Don King Looks Black, Lives White and Thinks Green – Larry Holms – Former Heavy Weight Champion of the World

 

One of the complaints that have been about me by the online crowd is that I always sound “pro-Indian” or as someone else so eloquently put it “always s***ing Indian c***k” and that I am “anti-Chinese.” I am, without a doubt, sympathetic to many Indian people and I am often critical of my “own people.”

My reasons are very simple. In the decade of freelancing, it was inevitably the Indian expats who gave me work and kept me alive. Two of the three things I’m proudest of doing in my entire working life came from this community and just as the Indian Expats were willing to give me a shot at things, “my people” inevitably were not because of a host of reasons. It remains buried in my mind that when I got a chance to pitch for a high-level conference, the Singaporean born and bred chairman of the board dismissed me as “THAT BLOGGER,” and it took the Indian born member of the board to get the point across that “HE DELIVERS.” In the end, they gave the job to a multinational agency based out of New York.

So, life has taught me that people the harsh reality that people who are “like me,” are not necessarily interested in helping me. In a way, I’m something of an odd ball, because human nature inevitably draws us to people who are “like us” in so many ways. If you study migrant communities throughout world history, you will notice that migrants inevitably seek out pockets of their own community for assistance. Makes sense in that you are most likely to look to something familiar for protection such as people who look like you and speak the same language.

I understand this feeling. I am not immune from this feeling. I grew up in the UK and English to all intents and purposes is “my language.” However, there was a sense of “liberation” of walking into London’s Chinatown and speaking Cantonese (something which I speak atrociously).

However, whilst I understand where this feeling comes from, there’s a dark side to it, which is inevitably the rise of ideologues who have risen to power of the fear of “others” (anyone who does not look like me, speak like me, pray like me etc). Think of “America First” ideology, which has inevitably meant White America First. America First has been followed by a host of copycats in Europe. Think about it, the name “Le Penn” in France was once associated with the crazy. These days its associated with a serious contender for the presidency. Race isn’t the only thing that people get excited by. In India, its inevitably about religion.

I like to think that we’re fairly immune to it in Singapore. Unfortunately, that’s a fantasy of mine. Talk about how awful any of these characters are in any given conversation and you may actually find someone you assumed had been to primary school telling you that “so and so is just standing up for the rights of his or her people.”

Are any of the people preaching about how they’ll fight for the rights of “their people” really interested in the welfare of “their people?” Well, if anyone really believes this, they could do well to remember that amidst the renewal of interest in boxing thanks to the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight, that there was another character who made boxing so interesting.

That character is Don King, who was once the most powerful man in the sport. Mr. King is genius at drumming up hype and to his credit, brought us some of the most memorable fights such as “Rumble in the Jungle” and “Thrilla in Manila.” Mr. King was the promoter for many of the greatest boxers around like Mohammad Ali, Larry Holms and Mike Tyson.

How did Mr. King do it? I guess there are many aspects to what made Mr. King so dominant, however, the one aspect that made Mr. King so good, was that he was genius at playing the “race card.” Look at how he hooked his first big fish – Mohammad Ali (Ali). As well as being a great boxer, Mohmmad Ali was an iconic figure of his era. He is held up for his passion for the “Civil Rights” movement, which included his refusal to serve in the Vietnam War and the beating he gave someone who called him by his “slave name” of “Cassius Clay.”

Don King exploited this. He promoted himself to Ali as a fellow “black” man trying to save black athletes from exploitation by greedy white promoters. He signed on Ali and repeated the same spiel with those who followed him. He knew what young black guys in the Ghettos wanted to aspire to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TuJJ3J08C4

However, as shown in the video clip, the fighters he signed on found that the person exploiting them the most was Mr. King himself. One of the best examples is when he signed on Tim Witherspoon who was the former World Heavy Weight Champion in the early 1980s. Mr. Witherspoon found that his pay checks were inevitably significantly smaller than promised because Mr. King had tied him in a series of contracts, which allowed Mr. King to take most of Mr. Witherspoon’s purse through all sorts of “management fees.” In his defense against Frank Bruno, Mr. Witherspoon found that he was paid $90,000 whereas the non-Don King Frank Bruno earned $900,000.

His prominent fighters like Mohammad Ali, Larry Holms and Mike Tyson, all sued him. Somehow, Mr. King managed to settle out of court at very discounted rates.

Mr. King was best described by Larry Holms who said that he “talks black, lives white and thinks green.” This is the perfect analogy for every demagogue out there. So, the next time someone starts telling you that people who look like you, speak like you, pray like you etc should stick together against people who are not like you, have a look at how they live. They are inevitably only thinking of their own money and power.

God Punishes You by Giving You Everything You Want. – Mike Tyson

 

In my decade in the insolvency business, I’ve had the privilege of meeting a very interesting class of people known as the “minus millionaires.” As the term implies, this group of people once had a lot of money but then lost it all and more.

Everyone has a story. Of the many stories I’ve seen in the last decade, there’s a common thread. The founder/director of the company built up a very successful business. Then a bad decision or two was made and instead of changing course when things started going south, they proceeded to dig their heels in and throw in personal money, which eventually brings them to personal bankruptcy along with corporate insolvency.

Why do minus millionaires do what they do? One of the best quotes on the subject comes from a video about Mike Tyson, the former heavy weight champion of the world, who was sent to prison in 1992 after being accused of rape. In that video, Mr. Tyson states that “God punishes you by giving you everything you want.” At time of his conviction, Mr. Tyson was one of the most famous men in the world. He had literally everything a man could desire – wealth, fame, women and so on. Then, it was all gone and he was a convicted felon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkNeY9bs3WQ

 

 This statement by Mr. Tyson reflects one of the most under looked point about the capitalist system, which encourages just about everyone to look for success – the fact that many failures don’t come from the lack of success but the abundance of it.

Why is that so? Look at it this way – when you’re not successful and striving for success, you are very aware of your weaknesses and failures. When you are a nobody, you are very aware that its very easy to get squashed.

However, when you become wildly successful, you start believing that you’re in charge of a blue print of how to get there. You start believing that different rules apply to you because you’re somebody and the world loves somebodies the way that it doesn’t care about nobodies.

I think of the owner of a very successful business that was shut down by order of court. We moved in and tried to explain that we had a job to do. The owner actually told us, “Sorry guys, I got meetings to go to and a business to run.” It took his friend, an Australian lawyer to tell him, “Mate, you haven’t got a business anymore.”

Then there’s the fact that the path that a successful person takes to success, becomes seen as a sacred text rather than something to be analysed. There are times when certain actions and thoughts worked for a certain period but may not necessarily be right for the current context. Not many “get it.”

Interestingly enough, one of the people who got it, was my 70-plus-year-old dad. When business at his production house started tanking, he started teaching himself how to use software that made films. He put it this way, “The kids these days are doing things this way and getting the jobs.”

In a way, the one person who best explains it, is Mr. Tyson himself. In his book, “The Undisputed Truth,” he puts down his first professional defeat to James Buster Douglas to the fact that he was busy partying the night before the fight, whereas his opponent was preparing for the fight of his life. He then makes the point that Mr. Douglas lost the title in his first defense against Evander Holyfield because for the same reason that Mr. Tyson lost – he was too busy enjoying the good life instead of training.

Getting successful is only part of the journey. Staying successful is another story. Think of the lottery, where people buy the lottery in the hope of striking it rich in an instant. However, as one source states – nearly 70 percent of lottery winners end up broke. Why is that so? The simple answer is because they’ve not been conditioned to prepare for actually winning.

Everyone wants to be a winner. So, we work hard in the hope that we’re going to end up as winners. However, for those of us who become winners, we need change our focus and stay winners. Getting there and staying there are two different things.

The Things You Shouldn’t Have to Say

 I ended up having a discussion last night with someone who was trying to tell me that I was beneath her. In her efforts to show me that I was her inferior, she made the point that she was “high class” unlike me and the people associated with.

It was at that point that I realised that the discussion was going nowhere and had this been a rational debate, I would have won. So, I just kept quite and allowed her to berate me and until she grew tiered of repeating herself. It was this simple, the fact that she had to say she was “high-class” was the point where she admitted that she was anything but.

There are, as they say, certain things that shouldn’t need to be said at all. One of my favourite examples of this comes from across the border where there is chain of restaurants in Malaysia called “Sedap,” which is Malay for “Delicious.” Why does a restaurant need to call itself “delicious.” A restaurant by definition should serve “delicious” food because that’s the very reason why people go to restaurants in the first place.

 

 Are they called “Delicious” because ……?

Social class is like the restaurant that calls itself delicious. Why do you need to call yourself “high class” if you are? Social class is one of those things that’s very easy to tell. The most usual often evolves around things like your job. For example, are you a technician or a working professional. These days, your profession is also an indication of how much time you spent in school

Beyond the obvious criteria like what you do for a living, where you went to school, your zip code and how you get around, there are other often overlooked criterion for “class.” One of them is good manners. People of a certain class tend to have manners, particularly in the area of how they treat other people.

Why should “superior” people need to announce the fact that they are “superior” or to remind everyone else that they are “inferior.” A superior person, should behave in a manner that is “superior” to other people if they are really superior. I think of an Indonesian girl that I once had the privilege of going out with. She asked the taxi driver to take us to “Boat Quay.” However, the taxi driver took us to “Clerk Quay.” When this happened, she told the guy, “Bro, I said Boat Quay, this is Clerk Quay. But OK, we all make mistakes, I’ll still pay you for this.”

Instead of going into a tirade about how the taxi driver was trying to cheat her, she made the point that a mistake was made but it was OK. This lady was of a certain breading that it was beneath her to get angry over a few bucks.

Let’s put it this way, a person with class treats everyone with a certain amount of dignity. All of us know how to treat those with money and power very nicely. We either want something or need something from them. What counts is how we treat the people who can give us nothing.

David Ogilvy once said that one of the most important things about promoting people to the top jobs was character.

 

 One of the key drivers in determining a leader’s character is by how he or she treats the underlings. The moment you have someone who starts talking down to people and proclaiming that they are high class or announcing that they have a great character, you know that they are not people or class or character.

Be Careful of Who You F**K for they May have the Means to F**k You Back

 

I’m detest Donald Trump and his numerous copycats from around the world. However, whilst I do detest what he promotes, I got to give him credit for proving to the world that men have an awful advantage in life – namely the fact that men, no matter how awful, are forgiven many sins if they are seen with a beautiful chick by their side. Donald Trump has encouraged the removal of a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body than just about anyone else in the modern era and yet, we’re too distracted by Melania by his side. Even when he’s totally sleazy, we actually forgive him for being sleazy with something good to look at. Stormy is a porn star. She’s in the business of creating fantasies and how do you not envy the guy who gets the fantasy. Stormy, like it or not, was better looking that Monica Lewinski.

However, whilst men can be forgiven for taking advantage of the women who add value to their persona, many men take it a bit too far and get the impression that they can treat the woman like a disposable condom. Think of the guys who happily visit prostitutes to live out their wildest fantasies and then don’t pay and think it’s perfectly acceptable because the girl in question is a “whore” and therefore not worthy of human treatment.  

I guess you could argue that life is tough and getting f**ked over is part and parcel of life. It’s almost considered acceptable to be f**ked over by someone whom the rest of society regards as higher than you on the proverbial social ladder. Think of the recent Parti Liyani affair. It literally was a case of one party being “just a maid” and the other being “Chairman of the Airport.” Had Ms. Liyani not been represented by a tenacious lawyer and a host of other organizations fighting for her, this case would literally have been everyone believing the other side because it was the more powerful side.

However, whilst power and money carry a lot of weight in the practice of daily life, there are two problems.

The first is that one day, you’re bound to meet someone richer and more powerful. At that stage, you’ll find that the people who backed you will desert you and head for the bigger power.  

The other, more serious problem is the simple fact that being rich and powerful doesn’t mean you’re telling the truth or that you’re right. The weaker party can find weapons to hurt you in ways that can surprise you. This is particularly true when you’re talking about people that polite society would prefer didn’t exist.

Let’s go back to Mr. Trump and Ms. Daniels. There is a power disparity. One of them once held the most powerful job on the planet and even before that, he plenty of resources at his disposal. The other, is, as mentioned earlier, in the business of providing fantasies, particularly the type that you keep to the screens of your TV or the printed pages of the magazines on the top shelves.

However, Ms. Daniels did have one major advantage over Mr. Trump. The ability to damage his self-inflated image of being a “macho” man. Mr. Trump’s lawyers did their best to portray as her as “Just a Porn Actress” who would not be a credible witness. So, what did Ms. Daniels do? She proceeded to spill all the juicy details about her intimate encounters with Mr. Trump, which were, well, how do you say, not the type of things that a man who seems himself as being able to just “grab em by the p***y” would want coming out. As far as the jury was concerned, there was really no reason for Ms. Daniels to lie about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmpC1Ws9xyU

 

 Mr. Trump is officially the only US president to become a convicted felon. Much of the credit is being given to Ms. Daniels for being a credible witness. What’s probably more damaging for Mr. Trump on a personal basis, is the fact that his cultivated image of raw masculinity has been damaged. A man who talks about “grabbing em by the p***y” and they “just let you kiss them” has been shown to be somewhat less than stud like. Yes, you can say the judge and jury were politically motivated but can you say the same for someone who actually slept with you?

The lesson is simple. Just because someone works in a certain profession, it doesn’t mean that they’re stupid or that they can be intimidated just like that. Never underestimate someone with less to lose than you and never give them a reason to go after you whilst you hide in a tower believing you are untouchable.

Even People in Awful Professions Have Dignity

 

 

 

I have two lady friends in my life who loath the site of each other. One of them, is my sister from another mother, Fleshball, who used to be Singapore’s Bounciest Prostitute to walk to streets of Geylang. The other is a lady that we should dub, the Mother Hen, who claims that she was once a Hot Chick and informs me that should she put effort to seduce, few men of worth would be able to resist.

These two ladies hate each other. As far as Fleshball is concerned, the Mother Hen is a pretentious little “b***h” with no manners, whilst the Mother Hen is convinced that Fleshball is a venomous little prostitute who is jealous of the Mother Hen’s better looks, despite the fact that the Mother Hen is significantly older (Fleshball is eight-years younger than me, and the Mother Hen is eight-years older. I’ll be 50 in November).

They’ve met all of once. Then, they had an accidental reunion at an event where I usually invite just about everyone to on my contact list. It was obvious to all and sundry that there was bad blood between the two. Mother Hen tried to befriend a few people there and suddenly went into a mode that the people she was trying to befriend were avoiding her because Fleshball was spreading “Venom” about her. She spent two hours on the phone telling me that Fleshball was jealous of her and spreading “venom” because she was merely jealous and Mother Hen hadn’t done anything to her.

I tried to explain to the Mother Hen that she had started her relationship with Fleshball by insulting her. Asked her what size her feet were and offered to give Fleshball her shoes she had worn. The Mother Hen could not understand why Fleshball would feel insulted because her shoes were branded and, well these days people actually sell used shoes online. As far as the Mother Hen was and is concerned, she was being kind. She told me, “If she has pride, why does she work as a prostitute.” Many months later, Fleshball would get her own back when she found the Facebook page of the Mother Hen with a photo of the Mother Hen posing showing off her midriff. Fleshball sent her a message telling her that nobody would look at her even if she was naked. The Mother Hen reminds me constantly that we didn’t speak because I chose Fleshball over her.

I’m not going to delve into the emotions of the two ladies. However, what I will say is that the grounds of this incident are placed in the ability of two people who refused to empathize with each other.

With Fleshball, everyone had a good laugh when I told them what had happened. However, to be fair to the Mother Hen, it was probably scary to receive one of Fleshball’s unsolicited messages. Think of it as someone you barely remember coming up to you and telling you all sorts of things.

As for the Mother Hen, its amazing how many people from “privileged” backgrounds seem to blind when it comes to the feelings of the less fortunate. It got tough trying to explain to the Mother Hen that whatever her initial intentions were, her offer came across of “patronizing” and “condescending.

She had known Fleshball for all of ten minutes when she made the offer. It came across as “You poor thing – take my hand me downs and be grateful I’m willing to give you, my things.” When I told a lawyer friend, I had introduced both women to, his reply was “Why did you insult Fleshball by introducing her to the Mother Hen.” My mother said, “You mean you actually know people who speak like that?”

There is nothing wrong with “hand me downs” per se. I work in the insolvency trade, where the best part is dealing in used items and taking items that might otherwise be destined for the scrap heap. For the longest of times, I actually used a “hand me down “phone from Huong.

However, Huong and I happened to be married for a decade when I took her phone. During liquidation sales, its about looking for value. The Mother Hen had met Fleshball for all of ten minutes when she made the offer and it never occurred to her that what she was offering was insulting.

It boils down to this, just because someone earns less, it doesn’t mean they are dependent on you. People who work in what can only be described as “awful” professions are entitled to have a certain amount of dignity – they buy their own cloths and feed themselves. As a Pinoy friend explained “I am a proud man, I am willing any job to feed my family rather than beg from you.”

In Singapore, pride is often used to justify sloth. I think of the number of long-term unemployed who refuse to take menial jobs because, well, they can’t afford to be seen working in menial task. However, they have no problem asking friends for handouts to maintain their status. This needs to change. We need people who are willing to humble themselves in order to survive. A society that encourages people to have pride in what they do, no matter how menial is society that produces winners.

Who Are You? What Are You?

 I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations in the last week about networking, including a conversation about why I believe its important to network down as well as up and aside. These conversations reminded me of a time that Independent Singapore (As a matter of disclosure, this is a website that has on occasion picked up my blog pieces), interviewed me as an interesting case study as someone who had “fallen through” the cracks and had to work as a waiter. As part of the piece, they wanted videos on my stints waiting tables and I was advised that the videos should be as “pathetic” as possible.

The piece never aired and I wasn’t actually very good at looking pathetic working as a waiter in my late thirties and early forties. If anything, I looked, for the discomfort of most middle-class professionals, probably a little too comfortable doing the job. Yes, the job was effectively a dead end. However, I didn’t think of it as such. If anything, the job turned out to be a necessary part in giving me the stability that I needed to start building some savings and I am grateful that I still have the chance to wait tables.

 

 Washing Cups at Bruno’s Serangoon Branch

The other thing that this job did involve an incident where I ended up working a lunch shift and when I took an order, the German customer actually remarked to his work colleagues that he had never felt “so commanded” before. I remember this incident because the question of what defines social status and success has come into the conversations that I’ve been having in the last week.

 

 Serving Drinks at Bruno’s Serangoon Branch

I’ve been thinking of this incident because the question “Who you are,” and “What you are,” often get confused as the same thing. Since this is the common understanding, I’ll go with it. The “Who” question should be a question of character. For example, if you were to ask me who I am, I’d say that I am an all-round gentleperson who believes that you should speak nicely to everyone. The “what question” should refer to what do you do and what do you have. I am, for the purpose of this, the business development director in a professional firm that specializes in liquidations.

Unfortunately, the who and the what often become synonymous and we start to assume that what a person does for a living or where they live or what car they drive, define them and their character, talents and abilities. I think of someone who tried to rub it in that I was an inferior being because I was competing with people who drove “Ferraris” for her attention.

In a way, it’s what you call, a sad truth of how the way the world works. Hence, we all exaggerate on our CVs because the person judging you will inevitably be impressed with “what you are,” and hire you based on that believing that its “who you are.” I am guilty of it; hence I talk about the “glamorous” parts of who I worked for, which function I was seen in and who I rubbed shoulders with.

Unfortunately, confusing who you are and what you are doesn’t just get you a job, it has a way of deluding you into believing that you are the job you work in, your zip code and the car you drive. One only needs to think of a young lady who talked about her “uncaring; elite face.” What was she? The daughter of a very senior civil servant who made plenty of money. Who was she? A sad brat setting herself up for a kicking.

One of the most difficult moments for a lot of people, particularly the high-powered ones, is retirement. Suddenly, the job with the big title and the swanky office goes. The people who flocked around them start to slink away because they’re no longer useful. There’s an argument to say that men, particularly high-powered ones tend to have miserable retirements because they lose their purpose in life. Shutting up and letting your successor get on with it is not natural for someone who has grown used to being in charge of things (hence the Singapore solution of creating retirement cabinet jobs for senior ministers and dare I say “minister mentors” for Prime Ministers who can’t let go.)

Its best to avoid confusing the two and you find that the people who are genuinely up there, don’t. It usually the sad ones in professional circles who get confused between the two and often do their best to hide impotence by being nasty to those they believe are beneath them because they think that what they’re getting is social respect.

Some of the most successful people that I have the privilege of knowing (people who create listed companies or have access to wealth funds) are the people most willing to take the subway. I think of the way Polaris, now Intellect Design Arena remembers me – the man who got the Chairman to ride in the MRT. These are the guys who have separated who they are from what they are and been successful in both aspects of their persona. Warren Buffet who has made more money than most still lives in the same house he did three decades ago. Surely there’s a lesson there.

Failed Basics – Brain Rotting Bureaucratic Practices and Boring Youth.

 

The first working day of the half way point of the year was a pretty f***ed up day. I guess you could say it started with the fact that I ended up upsetting the Neurotic Angel over the weekend when I told her that I think most 20-year-old guys in Singapore are sad and boring. She attributed it to jealousy and from that moment it seemed it would get cursed by my favourite pet peeves.

The day started with a reminder as why I detest offices and everything associated with them. Walked into an office to read a series of emails between two colleagues who between them had somehow miscommunicated certain information to me and I was effectively responsible for a problem I had no desire to be involved with.

Then, I had to deliver something to United Overseas Bank (UOB). Normally, it’s a simple process. You walk up to the counter, call the person on the pone provided and then the person comes out and takes what needs to be delivered:

 

 A basic phone – that nobody has fixed for several months:

Now, that would be the process except that when you pick up the phone, there’s utter silence. So, I had to use my own phone to call someone. Now, the phone not working on its own is bad enough. However, this wasn’t the first time that this had happened. I remember telling the staff that their phone was not working on two previous occasions in the last six months. Ironically, this inability to fix the phone happened to be in a section that calls itself a “technology” and “operations” section.

 

 Technology and Operations can’t get a phone fixed

The final straw was going downstairs to a “Muslim” coffee shop and hopping to get a cup tea without milk with two limes, which is something that every Muslim coffee shop serves in Singapore. You just have to ask for “Te-h-O Limau Panas.” Except the girl serving me was from Vietnam, who didn’t know what the heck I was talking about. Then, she asked her colleague who was probably from India, who also didn’t know what I was talking about. It took a while for someone to explain that they had no limes or lemon and so I had to settle for tea without milk.

 

 How difficult is it for someone to tell me they have no lime?

By the time I returned to the office, I was actually contemplating whether life was worth ending by ending the lives of the people around me. The heart rate that I had worked so diligently to bring down before leaving for the UK had shot right back up (to be fair, I’ve been drinking more since I was in the UK).

I blame the system and I blame the world’s first “Yuppie,” Confucious who created a Chinese culture that was obsessed with bureaucracy and hierarchy and trying to get people to have a mindset that existed in a past that never actually existed. Confucious’s philosophy worked in theory, except it had one fatal flaw. China became complacent and thought it had everything and didn’t need to evolve. We, as a civilization, built a great big wall to keep outsiders out. The reality was, it didn’t work. The barbarian hoards inevitably found a way round the wall and ended up kicking the crap out of every Chinese army that was sent to stop them. By the time the Europeans arrived in the 18^th century, China was still in living in the 15^th.

If you look at the Chinese societies that thrived outside China, you’ll notice that it was the very people whom Confucius despised – the merchants and entrepreneurs. Hong Kong and Taiwan are built by business people. So, is Singapore. However, Lee Kuan Yew couldn’t accept that and proceeded to turn us into a Confucian wet dream where everything evolved around scholar-bureaucrats.

To be fair, the system has worked brilliantly and I’m still going to make the point that Singapore does measure up pretty well against most places. However, the cracks in the system are clearly showing and the saddest place you see it is in our youth.

Talk to enough of them, and you’ll find that what they’re essentially interested in is money and dare I say voyeurism. You’re not going to get a “Gretta Thunberg” campaigning for climate change or student protestors in places like Hong Kong. A few will try to suck up to you if they think there’s a career advantage for them but that’s really about it. I think of a young lady who was dating a Finnish student I knew but then started getting touchy with me the moment she found out I was an intern at Citi.

Now, you could say that this is the way our system is set up. Young kids are an investment and you want them to start earning fast. Our kids are, to use that favourite word of Confucious – “filial,” or nice people. That in itself is not a bad thing. However, if you look at social changes in just about everywhere in the world, you’ll notice that its inevitably starts with the young.  

Every society needs bouts of change. Yes, young people should listen to the “wisdom” of those have come before them. However, there are times when the young should stand up and show the Old Farts that things can be done differently and actually better.

We’re not letting our youth do that. Instead, we’re pushing them into silos and cubicles because we’ve told them that this is where the cushy life is. We tell them that spending long hours in a cubicle will make you into a somebody and king or queen of the world.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with a cubicle per se. However, the problem with life in a cubicle is that it eventually leads you into thinking that the only thing that matters is you, your social circle and station in life. So, life in cubicle land becomes about protecting your turf and climbing into the corner office. The basic premise of the business you serve becomes secondary to protecting your turf.

Hence, you get a nation of people who have their youthful energy drained out of them by starting at a screen in a space for hours on end. Nobody is going to try and voice a thought different from the mainstream.

In the mean time everyone will then try and show off about how they get this and that. It becomes about having the latest of this and that without any thought as to how it works. In the mean-time, the basic stuff goes to the dogs. I think of the phone at UOB, which like all banks, spends enough to keep portions of the IT industry alive. So much is spent on technology and yet, you can’t get a phone to work.

Our society is so obsessed with showing off that we spend all our time on glitz and glamour and neglect out basics. We’re at a stage where we actually need people from elsewhere to manage the basics for us. I think of the Vietnamese girl and the Indian boy trying to serve me tea.

We just welcomed a new Prime Minister. He will undoubtedly have a lot of grand ideas about where we need to go. For me, I only wish he will go back to what was shown during Covid. Go back, get our young to tell us where they want the country to go. Go back to basics and build from there.

Are Black and Brown Lives worth Less?

 

During the height of the “Black Lives Matter” protest that started in May 2020, I remember a few people who came out against these protest by saying that they believed that “All Lives Matter.” It goes without saying that these guys were often pillared for being insensitive and the opposite of “woke.”

To be fair to the people who said that “All Lives Matter,” they were utterly right. However, what they forgot was the fact that while “All Lives Matter,” some happen to matter a bit more than others. If you look closely enough, you’ll notice that lives that are brown and especially black, happen to matter a lot less than lives that are say, white.

It happens in just about every place on the planet. In Singapore, its almost acceptable to shit on dark skinned people, especially if they happen to work on construction sites or do things like ensuring that fairer skinned people live in a clean environment. If you suggest, for example, that dark skinned people should ride on the road in the same conditions as the rest of us, you’ll find someone who will inevitably call you “Anti-Business” and lacking in any form of sympathy for the bosses of construction companies, who are inevitably of a fairer shade than the workers they’ve hired. As a British-Barbadian friend of mine says, “In Singapore you have ‘quality’ racism.”

However, if you look closely enough, Singapore isn’t the only place that practices “Quality Racism.” Just look at the way in which the international order works. This can be seen in the difference in which the ruling powers of the world approach the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Everyone gets very angsty about how the Ukrainians, a nation of fair skinned peoples are being bullied by the Russians, another group of fair skinned folk. However, when Israel, a nation where nearly half the population is descended from European immigrants, kills off Palestinians, a group of brown people, everyone seems to believe that the European immigrants are the ones being victimized and anyone speaking up for the brown semitic people inevitably gets tarred with the label of being “Anti-Semitic.”

Just look at the reaction to the news that the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) had issued an arrest warrant for the leaders of Hamas, the terrorist organization that perpetrated the attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed some 1,189 mostly civilians, including women and children. This news caused outrage and many of the Republican members of Congress started threatening to “sanction” the ICC. Why did they get so upset with Mr. Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the ICC, when he was quite clear that he was going after the “bad guys?”

Well, the problem was that Mr. Khan didn’t just label the “brown” people as bad guys. He also issued an arrest warrant for the fairer skinned people, specifically Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant. Mr. Khan had made the point and presented the evidence that while the “Bad Brownies” of Hamas had done horrible things on October 7, the Israeli government had also done bad things like using starvation. Mr. Khan’s statement can be found at:

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state  

 

 While the White House did not back the bill to sanction the ICC, the world’s most powerful old white man, President Joe Bidden proceeded to argue that you couldn’t possibly compare the “bad” deeds of the fair skinned people to the “Bad Brownies,” even if the first group had killed far more than the later.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/21/no-equivalence-biden-defends-israel-after-icc-requests-arrest-warrants

 

 In many ways, the world accepted this logic because the fair skinned people of Israel had the backing of the world’s most powerful nations. The position was inevitably yes, we all feel sorry for the Palestinians but they should know their place at the bottom of the food chain. Nobody wanted to antagonize the rich and powerful fair-skinned nations, which were friends with the one nation in a region of predominantly brown semitic people that had a sizeable population of fair-skinned people actively undermined institutions that are supposed to keep the global order a peaceful one, nobody cared:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-have-waged-9-year-war-against-icc-tapping-its-communications/

 

However, things are changing. The proverbial “global” south is waking up to the fact that it has a voice. Brown and Black people want to be treated with a measure of equity in the institutions that are supposed to be deliver justice. Look at Mr. Khan’s statement. He’s made the obvious point that Hamas committed a criminal action from the October 7 attacks. However, he’s also made the point that Israel’s perpetration of the war is also criminal. Two wrongs don’t make a right and Mr. Khan is making the point very clearly by issuing a warrant for both sides.

Making this point is inevitably going to get one labeled a “terrorist” supporter. However, it’s still a point that needs to be made and its progress that plenty of fair skinned people agree with the fact that black and brown lives should matter as much as fair skinned ones. Now, its up to the most powerful old white guy to stop being a prisoner of impotent people and lead the nation onto the right side of history.  

“If People Don’t Know What You’re Doing; They Don’t Know What You’re Doing Wrong.” – Sir Humphry Appleby

 

A friend of mine has just posted an article that he wrote on Linkedin, which reminded me of that wonderful British TV series, “Yes Minister,” which told tale of a politician and his civil servants. One of the jokes that people used to tell, was that “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister,” told you everything you needed to know about how government’s function. One the great teaching moments came in a scene when the chief civil servant explained why government secrecy was necessary. He said “If people don’t know what you’re doing; the don’t know what you’re doing wrong.”

In the British context, this remark is something of a joke. While Britain and much of the Western world are far from perfect, issues like government corruption are often things that don’t hit home for the ordinary person. It’s a slightly different matter in developing countries, where issues like corruption become part and parcel of everyday life. I live in Singapore and although I don’t really “feel” the possibility of government corruption in my daily life, I’m just a short bus ride away from Malaysia, where getting shaken down for bribes once in a while is fairly common.

I bring this up because a lot of “democratic” societies (for the purpose of argument, Singapore will be included), are now looking at things at putting on caps on basic freedoms like freedom of the press. One only has to think of the way media publications need licenses or worry about losing advertiser support or the sudden strengthening of libel laws to see how media controls are being subtly imposed.

In Singapore, our system of media management was based on Lee Kuan Yew’s main argument that “he” would set the agenda. His consistent point to media outlets around the world was “nobody elected” you and so, our local media scene has been infamously tame when it’s come to questioning government or for that matter of fact, anyone in any position of authority – ie chairmen and CEOs of companies. I believe the phrase used in Singapore is “responsible.”

So, thanks to this “conditioning” it becomes very easy to assume that when things get reported, that something bad is happening. I remember trying to explain to Thambi Pundek aka The Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC who guzzles Pork on a Ramadan Day, that democracy and the loosening of control on the media was good for a country. He countered that this was not necessarily true and gave the example of Malaysia under Mahathir and Malaysia under Abdullah Badawi.

His logic was simple. Corruption scandals appeared in the media under Badwai when they didn’t appear under Mahathir, therefore corruption had increased. To be fair to Thambi, he’s not the only person who thinks this way. One judges the state of the world by what’s happening and the only way you know what’s happening is by what you read or hear about in the news.

However, as my friend from NardelloNardello argues, this is not necessarily true and the slew of reports of the corruption in Indonesia’s state owned enterprises might actually be a good sign rather than a bad one:

https://insights.nardelloandco.com/post/102j8em/frequent-corruption-investigations-of-indonesian-state-owned-enterprises-may-be-a

 

 

He has a point. Just because something isn’t reported, it doesn’t mean its not happening. We need to remember; publicity is not good for crooks. Would you, for example, advertise that you were stealing?

I mean, there is an argument to say that things aren’t reported because they aren’t happening. However, if you live in a part of the world where you can get slapped down for saying things that someone in power doesn’t like, the argument that things aren’t reported because publishers and broadcasters have figured that the cost of reporting is simply not worth it (being sued to bankruptcy, beaten up, harassed, murdered etc).

Let’s remember, that journalist have a legal and moral obligation to tell the public about what’s going on. Yes, there have to be certain laws in place to ensure that journalist write facts and that there is a certain amount of objectivity in their reporting. People should not be “slandered” because they were p***ed off with someone they didn’t like.

However, journalist do play an important role in making sure people know what’s going on. When it comes to things like “corruption,” that role becomes even more important because people then become aware that they’re being screwed over. Let’s face it corruption is like a lot of things. People get comfortable with it and accept it as fact of life and you need public pressure to get people out of their complacency. How does that happen? The usually when people are aware of what’s going on.

So, the next time you see a slew of corruption scandals being reported where there were none before, it’s not necessarily a sign that corruption has increased. Its more likely to be sign that corruption is finally being exposed and change for the better is on the way.

It Actually Matters if You Are Black or White

 

Saw the story of how Mr. Uddin MD Sharif, a Bangladeshi worker and writer is facing deportation amidst unfair dismissal amidst harassment claims, despite assurances from the powers that be that he could stay in Singapore. The story can be found at:

https://gutzy.asia/2024/05/27/migrant-worker-faces-forced-repatriation-despite-claims-of-harassment-victimhood

 

 This is unfortunately, only unusual in the fact that it’s being told. The sad reality is that although Singapore is in so many ways everything a city should be, we are a failed society. Yes, I do like living in Singapore. There’s a lot of be said about having good facilities. As a dad to a young lady, the physical safety of Singapore is a treasure. I like having a passport that allows me to travel to just about anywhere I could want to visit without being shaken down for a visa. Who does not want to live and be proud of living in a place that’s green, clean and rich?

Well, while there’s no way one can deny that Singapore has got it right in so many aspects, there is one crucial aspect, which marks us out as a “failed” society – that is the inability of the system to treat people as people. This can be seen most visibly when it comes to two particular groups.

One group is our elderly. We brag about how we are an “Asian” society that respects the elderly. However, that’s not quite true. The only “old” person that got any form of dignity was Lee Kuan Yew. The late Mr. Lee was such a force to be reckoned even in his twilight years that one could say that he soaked up whatever good will we may have had for people over a certain age that we became unable to respect anyone else over a certain age. We are, for a society that claims to respect our elders, quite happy to ensure that the frailest grandma around is inevitably the person doing the heavy lifting, whilst the young, strong and fit sit around and plan and strategize, which often a code for mental masturbation.

The second group that we seem unable to recognise as human is anyone who happens to have the misfortune of being darker than pink and happens to work in a “menial” job. If you look closely enough, you’ll see that anyone doing the actual work on a construction site, a ship yard or a restaurant, inevitably comes from anywhere except Singapore. These are the guys who do all the jobs that we would never do or accept our children doing. When we want to get our kids to study hard, we warn them – “Study hard or you will end up sweeping the streets,” and the implication is you will be no better in life than a Bangladeshi.  If you head into any particular organisation, you’ll find that it’s the dark-skinned South Asian doing most of the brutal labour and getting the least. Whenever you point that out, the reply is inevitably “It’s a lot compare to where they come from.” Yes, sure it’s a lot compared to their home country but it’s the point is that these guys have to live and they’re not living in their home country – they are living here.

Contrary to what the late Michael Jackson used to say, it actually matters if you are black or white. Never believe anyone when they tell you that age is just a number. If you look at the way we treat our elderly and South Asian labourers, age is actually a demarcation of what you deserve and the difference in being black or white is inevitably about how much you deserve to be paid.

Let’s remember that we are officially a “meritocracy,” where things like age and pigmentation are not supposed to matter. Yet, despite this glaringly obvious point, people seem to accept it as a fact of life. Let’s put it this way, the real problem with Mr. Uddin is not that he was unfairly treated. The real problem is that he was unfairly treated and said so. In our system, the “darkies” of South Asia are supposed to be grateful for whatever shit they get.

This is not about being “liberal” or “conservative.” It’s about being human. The “Darkies” are here to do a job. To anyone who thinks they should be grateful for the scraps we feed, just understand that its not like we were doing the job and then out of the goodness of our hearts we gave the jobs to them and did something else. The fact of the matter is, our people won’t do anything that looks remotely menial. Whenever there was talk of going to the warehouse, the Padwan who is a healthy 28-year-old, would inevitably find that he had too much course work to handle. I’ve asked long term unemployed people to help out and the Bistrot and they’ll inevitably have something on and then ask you to top up their bus card.

So, let’s understand that the “Darkies” are not taking jobs from us. We are not offering them a blessing. We are hiring them because they are an important component of our relatively decent way of life. Let’s get the understanding that they’re willing to put up with certain hardships. So, in return, let’s accept that they should be treated fairly. Making sure they live in places where we’ll only enter without a hazmat suite is part of the bargain. If we want to keep our social contract going, its time we ensure that our part of the bargain is being kept.

Who You’re Taking On?

 

One of the most amusing things one can do is to listen to the way in which the middle class talk about people whom they deem lower than them. One only has to look at the way in which some people started grumbling about the way we moved migrant workers into slightly better conditions during the Covid period or the way in which people started to complain that their lives would turn to s*** if maids were given a day of rest.

As I’ve often said over and over again, being from a well to do family that could afford to send you to school, doesn’t actually make you a superior person. It merely means that you were lucky to be born into a family that could bestow certain things upon you that would put you into a reasonably advantageous place. Yes, if all things are equal, the guy who goes to university usually ends up ahead in terms of the usual signs of material success. However, it still doesn’t mean that the guy with the degree is a better person or even a smarter worker.

People from disadvantaged backgrounds have one crucial advantage over those from nicer backgrounds – namely hunger. The intrinsic lack of opportunities has a way of making people push themselves to create their own opportunities and the experience of having to “claw” your way up often makes you wise in the ways of the world. If you are like me, and hang around “professionals” you’ll find that everyone you meet on a daily basis is intelligent. However, very few are what you might call “wise.”

In my life, I’ve had the privilege of meeting some very smart people with wonderful qualifications. However, I’ve found that whenever, I’ve needed advice on a person’s character, I usually take it from my friends who are what the rest of society calls “down-and-out.” Flesh ball, for example usually gets certain characters right just by looking at their photos. The ex was also pretty darn good at it.

Why do such characters make good judges of character? The answer is simple. We in the professional services often get away with making certain misjudgments. The individuals we deal with may be character deficient but the institutions they represent are not. However, when you work on the streets, you need to learn how to be darn good at reading character. It’s a case of “you’re going to get f***ed anyway, so you need to make sure you deal with someone who will honour his part of the deal and pay.”

Yet, the well educated consistently overlook the fact that the “less educated” they deal with may have certain strengths. One of the saddest examples can be seen in the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson where Mr. Paul proceeded to try and intimidate Mr. Tyson in a pathetic show of “gansta” behavior.

Let’s leave aside the boxing for a moment. Fact remains, young Mr. Paul is a middle-class kid from a nice family. He’s is in boxing for the fun of it and using his genius for publicity to get the fights and get the good paydays. He’s a good career as a YouTube star. His only real experience of “Gansta” life is from YouTube persona.

Mr. Tyson is not the animal in the ring that he used to be. Age seems to have mellowed him. However, the fact remains, the guy grew up in a dysfunctional family in a dysfunctional part of the world and had he not found boxing, he may well have ended up as a corpse from one of the many gang fights from that part of New York.

Put it crudely, the scene is pathetic, where the actual thug laughs at the wanna be thug. More can be seen at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTX-Xn6Olwc

It boils down to this. You got to know who you are taking on. You should, for example, understand that people who have been in fights and have clawed their way up in life, are simply not going to be intimidated by someone who has never really had to fight for anything in life.

I think of a senior professional whose major threat to people was “I’ll block you.” Nobody actually took her seriously. I think another young lady from a developing nation who once broke a bottle when someone with a more imposing physical stature had a disagreement with her. At the end of the day, you have the professional class which talks a lot and complains when people do things outside their perception of the way the world should work. By contrast, there people who refuse to be intimidated and are willing to do what it takes to come out on top.

As I’ve often said to the Padawan – always recognize who you are taking on. Don’t expect them to play by the same rules as you and recognize that situations are dependent on the characters involved.

 

Begging – A Viable Career Option

 

Around two weeks ago, I came back from the UK It was my third trip since I went to my sister’s wedding this time last year. I’ve actually started to like London in a way that I never did when I lived there. I enjoy visiting old haunts like Dean Street, where I used to live and I’ve been really impressed by the way Canary Wharf has turned out.

There is, however, a part of the UK or London specifically, that I don’t think I’ll ever get used to. That is the issue of the homeless. Go into any given tube station, and you are bound to meet someone begging for change. Sit in any given pub or caffe outdoors and you’re inevitably going to meet someone asking you for change.

Like in Singapore, one is inevitably going to ask – “How does a city which has so much wealth have so many homeless people. However, unlike Singapore, the homeless in London are inevitably young people. Just as I often wonder how our “Asian Society” that claims to have “Respect for the elderly” manages to produce so many frail people selling tissue paper and crushing cans to eek out a living, I wonder how a city like London, which is supposed to be one of those cities where fortunes are built, manages to have so many young and fit people begging for a living.

One of the key things that you notice is that the tramps are inevitably local, white English people. Sure, much is made of gangs of Romanians and Poles but the ones I’ve encountered are inevitably local and white.

The homeless are generally speaking “harmless.” The usual process looks like something like this – they’ll ask if you have change to spare and you usually say “Sorry mate,” and walk off. Sometimes tramps can be useful. I had a tramp outside my house called “Zoe” who was an Irish girl. She did admit to having a house somewhere and as far as she was concerned, sitting by my door step and asking people for change was “work” (rather like how the girls in Geylang will tell you that standing on the street side is “work”). Zoe was sweet – she doubled up as a messenger. In the pre-mobile phone days, if Toni dropped by and I wasn’t in, he’d leave a message with Zoe. Or I was stepping out for a while but expecting Toni, I’d leave a message with Zoe.

Zoe wasn’t the only one. Tara and I had a favourite called Dave. He was our favourite because he was inevitably polite and never whined about needing your spare change. He’d sleep in his little corner and volunteered to help the local patisserie. However, as Tara once said, “As nice as he is, it’s like he’s become so content with his life on the streets, that he no longer feels the need to move out of them.”

 

 Believe it or not, he has a career – Copyright Alamy Stock Photos

Zoe and Dave were mild mannered and it was easy to accept them as the characters in your life. They were however, a little exceptional. One of the memories I have was hearing the ding-ding sound of a penny I had left one of the tramps on the street.

There were a few persistent ones. I think of a time I was sitting out at Café Nero with two Finnish ladies. One of came up to us and asked if we had spare change. When he went into a tirade about how we were lying about not having money because he could see that we had our mobile phones on the table. He actually told us, “I know you’re going to say you worked for your money…..I’m just asking ….. you don’t have to lie about it…….I can see you’ve got your mobile phones out.” I remember digging into my pockets to give him the change.

My most recent encounter was in King’s Cross, waiting for our train to St Andrews. Gave a young man a pound and if I was expecting gratitude for having a pound extra, I was dead wrong. He told me, “Come on mate, I can see you’ve got a tenner there. Why don’t you give me your ten and I’ll give you back seven quid change. I need the money.” I ended up giving him five extra.

In a way, it’s annoying when someone begging ask and demands a certain sum. After all, our money is hard earned and when you see someone who is young and fit, there’s actually no reason to give someone who should be working.

However, if you take a step back, you actually have to admire the persistence that some of them show in chasing you for money. It takes a certain amount of gumption to beg a stranger for the sum that you want. You could say that it takes a level of professional pride to ask for more when you’re doing utterly nothing in return.