Can Singapore Produce a Home Grown Leader?

Although my fellow bloggers would stone me for saying it, there are journalist from the main stream media who have been writing some pretty good stuff. One of those journalist who has been writing “explosive” commentaries is Han Fook Kwang, the current managing editor of the Straits Times. Mr Han has developed a habit of spelling out home truths. Despite his senior position in the Straits Times, Mr Han has gone as far to describe the relationship between transport regulators and operators as being “cozy” and suggested that Singapore’s public transport system needed a good dose of competition. By the more cautious standards of Singapore journalism – this is explosive stuff.

Mr Han’s latest article that has caused a bit of a stir was published on July 1, 2013. The article had a simple headline – “Do S'porean workers deserve their wages?” The answer to this headline was a tragic no. His argument was simple – Singaporean workers are not as analytical, articulate, creative, innovative and productive as their Asian counterparts, let alone the workers from Switzerland or Germany.

Unfortunately, during the last decade, I’ve seen plenty examples that prove Mr Han to be correct. Just look at Singapore’s economic landscape. The top jobs are more often than not filled by someone from elsewhere. In the old days it meant Caucasian expatriates from the West. People accepted this as part of the natural order of things. After all, the multinationals were inevitably based out of places like New York or London.

However, the top jobs are also going to people from India and other parts of the world. Not only do you have Indian expatriates running Indian companies but they are playing senior roles in Western ones and even in Singapore government owned companies.

Unfortunately, the Indians are not hired because they are significantly cheaper than the local Singaporeans. Piyush Gupta, the CEO of DBS made a good nine million dollars last year. While not every Indian expatriate makes what Mr Gupta makes, a good portion of them make enough to live quite comfortably.

It’s quite hard for your average Singaporean to get his head and heart around the situation. It was one thing when the boss was a white man. It’s quite different when the bosses come from the parts of Asia that we were conditioned to think of as third-world backwaters that our ancestors were fortunate to run away from.

So what’s going on? How is that Singapore, for all its advances in education and development, been so bad at producing the people that we need to run today’s companies? Think about it, not only are the guys running are economy from elsewhere, the guys running the government are trained elsewhere?

The question has to be asked – can we produce a “home grown” leader? The answer to this question is going to be increasingly important in that Singapore needs leaders who understand local situations and are able to develop solutions rather than those import someone else’s model.

Singapore’s education system usually comes under attack whenever this question is debated. The most prominent point here is that while the system produces people who can read and write, it’s failed to produce people who can think. Despite out small population, we have an increasing number of universities. Yet despite the high ratio of universities per person, we have produced no Nobel Prize contenders let alone Nobel Prize winners and I can’t think of a local business school graduate who has gone onto run a Western Multinational. By contrast, India has very few institutions per person and yet we have Indra Nooyi running Pepsico and Ajay Banga running Master Card.

To be fair to the Singapore’s authorities, they seem to recognize that there is an issue here. Moves are being made to make the education system less “exam” focused. The world knows that we “kick Arse” when it comes to taking exams but beyond that we don’t seem able to do much. In his article, Mr Han gave examples of graduates who couldn’t string a sentence together and yet expected to become marketing managers in multinationals. In any other country, people would question how an articulate chap could become a graduate. In Singapore we know – the guy couldn’t speak but he was an ace at exams. This has got to change and thankfully there’s some recognition of the issue from the powers-that-be.

While I applaud the education authorities for recognizing that something needs to be done, I think the main issue facing Singapore is deeper. The system has become such that the best and the brightest do not face competition.

Let’s face it, leaders and leadership material is developed when it is placed under challenging situations. For example, military commanders develop their skills from combat experience and leading men under combat situations. Military academies like West Point or Sandhurst can only teach one so much. The real learning is out in the field. The American and British armies are highly regarded because their senior leaders have seen some form of action sometime during their careers.

By contrast, the Singapore military favours book learning over actual combat experience. Yes, unlike the American and British armies we don’t go to war but we are also a nation that is obsessed with defense. We spend the largest percentage of our GDP in this region on defense. We do send people to UN Peace Keeping missions to give them a bit of exposure (technically peace keeping and war are two different things). You would imagine that we’d want our Generals to be a bit more seasoned rather than text-book soldiers. Unfortunately we don’t. When we had a general who acquired the closest thing to combat experience and was praised by the international community for his leadership, we demoted him and pushed him into retirement as fast we could. We promoted younger, less experienced but more book smart people over him.

There seems to be a cultural aversion to exposing bright people to challenges. Instead of testing out people under stress, the system seems to allow the chosen to avoid it and it gives them power over those who don’t have the luxury of avoiding hardship. Should it surprise anyone that Singapore fails to produce people with leadership qualities?

Just American soldiers are expected to face war before reaching the general ranks, American workers are judged on their current performance rather than on what their careers are meant to be as decided by some bureaucrat. The former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welsh had a policy of firing the bottom ten percent of performers – regardless of their qualifications. What mattered is the here and now rather than the glorious past of the university fields. GE has remained one of the biggest companies in the world for over a century.

Something needs to be done. 

Singapore should probably start by removing government support from businesses and deregulate more aggressively. Our workers will develop the necessary skills more quickly if they face greater competition. 

The Regret of Having Nelson

South Africa’s former President, Mr Nelson Mandela is in critical condition. Mr Mandela had been hospitalized with a lung infection on the 8^th of June, 2013. By the 23^rd of this month, Mr Mandela had slipped into a coma and his condition was described as being “critical.” While there are reports of Mr Mandela taking a turn for the better since then, it looks quite likely that Mr Mandela’s time is up.

Mr Mandela’s passing is be an event that unites the world in mourning for one of its few political heroes. Mr Mandela spent 27-years in prison for his struggle against the “apartheid” regime that ruled South Africa. Despite suffering at the hands of his oppressors, Mr Mandela emerged from prison to negotiate a ‘peaceful’ end of apartheid and preached forgiveness and reconciliation between the various peoples who inhabit South Africa.

There’s no doubting Mr Mandela’s greatness and his passing should be mourned. This man stood for everything that humanity considers to be good. He was, as they say, a moral compass for the world.

However, as saintly as Mr Mandela has been, it’s probably a good idea to look at his failures as well as his success when we examine his legacy. What was Mr Mandela’s greatest failure? I’m going to argue that his greatest failure was that he failed to prepare his political party, the ANC and the South African Nation to live beyond him.

Let’s put it very bluntly, Mr Mandela has reached an age where dying any moment should be expected. The man is 94 and despite the good health he’s enjoyed since being released from prison nearly 20-years ago, Mr Mandela has gone way beyond his three score-year and ten. The world, South Africa and the ANC should have been preparing for his passing during the last twenty-years.

Let’s start with the African National Congress or the ANC, the party that Mr Mandela ran for so long. When Mr Mandela was in prison, the ANC was a by word for a wonderful independence movement that embraced all sections of South Africa’s diverse society. It was a movement that had blacks (Zulu, Xhosa and so on) and whites (English and Afrikaners). When the ANC won South Africa’s first ever multiracial election in 1994, there was a sense that the good guys had finally won.

To be fair to the ANC, it’s not the only party that has had a difficult transition from being an independence movement to a normal political party. If you look at election results, the ANC is an exceedingly successful political party – it has overwhelmed everyone else in elections since 1994.

While the current President of South Africa, Mr Jacob Zuma has apparently made remarks that the ANC’s continuous rule is ordained by God, political parties that don’t face opposition usually suffer from the very human malaise of stagnation. After a while, the people who run the party forget that there is a line that separates government and party.

One of the closest examples can be found next door in neighboring Zimbabwe, run by the ANC’s fellow freedom movement – the ZANUPF. Today we think of ZANUPF and its leader, Mr Robert Mugabe as by words for tyranny and abuse. Think of Zimbabwe and you have the instant picture of a country going from bad to worse. However, there was a time when ZANUPF was a party of hope and Mr Mugabe was once regarded as a saint, pretty much like Mr Mandela.

To be fair to Mr Mandela, he has recognized his own frailty while Mr Mugabe has not. Mr Mandela saw to it that he served only one term as President (1994-1999). Even during his presidency, Mr Mandela made it a point to leave the day-to-day running to his duty, Mr Thabo Meki. The way he played out his role as President has been described as being more like a constitutional monarch than a politician – one only has to remember the image of Mr Mandela in a Springbok Jersey (South Africa’s National Rugby Team – a symbol of “White Afrikaner” Pride) handing the Rugby World Cup to Francois Piennar, the captain of the world cup winning Springbok team in 1997.  

You could say that Mr Mandela saw to it that he would never get the chance to indulge and become addicted to institutionalized power of political office. To his credit, Mr Mandela preferred to use his “moral authority” rather than the powers of political office.

While Mr Mandela was exemplary in his ability to give up political office (something few politicians are good at and African ones being particularly bad at it), his two successors proved to be quite different. If anything Messers Mbeki and Zuma have proved to be more like “anti-Mandela’s” in their behavior. Both men have been accused of being intolerant of dissent and of using the powers of office to silence critics. While both men have been relatively benign when compared to many of their counterparts on the continent, their behavior has been contradictory to the “hope” given out during the Mandela era.

One of the worst examples of how Mr Mandela’s successors have behaved can be seen on the stance both men have taken against HIV/AIDS, which afflicts a good portion of South Africa. Mr Mbeki was quite public in his quest to prove that there was no link between HIV and AIDS. He went as far as to delay the distribution of anti-retroviral drugs to public hospitals. While Mr Zuma has yet to officially harm AIDS patients, his public example hasn’t been much better. We’re talking about a man who takes precautions like having a shower after he has sex with a woman he knows to be HIV Positive (he allegedly rapped her).  

       

What went wrong here? It seems quite obvious that the politicians that succeeded Mr Mandela didn’t have his passion for working for the people. There is a sense that Mr Mandela could have done more to sell his vision to his followers in the ANC and gone as far as to institutionalize non-corruption and power abuse in both the ANC and South Africa. Mr Mandela, as they say, had both the institutional and moral power to do so.

There’s no doubt about the good things that Mr Mandela has done. It’s just such a pity that he didn’t get his party or nation ready to go beyond the “founding father” 

The Inspiration is in the Compassion

Ever since I graduated from Mount House (Churcher’s College’s junior boarding house in the days when Churcher’s had a small boarding community), I’ve not been much of a church goer. I’m afraid to say that despite my record as a decent student of Christian theology, my reasons for entering a church have been limited (usually to listen to a good choir – though I did attend for a while when I had other-halves who were trying to be Christian).

Unfortunately, life in Singapore doesn’t make it easier to be inspired by the church. It could be me but the few church visits that I’ve made in the last few decades have been closer to being at a combination of a rock concert mixed with a real life case study in marketing. I was getting used to the idea that Church was becoming the last place where you’d hear Godly words being spoken.

Thanks to the tough-half’s mother (this 70 plus year-old lady is a devout Catholic and the highlight of her visits to Singapore are my bringing her to Sunday mass) being in town, I actually found a service where Godly words were spoken. The priest at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd announced to his flock that the inspiration to worship God did not come from, “The Glamour of our Church buildings or the beauty of the liturgy but from the compassion that we show.”

This struck me as being the most amazing thing that I’ve heard in a long time. You could say that I’ve become a little jaded by a decade of being a PR man in Singapore. Life in the past decade has been about the constant search for more and in my case, I’ve been a very active participant in the process of telling people to buy more than what they may actually need or want. When you operate in a business that’s all about creating needs, you tend to get the idea that everything is all about packaging – God, is unfortunately not immune from this.

Singapore is littered with religious institutions that cater to various segments of the market. The Churches have been one of the most aggressive and slickest marketers. They have become so successful in the marketing department that Christianity has become personified by the likes of Joseph Prince, a young man who was destined to live life as an IT consultant until Jesus told (since I don’t speak to Jesus, I can’t verify this) that it was his mission to be a TV personality, wealth coach and author.

If you follow “Give me Your Money” school of Christianity, you’d be inclined to believe that Jesus died on the cross so that you would be entitled to live a wonderful life that would be free of sickness, worry and poverty. As my ex-girlfriend’s pastor said so eloquently, “Pagans chase good things – but good things just come to us naturally.”

Now, it goes without saying that faith is always easier to inspire when you look like the message. Think of how we’re all enamored by the wealth of Donald Trump, always seems to be living in the swankiest homes in the swankiest places on earth. Mr Trump personifies wealth and success despite the fact that the banks are consistently after him.

What is true of Donald Trump has been true of some of our church leaders. I think of the Rev Kong Hee and his wife Sun Ho, who currently facing charges of embezzling money. Despite the obvious evidence that is mounting against them, their followers continue to believe in the good pastor and his wife – I mean how can anyone who finances his wife’s singing career in Beverly Hills to the tune of $28,000 a week be anything but God’s one true representative on earth?

The problem with all these wonderful ideas about God being the source of prosperity, is the fact that Jesus (the Son persona of God) had a habit of blessing and bestowing kindness on social outcast like the poor, prostitutes, tax collectors and so on. Scripture clearly quotes him as saying, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” Every available record of Jesus’s life show that this was a man who encouraged us to “love your enemies,” and to “bless those who curse you.”

The records show that Jesus was born into poverty. There are no records to show him owning anything more than the cloths on his back (a topic that even some dispute). Here was a man who told us that God was to be found in the dregs of society. It could be the fact that my theology is nearly two-decades rusty but I don’t recall scripture talking about an entitlement to prosperity and health by being a follower.

If anything, Jesus wasn’t into mass followings. I think he made it quite clear that being a follower could be a nasty and brutish experience. He told people to sell ALL their possessions to become his followers. All four Gospels quote him as saying that a follower had to carry their cross.

So, if you were to follow the evidence that’s laid out by Christian scripture, you’d realize that Jesus was, materially speaking, a pauper and his message was all about things like alleviating suffering of the down trodden.  

This fact goes onto beg the question of what Christ would have thought of the effort of Churches to out-do each other in the effort to build bigger and more glamorous buildings? What he have thought of Pastors who pay themselves salaries that are comparable to those paid to corporate CEO’s?

Ironically the one Church that is starting to answer these questions is the Catholic Church itself. While the Catholic Church has been noticeably quiet in its efforts to raise funds when compared to its more “charismatic” counterparts, it has several centuries before to raise funds. Popes have traditionally lived like monarchs. The Pope is regarded by international law as a “Head of State,” and has to be given the privileges of one.

The current Pope, has now began to challenge these by example. His Holiness dines with ordinary people and instead of conducting services in the beauty of the Vatican, goes and brings the word of God to such charming and acceptable people like prisoners.

Now, wouldn’t be nice if more of today’s self-appointed agents of God, thought of devoting more of their time to bringing compassion to the down and out?  

We Need Human Interest as Well as Business Interest

I generally don’t like “reality TV.” However, I make an exception for “Undercover Boss,” a show that follows the experiences of a “boss” who goes undercover in his (they’re mostly men) company. What makes this show so gripping is the fact that the “boss,” without fail gets something of a wake-up call to the realities on the ground. When the “boss” summons his employees to HQ, he ends up doing “nice” things for them. The “boss” in the most recent episode that I watched came up with a wonderful sound bite that summed up his experiences of being “undercover” – “We need to human interest as well as business interest.”

This little nugget has touched me. I’m currently operating in a business environment where the pressure to deliver financial results is greater than ever. At the same time, there is an increasing amount of pressure to ensure that workers are properly treated.

This is particularly so in Singapore, the place where I’ve been based for the better part of the decade. Despite producing lots of “economic” growth, the Singapore government finds itself highly unpopular. Despite breaking its own taboos of not giving handouts (back in the ‘old’ days the Singapore government subsidized housing and healthcare but that was about it – these days, the government actually gives out cash on certain occasions), a government that has been used to total dominance has seen a steady erosion of its parliamentary seats in a two-year period. What’s going on?

Plenty has been said about the problems that modern Singapore faces. However, I think nobody has summed up the key problem as well as that particular boss in “Undercover Boss.” The powers-that-be, need to realize that ‘human’ interest are as important as ‘business’ interest. More importantly, human interest and business interest are not in conflict – if anything, they are good for each other.  

Let’s start with the obvious point – Singapore has prospered by looking after business interest. Our ‘honest’ and ‘business-friendly’ bureaucracy has encouraged foreign investors to create industries that have helped our population prosper. Say what you like about Singapore, but it’s a pretty darn good place to live. Infrastructure is comparable to anything in the ‘developed’ world and you can never underestimate the value of things like safety, especially for your children.

However, there’s a mood of discontent amongst the people these days. Go to any coffee shop in your average housing estate and you’ll find plenty of people grumbling about the way things are falling apart. Talk to enough people and you’ll get the impression that jobs have become a scarce commodity and for those with jobs will give you the impression that the word “job” is a polite term for slave labour.

The question arises on whether the government has become overtly business friendly to the extent that human interest become secondary. I would argue that the problem right now is that powers that be have become obsessed with the wrong type of business – namely spread sheet business.

Once again, I’m knocking spread sheets and figures. You need spreadsheets and such devices to control cost and to increase revenue. At the end of the day, a business has to make money. Having money enables a business to pay staff and contractors as well as shareholder. A business that cannot do any of these things is of no benefit to society.

However, money is just the byproduct of a business. At its very core, a business is an organization of people who are brought together for the common purpose of making money. Think of a restaurant as an example. The business is a restaurant is to bring someone who can cook and someone who can deal with customers together so that they can make money by selling a meal. The restaurant as a business is supposed to make money but it needs the activity of the cook and the waiter to do so. A restaurant needs to look after cook and waiter in order to look after its interest of making money.

If you look at things this way, the argument here is that the Singapore government has forgotten the basic premises of how things work. It has become obsessed with the “paper” of business. As such, the bureaucratic machine becomes obsessed with chasing “economic growth” figures without understanding how those figures translate something real. A government department can trumpet attracting so many dollars in foreign investment without understanding how it was created or what it means to the man on the ground.

What we need is not a neglect of business interest but a reminder that ‘human’ interest is an essential part of business interest. If you watch ‘Undercover Boss’ you will notice that the bosses are always surprised by how much employees are willing to give back to the company in terms of things like new ideas to improve process once they feel they are valued by the company.

Unfortunately these are things that can’t quantified in a spreadsheet and hence they get ignored during the board meeting. However, these are the things that are essential to helping the business thrive. Companies that look after “human interest” are the ones that have innovation and productivity and therefore prosperity – think of companies like 3M and Google as good examples. These companies are known for doing things like providing day care and allowing employees to devote 15 percent of their office time to a personal project.

Now apply this to the national economy. A country that makes its citizens feel like cogs to multinational companies can only so far. Countries that have a culture of making every citizen feel valuable tend to prosper in a more sustained manner. America, for all its current problems, has a culture where people feel valued and are rewarded in some way or another when they contribute.

Perhaps this might be a time for some of our leaders to go ‘undercover’ 

Remembering the Decency in a Race - Thanks to Bollywood's Lagan

I’m in a foul mood. You could say that I am at my bigoted worst. It all started with a boo-boo by the restaurant. We served a customer his main course while he was still on his starters. He wasn’t happy and his remark to me was, “You got to be joking – this isn’t the hawker centre!”

Unfortunately for both of us, this customer happened to be a Caucasian (French, I believe.) So, when he said what he did – something inside me snapped (I have the reverse Pinkerton Syndrome). However, he was the customer and since Thuy is back in my life – I bit my lip and resolved the issue. My poor colleagues got an earful of what I thought of the said customer’s ethnicity in the few Chinese dialects that I can curse in.

I was pretty offended but pulled through. Then two of my colleagues on the service team had a run in with the French kitchen help. Apparently this kitchen helper forgot his place in the scheme of things and thought it was OK to have a minor temper tantrum in the hope of intimidating them. It took self-control not to make an issue of it and the restaurant manager told me that the said Kitchen Helper is protected by the restaurant owner. Didn’t help my mood.

Anyway, I’ve placed my heart on my Facebook status and decided to listen to music on Youtube and then I decided to watch the last few moments of one of my favourite Hindi Movies – “Lagan,” which stars Amir Khan.

The story line of the movie is simple. The dastardly British in British India have decided to screw the poor Indian villagers, who are struggling to make ends meet because the monsoons have not arrived. The Brits make a bet with the villagers – if they can beat them in a game of cricket, they will have their taxes erased. However, if the villagers lose (which was the most likely outcome), their taxes would be tripled. The climax of the movie is of course – the cricket game, which against all odds, the villagers win.

This movie or at least the last twenty minutes were exactly what I needed. Let’s face it, I am by instinct, an anti-colonial. When I was young, I used to cheer for the Japanese side whenever they showed documentaries on the “Fall of Singapore.” There was always something very appealing about watching the White Boys get marched into POW camps (hey – you never hear little Yellow people talk about it being good for you when they do it – it’s a different story when the White man does it). When it came to the Vietnam War, I would always feel very excited whenever the little Yellow People in black pajamas took the US army.

Mum and I think most of my family have NEVER understood this hidden aspect about me. Every time my poor mother suggest that it might be time for me to join a multi-national PR agency, I shudder – there’s something repulsive in the idea that I only become a respectable person if my livelihood is dependent on someone taking orders from New York or London. I know I’ve suffered for it financially but the work I’m proudest of is whenever I’ve been in opposition as a one-man show to a big multinational agency run by some Pink Blotchy in London or New York.

Having said that, I have Caucasian family and friends whom I love dearly. One of my best friends asked if I missed London and my reply was and remains, “I don’t miss London – I miss you.” Having said everything that I’ve just said, my short f&b career, which runs alongside my media relations one, has been by most accounts fairly successful because I’ve managed to develop a good relationship with Caucasian customers (helps that I speak English and German)

I like to think that the few success I’ve enjoyed in life have come from an ability to see people as people rather than as a particular ethnicity or religion.

However, tonight wasn’t really one of those nights where I was in the frame of mind to see people for what they are. I was seeing things through ethnic lenses and I guess I felt angry.

Anyway, Lagan on a superficial basis, is a wonderful movie if you’re in the mood to watch Pink Blotchies get their just deserts. The Dastardly British tried to screw poor people and received justice.

However, if you look at it at a deeper level, the movie provides you with a wonderful platform to remember a decency of a people.

The two characters in this unfolding drama who remind you about the decency of the British people are the sister of the villain (who falls for the hero, played by Amir Khan) and the umpires of the final cricket game.

What both show very clearly is that very British characteristic of believing in fairness. 

You could argue that the sister is doing what she does because she wants to be with the hero. However, she’s also motivated by a sense of fairness. She goes out of her way to teach the villagers the basics of cricket – so making sure that they know what they’re doing at the end. She’s a decent woman who tries to do what is right. Her heart guides to see people beyond ethnicity or social status.

This is seen most clearly at the end of the movie when the British Garrison is dissolved and the troops are leaving. She steps out of her carriage and offers to touch the feet of the hero’s mother (unheard of in 1893 when the movie is set), embraces the girl (her rival in love) and speaks a smattering of Hindi (which is more than what most modern Brits can do). Her love is unconditional and it brings her to take risk to ensure that there is fairness in the equation.

The umpires in the final cricket game would, under normal circumstances, be uninteresting and unimportant. They are nothing more than cricket umpires. However, the fact that they remain cricket umpires despite the political undertones of the game, makes them exceedingly important.

They are fair to a fault. They make the most crucial decision towards the end of the game, namely to rule that there was a “no ball” – hence the hero and his batting companion remain in the game for the final ball. When the British protest, the umpires reply is, “It’s a no ball and I’m not discussing this any further, SIR.” The Umpire remains emotionless and signals that the hero has a hit a six (thus winning the game for the villagers) without a hint of emotion.

Although it’s an Indian movie depicting the Brits at their worst, Lagan managed to remind me of the decency of a people who, on the whole were kind to me. After watching the scene several times, I remembered that I was better than my own prejudices.

Say what you like about Bollywood but there are moments when the often simplistic storylines have a way of making you remember the good things in life. Towards the end, I felt less angry with the world and grateful for the friends and family that have touched my life. 

Two General Elections

Malaysia has just finished its General Election. Like the election in Singapore two-years ago, there was plenty of euphoria and hope that things would change. Like its Singapore counterpart, the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition held onto power but with its “worst-ever” election result. Like his Singapore counterpart, Malaysia’s Prime Minister had to acknowledge that despite his victory, he had received a proverbial slapping.

Things as they say, are getting interesting in the politics of Southeast Asian countries. There was a time when politics in Southeast Asia was boringly predictable. Western commentators went as far as describing ASEAN, the regional body, as a cozy dictators club. To a certain extent it was. The rulers of the various Southeast Asian Nations ruled for so long that they became synonymous with their countries. Mahathir was Malaysia as much as Lee Kuan Yew was Singapore and Suharto was Indonesia.

ASEAN’s strongmen attributed their longevity to things like culture and values (Asian culture instils a desire for strong leadership) and most importantly spectacular economic success. Singapore’s success story is so well known that it gave Lee Kuan Yew a nearly two-decade career as a “must-have” speaker to countries wanting to go from the Dark Ages into the Space Age in less than a decade. While Singapore’s development story takes the front pages, the rest of the region also saw economic growth that raised millions out of poverty. So, given the economic growth and the spectacular raise in wealth of the people, why have people in Southeast Asia become so angry with the systems that have brought them so much?

Well, the most logical place to start, would be with the 1997 economic crisis. People across the region found that the hot air lifting the balloon of economies was just that – hot air. The biggest casualty of the regional crisis was Suharto, the strongest man in the biggest country in the region. Mr Suharto, a former army general who had ruled as a Javanese emperor for 30 over years was ousted by student protest (children of the middle class he had helped create).

As many have pointed out – people were tolerant of abuses and corruption from the top as long as they were getting richer. When the economy collapsed, the poor and the newly created poor (formerly known as the Middle Class) would not tolerate wide-scale corruption amongst the elite.

Neither Singapore nor Malaysia have seen the type of collapse that happened to Indonesia. The conditions in Malaysia and Singapore are far milder than what hit Indonesia in 1997, yet the populations in both nations are reacting and not waiting for things to happen. Why?

I suppose you could say that there are two-key factors, namely communications technology and the size of the middle class.

Communications technology has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, it’s not just about the mobile phone and the internet but about the internet being received on the mobile phone. People can pick up all sorts of information delivered into their palms in an instant. Officials can no longer censor information the way they use to and the official version of the truth is not the ONLY truth. Thanks to “Smart Phones” – everyone is a news reporter. At the time of writing, one of the most prominent stories coming out of Malaysia is the deluge of videos “allegedly” showing trucks bringing in “fake” ballot papers to various polling stations and “phantom” voters from Bangladesh.

Such videos will make it imperative for Mr Najib to distance his government from the ‘corruption’ that his party has been accused of. The public will pounce on every perceived injustice that the government tries to ‘cover up.’

Economic success also created a large middle class. In Singapore one can argue that the majority of the population can be considered middle class. Unlike the poor, the middle class will not wait for an economic collapse before taking to the streets. The moment this group feels its basic aspirations (sending kids to college and good jobs) it starts to act.

So what can the political elite do? The most obvious is to recognize that times have changed. Both the BN and PAP have remained in power through the votes of older voters who remember the good things they did. Both have used the powers of incumbruancy and the power of patronage to shamelessly.

However, these things will not work on their own forever. It’s perhaps time that the ruling elite in Singapore and Malaysia recognize that business is no longer going to be as usual.

Good Bye Mrs Thatcher – You Put the GREAT back into Britain

One of the most prominent figures of my childhood has died. Mrs Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 died of a stroke at the age of 87 on the 8^th of April, 2013.

By the time of her death, Baroness Thatcher (as she was officially known) had become something of a recluse in her final years. You might say calling her senile was an act of kindness.

The Margaret Thatcher that died was far removed from the Margaret Thatcher I grew up with in the early years that I lived in the UK. Mrs Thatcher, as she was then known, was THE dominant figure in British politics and she made her presence felt in European Union (then known as the EEC) and global meetings.

As a leader, she became known for holding onto positions that were vastly unpopular at the time. She was loathed in liberal establishments for appearing ‘unsympathetic’ to the plight of the poor, though she was revered in business circles for cutting taxes and deregulating things. She was unafraid to speak her mind – something which a few attributed to the downfall of her successor.

You could say the extreme feelings that she generated, made her one of the last politicians to be driven by ideology. The Economist Newspaper described her as the “Last Victorian,” a politician from an era that had long gone by.

As the tributes pour in for the departed, “Iron Lady,” there will undoubtedly be a flurry of editorials about her legacy. I would say that Baroness Thatcher was responsible for putting the “Great” back into “Great Britain.”

Let’s start with the obvious. When Mrs Thatcher took over the UK in 1979, the country was going through a period of social disruption. The unions, particularly the miners’ union (NUM) lead by Arthur Scargill were particularly militant (enough to bring down governments). The state controlled vast chunks that mattered and public services were a mess. The situation was such that it was impossible to run a small business let alone get rich (one of the reasons why the second most infamous member of the OCC made a dash to Africa).

Within a decade of her premiership, Mrs Thatcher had faced down the unions, slashed taxes and regulations. Entrepreneurs like Lord’s Hanson and White of Hanson PLC and Sir James Goldsmith became household names both in the UK and the USA. The disruption that such men caused to the established order helped unleash a bout of entrepreneurial activity on both sides of the Atlantic.

The best part about Mrs Thatcher’s creation of prosperity was the fact that it came from creating greater social mobility. In the words of Uncle Nick (A Brit who married my mother’s cousin, Auntie Terresa), “Thatcherism has made people in England work harder.” If you study the Sunday Times rich list of people in Britain, the number of ‘self-made’ men is growing and crowding out the Old Money of the aristocracy.

The Thatcher era for the UK was not just about economics or social change. It was about the victory of a set of ideas. The idea that individuals were responsible for their own lives rather than the state triumphed over the idea that the State knew best. This is most visible in the fact that the Labour Party under Tony Blair only became electable after they moved towards the Thatcherite point of view. The idea of privitisation has become nearly universal.

Mrs Thatcher did have her faults. Towards the end she seemed a bit too comfortable in her position of power and cut off from reality. She used the royal “We” in public – “WE are a grandmother.” She lied in public about the resignation of her chancellor, Nigel Lawson. Like her American contemporary, Ronald Regan, Mrs Thatcher had a way of being cozy with dictators (Suharto comes to mind).

You could even say that the current mess that the UK is in, is Mrs Thatcher’s belief that free markets are the answer to everything. The “Big Bang” in the 1980s made the City of London a global financial centre. This created jobs and wealth. However, you could argue that things were brought to an extreme. The UK became so dependent on finance that everything else was lost and there was very little to the UK other than the dreams of financiers to make more money out of nothing.

While there is a case for all of these arguments, Mrs Thatcher’s legacy should, on the whole, be considered a decent one. Under her leadership, Britain went from being a poor country run by a group of blind bureaucrats to a country that encourages innovation and rewards entrepreneurship from wherever you may come from. Surely that has to be considered progress. 

The Wonderful Wizard of Blah-Blopi-Boo

It was a very good, Good Friday today. Spent most of the day with Thuy at the movies. Between chasing the press coverage for IIMPact 2013: New Frontiers, which is taking place April 5 – 6, 2013 and the night job, I’ve not really had the time to spend with her and to do my bit to ensure that her English is up to scratch.

Anyway, we decided to treat ourselves to two-movies. Morning movie was a good old fashioned Chinese slap stick. Then we decided to see “Oz, the Great and Powerful.” I enjoyed this movie because it was the “prequel” to the well-loved story I had grown-up with – “The Wizard of Oz.” This was the story of how the “Wizard” got to “Oz” in the first place.  

It turns out that the “Wizard” is an unpleasant character. He is a small-time circus magician who is a con-artist. He cheats and abuses his ‘business-partner’ and seduces women with nothing more than a few cheap gimmicks. When it looks like he’s going to get his just deserts, he does a runner – which is precisely how he ends up in Oz. Once in Oz, he continues as he did in Kansas and has some pretty close encounters, until he decides to use his skills as a ‘con-man’ for the greater good of the people of Oz.

I think one of the reasons why this movie spoke to me was the fact that it showed that despite being a shit of the highest order, you ended up cheering for the “wizard.” The reason was simple – after a while, you realized that it ended up saying more about the people who got taken in by him than it did about him.

Upon arrival he meets the first witch (who will end up becoming the wicked witch that Dorothy had to melt), he actually convinces her that he’s got genuine magic powers. What does he do? His hot air balloon falls out of the sky and he pulls out gimmick flowers for her (she is at this stage a very hot chick – character played by Mila Kunis). Did he ever suggest to her that he was a wizard? No, she’s the one who tells him that he’s a wizard and he merely does what every con-artist does – takes advantage of the situation.

I know this is a fairy tale of sorts but the beauty here is that a charlatan with no magic powers to speak of manages to convince someone with real magic power (and she does have potent powers) that he has powers that exceed hers.

If you look at the movie closely, you’ll realize that the “Wizard” has several things going for him. They are:

His Looks

The very first thing that one should note about the “Wizard” (played by James Franco) is that he’s a good looking guy. Despite the situations that he gets involved in, he is immaculately groomed and is always with his hat. When you look at him, you can believe that young women – even ones with magical powers, would be attracted to him.

Let’s face it, we love looking at attractive people. We will give them the time of the day. I am guilty of this. I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve allowed myself to remain engaged in a conversation with women who bored me into shitting my pants or parting with money I could have used more wisely. If I look back at those moments, I realize that I only myself to do things against my better judgment was because I found the chick in question “hot.”

It works the other way too. Women are as guilty as men of being easily lead astray by good looking men. One of my best friends in the UK had the luxury of being very pretty – women would offer him their number out of the blue. He also had plenty of admirers from the homosexual community too.

I think back to what my Uncle Jeffery said to me when I went to work for him at Asher Communications – “Cosmetics Count.”

If you look at the world’s con-artist, you’ll realize that they’re all exceedingly well groomed…….

Charm and the Ability to Make Others Feel Special

One of the “wizard’s” most popular tools is a series of “musical boxes,” (movie is set in the 1900s, musical boxes were today’s iPhones) which he gives away to women he plans to seduce. His line is always the same – it was his grandmother’s musical box and she left it to him and now he wants to give it to the lady in question.

The line is corny. It is obvious. It works. The ladies fall for him because he makes them feel special. He makes them feel as if they are the only one for him.

We all like to feel special. Relationships always seem better when they are exclusive. I think of journalist who have asked me for “exclusives” and I think of how I’ve valued certain relationships over others because some just seemed more “special” than others.

When you make someone feel special and good – you are more likely to get them to do things for you.

The Willingness to be Lucky or Understanding the Situation

Say what you like about the “Wizard” but he understands situations and is able to tailor his actions according to the situation. When people at the circus claim that they see a wire in his levitation act, ‘cuts’ the wires. Then in Oz, he knows when to rescue and heal people and when to run……In short, he is a survivor.

These are simple facets to his character and if we applied them to our daily lives, we may be surprised with the results.  

The Importance of Self-Belief

You could call a series of happy coincidences that lead to the creation of this blog post. First, my favourite litigator got himself interviewed in the mainstream media and was presented as a champion of underdogs. Then for some reason I decided to get onto youtube to watch “Tyson vs Lewis.” Both these events got me thinking about the concept of “underdogs.”

The concept of the “underdog” is a most curious one. On one hand, we all have an emotional pull towards supporting “underdogs.” However, when it comes to life, we often try our best to avoid being underdogs and move into situations where our success becomes a forgone conclusion.

I think of Singapore, the place I’ve called home for the last decade. On one hand, Singapore goes on and on about how it’s the perpetual “underdog” on the global scale. We are always the small island that wasn’t supposed to survive as an independent nation. Yet, if you look at the way Singapore is run, it’s all about BIG things – BIG GOVERNMENT AND BIG CORPORATIONS are, in practice, the only entities of significance in Singapore.

Anyway, I’ve spent the better part of a decade being an insignificant fly in this pool of people obsessed by “BIG” things. So, I figured that if there is topic that I am qualified to talk about, it is the topic of being successful despite being insignificant.

I think the key to success as an underdog is ‘self-belief.’ In order to succeed as underdog, you need to believe in yourself and you need to develop a healthy disregard for conventional perceptions of reality.

Let me clarify that there is a difference between having ‘self-belief’ and being “delusional.” I took karate at school (I was in fact the school captain). However, despite having some training in a martial art and being confident enough that when push comes to shove, I can handle myself in a fight, I’m not about to rush off and challenge Mike Tyson. That would be delusional and feeling Mike’s fist against my jaw would cure me of that pretty quickly.

Having ‘self-belief’ means that you recognize what you are and what you have. You recognize that you can’t win every battle but you can win others. A person with ‘self-belief’ creates situations where he or she can win.

One can see this when it comes to boxing. This is particularly true when you look at the career of Mike Tyson. In his heyday, Mike Tyson was considered an indestructible force of nature. Getting into the ring with Mike was as good as going into the ring against a tornado.

The beauty of Mike Tyson was a fighter was that his destruction of his opponents created a situation where people became terrified of him. I think of his 91 second demolition of Michael Spinks, who was in his own right, a decent fighter. How did Tyson win so easily? The answer was simple – Spinks was shitting in his pants the moment he stepped into the ring.

Tyson wasn’t the biggest fighter but he did have the biggest reputation. Many of Tyson’s opponents were superior physical specimens. Yet their physical strength was nothing when compared to Tyson’s reputation. Take Frank Bruno as an example. It was considered a major achievement for him to last five rounds the first time and nobody was terribly surprised that he got a three round hiding the second time they met. Frank Bruno was bigger and probably stronger than Mike Tyson. However, on the two occasions he got into the ring, he was shit scared of what Tyson would do to him.

His reign as heavy weight champion of the world ended when he ran into James Buster Douglas. The fight should have been a foregone conclusion. However, Douglas decided not to be intimidated and fought instead of rolling over. Hey presto – Mike Tyson got knocked out.

Latter on Tyson ran into Holyfield and much to everyone’s surprise, landed on his rear end. Then, came the fight with Lennox Lewis.

This was supposed to be the fight of all fights. Everyone expected Tyson to be at his ferocious best and would give Lennox the fight of his life. “Iron Mike” didn’t even come close to hurting Lennox. As one boxing commentator said, ‘The bad boy of boxing got a spanking from Lennox Lewis.”

How did Douglas, Holyfield and Lewis do it? I think all three men found the amazing ability to look beyond the reputation of Mike Tyson, understood what they had over him and used it to their advantage. They boxed in a way that suited them rather than Tyson. The Lewis fight was particularly instructional. Lennox was the bigger man so he used his jab. He never allowed Tyson to really get close to him. Then, when Tyson got tiered, Lewis demolished him.

Most of us tend to look at the obvious. It often becomes easy to become focused on what the other fellow has rather than on what you have. Let’s face it, gossip magazines that pry into the lives of the rich and famous would be thriving if human beings were not obsessed with other people.

While following gossip is good fun – it is a distraction. Checking out other people becomes a means in itself rather than an act to achieve an objective. Let’s face it, there would be a lot more fortunes in this world if ten percent of the people following gossip magazines about the rich and famous decided to focus on being rich and famous themselves.

We all have our talents as much as we have our weaknesses. Yet, despite this, many of us fail because we become so obsessed with everything else other than using what we have, that we end up going nowhere.

I stress again, self-belief is not fantasy. In order to be useful, it has to be based on reality. Let’s look at American military campaigns as an example. America has undoubtedly the most powerful military machine in the world. The American government spend more on developing its military than the rest of the G20 combined.

As such, the American military lives on Napoleon’s truism that “God is on the side of big battalions.” Simply put, no army in the world will ever be able to stand up to the force of the US military.

Yet, despite this, the Americans have got stuck in places like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The image of the “world’s strongest military” running away on top of its embassy in Saigon has become iconic.

What happened? The insurgents understood that they would NEVER beat the American military in a pitched battle. However, instead of being intimidated, they realized that they had certain advantages and played to them. The American military planners failed to realize that there were other battles other than the pitched ones that would become more important to the scheme of things.

American military planners in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have been focused on things like troop numbers and guns. The insurgents in these places were focused on ensuring their people had their support and that the American people would not support the military campaign. The insurgent movements have fought their battles in such a way where their own people would die for them, while the American people would be against whatever their own military did.

Take the “Tet Offensive” as an example. In strict military terms, the Americans won on the basis that they killed more of them enemy. However, this became the turning point against American military action in Vietnam because, it was the point where the American public lost its heart for the fight – Say what you like but it was a damn good move to get American soldiers appearing to gun down “innocent civilians” on American TV. For a nation that takes pride in its role as a guarantor of peace and stability (a beacon of all that’s good), this was a little bit too much to bear.

Underdogs are not delusional. They merely understand themselves and the situation beyond the “hype” and “expectation” of convention. They then play according to what they know they can do best at.

     

Memories

Today is the 9^th of March, 2013. It is officially 16-years since the tragic accident of Exercise Swift Lion in New Zealand. It has been 16-years since Ronnie, the Gun Commander and Yin Tit, his gunner were killed in a freak accident in what should have been the crowning glory of their National Service Careers.

Although 16-years have passed, the memory of what I did on that day remains very fresh. You could say that I was fortunate not to be there first hand. I was in the battery that was waiting to go out to New Zealand. National Service was winding down and I guess you could say we were supposed to just mark time. Then, this incident took place and many things in our lives changed.

Suddenly National Service became serious. As they always say, it’s easy to be a hero in a simulation – it’s a different story when you have to attend a funeral of a friend you knew to be only a good guy. I’ve often described this as the last days of innocence that we had. The funerals that we had to attend suddenly woke us up to the reality that life was unfair. I knew Ronnie well enough. He was one of those chaps who would follow instructions to the letter. He was one of those who would go out of his way to help the most inconsiderate of us. He was dedicated to his job. Despite all of that, it was he who had to die.  

That incident simply didn’t make sense. Although the Committee of Inquiry has released its findings and officialdom has done its best to give us a sensible explanation of what happened, I still don’t understand why this good natured soul of all people had to have his life cut short.

I remember being unable to cry for a friend who deserved more than my tears. If anything, I was angry at a system that didn’t seem to give a shit for the life that was lost. From where I stood in Khatib Camp on that day, officialdom was more concerned with getting me to endorse a weapon system than it was about two young lives that had been cut short. It happened so suddenly that I’m not sure how many of us had time to be sad. It took me a good six-months and an unhealthy dose of vodka to be able to properly mourn a friend.

Sixteen years have passed. Most of us have built careers and families. Time has dulled the shock and pain from that incident. We have moved on with our lives. I believe that this is something that this is something that would have made Ronnie and Yin Tit happy.

Yet, there’s a part of me that won’t let go of these memories. For me this was the last days of my innocence. It was the time when I saw the worst in a system obsessed with perpetuating itself. It was the moment when I saw the best in people who found a way of reaching out to you.

Now, as I write this, I remember the moments that I was fortunate enough to share with Ronnie. I’m grateful that I’m blessed with good friends. I’ve loved intensely and been loved intensely. Yes, things could be better but they could also be worse. I wish I could tell my friend that I miss him and that he was here to share the highs and lows of growing older. It’s been sixteen-years since that terrible day. Now the anger and the pain have gone. I just miss a friend who deserved so many of the blessings life has.   

Will they join?

You could say that I’m living my life backwards. As I approach the big four-zero mark, I seem to be doing all the things that I should have done in my twenties. One of those activities is working at a restaurant. Most of my nights are spent waiting tables in an Italian restaurant near my home. The work isn’t going to win me Nobel Prize anytime soon but it keeps me busy and provides me with some form of exercise. The pay is disproportionately low for the hours worked but it funds my day-to-day living expenses and more importantly it helps fund my CPF (compulsory savings scheme that employed Singaporeans contribute to – a few have bitched about it being a hidden tax but as my Dad pointed out, it’s the only way most of us have the means to buy a home.)

I mention this aspect of my personal life because the experience of working in a job that is officially below my qualifications touches on one of the hot topics in today’s Singapore – jobs or the lack of them. The issue of jobs ties in heavily with everyone’s favourite hot topic – foreigners. As far as most Singaporeans are concerned, the influx of foreigners into the country is the key to all our social problems. One of the key social ills is jobs or the lack of them. If you talk to enough Singaporeans, many of them will complain that there aren’t enough jobs to go around and for those of us with jobs we’ll complain that they are so badly paid, it’s not worth doing them.

The issue is especially sensitive at the bottom of the social ladder. On one hand there is the argument that hiring forigners from the rest of Asia has helped depress wages at the bottom of the ladder thus pricing out the less educated Singaporean from the job market. The businesses have countered that Singaporeans won’t do the jobs so they have to get them from elsewhere.

Singapore’s normally pro-business government has decided to weigh in on the side of labour. In the recent budget announcement, the finance minister made it a point that businesses in certain sectors have become too dependent on “cheap” labour and have therefore ignored upgrading and becoming more productive. To change the situation, the government has increased the foreign worker levy to make foreigners less cheap than the locals and also introduced a slew of measures to encourage employers to become more “productive.” The sectors that have been targeted are retail, construction and F&B (food and beverage) as the sectors that need to up their game and become more productive.

In a way, this budget helps my blue collar persona. Well, the main point is things are going to look much better for that side of me. The employers in the industry are going to have a bigger problem finding people to do the work. The traditional source of labour will dry up and let’s face it, Singaporeans are not about to rush into the industry. Logic would have it that the owners of F&B establishments will have to be nicer to the Singaporeans who are already in the industry.

Let’s face it, the reality of the f&b industry is that it is a people intensive one. There are certain things that can be improved with IT. I think you’d have an instant hit amongst the various small restaurants if you had a bit of technology that would send the information straight to the cashier and the kitchen the moment the waiter takes an order.

Then there’s the issue of dishwashers. The big hotels wash their dishes by machine. The smaller outlets don’t. They have someone to do it. One of the key arguments is that they don’t have the space and human labour makes up for things.

Leaving aside these two areas, there’s arguably little that you can reduce. Perhaps some outlets can become ‘self-service’ restaurants. However, if you are planning on running a reasonably mid-priced restaurant, you still need the people to cook and serve the food.

So like it or not, the restaurant business needs people to keep things moving along. Unfortunately getting labour is going to be as tough as it has always been.

Let’s start with the obvious. Being in the service line is tough. It can be downright unpleasant especially if you have a ‘I won’t take shit’ mentality. I’ve had customers come up to me and challenge me to a fight. Apparently I didn’t see him wave at me and so after he got someone to take his order, he came up to me and asked, “Do you have a problem with me?” This is the type of thing that usually leads to someone having their face smacked in. However, I didn’t smack his face in – I had to get him to sit down and have his meal.

The job requires you to have a high level of tolerance for nonsense. You have to stay pleasant when the situation is such that you don’t particularly feel like being nice.

In a funny way, my years in PR have helped me to cope with the demands of the job. I’m older or at least I’ve reached the age where I’m more inclined to let certain things pass. I’m also at the stage where I’d rather laugh at things rather than getting angry or sad. Hence, I laugh at situations and for the most part, I end up laughing with customers and have a decent rapport with most of them.

I’m lucky. If you look at the demands of the job, you’ll see that one requires a decent amount of EQ rather than IQ to do the job. Unfortunately this is not the way the education system in Singapore has geared people up for. A good portion of the middle class, for example, have been raised by maids. How do you encourage people who have been brought up believing that it’s their birthright to be served to actually serve?

By contrast the Filipinos are used to providing service. A part of it is economics. Another part of it is probably cultural, where they’ve been more inclined to let things go.

This then brings in the question of pay or the lack of it. The F&B industry has always been known for being a tough paymaster. With the exception of executive chefs or restaurant owners, most people in the industry don’t earn pots of money. I have a friend who has worked in the industry for 25-year. He’s currently on a salary of $1,900 and considers it high. I know of a former restaurant manager who rose from $2,000 a month to $6,000 in 25-years. By comparison, I got $1,800 a month when I started out in my first agency job.

Long hours for relatively little money isn’t exactly the most attractive thing to bandy about when you are trying to get people to join the industry.

So what can be done? There are people who would rather be jobless than work in the industry. Pay could increase but then again, the question of how much pay do wages need to go up before people consider it attractive for the hours worked? That will be question for the industry to answer in the coming years.  

The Bridging Budget

Budget Day is probably one of the most significant days in the political calendar for most countries in the Commonwealth. It’s a time when even the most politically apathetic citizen becomes glued to the media watching events in parliament. Why? This is the one day in the political calendar when you get to find out how your personal finances might be affected by the government. The Finance Minister (Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK) gives a report on national finances and you get find out who ends up paying more or less taxes and who gets what subsidy.

Singapore’s Budget has just been announced. The Finance Minister, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam , a highly regarded economist (high enough for the IMF to make him chairman of the   International Monetary and Financial Committee), delivered a two-hour speech outlining the state of government finances and how he was going to manage the finances for everyone’s benefit.

What was particularly striking about this year’s budget was the fact that it seemed so obviously aimed at political issues. Generally speaking, politics in Singapore is a very technocratic affair. Election results are obvious and politicians, to use a PAP phrase, have been focused on doing “What’s right instead of what’s popular?” It’s argued that Ministers can afford to take the “long-term” view and things like immediate voter emotions are of very little concern.

Well, if this budget was anything to go by, things have changed. Mr Tharman’s budget was directly aimed at addressing “hot-button” political issues. Issues like the supply of foreign workers and growing income inequality were addressed in the budget.

Most strikingly was the announcement that he was going to raise property taxes on “investment” property – that is the property that only the mega-rich can afford. While the tax itself is not high or at least high enough to make the mega-rich squeal, the very announcement that he was going to tax “wealth” rather than “income” and that it was “fair” was earth shattering.

 The Singapore Government has taken great pains to send out the “right” message to the super-rich. We've spent the last decade selling ourselves as a place that welcomes the super-rich and a place that’s immune from populist measures of wanting to tax the rich out of existence. Singapore takes pride in welcoming billionaires from around the world. The Singapore Government is very tax friendly (I've never had a tax bill of more than $800 a year on an income of a shade over $40 grand and I have the whole year to settle my tax bill). Not only does it sell itself to the rich, the government also makes it a point to tell the population that being a playground for the rich is exceedingly beneficial.

So, its earth shattering for a Singapore Finance Minister to talk passionately and firmly about raising a tax on wealth and arguing that it’s the fair thing to do. He even went as far as to say that this was not something that could be avoided with efficient tax planning.

So, why is Mr Tharman going down this road? Well, the answer is politics. Talk to enough Singaporeans (I’m included) and most of us will inevitably tell you that we find that the cost of living is becoming ridiculously expensive. The public sentiment is such it believes that the government is rolling out the red carpet for the superrich and the expense of the ordinary wage earner.

It’s clear that Mr Tharman has read the ground well and he’s doing the politically astute thing by making a visible effort to do something about the ‘concerns of the people.’ He’s even defied various pressure groups – namely businesses or employers. The “foreign worker levy” is being raised significantly. This is something businesses are against. However, instead of caving into the demands of employers, the finance minister of the world’s most employer friendly country has proceeded to carry on his course.

All this sounds very good to me as an ordinary pleb. I don’t think I’m going to be able to afford a house in Singapore anytime soon. However, I am assured of the fact that my restaurant worker persona is going to stay employed for quite some time. Suddenly, a job that has traditionally been shunned by people with any sense (low wages and long hours) is going to look a bit more attractive.

While I am happy with Mr Tharman’s efforts and gestures, I wonder who is going to ultimately benefit. Will things actually turn out for the better?

I take the newly announced “Wage Credit Scheme.” This is a scheme that is meant to encourage employers to raise wages, particularly of the lower income group. The idea behind it is deceptively simple. If an employer raises a monthly wage, the government will pick up 40 percent of the tab. So if an employer raises a wage by S$200 a month, the government will give that employer S$80 a month for the next three-years. (http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/budget_2013/pc.html)

While this should provide an incentive for employers and employee’s to become more ‘productive’ on paper, the question remains, is it enough to work on the ground.

Let’s take the issue of the “jobs credit” scheme, which was announced in the 2009 budget. The idea behind this scheme was to encourage companies to keep jobs instead of outsourcing them or sacking workers. The scheme involved providing a 12% cash grant on the first $2,500 of each month’s wages for each employee on the CPF payroll (http://www.mof.gov.sg/budget_2009/key_initiatives/jobs.html)

Well, I don’t doubt that some jobs were saved. However, there were companies that simply didn’t know how to work the scheme. Take the SMRT Corporation as an example. Back in November, 2012, the SMRT Corporation got a nasty slap in the face when 100 of its bus drivers from China went on strike to protest against low pay.

The drivers were duly arrested and the system went into over drive about how the drivers had disrupted our social harmony and so on.

However, the online media decided to talk about the low wages that the SMRT Corporation was paying the bus drivers. The question of why can’t give equal pay for equal work was raised (An issue which the trade union leader promptly described as being “more complicated than that). Then the more crucial question of why we needed to hire bus drivers from China and elsewhere instead of hiring Singaporeans was raised.

The SMRT Corporation proceeded to talk about the high cost of hiring Singaporeans or the fact that Singaporeans were not interested in the wages that were being offered. The corporation also went onto talk about how it was losing money on its bus services, thanks to high wages and diesel prices.

This was an interesting claim to make. The SMRT Corporation has a virtual monopoly on a service that everyone has to use.  The company controls valuable real estate and has vast sources of income. How can it have insufficient funds to pay Singaporeans half way decent wages?

More interestingly, the SMRT Corporation has been a happy recipient of “jobs credit” vouchers.  If you look through the summary reports of their financial performance from 2009 – 2011, you’ll see that the company received this grant from the government. In the 2011 report, it even goes as far as to state that it’s wage cost went up because of “lower jobs credit.”  (http://smrt.com.sg/Portals/0/PDFs/About%20SMRT/Investor%20Relations/Annual%20Report/2011_SR.pdf)

So, here’s an interesting question. What happened to all that “jobs credit” grant? Not only does the corporation make monopoly providers profits, it also receives a subsidy from the tax payer.  That subsidy is given on the understanding that the company will not sack people and keep Singaporeans in a job.

So, how is it that the company has no money to hire more Singaporeans, particularly those at the lower end of the social ladder?

The government has come up with another scheme to help businesses improve productivity and get working. One has to question whether some of our biggest government owned companies will keep in line with the government’s objectives.  

Some Thing About Names

One of the first things that Westerners have to adjust to when moving to a Chinese-dominated society is dealing with names. There are cultural differences when dealing with names.

For a start, the Chinese start with the family name while in the West, the family name follows the given (Christian) name. For example, Tang and not Li is my surname. However, many Chinese, particularly the Western educated ones are fairly flexible with their names when dealing with Westerners. Many take on Western names. Lee Kuan Yew (Family name is Lee), Singapore’s founding Prime Minister goes by “Harry Lee” when he’s with friends and family.

Many Chinese also reverse their names so as to not confuse Westerners. One of Asia’s most prominent film directors went from being “Lee Ang” to “Ang Lee.” When I lived in the West, I was “Li Tang” (It took several years to accept that I had to reverse my name – mum said I had to be flexible so the Westerners wouldn’t get confused – I didn’t see why I had to reverse my name in the West when Westerners don’t do the same in Asia. However, I’ve adjusted and I accept my Western friends and family calling me “Li Tang” because that’s who I’ve been to them for so many years.). When I moved back to Singapore I became “Tang Li” (I’ve had to bite my lip from screaming abusive terms at business partners who have called me “Li Tang” at client meetings. – They’re Asian and we live in Asia.)

The other thing that stumps Westerners when dealing with Asian names is their pronunciation.  Chinese names are tough as many of the names break the rules of English. The example that comes to mind is “NG” (how do you pronounce something with no vowels.) If Chinese names are tough for Westerners, Indian and Southeast Asian ones are worse.

What I’ve just described is what you’d call the material that provides you with enough material for a slapstick comedy based on cultural misunderstandings. There easy ways to get round these issues.

There is, however, a more serious issue when dealing with names – namely the issue of trying to figure out relationships between various parties. While the Western world has a seeming number of surnames, the Asian one seems fairly limited. I suspect that many Westerners suspect that we’re highly inbred because you find that there are lots of people walking around any given Asian city with the same surname.

I think of how it’s considered quite a rare event for Grandma Millie (Step Dad Lee’s mother) to marry a man with the same surname. By contrast, in my father’s family we’ve had two generations of Tang’s marrying Wong’s (Grandpa and Grandma and one of my uncle’s married a Wong). If there seems to be lack of Chinese surnames, there seem to be even less of them in Vietnam – the place was filled with “Nguyen’s” and “Vu’s.”

Well, we aren’t that inbred. With Chinese names, a lot of it tends to be found in the way a name is “romanised.” Had to explain to step granny Joan (step mother Nora’s mother) that my family “Tang” was not related to the “Tang Emperors,” even though the names are spelt the same in English. The Chinese character for my family name is different from the ancient emperors. If you use the ‘pinyin’ of spelling my family name it would be closer to “Deng” I have an Aunt who lives in the USA. She has ‘pinyinized’ her family name to “Deng.” By contrast the rest of us are still on the Wade Giles form of Romanizing our name – hence we remain ‘Tang.’

So, I guess when you understand things this way, you’ll find that Asians are not as inbred as one might initially imagine.

Time to Go

The Chinese Year of the Snake has started out with a bang. The Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI would be resigning on February, 2013. His Holiness will be the first Pope in 600 years to voluntarily resign and the world’s 450 million Catholics will have to look for a new Pope.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who became Benedict XVI was a theological conservative. You can say that his conservative views coloured his Papacy. He was hit hard by events. The scandal involving the abuse of children by priest will undoubtedly mar his time as head of the Catholic Church. Then there were controversial moments – quoting a Byzantine Emperor’s remarks about Islam and pardoning a Bishop who openly denied the existence of the Holocaust come to mind.

Much will be said about his time as head of the world’s largest Christian Denomination in the years to come. For me, I would rather focus on one of the most crucial acts of his Papacy – his resignation and the reasons for it.

In his statement, the Pope said, “I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.” In other words – he was too old to carry on. You have to applaud him for this single sentence for several important reasons.

Let’s start with the fact that he’s admitting that he’s human and suffering from the consequences of age. You might argue that there’s no big deal here. However, he’s doing so from a position of power (As well as being revered by 450 million Catholics around the world, the Pope is considered a Head of State by International Law). History is littered with examples of old men in positions of power who forgot that they were human and prone to declining with age. Such men have done great things in their younger days and then undone their good work by hanging onto power when their time was up. Mao comes to mind as one of these figures. Thankfully for the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI is not going to be one of these men.

Giving up “office” isn’t exactly easy, especially when “office” grants you lots of power and very nice trappings. As mentioned earlier, people who have these offices often try to hang onto them until they need to be forcibly removed. The obsession of holding onto office ends up becoming so powerful that the person trying to hold on ends up damaging the “office” and the people that the “office” was supposed to serve.

Say what you like about this Pope but his act of resignation allows the Catholic Church the chance to choose a new leader, who may or may not be the right person to lead the Church in the next era. This Pope has admitted that he doesn't have the strength to do it and keeping him would only prolong the status quo. A new leader provides the Church with a chance to have a breath of ‘proverbial’ fresh air.

There is no guarantee that the next Pope will be drastically different from the current one. The Conclave of Cardinals selects one of their own and most of them have been brought up in the same traditions. However, who’s to say that the next Pope won’t have the energy required for the task ahead.  

Resigning has also helped ensure that the Church and the office of the Papacy will be separated from the man of Joseph Ratzinger. While the Papacy has survived its incumbents for nearly two thousand years, things are different in the age of the internet. The “office” like many others has come under constant scrutiny and people see and view “offices” by the people who fill them. Our expectations of the office are tied to the people.

Let’s just look back at Benedict XVI’s predecessor, John-Paul II. He was Pope for so long that he ended up personifying the office. It was so much so that everyone ended up associating the office of the Papacy with an old man who was practically drooling during every liturgy.

Benedict XVI by contrast will be leaving the Papacy while he’s still relatively healthy. It’s rare for Pope’s to do so. The last Pope who resigned did so 600 years ago. Pope’s tend to die in office. Perhaps this was fine when people didn’t live for a long time and didn’t have to perform in front of the TV or internet channels.

You might argue that the Papacy is a different institution from say the US Presidency. As such, it’s OK to keep a man in the same position for eternity. However, Papacy is a position of leadership. The Pope is a Head of State and there is a case that you should have Pope’s who are healthy and strong.

Benedict XVI may have made mistakes as Pope. However, the decision to admit his frailty and give up office is not one of them. This act of voluntary resignation may be the act that brings the Papacy into the modern age.

It’s Unpopular Speech that Needs Defending – Jessie Ventura, former Governor of Minnesota and Wrestler

There’s not been much happening on the career development front so in between my nights at Bruno’s (I still have bills to pay and Chinese New Year is round the corner), I’ve been trawling Youtube. In between getting my music fix, I’ve become a fan of speeches and interviews like people Congressman Dr Ron Paul and Jessie Ventura, the former Governor of Minnesota and wrestler. Both these men are often written off as part of the lunatic fringe by the mainstream Western Media. However, if you listen to them being interviewed by the likes of Fox News, you’ll find that both men make sense and more often than not end up running rings around their interviewers.

I’ve been particularly intrigued by Mr Ventura. I suppose the man appeals to me because he’s had quite an unconventional career. He’s been a Navy SEAL, bodyguard, wrestler, actor and the Governor of Minnesota.  Mr Ventura is a big man with a gruff voice. He looks more at home in a log cabin than he does in front of the books he’s authored.

Yet, despite all that, Mr Ventura is an intelligent man who makes a valid point. If you look at the interviews he was involved in that discuss the September 11, 2001 tragedy, you’ll find that Mr Ventura makes valuable points. He argues that the Bush II Administration lied to get America into a war and suggests that the attacks on the ‘Twin Towers’ was an ‘inside’ job.

These views aren’t exactly popular. If you watch the interviews that he gives, you’ll find the interviewers getting as emotional as they accuse him of being. When Mr Ventura suggests that the Twin Towers were blown up from within rather than crashed by the planes, you’ll find that the interviewers always yell, “How can you say that?”

Mr Ventura’s reply is inevitably, “I can because the constitution allows me to – popular speech does not need defending, it’s unpopular speech that needs to be protected.”

If you leave Mr Ventura’s thoughts about the September 11, 2001 attacks, you’ll realize that Mr Ventura has a point. If a society claims to value freedom of speech, it has to protect ‘unpopular’ speech as much as it allows ‘popular’ speech. If we claim that “Freedom of Speech” is ‘sacrosanct’ we have to put up with the fact that what is often said is …..well, garbage that you might not agree with. You work on the principle of “I hate what you say but I’ll defend your right to say it.”

When you look at things in this light, you’ll realize that Mr Ventura is performing a very important service for countries like America, which claim that it defends the right to “free speech” as sacrosanct.

Let’s face it, there is truth in the saying, “birds of a feather flock together.” Human beings will form groups with people they tend to agree with the most. I take myself as an example. The friends that I have made share many similarities to me. While we do have individual differences, we tend to share a common dislike for conventional wisdom. Like me, many of my friends have developed off-beat career paths, away from the accepted wisdom that it’s best to be under a big brand name company. Somehow or other, this strong similarity between us helps overcome whatever differences that we may have.

This desire to group together with ‘like-minded’ people tends to be the seed of culture formation. Mythologies about certain historical events develop because groups of people agree on certain things about the event and sooner or later everyone accepts things as conventional wisdom.

On the surface there’s nothing wrong with the development of conventional wisdom. However, there is a point when things become worrying – that is the point when the mythology of an event becomes sacred and it becomes a sacrilege to challenge conventional wisdom.

The first area where this is worrying is that this goes against the very concept of ‘freedom of speech.’ If you argue that ‘Freedom of Speech’ is sacrosanct, it does not mean that you only tolerate ‘Acceptable’ speech because you have to draw the line of “who” makes the decision of what is acceptable and what is not. Belief in “freedom of speech” means that you have to be prepared to be offended. You can then either ignore the speech that offended you or you can accept the points the other side made or you can refute the other side’s views with your own.

Then you have to look at the fact that when you make something sacred to the point of not being able to be challenged, you run the risk of closing all possibility to the fact that you may have been wrong and you also run the risk of killing ALL forms of innovation.

Let’s start with the killing of innovation. What is innovation other than the challenging of ‘conventional’ wisdom? Four centuries ago, it was conventional wisdom that the world was flat and the Sun evolved around the earth. Challenging those concepts was punishable by some horrible torture. Now, if you look at the history innovation, you’ll find that humankind only started making lots of progress in a hurry once the likes of Galileo and Copernicus challenged that conventional wisdom, paid the price for it and were proved right. 

The good creature comforts that most of us enjoy today have its foundation in the fact that people dared to challenge ‘conventional’ wisdom.

The other worry is that when you make something so sacred that it cannot be challenged, you hide the fact that the creators of the ‘mythology’ might have less than benign motives for creating the mythology in the first place.

Say what you like about Mr Ventura’s arguments about September, 11, 2001, but he has a point when he says that “Governments do lie.” He cites the “Gulf of Tonkin” incident which brought the US into conflict with Vietnam. Mr Ventura points out that this was a lie and 58,000 Americans of his generation died. His logic is not faulty when he points out that if the government lied over the “Gulf of Tonkin,” it is capable of lying over September 11, 2001.

In many ways historical events have proved Mr Ventura right. The Bush II Administration rushed into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the case of Iraq, the Administration sold the mythology that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and was a financier of the terrorist who attacked the ‘Twin Towers.’ Needless to say these two assertions have since been proved false.

Now, this comes from the American government, which is considered a relatively benign government. Can you imagine what less benign governments would do, especially if they had a public which was less questioning about the mythologies they created?

I think of Europe where it is illegal to question the “Holocaust.” If you want to go to jail, all you need to do is to make a public suggestion that the gas chambers at “Auschwitz” never existed.

Now, we can accept that this is an ugly incident in human, especially European history. However, has it made things any better for the parties involved?

Unfortunately, the answer seems to be no. As one Israeli media personality points out – “It’s a trick we always use and it always works – when someone in Europe is critical of us, we bring up the Holocaust.” We have asituation where the Europeans allow themselves to be blackmailed by Israel andEurope loses any credibility as being a force of good in the Middle East.  

So, what can we do? Well, we start by accepting that freedom of speech involves allowing the airing of views that might offend us. Then we have to accept that censorship is not the solution. The solution is to counter it with more free speech – you make a point and we’ll make ours with evidence. When you act like that and trust the majority of people to behave rationally, you become more credible. People can be converted if you listen and engage rather than try bully boy gangster techniques, which will only backfire.