The Joys of Faith!

I have to hand it to the Young Muslim Politician who Feast in the Middle of Ramadan from Pasir Ris GRC aka Thambi Pundek for having the ability to rescue me whenever I get hit by a bout of writers block or some other distraction. He has knack of raising topics that bring out the aggressive side in me and after a session of talking rot with him, I feel inspired to blog.

It was a magnificent day today. He decided that he needed to meet up with the Naan maker and me this afternoon and being the good self-respecting Muslim that he is, he proceeded to assist us in polishing off two bottles of wine and a little roast chicken in the middle of the Ramadan Day. To show his appreciation, he happily posed for a photo with a glass of wine in front of him and then proceeded to take few snap shots of the chicken.

Anyway, we were all happily enjoying this little much-munch session in the middle of the Ramadan day when he decided to try and influence the Naan Maker into becoming a “Mit Romney Supporter.” He proceeded to talk about how we needed to strong Republican President who would support Bibi Nethanyahu’s bid to get peace in the Middle East and that the Palestinians needed to learn to use the tongue and not the gun. He proceeded to then take the tone of moral superiority and claim, “What George Bush II did in Iraq was a noble act.”

That set me off. I told him to stop being a “Pundek” (Tamil for cunt) and actually look at facts on the ground. Let’s face, I have Jewish relatives whom I love dearly but that does not distract me from the obvious fact – the Jaudi’s have no intention of making peace and they are actively engaging in terrorist activities by stealing land, which nobody recognizes as theirs. While the Jaudi’s engage in daylight theft, the Western World under American Leadership endorses it. While the West bleats on about the possibility of Iran having the bomb, it continues to allow Israel to “neither admit nor deny” having a range of nasty little toys.

Anyway, the Naan maker must have gotten a little worried and did what he could to make peace. I think was still pretty belligerent. I will not accept that the Western view of the Middle East is the one that I need to follow and I don’t see why I should accept a lie just because the people sprouting it happen to be a shade of pink.

The kid has a way of bringing up what irks me the most – the mentality of a slave. He’s got this idea in his head that the only way to live is to ape the mighty powers of the world, which is what his masters in the little village do.

To be fair, you can’t blame him in the sense that the powers-that-be in Singapore have done a relatively good job at creating prosperity and stability. However, it doesn’t mean that they’re right all the time and it doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t strike against conventional views especially when convention is wrong.

Furthermore, he suffers from a symptom common to many colonized folks. He desires to be like the colonizer. This symptom is particularly acute in Indians. The moment they get their US or British passports, there is a tendency to become obnoxiously so. I have a friend who happens to be Tanzanian born and can’t stop reminding people that he has a US passport. This symptom becomes even more acute when it comes to the UK. As Russell Peters so elegantly says, “Every Indian has an ancestral homeland – it’s called ‘The United Kingdom.’”  

In fairness to the Indians, they’re not alone in this. The US Department for Home Land Security has become an expert at using neutralized citizens against their former kinsmen. Two of the least pleasant experiences I’ve had with US immigration have come from Chinese (the first time it happened, I was in my late teens and they were giving us hassle for not having a‘re-entry’ permit. He had to end with a threat – we’ll take away your green card. My gut reaction was – shove it, take it back. I was, however, with my mum and discretion was the better part of valor.)

While I do admit that life in the West is generally more comfortable than in most places, I have NEVER understood the desire to be like the “colonizer.” I NEVER felt that I was being “liberated” by the West or Westerners. It was ingrained inside me from day one that colonial masters were only good for one thing – target practice.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate systems that the colonial powers had in place. I put it this way; I’m educated in the British system, which for the most part remains a pretty darn good one at preparing you for life. I also enjoy the finer things about Western culture. American movies, English literature and since I’ve been involved in a French restaurant – French food.

I have been blessed by Westerners in the family and friends. I enjoy the company of a good many Westerners, who may not be close friends and family.

However, I’ve never felt an emotional need to be like them nor did I ever want to identify myself as being a Westerner. I identified and in many ways, I still identify with the people who defy and kick out larger colonial powers.

It’s not very patriotic for me to say it but what Lee Kuan Yew did seems shallow and meaningless (though it has proven beneficial) when compared to the blood, sweat, brains and heart that guys like Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Gandhi put in. When kids my age were fantasizing about being Rambo and the guys with the cool tanks, I wanted to be the men in little black pajamas, shooting at the chaps in the tanks.

Yes, Singapore has prospered by following the conventional path of building up a sound infrastructure and letting the multinationals come in. We’ve prospered. I am a direct product of that prosperity. My father made money from advertising, an industry which is as Western and Capitalistic as it gets. At one stage, I wanted to be a banker.

I should be grateful that I was born in Singapore and in many ways I am. However, when you look at how much we avoid a struggle and compare it to the struggle that our Asian neighbours have had, you start to see why our youth are like the Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC who feasts and drinks in the middle of the Ramadan Day aka Thambi Pundek and they have young people like my little Thuy who throw a tantrum when they’re late to school.

When you make these comparisons, it’s easy to see why the government was so open about letting in people from elsewhere come in to do what needs to get done.

Is Any Publicity Good Publicity?

You have to hand it to M.Ravi for having the genius of attracting publicity. The man has managed to dominate headlines in July and the internet is ablaze with chatter about his activities.

It hasn’t helped his detractors that in their efforts to pull him down have ended up handing him something of a moral victory (whichever way you look at it, Wong Siew Hong barging into a court room to hand a confidential report to a judge declaring Ravi medically unfit to practice law is a violation of ethics, starting with doctor-patient confidentiality.)

However, much of the credit for generating so much publicity is due to Mr Ravi himself. One only has to glance of his tree-hugging dance in Speakers Corner to understand his talent for self-generating publicity. The tabloid editors couldn’t have planned it better themselves.

So, the question remains, how much of Mr Ravi’s publicity actually helps the cause of opposition politics in Singapore? Unfortunately, the answer is not very much. If anything, Mr Ravi has ended up damaging the cause. When you think of Mr Ravi and the cause of opposition politics in Singapore, it’s clear that any publicity is not necessarily good publicity.

This is something of a shame. In fairness to Mr Ravi he has taken on important causes, which deserve debate. Whatever is said of the man, he was right to take on the cause of the recently amended “mandatory” death sentence for drug smuggling. Mr Ravi has also been ingenious in bringing the question of the constitutional validity of 377A (the act that forbids consensual anal sex between adult males) in the courts and he also be given credit for questioning the powers of the Prime Minister in calling by-elections.

However, when one looks at Mr Ravi, one can’t help but feel that he’s in it for something more than himself and more importantly, he’s a fool – the clown that you might agree with but you’d never trust your pets with.

Let’s face it, as “undemocratic” as Singapore is, it remains for the large part, a fairly comfortable place. Singapore still provides its citizens with a relatively comfortable lifestyle, and it’s no longer just in comparison with our Asian neighbours – Americans and Europeans also try to remain in Singapore as long as they can. As my favourite litigator once said, “Say what you like, but this isn’t some tin-pot African state where the authorities can drag out on the streets to beat you up whenever you feel like it.”

Yes, the ruling party does not always fight fair. The PAP shamelessly uses the levers of power to its advantage. Let’s face it; the PAP isn’t doing what other ruling parties do. The truism remains, “Elections are not won by oppositions but lost by governments.”

So, when you look at all these things, the point remains that Singaporeans are by and large content with the way things are. Yes, we grumble and we curse at officials in the coffee shops. However, we aren’t about to accept a radical overhaul to the system nor are we about to endorse a revolution.

Then there’s an important fact – while the powers-that-be have tight grip in the system, it’s not impossible to take on the PAP and win. The Worker’s Party comes to mind. This party held onto a single seat for two-decades and then, when the moment struck, and took a GRC. Were the odds against the Workers Party? The answer is yes.

How did the Worker’s Party win votes, while other opposition figures have failed miserably? The answer is simple – the Worker’s Party has built a track record at running something and developed a coherent strategy. As a result, they have attracted intelligent and decent people to their ranks – the type of people that the masses might consider voting for.

This is vastly different from Mr Ravi and his supporters like Reform Party, Chairman, and Kenneth Jeyeratnam. We might clap and cheer whenever Mr Ravi gets up on the stage at Speakers Corner and does his tree-hugging dance. However, while this makes good theater, it’s theater of the wrong kind. As far as the masses are concerned, they would never vote for the likes of Mr Jeyeratnam nor would they trust their kids to Mr Ravi.

Neither of these gentlemen has shown an interest in winning over the average Singaporean. Mr Jeyaratnam is persistent in taking in causes that the average man has no interest in. I’ve seen him focus his energies on things like electoral boundaries and loans to the IMF. He’s arrogantly dismissed local issues like worker’s dormitories in middle class neighbourhoods and foreign workers as being beneath him. Mr Ravi has similarly dismissed selling his ideas to the masses.

Unfortunately, the voice of the masses counts when it comes to gaining power and doing things. People voted for the Worker’s Party because they could prove to the masses that they could run something. What record does Kenneth Jeyeratnam have? What record does M. Ravi have?

Both would argue that they’re acting out of principle. They may be. However, both are challenging the established order in the hope of getting things done. Unfortunately, they are going about it the right way.

The publicity that Mr Ravi attracts for himself is unfortunately the wrong kind. Sometimes the government is made to look a bully, which many Singaporeans have taken as a fact of life. The rest of the time, Mr Ravi’s antics present him as an attention seeking fool, which takes away from the seriousness of the causes he claims to fight for. As much as we might like fools dancing around, we wouldn’t trust them to do something as valuable as take out the trash……

It’s better to follow the example of the Worker’s Party and fight meaningful battles in a meaningful manner. Publicity only comes for the things you want them to come for. In the meanwhile, energies are focused on the things that allow you to achieve your objective.

Not all publicity is good publicity nor is publicity in itself a good thing. One should always remember that publicity is best used as tool to enhance ones objectives in life.

We’ve been consistent (Consistently Unfair)

Three days ago, I attended a lecture by the American Ambassador to Singapore, HE Mr David Adelman at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS). His lecture was about the American Strategic position in South and Southeast Asia. As happens at ISAS lectures, I felt obliged to ask him questions. So, I questioned on how he though America’s policy towards Israel was playing out in South and Southeast Asia.

He argued that he didn’t think American Middle Eastern Policy was playing out in South and Southeast Asia (despite the fact most of the world’s Muslims live in these two regions). He made the point that “We have been consistent in our policy in the Middle East,” and when I pointed out to him that many people around the world, particularly in the Islamic World think American policy in the Middle East is “Unfair” his reply was, “We’ve always been fair that suggestions that we need to be more fair are ‘unfair.’”

Although his responses were more open than his French counterpart, I’ve been struck by how easily Americans sometimes fail to see the obvious even when it’s painted itself purple and is dancing naked in front of them. The American Ambassador is correct in the sense that American policy in the Middle East has been consistent. However, it has been consistently unfair.

Let’s face it, when was the last time anyone remembered an American President telling an Israeli Prime Minister to stop building illegal settlements on Palestinian territory? If memory serves me correctly, that was two-years ago and Mr Obama was considered radical for actually suggesting that Israel was not an innocent party. What should also be noted is the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Nethanyahu promptly ignored the suggestion that he stop violating international law and continued to build settlements on the West Bank.

By contrast, American Presidents have made it a point to lecture Palestinian and Arab leaders on a consistent basis about the need to stop using terrorist methods. Palestinians and Arabs, it seems are consistently at fault for not making the Middle East a more peaceful place. That is despite the fact that the last known push for a comprehensive peace plan was initiated by Saudi King Abdullah in 2002 and 2006. The proposal was very simple, Israel would withdraw to its 1967 borders and in return it would receive diplomatic recognition by all 22-members of the Arab League. This simple proposal was flatly rejected by the Israeli end without a squeak from the American Administrations. In fact, when President Obama went as far as to suggest that negotiations should start based on the 1967 Borders, the Israeli Prime Minister gave him the proverbial middle finger.

The difference in the way it treats both sides becomes even more glaring when you look at the actual conflict itself. In 2006, we had Condolezza Rice openly declaring that the bombardment of Lebanon was called, “Birth pangs of a New Middle East” and the US couldn’t help but to rush cluster bombs over to Tel Aviv. When it came to the Israeli Bombardment of the Gaza Strip in 2008, the Americans proceeded to admonish the Palestinians for voting Hamas, an organization that does not recognize Israel.
Then there’s the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Much is made of the necessity of stopping Iran from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). The media gladly misquotes Iranian President Ahmadinejad as wanting Israel to be “wiped off the face of the earth” (He was quoting Khomani who said that the Zionist Regime would eventually disappear into the sands of time) as an example of why Iran must not have nuclear weapons. That is despite the fact that Iran actually has signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. By contrast, Israel has never signed a nuclear treaty and simply works on “neither admitting nor denying” that it has nuclear weapons.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that American policy in the Middle East has been consistent – it has been consistently stacked against the Palestinians and other Arabs in the region. George Bush made a point that, “They hate us because we are free,” however, as an opinion piece in the Financial Times pointed out, “They hate us because we have supported the people who have suppressed their freedoms.”

The Ambassador did make the point that, “Our intentions have always been noble,” and in the case of the Middle East, there’s always been the “noble” intention of protecting Israel. However, in the act of trying to protect Israel and stopped terrorism (mainly the Islamic variety), US policy has ended up creating a reason for Israel’s destruction and creating reasons for terrorism.

Let’s look at who the Americans have supported in the Middle East. The name that comes to mind is Egypt’s previous President, Hosni Mubarak. As far as most Egyptians were concerned, Mr Mubarak was a strong man who kept them down and enriched his cronies. As leader of the most populous Arab state, Mr Mubarak made his presence known throughout the Arab World. Former Editor-in-Chief of Arab News, Khaleed Almaeena once noted that he was fired by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia because Mr Mubarak complained about him.

Yet, despite all of that, Mr Mubarak continued in power for over three decades. How did he do it? Answer was simple, he controlled the military, which in turn was supported by America (Egypt receives more US aid than any other country except Israel). The regime Mr Mubarak ran had a peace treaty with Israel and the “cold peace” with Israel was bolstered by the fact that Israel and Mr Mubarak had enemies in common (the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas). When Israel decided to blockade the Gaza strip, Mr Mubarak supported it by keeping the Egyptian side of the border sealed.

America had no problem with Mr Mubarak ‘stealing’ from the Egyptian people as long as he supported their policy towards Israel. Unfortunately for Mr Mubarak, the average Egyptian did not see things this way and people like the Muslim Brotherhood knew it. While he may have feared and the given the Americans the same idea, that he would be deposed by a group of radical Islamist, he was in fact disposed of by Egyptians from all walks of life and all religious persuasions.

The Ambassador had talked about being a “true friend” of Israel and having a “true friend” in Israel. While this sounds nice, America and Israel are not friends. America simply bankrolls whatever Israel does, regardless of the legality of Israel’s actions. This is not the action of friends. America needs to stop funding activities which are illegal. It has to stop making peace treaties with Israel an excuse for Arab regimes to behave badly. It’s only when America reverses this consistent policy, will it really gain the hearts and minds of the world’s billion odd Muslims and secure a sustainable peace for Israel.

The West is Superior!

Just posted a response to a friend’s picture showing a Caucasian Man holding an Asian girl's bag. The caption read, “White Slave.” For some reason, I commented that it was, “The Natural Order for Asians to rule.” Someone called me a “Sad racist, who would wake up and realize that the West still rules.”

Let me say that I could not agree more with this statement. The West and Westerners, particularly the pink and blotchy remain superior to yellow, brown and black people no matter what. Let’s just look at the areas where they dominate and bow down in awe at their awesome superiority.

One of the key areas where the West remains the world power can be seen in the financial system. Despite the economic turmoil, the rest of still look to places like London and New York as wonderful wealth creating havens of capitalism.

How did the financial wizards of New York and London make such magic? Well, the answer is very simple. They came up with a magic formula where nothing was always superior to something and debt was always superior to having cash in the bank. As a senior figure of a Western financial company once said, “You got have debt. There’s no way you can do business without debt.”

This magic formula is wonderful. Banks could create money out of thin air and then lend it to people who obviously could not pay it back. The creditworthiness of the customer was irrelevant because the debt could then be sold in this place called the market. In the meantime this person called the customer merely paid far more than he or she would ever had to if he or she had delayed the purchase and saved the cash. Savings as they say is for losers and inferior people who don’t get.

Yellow people like the Japanese and Chinese are particular dumb. Apparently the faults in the global economy come from the fact that Yellow People do things like save the money they make. The Western people are superior and better for the world economy because they spend money that the banks create for them and then they invest in businesses that don’t do stupid things like worry about profitability or having assets. Such businesses do not worry about old fashioned things like this – they just focus on a promise that the founder dreams about.

When you look at things this way, it’s easy to see that the West is clearly superior to the rest of us. When Asians go overboard they MUST go into this thing called bankruptcy. It is supposed stop “corrupt” people from being a drag on the national economy. Westerners have a superior concept. It is called “Too Big to Fail.” When a Western company has debts that it cannot pay, there is this person called the “tax payer” who has a moral obligation to defend such companies from going bankrupt because this is good for the national economy.

 You cannot call the people who put the companies into such a situation ‘corrupt.’ These people are highly qualified and they must be given a severance package that is only a 100 times greater than the annual wages of the average worker (Apparently there is no such thing as an average worker in the West because average work is given to Yellow, Brown and Black people and that’s called stealing jobs.)

The West kicks ass in fighting wars too. The West, particularly the USA spends more on producing the things that could kill us than the rest of us combined. I’ve read somewhere that the West being better at killing people is actually good for the world. It somehow benefits the world when brown, yellow and black people are bombed from the sky but a human rights violation when a brown man kills another brown man on the ground.

Westerners are particularly good at saving the world from people who tell them that they may have weapons. The West is saving us with tanks and planes that bomb when they fight against people who throw stones at the said tanks. The West is particularly good when it comes to fighting against people who have weapons of mass destruction and the declared intention of using them. The Western method of dealing with such people is called “negotiation” and “food aid.”

I don’t know why the rest of us cannot see the benevolence of the West. Unlike the brown, black and yellow parts of the world, the West NEVER tortures. It as this thing called “extensive interrogation.” This involves stripping people and placing them in a cold room and laughing at them. Sometimes it involves holding a guy under a dripping tap. It is how the West protects our human rights.

How can you not admire the West and Westerners? When they let yellow and brown people into their countries to do things like set up small shops, restaurants and cleaning services, it is a sign of Western benevolence to the “little people.” When yellow and brown people pay Westerners a premium to sell yellow and brown people services and goods made by yellow and brown people it is called benefiting the yellow and brown people.

I salute the West and Westerners. I now understand why it is important to shit on yellow, brown and black people when they clean my estate and wipe the shit of my arse for the price of a candy bar. I will no longer have a “Chip on my shoulder” when anything I’ve mentioned happens to me. Long Live the West and Westerner for they are obviously better than the rest of us!

A Case for Getting Out

This weekend I found myself at a very interesting forum conducted by MP for Pasir Ris Pungoll GRC, Dr Janil Puthucheary. The forum was focused on the issue of low-wage workers and the key question of the event was, “How much are you willing to pay?”

The general thrust of the discussion was thus – people agreed that there are groups in Singapore that work for what can only be called subsistence wages. Toilet cleaners for example, are paid on average, the princely sum of S$600 a month for a 6-day week. People agreed that they’d be willing to pay more to use a public toilet if it doubled the wages of the toilet cleaners. Then the question moved onto bus drivers. Dr Puthucheary then asked the ingenious question – “Would you pay more if it was guaranteed that the increase would go to the bus driver?” The two most prominent answers from the audience were ‘Depends if it’s a Singaporean or PRC bus driver”and“If the fair goes up to S $1.75 a journey, I’ll join the Worker’s Party (Singapore’s main opposition party).”

While it was heartening to be part in a lively discussion on the issue, I felt that everyone was skirting around the brontosaurus in the room – the role of the government. To be fair to the organizers of this event, they belonged to the Youth Wing of the ruling People’s Action Party. As such, it would have been hard for them to tackle the issue openly. However, if one seriously intends to get serious about tackling the issue of glaring inequality in Singapore, one must question the role of the government in the equation.

Generally speaking, setting wages is usually a question of how much an employer is willing to pay to get things done and how much an employee is willing to do for a certain amount of money. This is usually a case of a thesis meeting its antithesis to form a synthesis (In simple terms, two opposite’s crash into each other to create something new). Employers will generally want to pay as little as possible to get the most amount of work while employees will want the most wages while doing the least amount of work.

Somehow these opposing needs create a balance. It’s not a perfect balance. Market forces usually play the key role in deciding the value of wages. When there is a recession, employers don’t hire so those with jobs will sacrifice pay and perks just to keep their jobs. When there’s a boom and there is a lack of people to do the jobs created, then wages shoot up.

While everyone talks about market forces, most people forget that government plays a crucial role too. Firstly, the government sets the tone for the market through things like regulations. More importantly, the government has to play the crucial role in ensuring that the balance does not tip too far either way. Governments have to see that people get wages they can survive on (Think of Arab Spring where ordinary people took three jobs to survive) but at the same time, the government has to ensure that businesses can afford to hire people (Think of the UK in the 1970s when taxes were close to 100 percent of income – businesses could not make a profit). If you like, the government is the referee in the game.

Singapore’s government has a slight problem as a referee – namely the fact that the government is in fact the biggest owner of business in Singapore. The government owns the Government Investment Corporation of Singapore (GIC) and Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd. These entities were set up to manage the compulsory savings of the population and at a later stage budget surplus. The value of assets controlled by both these companies runs into the billions. The largest shareholder in the biggest companies listed on the stock exchange is Temasek Holdings.

In fairness to the Singapore Government, it’s kept a relatively hands off approach in the management of the large companies. The CEO’s of companies like DBS and SIA have gotten there on their merits as business people rather than government bureaucrats. State ownership has not handicapped SIA from becoming a world-class airline. DBS today hires senior people from international banks like Citibank to ensure they play as serious international players.

One can also argue that in the initial days of independence, this situation was necessary. Singapore did not have the people to run big corporations and the symbiosis between civil servants and people running large corporations was a way of sharing talent. You can argue that making civil servants spend a stint in corporations has helped to create a business friendly civil service. This in turn has been a powerful selling point in keeping the much needed foreign investment coming into the country.

A first rate bureaucracy has been one of Singapore’s strengths. The Singapore government machinery sounds like a private sector corporate machinery talking about things like efficiency and customer focus. This has been good for Singaporeans.

While all these arguments are compelling, they are losing their potency and starting to look like tiered and increasingly irrelevant arguments.

From the business perspective, it’s possible to argue that government ownership has actually held Singaporean businesses back. Of the large corporations, only SIA has a made a mark in its global industry. The reason is simple – this is an industry where the Singapore government’s protection is useless and the airline has had to face competition from global players. The other corporate giant to hold its own has been SingTel, which used its cash pile from its days of a monopoly to acquire overseas assets. Today, SingTel’s main source of revenue is from Optus, its Australian subsidiary.

The untold tale here is that prior to acquiring Optus, SingTel tried to acquire assets in Hong Kong and Malaysia. The fact that SingTel’s main shareholder was the Singapore Government was the very reason why regulatory authorities stopped SingTel from taking over companies. Let’s face, telecommunications is a sensitive business and as friendly as Singapore’s government may be to other governments, there are few governments in the world that would allow their telecom companies to be bought over by what they view to be another government.

More worryingly is the fact that many of Singapore’s big corporations are only big at home. They have been protected from the laws of competition and have been allowed to grow flabby. Think of Singapore’s media industry. An element of competition was introduced. Both media houses lost a ton of money and the government allowed them to remonopolise. Everyone slapped their backs, happy that they had shown that the market was “Too Small for Competition.” Unfortunately they were too busy defending their turfs that they forgot about product innovation. While the media houses spent their energies sniping at each other’s product (think of the endless arguments on whether viewership or readership was more important,) the public found alternative news sources on the internet. Sure, the bloggers didn’t make money but they gained credibility at the expense of both print and media – enough for the Executive Vice-President of Marketing at Singapore Press Holdings (a former editor) to write an op-ed piece lamenting the fact that government ministers were choosing to use their Facebook accounts to make announcements instead of calling for an old fashioned press conference.

As the need to expand beyond Singapore’s shores grows, business and government need to relook their relationship. Business should have the freedom to act as businesses rather than as part of a government.

If the business case for the government to get out of business is compelling, the argument from a social policy perspective is becoming crucial.

Let’s go back to the fact that the government now has a problem with growing inequality. Let’s take the example of bus and train drivers, the group that Dr Puthucheary brought up.

Public transport is a potent issue. It’s used by most of population and so most of the population has an opinion about it. As far as the public is concerned, public transport has become worse and more expensive at the same time.

As far as most people are concerned, this situation has come about because the government allowed an influx of foreigners to enter the country but didn’t ensure that the nation’s infrastructure was prepared for this. Talk to any random person on the streets and they’ll tell you that busses and trains have become overcrowded (expect to wait for three trains to pass by during the early morning commute) as fares have increased. Both public transport operators SMRT and Comfort DelGro have been declaring record profits for shareholders for the last eight-years. Then, when the system started to experience breakdowns, the government stepped in and announced that it would finance more buses from the taxpayer’s fund. Erm, as most of us are concerned, we, the tax paying public are providing a subsidy to companies that are printing money from us.

It’s hard for the government to be seen to play the crucial role in situations like this. The public expects public transport to be affordable and of a high standard. The public transport operators are under pressure to deliver a service and profit to their shareholders. To deliver a profit for their shareholders, the operators, minimize spending on basic infrastructure like more buses and hiring less experienced drivers from elsewhere, thus adding to the downward push for blue collar labour.

A neutral government would be able to see that the situation is unsustainable and would be able to bring all parties together. It would be able to insist on certain delivery standards by the operators – yes, you can make a profit but you got to have no breakdowns within the year etc etc.

Unfortunately, the Singapore government isn’t a neutral referee. On one hand it has pressure from the public. On the other it has its own interest as a shareholder in the system. The CEO of a public transport operator deals with the government as both a regulator and a shareholder. The dual nature of the government’s role here produces an inborn conflict of interest. On one hand it needs to keep the public happy. On the other hand it wants to collect profits. Is anybody surprised that the government was quite content to allow the public transport operators to up fares and skimp on basic maintenance as long as not too many people complained and things ran. Let’s face it, nobody talked about buying more buses until things broke down.

Government must get back to basics and become a neutral referee rather than a shareholder with a vested interest in one side of the game. It’s only then that people will start believing that the government has its interest at heart and interested in looking after all parties.

Only when the government divest itself of its business interest will topics like “inclusive society” be more than just a hot talking point.

A Story of Wages

You have to thank the world’s socialist for bringing us a public holiday devoted to the idea that we should celebrate labour, more popularly known as the sweat we need to put into get our daily keep. This year’s Labour Day in Singapore has been particularly interesting because after years of trumpeting the importance of economic growth, we’ve now decided to focus on the issue of equality or to be more accurate inequality.

Singapore is a well-known economic success story. However, in recent years, it’s become a noticeably unequal society. One Nominated Member of Parliament went as far as to describe the situation in Singapore as having a small group who earn some of the highest wages in the world and pay some of the lowest cost for basic labour. A report by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the nation’s central bank, pointed out that two-thirds of the population earns less than the national wage.

Working professionals in Singapore compare their salaries with peers in London and New York. Unskilled labourers compare wages with their peers in Dhaka and Manila. Actually, we’ve moved people from London and New York by giving them a premium on-top of what they were getting at home. At the other end of the social scale, we pay wages slightly higher than in Dhaka and Manila and then proceed to make cost so high that they were actually no better off than if they stayed at home. It doesn’t take an economics degree to realize that when it comes to wages, Singapore is both a first world and a third world country rolled into one.

Thanks to a prominent economics professor, this situation has come into the spotlight. The said professor has suggested that there needs to be a major wage and job restructuring where we jack up the pay of the low wage earners (S$1,500 a month and less) and freeze the pay of those earning high wages (above S$15,000 a month and more).

The government (filled by the world’s best paid politicians despite a recent pay cut) has gone on the war path. Minister after minister has come out to denounce the proposal. As far as the powers-that-be are concerned, you cannot have a raise in wages until there is a rise in productivity.

Having been a small businessman (glorified free-lancer) for the last decade, I’m in an interesting position to look at this issue.

On one hand it’s frustrating dealing when the people who pay you live under the impression that you don’t need to eat, sleep, bath or use the toilet and therefore have the superhuman ability to work for them for the sheer love of it. I’m sorry but what I do happens to be called work and I need money to survive. I do well enough for the people who pay me and I get frustrated when I’m told that I’m worth so many dollars less than what I’ve done. Now, if I can feel that way about bashing things out on a computer and making phone calls, I can imagine how many times people who do heavy lifting or running 12-hours a day must feel about the pay they get for the work they do. I hate it whenever people think they’re doing me a favour when I do work for them.

There is a flip side to this too. Just as I get frustrated with people who think they’re doing me a favour when they give me work, it’s equally frustrating to deal with people who think they’re doing me a favour when I give them work. I’m still traumatised by a bad hire I made for a two-day project a month ago. The so called hire decided that it was acceptable to throw a tantrum just as I needed to deal with a minister’s press secretary. This particular hire decided that it was acceptable to sms a mentor of mine and her brother to complain that she bored and being victimized.

What this particular hire forgot was the fact that I was paying her money and providing her with exposure to the highest profile group she had ever been exposed to. She blamed her behavior on constipation and I guess to be fair, her behavior improved with the clearing of her bowls.

So, where does this leave the wage debate? Well, I believe that people, who hire, need to be fair about the wages they pay. Just as the business needs task to be done well, people need to have enough money for them not to worry about how to pay their bills. A job is essentially a trade-off between the employer’s money and the employee’s time. Fairness in this trade isn’t an airy-fairy concept. It’s common sense. If you want to get an employee to give their all to you, you have to ensure that he or she has a wage that covers basic living expenses and to build a future.

Having said that, I don’t think government legislating things like a government mandated minimum wage won’t necessarily make things better. If I’m expected to pay high wages to people like my bad hire, I’d rather do things myself.

I also find the idea of keeping jobs for certain people of certain races or nationalities to be downright offensive. As a business, I take the risk and I need to manage my cost and talent to reap the necessary rewards. It is not the job of businesses to hire based on a government’s political needs nor is it the job of business to create social policy. Businesses should hire the people who are most hungry for the job because they’ll be best at it.

Funnily enough, the two examples that come to mind are from the military. In the US Army, it’s been found that Blacks tend to perform better than Whites. The American Army is the one place where you’re likely to see more blacks bossing whites around than in any other organization in the nation. The reason is simple, the average black soldier looks to the army as way up in life while the average White Soldier looks at the army as a dead end job.

The same is true in the British Army, where they found that you’re average Gurkha makes a better solider than your average British Squaddie. The average squaddie’s came from families where the army was a better than nothing job while the Gurkha’s saw service in the British Army as way up in life.

Neither the US or the UK is about to go through a reduction in recruiting less Blacks in favour of Whites or less Gurkha’s in favour of local Brits (though admittedly this may slow and stop thanks to the Maoist politicians in Nepal.) Part of the reason is culture. In the US there is a need to provide black people with good jobs and since the army does a good job of it, nobody will think of stopping the army from hiring blacks. In the UK the link with the Gurkha’s is historical and part and parcel of Britain’s place in the world.

However, there’s a more important underlying reason. Both armies believe in hiring the best people to fight wars. As such, the Blacks in the US Army have earned their place by merit as have the Gurkha’s in the UK.

What is true of the military should be true of business. Hire based purely on merit. Yes, Singaporeans are more expensive than say Filipinos and many other Asians. However, cost isn’t the only factor in deciding who to hire. Deal with any service industry in Singapore and you’ll find that if you get decent service, it’s from Filipinos. I remember the head of a prominent shoe shop chain telling me, “If I could, I’d sack all the Singaporeans and replace them with Filipinos. The Singaporeans are so grouchy they kill any incentive my customers have to buy. The Filipinos on the other hand manage to smile at work even when there’s a personal tragedy – they produce the work environment that I want.”

I remember my previous CO, Colonel Toh Boh Kwee’s line,” Nobody owes you a living.” It’s something people like my bad hire need to understand. Contrary to what many of Singapore’s alternative thinkers might think, foreigners are not there to screw Singaporeans. They cannot be blamed if they’re hungry and manage to work the “EQ” required in today’s market.

Let’s face it; we also live in a world of “outsourcing.” Technology has made it such that even you kicked out all the foreigners, many of the jobs would simply move to cheaper locations. Think of the call centres around the world. You can kick out the Indian entrepreneur who owns a call centre in your country. However, that particular Indian entrepreneur can simply relocate back to India and instead of having a situation where you had one or two jobs for the locals; you have a situation where there are NO jobs for the locals.

A compromise of sorts needs to be achieved. While I may not believe an enforced minimum wage would make things better, I think there should be guidelines of sorts as to what constitutes a reasonable salary and reasonable perks. Unfortunately in the Asian context, too many employers think of employees as cost and thus try to push wages to subsistence levels.

Employers need to understand that human assets are simply that – human and assets. People work to provide for their basic needs. People ‘go-all-out’ for things that will not only provide their basic needs but also help achieves aspirations. Blacks and Gurkha’s in the US and British Armies see their jobs as fulfilling aspirations and hence they work harder than their respective White and British counterparts.

It’s not just about money. If employers want to maximize the potential of their employees, they have to find ways to make people feel like they can achieve their aspirations by working for them. Both Google and 3M practice allow employees to devote 15 percent of their allotted work hours to personal projects. It’s no coincidence that these two companies are regarded as amongst the most innovative in the world.

Then there’s the fact that employees are customers too, especially if you work in the FMCG sector. Henry Ford paid his workers an unthinkably high US5 an hour back in the 1890s because he wanted his workers to buy his cars. If you look at things this way, the most reasonable wage to pay someone enough for them to be your customers. I remember having this argument with one of my early clients who sold top grade pillows – they were not paying me enough to be a customer (The GM of this company came up with a unique solution – he paid me in pillows, which I had to give up as part of my divorce settlement – I did get the Harry Potter book).

Having said that, I think employees need to be responsible for their own development. A job is not an entitlement and in this day and age of outsourcing and free people movement, you cannot expect your passport to give you a job. Organisations are focusing on being lean and looking to hire the best.

Personally, I think we need to look at the concept of a job as being an ‘exclusive’ to a particular company. You look at the average eight-hour day and you need to question how many of those hours are actually productive.

I think there is a situation where the employees are becoming more like ‘journeymen’ in the old ‘apprentice’ system. Once you have a skill of sorts, you should have the freedom to sell your hours accordingly and to the highest bidder. Businesses will only pay for hours where real work is done and people do not need to be dependent on a single entity for a living.

There are, of course, many issues at stake but it’s worth looking at what really needs to be done and what can be outsourced. The traditional job structure has many benefits and in many cases will remain as it is. However, as the nature of businesses changes, so does the nature of jobs. Outsourcing may kill traditional jobs but it provides a way of living to many and in balance that outweighs the cost. Rather than try and legislate it away, let’s see how we can maximize it.

The Love of Your Own Kind!

Since I collected payment from my first decent sized job for the year, I decided that it was time to start saving again. Two dry years and the absence of a retainer client made savings all the more important. So, I decided to take a tenth of what I made and split the savings between my Central Provident Fund (CPF – a compulsory saving scheme for all Singaporeans) and my Standard Chartered Account.

Discovering Standard Chartered again was a wonderful joy that put one of the biggest “hot-button” issues into perspective – that it the issue of foreigners.

Despite having no presence in the UK, Standard Chartered is a British Bank, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange. The bank, along with the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) was a bastion of British Commercial Dominance in the colonies. Standard Chartered, along with HSBC remains the only commercial banks in the Western World that issues currency (Hong Kong Dollar, the other to issue Hong Kong Dollars is the Bank of China) and its presence in emerging markets has helped Standard Chartered remain fairly strong despite the financial crisis (American Express Banks was bought by Standard Chartered).

I became a Standard Chartered customer in 2005, when I started writing for Arab News. The Arabs paid me with a cheque that was to be drawn on a Standard Chartered Bank account. At the time, the account they had on offer paid me a grand total of 1.88 percent (which may not sound like much but in Singapore its considered a lottery to get this type of interest on a savings account) and I could run the account with something as little as a single dollar.

In 2006, when I was doing relatively well, thanks to the Saudi Embassy in Singapore, I used this account as a place to park my savings. Unfortunately, I lost focus and allowed myself to whittle down my cash savings to a non-existent level and sometime in 2010; they sent me a note asking me to put something into the account to keep it going. I put five dollars into the account in November, 2010 and left it there.

So, when I visited them last week, I decided to find out how the account was doing. I was told that in the year my five bucks had lain in the account, untouched, I had earned a grand total of a cent in interest payments. OK, this doesn’t sound like a lot of money.

However, the comparison with how I would be treated at my regular bank, the Development Bank of Singapore or DBS was quite astounding.

Let’s start with the amount. Standard Chartered allowed me to keep my account open with a mere five dollars. Had I put this amount in an account with DBS, I would have received a few more nasty notes through the course of the year to remind me to put more money into the account because they would have shut me down. DBS has a policy of charging the customer a fee of two dollars a month for having less than $500 in your savings account. If you have the misfortune of having a current account with them, they’ll charge you a mere $15 for having a balance of less than $10,000 a month.

The argument here is that DBS loses money to maintain accounts with not very much money in them and so they need to pass the losses onto the consumer.

For some reason, the government thinks this is acceptable. Like all banks, DBS borrows money from depositors at a low level of interest and proceeds to lend it out at a higher rate. To anyone outside Singapore, it looks like DBS has a fool proof way of printing money. I get paid some 0.05 percent per annum on my savings account and I get NO interest on my corporate account. The bank then lends out the money I deposit into the accounts at anything ranging from six to 20 percent per annum.

The non-existent interest rates I’m paid for lending money to the bank would not be so bad on its own. However, insult is added to injury when the bank charges are thrown into the equation. I effectively pay the bank for the privilege of lending them money I earn.

My treatment at Standard Chartered and my comparative treatment at DBS is not a question of who would have paid me more. I made one cent out of Standard Chartered and had I kept an account with DBS with five dollars, I would end up owing them money.

The question here is, why do I have to pay DBS for the privilege of lending them money when Standard Chartered does not charge me for the privilege? It cannot be that Standard Chartered has found a way of not losing money on my account while DBS bleeds money every time I have less than $500 in my savings account?

Not everything about Standard Chartered is better than DBS. It’s cheaper to transfer money via DBS. When I first started out with Huong, I helped her to transfer money to Vietnam. Charges at DBS were only S$30 per transaction. By contrast, Standard Chartered charged $100 per transaction. The process at both banks takes about the same amount of paper work, yet one bank charged a premium of $70 extra per transaction.

That’s OK. In a world with free-competition, customers should be allowed to pick and choose which provider they want for various services. I would save with Standard Chartered and transfer money through DBS.

Unfortunately, the world of banking isn’t exactly “free-market” competition. Foreign banks like HSBC, Citi and Standard Chartered are allowed to operate in the local market provided they understand whose market it is. As such, foreign banks that deal with consumers tend to cater to only the very high-end ones and ignore the masses. They are limited in the number of branches they are allowed to operate. Back when I was an intern and Citibank was Citibank NA, rather than Citibank Pte Ltd, we had a grand total of three branches. By contrast, DBS, which is co-incidentally owned by Temasek Holdings, which is in turn owned by the Ministry of Finance, has a mere 100 plus branches across the island.

Yes, Citi, Standard Chartered, HSBC and gang have a larger international network than the local boys. However, within the domestic market, it’s the local boys who have the advantage. Every Singaporean with a savings account started out with a POSB (Post Office Savings Banks – a subsidiary of DBS) account. The local boys have had a head start on taking the local market and in a way; local people have their savings trapped in the local banks. Contrary to what the powers-that-be may tell you, Singapore’s prosperity isn’t built by foreigners pouring their money into the place, it’s built by trapping the savings of the locals and investing it elsewhere.

To be fair, the local banks have realized the importance of overseas growth markets and adapting to deal with them. United Overseas Bank (UOB) is a big player in Thailand. DBS is a big player in Hong Kong. The bank is actively modeling itself on one of the most successful international banks – Citibank. My ex-boss, Eddie Khoo, moved from Citi to DBS before heading to UOB where he runs consumer banking. More recently, DBS hired Piyush Gupta, a former Citibanker to be CEO.

Once they hit overseas markets, our local boys will have to learn to treat customers properly. However, will their love for their customers in say Hong Kong or Thailand translate into love or at least respect for the Singaporean customer?

As much as I would like it to be yes, I don’t think there’s a strong case for optimism. The big Singapore businesses that burnt overseas resort to milking more from their home base – the average Singapore consumer. Word has it that DBS was allowed to take over POSB when It started feeling the heat in the initial days of investing in China. When Temasek Holdings bought shares in the loss making Merrill Lynch, it quietly sold assets in Singapore.

A while back, I actually got into a heated debate with my favourite litigator and his partners. The crux of the argument was, one of their members had proposed that the government take a more active role in giving work to local law firms. I countered that patriotism has never been much of an effective marketing tool. Local consumers will chose price and quality over patriotism.

A year after this incident, I stick my position. As a local Singaporean business, I don’t expect the government to give me preferential treatment. What I do expect, is for the big local enterprises that I rely on like the banks to treat me like a valued customer rather than an automaton they can squeeze whenever they need to cover up for mistakes made elsewhere.

Let’s face it, after comparing the way I’ve been treated by Standard Chartered and the way I’ve been treated by DBS, I’m not thinking about Standard Chartered’s London Listing or Colonial heritage, I’m thinking of ways to move more of what little money I have their way because they give me so much more.

Extend that idea to other things. Why do we choose foreign things over local things? Could it be because the foreigners actually treat the locals with a bit more love and respect than the way we treat each other?

Trying to Smell, the Smelly and the Downright Odious

This week has been a week for me to indulge in all things Indian. It started on Good Friday when I started working for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Alumni Association’s PANIIT APAC 2012 event in Suntec City and it ended last night when I went out with a New Year function for the Nepali Community in Khantipur Restaurant in Little India.

Both these events were an eye-opener into the world of global migration. My Singaporean friends, especially my local Indian friends will undoubtedly hate me for this but being with both communities helps one to understand the issue of “foreigners” much better.

The PANIIT APAC 2012 event was an adrenalin rush. It was a high-powered and high-profile event. The four “stars” were the President of Singapore, the former President of Singapore, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and the Second Minister of Home Affairs. The only event that I’ve been involved in that had a higher level group of dignitaries was the visit of Crown Prince Sultan to Singapore in 2006.

That, however, was an official state visit, organized by the Saudi and Singapore governments. This event by contrast, was a mere alumni association meeting. What made the Singapore Government provide so many high level dignitaries to grace an alumni association of a university that none of our ministers attended?

The answer is simple – it was about the global shift of economic and social gravity from West to East. The people involved in the PANIIT event were high powered professionals working for multinational corporations like CISCO and Energizer or from the significant Indian IT companies like Polaris or entrepreneurs who had started software companies in Singapore like Optimum Solutions. The Alumni who were invited to speak read like the who’s who of Indian industry. You had people like R.Gopalakrishnan, Director of Tata Sons, Ananath Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer of Tata Consultancy Services and Arjun Malhotra the co-founder and Chairman of HCL and Headstrong. You could say that the guest had influence over companies with a combined revenue equivalent to the GDP of Singapore.

When you look at things this way, the obvious conclusion is that India is rising and Singapore wants to a rising India to be one of the engines of economic growth. The days when Lee Kuan Yew looked upon India has a noisy third-word mess have long gone. With the Western World in in economic malaise, the Singapore government is especially welcome to capital coming from India and Indian professionals bringing their skills to Singapore.

On a personal level, working with this group was an energy rush. You can’t help but feel the energy coming from a room filled with highly educated and successful people. My personal experiences are such that I’ve founded that the Indian Expatriates tend to be the BEST educated and most intellectually stimulating of the groups that I’ve encountered in Singapore. I suspect the well brought up Indians are trained with the same methods that the British used back when the British had an empire (which the Brits neglected through 1960 wishy-washy liberalism).

The IIT crowd would be welcome in any country that they visited. Until this recent event, the event was held either in India or the USA. Despite all the talk about “brining jobs home” in an election year, America is well aware of the benefits of welcoming a bunch of highly educated and well to do people.

While Singapore was pulling out all the stops to welcome the chaps from the IIT Alumni Association, we have been host to people from the other end of the social scale. We don’t admit it but there is an army of barely educated Indian and Bangladeshi workers in Singapore doing all the work that we the people won’t do.

If you make a trip to Ministry of Manpower’s Foreign Manpower Division, you’ll see the way that the Singapore Government views these people – they’d rather not. If you want to be nasty to anyone, it’s always easiest to be nasty to this group. Having sympathy with them is akin to dying of AIDS.

Let’s start with the fact that the average worker is paid something as generous as S$30 a day for a 12-hour work day. They often come home to a bed space, which they pay anything from S$180 to S$300 a day for. If you take into consideration their living space and what they pay, you’ll find that the worker pays more per square foot than most luxury condominiums.

When a worker is injured, he is expected to wait for a period of anything up to 11-weeks before he gets paid. When not working, the guy is not paid and when if he has to audacity to work without permission from the Ministry, he can fined up to S$5,000. In short, the average worker is placed in a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation.

Despite this, the locals couldn’t give a shit about people in this end of the social scale. Many regard them as a nuisance. We are happy to accept Indian and Bangladeshi workers cleaning up our shit and we think of the work they do as a favour that we do for them. A Bangladeshi worker has a cup of tea at the void deck and it’s a decline of society, a few barrow boys get pissed, beat up a few people and it’s just a minor one-off incident. Talk to enough local Singaporeans about Indian and Bangladeshi workers and they’ll tell you about drunks sleeping on the street. How true is this prejudice?

I do accept that the worker crowd can get rowdy. However, I’ve NEVER seen them get any more rowdy than the Barrow Boys after a few cold ones. I don’t blame them for getting rowdy. If you worked a 12-hour day, six days a week, you would want to let go at least once a week. Contrary to what the media headlines might tell you, this crowd has never been what you’d call a “troublemaking” crowd.

If you look at migrant communities throughout the world, you’ll find that they are generally more law abiding than the natives. I guess you could call it a knowledge that you’ll be on the wrong end of things if the police get involved. As such, these communities develop a system to take care of issues before any one decides to bring in the cops. Whenever tensions rise, a group of guys will bring parties apart to cool things down.

I look at the migrants that I know. I take one of oldest and best friends, Bijay, the Nepali Naan Maker. He came to Singapore more than a decade back. He served his National Service and has worked hard in the food and beverage line. Hang around Bijay or his friends and you’ll find that what they basically want is a small space to work hard and build a life, either with a simple job or by starting a small business. Bijay has settled here and after fathering two- daughters, he’s now about to become a father of a little boy. His wish is simple – to make his boy a more educated version of him. If you look at how Bijay has pulled himself up in the world with limited education, you can imagine how much more someone like him could do with more schooling.

Ironically, the locals who complain about migrants tend to be amongst the biggest causers of social problems. Bijay is a first class character, who is impossible to dislike. By contrast, you have members of the Pundek Family who think nothing of sponging off their friends and family. Macha Pundek was especially good at the job. He had the audacity to ask his former brother-in-law for a $2,000 loan about two-years ago. To-date the said former brother-in-law has been paid back with promises of when he’ll be receiving $10 as well as a request for more money. He mysteriously quits his job whenever the former brother-in-law ask for his own money back.

So let’s look at things this way. We will always want the guys from the IIT crowd. They have the money and they have professional skills. We will not admit it but we need the likes of the Nepali and other South Asian workers. They clean our crap and they do it pretty loyally. Now, ask ourselves, if we need the likes of Macha Pundek who thinks nothing of trying to cheat people into buying him and his equally obnoxious buddies the next round of booze.

Who am I?

Thanks to the influx of foreign residents in the last eight-years, Singapore has been going through something of an emotional crisis. Singaporeans of all races and religions have found themselves feeling rather crowded out by people from elsewhere and as far as most of us are concerned, home isn’t feeling like home anymore.

This is particularly true for the Indian and Chinese communities. The local Singaporean Indians are complaining that the Indians from India who are coming to Singapore are a snooty bunch who doesn’t appreciate the local Indian community for its achievements. The Singaporean Chinese complain that the Mainland Chinese are a bunch of ruffians or whores who should be left in the dustbin.

It seems that the people who pledged to become “one united people, regardless of race, language or religion,” have started expressing sentiments that are what you can only politely describe as being a little chauvinistic.

Ironically, the obvious sentiments of xenophobia have produced something that years of government indoctrination failed to do – it’s produced a natural sense of “Singaporeanism.” Local Indians and Chinese have discovered that they have more in common with each other than with the chaps coming out of Mainland China and India. I’ve had local Indians think nothing of complaining to me about how “snooty” Indian Expats are and I’ve had Singaporean Chinese think nothing about cooking pots of curry to show solidarity with their fellow Singaporeans of Indian decent when Mainland Chinese complain about the smell of curry.

Even my mother who has since become German and not lived in Singapore for a good two-decades now, has gotten into the game. We had a major fight where we didn’t speak to each other for a month because she got upset with me because I told her that I had referred to myself as a “Chinaman” on a Facebook thread. She was very upset and told me, “You are SINGAPOREAN of Chinese decent, NOT a Chinaman.”

She also made the point that our family is “Ang Moh [for readers outside Singapore, this is a Hokkien word that means “red beard” and used to refer to ethnic Caucasians] and your great-great-great-grandfather came off the boat and realized that English was the way of the future.” I could actually feel the disappointment every time I make some remark that does not show solidarity with the Western world in terms of my social life or my political views. As my sister once said, “She feels sad that you see yourself as a Chinaman and forgot that you grew up in the West.”

I don’t see what the fuss is all about. What’s the big deal about being a Chinaman rather than a Singaporean of Chinese decent? I also don’t see what the big deal about being “Western” is all about.

Perhaps it’s just me but I don’t see the difficulty in being many things all at once. Why must I be “one” thing or why do I need to owe allegiance to anyone particular culture.” Perhaps it’s my astrological make up (Sagittarius Tiger) but I have a natural aversion to things that demand my exclusive heart and mind – hence one of the reasons why I never turned to fundamentalist Christianity despite the very best efforts of an ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend. The idea of taking spiritual guidance from some White American or someone who took spiritual guidance from a White American is repulsive. Much to the distress of the ex-girlfriend, I found more God in hanging out with her 5-year old son and chatting to him about silly names he had for himself, me and his mother than I did in the service.

When it comes to religion, I am Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Sheikh etc all rolled into one. What logical person would believe that God is bothered by the crappy labels that we place on ourselves?

So, if that’s my view of God, what do people imagine my views of human culture to be like? Why do I have to Western or Eastern? Why can’t I be both? Look, I speak English and I operate in English. I grew up in the Western Education system (England and Singapore has an English-based system). So, I guess you could say I am very “western” in my outlook on life.

You could say that this blog is the least “Asian” thing about me. I don’t see myself as particularly outspoken. I have been known to use tact and diplomacy to get things done. However, I don’t believe in being shy about expressing my opinions for the sake of being shy. There are times when you need to say something so you should say it.

Another “Westernised” or “Buddhist” side of me is that I don’t easily except things because that’s supposed to be the way things are. Asians or at least the East Asians (South Asians are different in this respect. Let’s not forget that the Buddha was a Nepali Prince) tend to accept things as they are because that’s the way things having been. Questioning is not looked upon favourably. You have Confucius to blame for this – he drummed it into the East Asian psyche that life was best when there was order under the benevolent heavenly king, which needless to say, never existed, except in his imagination.

Yet, at the same time, I do not see myself as a Westerner. Even when I lived in England, I never wanted to become an ‘Englishman.’ It was always clear to me that while I lived in England, I would one day leave and be back in Asia, particularly Singapore.

Singapore remains the place where my blood ties are, though these are admittedly thinning out as old relatives die out and younger ones move elsewhere. For all that I’ve complained about Singapore, this remains the only country I have an obligation to defend. My closest friends come from Singapore, namely during my National Service days. These are ties that you don’t ignore easily.

It’s also helped that my professional life has been formed in Singapore. My professional life or at least my value add to the people pay me is the fact that I know Singapore as it is, which means I know the nitty-gritty of how to get things done. Yes, I do have skills. The principles of pitching a story are the same wherever you are. However, the business I’m in requires me to have a network and the network I’ve built up is here. Yes, my clients come from elsewhere but they want to operate here and that’s why I get hired.

I am Singaporean in that I hold a Singapore passport. I function in Singapore and I have family in Singapore. This is the country that I am obliged to defend in a time of war and at the same time this is a country that has given me a rather pleasant home, even if I do spend a lot of time being critical of certain things about this home.

I don’t need the Chinaman or the Englishman to tell me that I am Singaporean. This is the place that I have become most familiar with for better or for worse.

Yet, at the same time, I don’t have a problem being Chinese. I don’t operate in Mandarin or Cantonese as well as I do in English. I’ve never been in China and I do not exactly have a cultural and emotional link with the average Chinaman – that was even when I had a mainland Chinese girlfriend.

Having said that, I’ve always felt most at home whenever I’ve been in a Chinese community. My favourite parts of Western cities happen to be the Chinatowns. There’s a familiarity of things like food, language and a shared sense of being within a larger global community.

I don’t indulge in many of the Chinese cultural symbols. I don’t gamble nor do I listen to Chinese music (I listen to Hindi music and I don’t listen to music in Mandarin). However, I do watch Chinese fighting movies and I do identify with the heroes in Chinese Gung Fu movies, who for the most part are outsiders fighting against something or other. I am attached to Chinese New Year. I don’t have a problem with Mainland China taking over the world.

I am an ethnic Chinese with a Singapore passport, who has made his life in Singapore. I happen to think and express myself in English. I don’t have a problem being of many cultures. I think this is something that people will need to be comfortable with.

I am Tang Li

Major Wrongs

One of the nicest things about living in Singapore is that you always have to have faith in the system to inspire you. Just when I thought I was running out of things to blog about, along comes the Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC who proudly eats pork aka Thambi Pundek to remind me what’s wrong with Singapore – thus giving me something to blog about.

For some reason he decided to tell me about his national service in the air conditioned office. It seems that a few days ago there was a major who decided to drive through camp gates without going through the proper security channels. To stop the major, the Regimental Policeman (RP) on duty ended up pointing his riffle at the man’s car (as he is expected to under the rules).

Upon seeing a gun pointed at him, the major stepped out of his car, walked up to the RP – grabbed him by the neck and apparently said, “You dare to treat me like a terrorist – it’s you Muslims who are the bloody terrorist.” To his credit, the RP didn’t flinch and called the man a “Chinese Cunt.” The enraged major took this issue up with the camp’s management and the RP has been duly charged and sentenced to do time in the Detention Barracks (DB) – thus prolonging his National Service and probably earned him a criminal record using his gun.

I got upset when he told me this story and I think there were several times when I was ready to throw my cup at him. I pray that this story is not true and he’s fabricating it. However, since I actually served National Service (combat role and combat unit), I believe that this story is plausible and illustrates one of the greatest wrongs with Singapore today –namely, we have now become two societies with two different rules and we have revolting people like the Young Pork Eating Muslim Politician from Paris Ris GRC aka Thambi Pundek, who instead of fighting to make the system better, fight to enforce the status quo.

Guard Duty is one of the most important duties of a junior commander. When you are on duty, you are responsible for the security of the camp. You have to ensure that people entering the camp are the people who should be entering the camp and you have to see that those people who say they’ll leave the camp at a certain time actually do so.

To do this job, guard commanders and the RPs are given certain powers. They can and should stop everyone driving into camp and check that they have the necessary IDs. Both guards and regimental police have the right to search vehicles regardless of who is driving the car. The Guards and RPs have the right to order people out of their cars – at gun point if deemed necessary. Both Camp Guards and RPs are within their rights to shoot a person who does not halt when they are told to do so (theoretically you are supposed to give three warnings and fire a warning shot before you shoot the bugger).

This is generally how things are supposed to be run. In practice, we do give a bit of leeway when executing our duties. For example, many of us tend to be less stringent when checking people from our own unit – ie we know the people who should be coming in and out of the camp. The rule book does say that nobody books into camp from 0000-to-0630. It also does say that the guard commander should be flexible when it comes to anyone with a rank of major and above. The rules about checking ID still apply. In Khatib Camp, where I was stationed, the one person whom you didn’t need to check with the Chief of Artillery whose car was the most recognizable in the camp. When he drove by, you just saluted.

From experiences, the top people (major and above) were usually very nice. I remember stopping the Head Logistics of HQ SA. When he pointed out that his car had a camp pass, I pointed out that the sticker on the car only permitted the car to enter the camp – not the driver. This was a man with class. He looked at me and said, “keep up the good work – you are doing an important job and you should do it by the rules.” What I found to be true in my military experiences, I’ve found to be true in my civilian experiences. The high level people that I now deal with (CEOs, MDs, GMs, MPs, and Ministers etc.) tend to be pleasant and very reasonable.

The shit heads belong to middle management. In the army, this usually means senior members of the Warrant Officer and Specialist Corps and junior officers (usually captains) are the ones who give you the most problems. These are the ones who throw tantrums and threaten you for doing your job. It’s as if they expect you to create a special exemption for them just because they are senior to you. The best way to handle this lot is to your job because … well the rules are on your side.

Being a power drunk shit is not limited to Singapore. I remember reading about a Sergeant-Major in the US military who once was responsible for enforcing speed limits in camp. He points out that there were colonels who would remind him that they outranked him several times. His standard reply was, “I appreciate the fact that you outrank me Sir, but you should also be aware that because you outrank me several times over, you should be even more embarrassed to be in this situation, Sir.”

I’ve not experienced a junior commander in this Singapore military having this much confidence in dealing with their superiors. However, many of us eventually learn to be firm and diplomatic as we mature through our service period. If I look back at my previous experiences, I wish I had been more firm on certain occasions because, well, I never realized my Duty Officers were quite supportive.

My national service period was in the pre-September 11, 2001 period. The military, like organizations took security seriously but not fanatically. These days, things are officially different. Security measures have been stepped up since my day. So you would imagine that people would have become more cooperative when it comes to enforcing basic security measures inside a military camp.

Judging by the way the Young Pork Eating Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC aka Thambi Pundek tells this story, I can’t help but feel that a major wrong has taken place and it shows me that there’s something drastically wrong in the way the system is applied.

Let’s start with the fact that the major did not do through the check points he was supposed to go through. By definition he has already broken the rules.

Then let’s go to the fact that the RP pointed a rifle at his car. Does this action sound drastic? Yes, it does. I don’t recall being in a situation where I had to point a rifle at anyone and I don’t think I’m alone in this. I mean there were times when I was tempted to but it never seemed worth it. Having said all of that, times have changed. This is the post September 9, 2001 world where the mantra is – you can never be too prepared when it comes to enforcing security measures. Let’s add to the fact that as the Young Pork Eating Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC aka Thambi Pundek says, “The RP was acting as directed by Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).” To me, the RP’s actions sounded a little drastic but he was well within his obligations to do what he did.

Let’s look at the Major’s reaction. Yes, it’s not nice to have a gun pointed at you. However, as a senior officer, this particular Major could have addressed the issue calmly and firmly. Instead, he reacted angrily and grabs the RP by the neck. By any military and civil definition, this is assault, which is a felony. I would argue that the RP’s mistake was not to promise to shoot the major for approaching him in what I could only imagine to be an agitated manor.

I look back at my senior officers and I feel I lived in a different era. I remember then Major (now full colonel) Tan Chong Boon, the former CO of 21 SA telling the unit Physical Training Instructor (PTI) that he expected him to be firm in conducting IPPT for officers ie he was not to be intimidated by his superiors into letting them pass with an easier standard. This is leadership – to give your subordinates confidence to do their jobs without being bullied.

Like I said, I hope this is just the Young Pork Eating Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC aka Thambi Pundek being silly. It shocks me that when it comes to this incident, a young full time National Serviceman’s life is going to be ruined just because he did his job according to the letter of the rules.

The Young Pork Eating Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC aka Thambi Pundek proceeded to argue with me. His point was, the RP should have known that you can never win a fight with ones superiors and he should have let the major carry on. His point was simple – serve your national service and don’t rock the boat.

May be he has a point. Why rock the boat? However, if you apply his thought process to this incident and see how it applies to how he views the rest of his life, you can’t help but shudder. This Young Thing is actively endorsing the idea of – One Rule for Some and One Rule for Another.

I can’t fathom it? The RP was punished for doing his job and the major gets off with not so much as a slap on the wrist when he was nearly wrong at every turn. Yes, rank rules in the military. This isn't’t unique to Singapore. However, those with rank are expected to play by the rules and to uphold the rules. They are NOT supposed to break the rules and to endorse rule breaking by punishing those who enforce the rules when they actually do their jobs.

Seriously, how can we call ourselves a “non-corrupt” society when we tolerate these things happening? A major wrong has been committed by anybody’s definition.

All at School

There have a few letters in Singapore's Today newspaper talking about our education system. The debate has centred around the fact that despite all the praise that has been heaped on Singapore's achievements in education, we have produced virtually no leaders of global corporations.

This is a rather timely debate. Despite being an economic miracle, Singapore's policy makers are worried. The question amongst a few members of the 'chattering' classes is what exactly is "next" for Singapore? To prepare for what comes next, one has to look at the schools.

Singapore's school system is pretty darn good. We inherited the old British colonial system and instead of making it "wis hy-washy" as the British did in the 60s (the year they invented the comprehensive system), we decided to make ours a little harsher and til this day, we are not making any apologies for it.

On the surface of things, there's no reason for it. Singapore kicks arse in things like global competitive scores for mathematics and science. We have gone from a barely literate population from my grandparents day to total literacy in mine. We are especially good when it comes to exams. Go to any overseas varsity and you'll find that Singaporeans usually top the class - simple, our training gets us geared up for exams in a way that Western schools don't.

In terms of economics, the system has also served us well. Foreign investors do pump in big money into Singapore mainly because we have a pool of highly skilled workers. Both 3M and Alcon built factories in Singapore rather than in cheaper locations around the region because we had a pool of skilled workers that our neighbours did not have.

So, why on earth are we wringing our hands over education? Well, the answer is this simple. Despite all our achievements in education we have produced NO Nobel Prize winners. There is no such thing as a globally renown artist who was educated in the Singapore system. It's not just the multinationals that are run by foreigners. To get ahead in government service, you need to spend a stint of your education elsewhere. All three of our Prime Ministers have had to study elsewhere for a period of time. When Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore's closest thing to an intellectual, encouraged Singaporeans to send their kids to our wonderfully good local universities, someone asked him where his daughters were studying. Mr Mahbubani suddenly became very silent on the topic.

A friend of mine said it best - "Every year so many jobs are created. We are told we need so many foreigners are needed to do those jobs. Then you ask, why can't the locals do them. Then, if the locals are not qualified, you have to look at what the locals have in common."

So, here's the question - why isn't the education system producing leaders and why is it even a worry.

As with most things in Singapore, the question lies with basic economics and politics. Back in the early days of independence there was a need to build the country as quickly as possible. The answer in those days was to go against the grain of what post colonial societies were doing and welcome Western and Japanese multinationals to hire people and build the economy. To bring in the multinationals in those days, you simply needed to be cheaper than the home nation. Our secret was to produce an educated and compliant workforce.

Hey presto, we gave the MNCs a pool of workers who were qualified to the do the work and didn't get into the nasty habit of going on strike. Lee Kuan Yew would make darn sure that no interest group could do to him what the miner's did to Ted Heath in the UK. He dealt with trouble makers ruthlessly and rewarded compliance.

Unfortunately times have changed. The rest of Asia has become a reasonable place to deal with and they're advantages in size are starting to count. Put it simply, Singapore will NEVER make things more cheaply than China or Vietnam and they will never service as cheaply as India or the Philippines - and that remains the case even if you were to get every Singaporean worker to work for a token sum instead of a living wage.

Singapore has played up its advantages of being a safe haven. So the multinationals may do their business elsewhere but chances are the headquarters will be in Singapore. Ask any expatriate why they're in Singapore and they'll tell you that life is comfortable - often far more so than in their home country.

However, that still does not make the Singaporean any better off. Yes, we have lots of expats living here and they're spending money on high priced booze. But that doesn't exactly generate a good living for Singaporeans. We, as a population remain in the sandwiched class between expats on top and labourers at the bottom. To make matters more comfortable, the government has been on a drive to reduce our dependency on "foreign labour" at the bottom of the ladder. The top remains stubournely foreign.

In the last decade of living in Singapore, it remains rare to find a Singaporean running the Singapore operations of a multinational. David Tang of DDB remains the only Singaporean running the Singapore office of a multinational. Ed Ng, formerly regional CEO of GE Commercial Finance South East Asia was a unique species who had an American reporting to him. Outside these two, the Singaporean bosses have all been entrepreneurs - Palani Pillai and Lim Sau Hong come to mind.

Part of the reason is cultural. To climb in a multinational, you need to have overseas experience. A good deal of Singaporeans don't like to travel simply because you never know when you get to see family. Both Eddie Khoo, now head of consumer banking for United Overseas Bank and Edmund Koh, President of UBS Singapore, were ex-Citibankers who moved to smaller banks (admittedly in higher positions) for the very simple reason - they climbed as high as they could in Citi Singapore and any higher would have meant relocating elsewhere.

Westerners and now the Indian Expatriates don't have such qualms about moving around. As such, these groups find it easier to move up the international corporate ladder. UL's head in Asia-Pacific is from Kerela and there's Deepak Sharma, Chairman of Citi Private Bank who was an Indian Citizen who now happily resides in Singapore.

However, the desire not to travel isn't the only reason why Singaporeans don't fly high. The sad truth happens to be the fact that Singaporeans simply don't match up for many of the top jobs.

Our system has produced good workers, people who can do the job as well as anyone in the world. However, this is only just one quality required in today's multinational. I think of my ex-boss Monical Alsagoff who would tell us,"It's not the best person for the job who gets the job. It's the person who sells him or herself best who gets the job." Neil French, the former WPP Global Creative Head used to pride himself in his ability to sell himself.

Singaporeans are notoriously bad at self-promotion. You could argue that we are a naturally modest people. However, that's not exactly true either. We are competitive - the local word that comes to mind is Kiasu, Hokkien for scared to lose. We are one of the few places on earth where I know of, where students will deliberately hide reference books in the library to ensure no one else can get that elusive "a"grade. We simply don't like to stand out because our system usually slaps down the chap who tries to stand out. I remember the phrase, "Why you so special," used more than once when I was in National Service. In other places, being "special" is something to be proud of. In Singapore it is to mark yourself out for trouble.

We fear getting into trouble far more than we like success. Yes, it's always good to be careful. Better use a condom before sleeping with that sexy hunk/chick giving you the eye. However, fear of failure tends to breed something rather more worrying than caution - a lack of a sense of ownership.

Think back to Mas Selamat's escape from Whitley Prison. The Home Affairs Minister spent an unhealthy amount of time explaining why it wasn't his fault that a limping man escaped a highly secured facility instead on focusing on a solution. I think back to my National Service days when I stupidly did not check ammunition when taking over the guard room and got slapped by the Battalion Orderly Sergeant for it. The RP Sergeant told me later on, "Too bad you already signed the take over slip, otherwise you could have blamed it on your men."

Somewhere, somehow we are taught that responsibility equals trouble. Best to avoid responsbility and therefore trouble. Til this day, I would not have blamed the men under my command for a mistake I made but I guess that makes me a nut job of sorts.

Being on top means you have to take responsibility for issues that crop up. The rewards are of course greater when you reach the top but so are the risk. America does produce the people who climb to the top because they're willing to answer with their jobs. It doesn't happen in Singapore. Far better to blame foreigners than take the burden of blame onto yourself.

I think of a venture I'm trying to kick start with a friend of mine who is a chef. I believe there's room for him to do some catering on the side. I've unlisted the help of another friend to do up the promotional materials. Her contribution to this venture has been to tell me to seek an older person's instructions on how to do things step-by-step.

It worries me that this is the mentality of a young Singaporean. Yes, the venture has a risk to it. It may not start let alone succeed or fail. It's an idea that I think is worth pursuing and its worth working at. Yes, failure is likely but you never know until you try.

I take the view that you can minimise failure by consulting those who have been down the road before you. However, one has to take ultimate responsibility for ones own actions.

The idea of going into business with someone telling you how to do it step-by-step is a sign that one should not even be in private enterprise. It shows that you have the need to pass the responsbility onto someone else. -It shows that you want to say at the end of the day is "It wasn't me."

Once again, let's compare Wong Kan Seng and the Singapore Government's reaction to Mas Selmat's escape to John McCain's reaction to his election defeat. Who would you follow? Who would you trust. The man who insist on being paid millions and yet denies all responsibility for things that happen. Or would you trust the man who admits to his mistakes and says sorry?

I remember The Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC who drinks during the day in Ramadan aka Thambi Pundek saying,"Of course you don't apologise - that's how you keep your job."

Well, the problem is, jobs can be outsourced to someone cheaper or a technology can make what you do obsolete. You either find a way of being responsible for yourself and creating something for yourself or you die waiting for the government to give you things.

Something needs to be done and the right place to start is at home and at school. Children need to be taught that its good to be responsible for your actions. That's how you get better.

The Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC aka Thambi Pundek always tells me that we must salute to the "superior culture" of the West. I ask, why do we need to salute a "superior culture" where we can create one that's as good if not better for ourselves. I think that's a question the super geniouses in government should ponder upon

The Last Days of Innocence

March 8 2012 was a pretty amazing day. I was on a bus when I bumped into a chap that I hadn't seen since my days as a military recruit. It was quite funny. I sat in my seat, looked at the chap sitting across me and suddenly asked him where he did his basic military training. Then it dawned upon us, we knew each other and we proceeded to talk rot about old times. He couldn't remember my name but he remembered me.

Anyway, it turned out that we live near each other and so we ended up having tea together. I said to him, "BMT was full of shit," and he replied," Be at least we were in the shit together." He was right.

Military training, as anyone who has been through it, is a very demanding excercise. Basic military training in particular is tough because you're moving from the basic life of a civilian to that of a solider. The body has to go through something of a major metamorphosis. For those of us who are used to doing things like waking up at noon, army life starts out as something as a shock when you have to wake up at 0545 and are expected to be bright and energetic.

For me, this was an especially tough time. My body was used to regular bouts of beer and Hagan Daz ice cream. It never occured to me that it was necessary to do things like walk more than ten minutes let alone go for a run at 0600.

For many of us "middle class" boys, the army is also something of a social shock. In Singapore everything depends on your academic qualifications. During the last year of the A-level examinations, parents will do EVERYTHING to spare their children of distractions form getting the all important A-grades. No expense is spared into making sure that the kids have all the time they need to focus on exams. It's not just material needs that are provided for. Parents struggle and sell their souls to ensure that the kids will mix with like minded kids from similar backgrounds - kids who will be focused on their studies.

This is a world away from what basic military training is. Nice middle class kids who have never heard a swear word in their life are suddenly addressed as "chee bye" (Hokkien dialect for cunt) and the funny thing is that is usually meant as a term of affection.

If you're from a particularly religious family, life in the army can be particularly shocking. Imagine moving from an environment where the regular discussions are on Biblical meanings to one where you discuss getting Biblical knowledge of the street hookers in Geylang Lorong whatever? Sensitive souls do have it rough in the initial days of basic military training.

Having said all of that, Basic Military Training was probably my last days of innoncence. For all the "horrible" culture shocks that made the army, this was the one period in my life where the people I met and mixed with were out to help each other.

I remember being physically weak. The physical training was a bitch and part of military idea of training is to pick on the weakest guy. The idea being the others will make life miserable for you and you have every incentive to find the physical strength that you never thought you had.

Funily enough, my platoon mates never allowed me to feel like shit. Each and everyone I knew encouraged me when I was feeling rough. I was one of the few people who lived in a place that didn't start with "Blk xx" and yet I never felt resentment for being the "rich" kid who needed to be taken down a peg or two.

I look back at my experiences during BMT as happy ones because of the people I was with. It's the experience that allows me to have faith in Singaporeans no matter how awful I find many of the local attitudes may be. Somehow, I have faith that young Singaporeans have some genuine goodness somewhere in there.

Ironically, I'm saying all of this on March 9, 2012, the 15th year that has passed since the disaster in New Zealand that killed Ronnie and Yin Tit. Swift Lion was what you'd call one of those defining moments. Attending the funerals of these two kind hearted young men with so much potential whoes lives had been cut short so brutally, brought home the message that we were doing had a consequence. It was heart breaking and til this day I cannot get over the fact that despite the loss of human life, nobody in an official position took responsibility for what happened.

Yet, I can also accept that this was the last moment of innocence that we enjoyed. Army life is funny in that everything is dependent on rank. When you're a recruit, you are basically the shit that people scrape off the bottom of your shoe. When you have rank, people have to be nice to you. However, while privillege comes with rank, you suddenly discover the ugly side of things. The army, whatever anyone tells you is filled with politics and those with a bit of rank and power spend a good portion of their time trying to score points against each other. In short, the army is like nearly every work place -it's a snake pit.

I think by the time Swift Lion took place, I had been acustomed to life in the unit. The political games were part of daily life. Suddenly the accident happened and the reality that we could have been next shocked the living daylights out of us. We, for once, acted as if we were a unit.

It's now 15-years since I've left the army. Life as a one-man show in an industry dominated by big multinationals is tough and you often get to see the nasty side of people and organisations. I remember joking with Zen in her pre-Aric days that we were similar, we got fucked for a living.

I'm admitedly a lot more comfortable now than I was back in the army, but talking about those days gives me some comfort. It reminds me of my lost days of innocence when all I really worried about was doing push ups and having a laugh with friends who didn't care about your background but accepted you for being you.