a rivalry with China and as Bloomberg Columnist Andy Mukherjee said many years ago, Japan’s most obvious bet is to build India up. Japan has the money and technology but does not have the size to compete, whereas India has size but remains poorer and more backwards than China. Hence, Japanese-Indian cooperation seems like the most obvious course to follow and the warm relationship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe can only speed up this process.

Both Japan and the UK are in many ways, “sunset” powers that once occupied top spot and are now forced to find their global relevance by playing second fiddle to the American elephant.

However, the fact remains that both the UK and Japan are countries that play a role on the global stage. The British in particular had to build their global empire by learning how to operate as small units cooperating, have certain skill sets that the rest of us can learn from.

Working with elephants is important, even if one of them is stupid and the other one is nasty. However, they aren’t the only animals in the proverbial jungle and working with other large animals can also be a way of securing ones future.

Awfulness and Stupidity - the Second Mover Advantage

One of the things that used to irk American policy makers was the fact that their Asian bugbear at the time, was Japan, which had a talent of copying everything that the Americans invented and making them cheaper and, in many cases, better. The most noticeable was in the automobile industry, where the likes of Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi ended up bruising the Detroit Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler) in their domestic market.

What the Japanese demonstrated was called “Second Mover” advantage and rather than inventing brand-new things, they found a way of improving on what existed. As is often said in the area of work place efficiency, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when you can use what you already have.

There are lots of examples of how the second mover has gone onto surpass the original. 

Unfortunately, for many people at risk of getting coronavirus or being suffocated by burning forest, the most prominent second mover is Mr. Jair Bolsonaro, a proud Trump imitator who revels in the name of “Trump of the Tropics,” and has a secondary job of being President of Brazil.

While Mr. Bolsonaro has not made the headlines that the original Trump sitting in the North of the Rio Grande has, he’s had a way of surpassing the original in the things he says and does. It should also be said that while Brazil isn’t the world power that the US is, it is a country that counts. Brazil is the “B” in the “BRICS,” and with an area of 8,515,767 square kilometres, it is the fifth largest country in the world and its population of 210,147,125 it is the sixth most populous nation on the planet. Brazil’s nominal economy is estimated at 1.86 trillion US dollars, making it the ninth largest economy. It is by far and away the country that counts in South America. In the pre-Bolsonaro days, Brazil was regarded as the most benign of the BRICS. Here was a large market with lots of resources. However, unlike China, Brazil is democracy that values human life, unlike South Africa had something other than natural resources and unlike India, it was comparatively free of communal strife.

Mr. Bolsonaro has decided that these things were a crock of shit and that ordinary Brazilians were being screwed for being nice to the rest of the world. It helped that his predecessors had legal issues (euphemism for being corrupt) and Mr. Bolsonaro, like his idol in the North of the Rio Grande was swept into power on the promise to make things right for Brazil’s poor.

His first decision of helping Brazil’s poor was to allow the Amazon Forrest. Mr. Bolsonaro used to line that we’ve grown very used to in Southeast Asia – economic development takes priority over preserving the environment. In other words, we’re going to get rich whether the lefties in the West like it or not. The result has devastated much of South America, covering neighbours in a smog like haze, which many of us in Southeast Asia are familiar with and potential natural resources provided by the forest have been squandered.

When French President, Emanuel Macron called him out on this, Mr. Bolsonaro publicly announced that the French President was merely jealous because his wife was better looking, which had nothing to do with the issue at hand but seemed to satisfy a certain sense of lost masculinity in Bolsonaro voters.

Mr. Bolsonaro, like Mr. Trump had the good fortune to preside over an improving economy and so the masses forgave him. The covid-19 struck and the truth of Mr. Bolsonaro’s tough guy with a heart for the people was revealed.

While the Original in the North tried to downplay the seriousness of the virus and then started looking for scapegoats and then prescribed unproven cures, Mr. Bolsonaro has been remarkably constant in his handling of covid 19. That is, he’s been remarkably consistent about disregarding the reality of the devastation brought about by the virus. Despite losing his health minister and justice minister, Mr. Bolsonaro has decided that it is perfectly acceptable to trash the advice of his own healthcare officials. Mr. Bolsonaro refuses to stay in orders, attends rallies and likes his big crowds. As with his hero in the North, Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters blame the “left win” media for trying to tarnish their hero.

Where Mr. Bolsonaro outdoes the original Mr. Trump is in his belief that the virus is no big deal. The Trump and his supporters when down playing deaths caused by the virus at least make the effort in giving their nonchalance a little bit of context, such as “more people are killed by the flue” etc.

Mr. Bolsonaro is quite open about the fact that he really doesn’t care about the deaths caused by covid-19 and the potential risk to national health. As Brazil’s death toll reached past 5,000 – his only thoughts were “So What?” More can be found at:

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/so-what-bolsonaro-shrugs-off-brazil-rising-coronavirus-death-toll

Another area in which Mr. Bolsonaro trumps the Trump is in the way in which he encourages the public to undermine stay at home orders. While Mr. Trump tweets his encouragement for protestors against stay home orders, Mr. Bolsonaro, a former army officer, has lead from the front and gone as far as to call for the military to intervene (though, as President, one wonders why he’s calling from the military to intervene, when as President, he could order the military to do so). More can be seen at:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/brazil-bolsonaro-joins-protest-coronavirus-curbs-200420042616860.html

Unlike the US, which was born as a democracy and had 200-years to build its institutions, Brazil has on the scale of things only just achieved things that make society prosperous like a government for the people and rule of law. Mr. Bolsonaro is working to undermine these things, which cannot be good for Brazil, South America or even the wider world.

At the time of writing, Brazil has 102 thousand cases and over seven thousand people have died.  It looks like Mr. Bolsonaro is trying to catch up and perhaps surpass his hero in the North of the Rio Grande. This cannot be good news for Brazil’s poor in the overcrowded favellas.  

Do You Have to be the Smartest Guy in the Room?

One of the key features of the coronavirus for many journalists has been the White House Briefings on the coronavirus. These briefings were supposed to be an opportunity for America’s federal government lead by its president to update the nation on the efforts against the coronavirus.

Unfortunately, the briefings have not been briefings. Instead, they were opportunities for comedians to gather more material. The most recent one was when the president openly suggested that a possible cure for the virus was to inject bleach into the body. That moment can be found at:

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

Every comedian pounced on this moment and the resulting outcry ensured that future briefings were put on hold. What happened?

The answer is simple. The man in charge had a need to show that he was doing something. This was a man who had come into power by telling the world that he had been given a very special brain. The public looked at the image he had presented of himself and agreed. He was then put into office.

Donald Trump is correct. He has a very special talent, which propelled him from being a successful reality TV star into the oval office. Mr. Trump has an instinctive genius for attracting attention and arousing passions. As one American customer at the Bistrot said, “There is no neutrality on the man.”

While he has a talent for drawing attention to himself, he’s not a medical expert and in a situation where medical expertise is of the most important variety, one has to question why he’s even suggesting any form of medication (and the bigger question being why people believe him). One suggestion is that he genuinely believes that he’s the smartest person in the room.

Unfortunately, being smart or the smartest person in the room isn’t the best thing to be. Some of the most successful people in the world, like Robert Kuok, the founder of the Shangri La Hotel chain, have said that one should always look for people smarter than yourself to do the job. Mr. Kuok, who survived the Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia to build a fortune of US$12.8 billion (nearly four times that of Donald Trump) is clearly correct. Mr. Kuok, who started out as a sugar trader, has built a large and diverse empire beyond his core competence in commodity trading. How did he do it? The answer was allowing people who knew better than himself to do the job.

While the human brain is capable to thinking of many great things, it has certain limits. One of those key limits is that human beings tend to focus on certain things that they like and are good at and the saying “You can’t be good at everything,” rings true. This is especially true in leading large organisations and even nations, where the person at the top has to deal with a wide variety of issues and he or she simply cannot master every one of them. As such, one of the key skills of leadership is to know when you’re not the smartest person in the room and letting that person take the limelight with your encouragement.

This is seen most clearly in military situations. Mrs. Thatcher in the UK, knew she was not a military expert. So, when the Falklands War broke out, she set the objectives for what she wanted and then allowed the military to get on with the job. Likewise, George Bush Senior, did the same when booting Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. In comparison, the attempts to rescue the hostages in Iran under Jimmy Carter was a total disaster.

The entire professional services industry is based on the principle of getting smart people to do the job. As my favourite liquidator often says, “We’re hired for our knowledge.” Yes, the client or the main businessperson has to make final decisions because only he or she knows the overall business objective, but you as a consultant must provide advice because what you’re selling is the fact that you’re smarter at that particular aspect of the job.

Humility beats intelligence in leadership. Here in Singapore, we are led by highly qualified people (all with excellent credentials). Unfortunately, during this virus, we got so busy celebrating being hailed by the international media as the “Gold Standard” in managing the virus that we forgot about are vast underbelly of migrant workers. Then, there was a scramble when the infections exploded in the dormitories

A wise person does not need to know everything. He or she needs to recognize the fact and then look for the best person to do that aspect of the job. Allowing someone to be the hero is sometimes the most heroic thing to do. Let’s go back to America’s numbers. You have a president who is not a medical doctor prescribing unproven medication from the presidential bully pulpit. According to him, he is doing a fabulous job. At the time of writing, America has 1,160,774 cases, which is more than next six nations combined and in five months the virus has killed roughly ten thousand more than the Vietnam War in 14-years.