Confessions of a Nicotine Addict

http://www.establishmentpost.com/confessions-nicotine-addict/

“Hello, my name is Jude, and I’m a nicotine addict.”

I’ve been addicted to cigarettes ever since it was legal for me to light up, which in Singapore is 18 years old.

“One puff and you’re hooked,” warned an old Singapore anti-smoking campaign. And it was not far from the truth. It’s a pity I was never too good at listening to authorities.

While serving in the army, cigarettes were a prized commodity that even money couldn’t buy. Indeed, “smoking is a privilege”, the instructors often reminded my fellow smokers and I – the preamble to us grovelling for a smoking break, often at the cost of extra duties, which we would gladly sacrifice for a puff.

When it was time for jungle survival training, where we were dropped individually in remote locations to fend for ourselves and live off the land, more than one of my compatriots smuggled Snickers bars to keep from starving. I smuggled in a pack of Marlboro, carefully implanted into my First Aid Dressing kit with near-surgical precision to keep from getting discovered.

“I could probably catch a fish or two, or find some edible plant roots,” I reasoned. “But what are the odds I could find a tobacco plant I could roll up and smoke?”

For years, cigarettes were my closest companions: I never left home without them; no matter if I was sad, or happy, or tired, or high, or just bored, there was always a reason to break one out of the box and light up.

Long-haul flights were my greatest fear. On a 16-hour journey to Barcelona via London, I found myself shivering from nicotine withdrawal. My face went numb, my fingers were tingling, and I could not keep awake even to enjoy the delicious inflight fare.

You could imagine my horror as I stumbled off the plane in transit, desperate to rekindle the fire of my relationship with my best friends, only to discover that London Heathrow Airport was a smoke-free facility.

Let me be clear: I did not smoke because it was cool. And I would never encourage anyone to pick up the habit. If you do not smoke, you should not start. Never mind that I smelled like an ashtray (I could hardly smell anyway, years of smoking a pack or two a day had decimated my olfactory senses), had yellowed teeth and fingers, and alternated between coughing and clearing my throat every 15 seconds.

I smoked for one simple reason: I was dependent on it. I was – and still am – a nicotine addict.

Getting Through the Vape Tape

At the nagging of the G (that’s Girlfriend, not Government), I quit smoking last year. But the nicotine withdrawal proved too much to handle, and I picked up vaping.

(Read also: “The Smoking Truth about Electronic Cigarettes”)

“What’s the damn difference?” you ask, rolling your eyes.

Well, a whole lot.

Electronic cigarettes (or vapourisers, as they are commonly known), typically use a battery-operated mod which fires up an atomiser unit. E-liquid – commonly comprising propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine, and assorted flavourings – is heated by the atomiser to release a nicotine-laced vapour that is inhaled into the lungs, not unlike with conventional cigarettes.

But without the burning as with conventional cigarettes, there is no carbon monoxide and tar. The absence of burning also means there is no choking smell of smoke, which clings to your clothes and hair. It also reduces the number of cancer-causing carcinogens and toxic chemicals that are released through burning in a cigarette. Because that is just science.

But let me be clear: vaping is certainly neither healthy nor harm-free. Nicotine is still inhaled through e-cigarettes, potentially causing addiction and vascular damage, among other side effects and risks.

And there are insufficient studies to determine the possible adverse effects vaping of chemicals such as propylene glycol has on health, let alone other unknown chemicals that could be added by e-liquid manufacturers because of a lack of government regulation.

Indeed, technological and medical advances have brought the tobacco industry to a crossroad.

Stubbing Out Conventional Cigarettes

According to media reports, the global e-cigarette market is expected to be worth some US$3.5 billion by 2015.

E-cigarette use among American high school students jumped almost tenfold from 2011-2014. Over the same period, the proportion of high schoolers who reported smoking cigarettes dropped from 15.8 per cent to 9.2 per cent, US-based public health institute Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in April.

Already, Big Tobacco has made its entry into the fast-growing e-cigarette market.

Key vendors in the e-cigarette currently include tobacco giants Altria Group, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Group, and Reynolds American.

At the same time, the tobacco industry is moving towards the creation of alternative products that purport to be less harmful than conventional cigarettes.

Philip Morris International (PMI), for example, recently launched in Milan and Nagoya a new type of cigarette, which heats tobacco rather than burning it. According to PMI’s team of research scientists, such heat-not-burn cigarettes could deliver fewer toxins than conventional sticks and more pleasure than mere vapour found in e-cigarettes.

But regardless of the science and possibility of reduced health risks for smokers, e-cigarettes and other “cancer stick” alternatives will be stubbed out following Singapore’s announced blanket ban on emerging tobacco products from Dec 15, 2015.

(Read also: “Singapore Smoking e-Cigarettes Out With Impending Tobacco Ban“)

In the face of possible reduced risk alternatives, the Republic’s impending emerging tobacco products ban is troubling. What is needed is not an outright ban, but stringent scientific testing and improved regulation put in place to ensure, for instance, that youths will not be allowed to buy these alternative tobacco products.

And yet, the G (that’s Government, not Girlfriend) has decided go for a blanket ban, and eventually move towards a smoke-free Singapore.

Meanwhile, those who choose to smoke but prefer a less harmful alternative are handed the short end of the stick: quit smoking, or continue smoking cancer-causing cigarettes – and die.

Read more: Confessions of a Nicotine Addict http://www.establishmentpost.com/confessions-nicotine-addict/#ixzz3hC3WksMt 

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Officer – Gentleman – Champion of the Working Man

Singapore’s Generals have been getting a lot of flak lately. The reason for this was simple – a recent breakdown in the MRT, which involved the CEO of the SMRT Corporation (a former 3-Star General) and the Minister of Transport (a former 2-star Admiral). Everybody in cyberspace has been quick to criticize the fact that the former military men, while having impeccable academic credentials, have simply been plonked into highly paid and high profile positions – our generals, unlike places like the US or UK, can’t even claim to have “Combat Experience.” As most Singaporeans who have served national service will point out – being a general in Singapore is easy as long as you’ve got the right papers – your promotion is guaranteed and you are actually protected from the need to prove your professional competence.

Amidst all of this, there is a Singaporean General who’s bucked the trend of negative publicity and actually gained public recognition of sorts for being – well, a good leader. I am proud to say that the general in question is my former Battery Commander, Lam Sheau Kai, and the Current Commander of Combat Service Support (CSS). General Lam, who was newly promoted this year was caught on camera doing something SAF Generals are not known for doing – sweating alongside his men – the full story can be found at http://www.allsingaporestuff.com/article/garang-saf-one-star-general-packs-countless-ndp-goodie-bags-together-his-men.

On a personal level, I’m happy that General Lam is getting the recognition he deserves. The man is a genuine walking advert for Singapore Military Leadership – he actually believes in leading by example and communicating with the men. I remember when he took over Alpha Battery of 23 SA back in 1996/97. He started using Hokkien (main dialect of Singapore’s Chinese population). For the officers and specialist of the battery, he ended the practice is pointless endurance meetings – he meant it when he stated that he believed that any meeting above an hour was unproductive. More importantly, he took made it a point of knowing us on a personal level. Interviewed me several times when I asked him to be my referee for university.

I know the man well enough to say that the online story that’s boosting his image is not one that he created. I know him well enough to know that he started helping the men pack the NDP Fun Packs (over 1 million packs that need to be packed before August) because he genuinely believes he needs to work with the men to lead the men.

Other that, I’m not going to publicise General Lam as I believe he’d be most horrified by my efforts to sing his praises. Instead, I believe there’s a happier picture in the sudden boost to his online fame.

The fact is, General Lam is leading the least glamourous and therefore the most overlooked side of the army. Combat Support Services involves the guys like store men, drivers and cooks. These are the guys who work hard to ensure that the frontline troops get to where they need to, are well fed and have the right equipment. In short, they provide the necessary services but the ones nobody wants to do.

The army isn’t the only place where such people exist. Just think of the medical profession where everyone wants to become a doctor but nobody wants to become a nurse. The doctors get the glory for curing the patient but it’s the nurses who take care of the patient from the point of entry into the hospital or clinic and doctors often work on the information provided by the nurses. Healthcare, as they say, is actually run by the nurses.

In the media business there is something similar. Everyone wants to be a reporter and to be the character that breaks the story and gets his or her name mentioned. What nobody talks about is the fact that it is sub-editors who bring the paper out by acting as final check of facts, grammar and so on. It’s the subs who come up with the headlines that we all read but they never get the recognition for it.

Life is filled with people who do tough and menial jobs that are essential to keep things going. Yet, more often than not, everyone forgets about them.

I see General Lam’s online praise as something that goes beyond the man himself. It’s like – finally, the people behind the scenes getting praised.

Think of it, we’re going to be having a huge National Day Parade this year to celebrate our 50 Years as an Independent Nation. Much will be made of the fireworks display and the exhibits. The parade commander will be the centre of National Attention and everyone will be watching the Guard of Honour. Nobody will think of the guys who made it all happen behind the scene.

Well, it looks like that might change thanks to General Lam and his team. Thank goodness some attention will be focused on the people who made it happen. It’s about time someone remembered the people who make things happen behind the scenes. 

It just takes a match

There is a video going round cyberspace, which has proven to be a very instructive guide into the state of race relations in Singapore. The video was taken on an MRT and it shows an elderly Caucasian man behaving in an abusive manner towards an unseen Singaporean teenager. Finally another commuter has had enough and tells the old geezer where to get off. The police then get involved and the old man and the commuter who stood up for the victim are called off the train. The video of the incident can be seen at http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2015/07/abusive-man-on-train-told-off-by-commuter/.

What has been encouraging about this incident has been the fact that is has created a new hero for the people. The man who confronted the abusive passenger appears to be Malay, while the victim of the abuse appears to be Chinese. In the 14-years since I’ve moved back, 

I’ve found very little imagery of Malays in Singapore being portrayed as heroes for the majority Chinese population. September 11 didn’t help either. If you read official statements on “Malay-Muslims” you’ll often find that there’s an underlying message – “Ditch the religion – get with the program.” Talk to enough Singaporean Chinese and you’ll find that there’s still a huge misunderstanding of the Malay Community – whatever the PAP government may tell you.

So, this situation being broadcast all over the social media couldn’t come at a better time. Singapore needs to see the Malay community as being part of the wider community. The majority, especially the Western Educated need to see that Malays and Indians are on the same side as everyone else. The best part about the whole situation was the fact that the young man was humble enough to point out that he was merely standing up for someone else’s rights as a citizen.

It didn’t help that the abusive Old Man was a White Englishman, thus adding to the potentially combustible situation of race relations. You could say that this man was a yob and would probably have been an abusive arsehole in England too.

However, he wasn’t caught being abusive in England, he was caught being abusive in Singapore, which as much as many Singaporeans may not like to admit, is part of Asia and in Asia, the colour of your skin does determine where people fit in.

Generally speaking, Singaporeans, like other Asian tend to give Caucasians plenty of leeway. I remember a publisher of a series of magazines describing a good friend of mine as being, “The living example of the sad fact that Asians simply cannot see beyond White Skin.” Part of the reason for this lies in the fact that we were once a colony. As the late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew said in his biography, “The superiority of the White Man was a fact of life.”

Our economic miracle also enforced the position that White people were the natural leaders in culture and economics. While the majority of post-colonial societies screwed themselves by being culturally proud, we in Singapore sold ourselves to White Colonial multinationals and prospered.

While the majority of White Expatriates are decent and hardworking people, Singaporeans have been trained from birth to think of them as the bringers of all things good. We are prosperous because they made us so goes the rationale. Ironically, this rationale has grown stronger among Asians as it has dwindled among Caucasians.

So, while the majority of Caucasians in Asia are decent people (including many of my friends), the system does encourage the week minded among the community to develop superiority complexes.

Doesn’t help that the law of the land tends to be applied differently when it comes to people of the fairer complexion. I know of an Afrikaner who got his employment pass approved the moment the immigration authorities understood that South African did not necessarily mean the man was black. Think of how quickly the police work to corner Indian and Bangladeshi workers sitting in a corner minding their own business and by comparison seem powerless to do anything when Caucasians physically assault Singaporeans (they are less powerless when Singaporeans assault Caucasians.).

This incident proved that things might be changing. If cyberspace is an indication of things, the public is getting loss tolerant of yob like behavior – even from Caucasians.

Which leads to a more worrying point. The crowd on the MRT remind silent while the old man hurled abuse and threatened the young man. It was as if they were cowed. Then when it someone took the step of standing up to the bully, the entire train erupted – you could actually hear people yelling, ”Go back to you own country.”

This type of emotion is dangerous. It’s the type of thing that skillful demagogues thrive on. A mob, as one author described, is not a collection of people but a single entity. Logic and reason do not exist within the mob.

It took one guy to be different and suddenly the crowd which was passive became emotional. In this case it didn’t go beyond a few shouts – but what if it did?

This video has remained largely confined to cyberspace but Singapore’s social planners need to look at this incident more carefully. There are pent up emotions and there needs to be a way of letting these emotions subside or be released. If they are ignored, who knows what will set them off into something more drastic. 

Why Shouldn't Adam and Steve Tie the Knot?

Last week’s hottest news item was the historical decision by the United States Supreme Court to declare the concept of Gay Marriage constitutional. In that decision, the nine justices who make up the Supreme Court declared that homosexual people were legally allowed to wed and to live in holy matrimony.

As expected, the decision provoked intense feelings on both sides of the debate. The liberals celebrated this as a victory of constitutional liberation. The religious right claimed this was a sign that God’s wrath was about to descend on earth. The extremely religious in America even went as far as to leave Tweet in cyberspace declaring that they would immigrate to Australia, while the more liberal parts of Australia was aghast that such “hateful” people were about to descend upon them.

Here in Singapore, we tried to ignore the issue and to follow the Prime Minister’s advice that for now, “legal ambiguity is best.” The official stance is that Singapore remains too conservative a society to grant the homosexuals such freedoms but we’ll wait and see how things turn out.

Personally, I don’t see how secular societies can deny homosexuals the right to marry. One doesn’t need to be a “Champion” of Gay causes to see that there is no rational or legally defensible argument against allowing members of the “LGBT” community to tie the knot.

Ironically, the person who best makes the case for homosexual marriage is Professor Thio Li-Ann, Singapore’s most famous “homophobe.” In her 2007 speech in Singapore’s Parliament, Professor Thio declared that, “Homosexuals are not entitled to special rights, they are only entitled to the rights that the rest of us enjoy.”

Let’s think about this, every heterosexual has the right to sign a piece of paper and in many cases, go through a ceremony to tell the world that they want to spend the rest of their lives with a particular person.

Now, if this is an “ordinary” right for heterosexual people, why should it be any different for homosexual people? If you strip marriage down to its basics, you’d realise that what the homosexual community is asking for is merely the right to legally live with a single person for the rest of their lives.

In her 2007 speech, Professor Thio went on to cement the case for “Gay Marriage” when she declared that homosexuals tended to be more promiscuous than heterosexuals.

Professor Thio’s comments are probably a sweeping generalization about the homosexual community (there are at the time of writing no statistics to prove the point), but she has a point. If homosexuals, as Professor Thio says, more likely to promiscuous than heterosexuals and therefore more likely to endanger public health, isn’t the obvious course of action to encourage homosexuals to be less promiscuous?

The record of “marriage” as an institution is not good when it comes to keeping people sexually loyal to each other. However, it is currently the only institution that human societies have that encourages sexual fidelity. So, what is stopping us from expanding this institution to encourage greater sexual fidelity?

Then there are the economic benefits of “Gay Marriage.” Heterosexual marriages are big enough business and if we were able to throw in the homosexual variety, think of how many more times we can expand the industry?

Saying that we should ban something just because it is “not natural” or that “people disapprove” is short sighted. When you think of the social and economic benefits that allowing gay marriages would bring, there’s n reason why we shouldn’t have it around. 

When the Problem isn't the Unelected but the Elected.....

For those who know me, this might come as something of an unusual piece to bash together. Everyone who knows me well enough often complains that I have a peculiar aversion to authority and established norms. You could say that my natural inclinations are towards street fighters and other hot heads. I went to school in England and instead of becoming an Anglophile, I became more enamored of the Yellow and Brown people who got rid their native lands of colonial rule. Although a good portion of the good things I enjoy are as a result of being born into Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore, the South East Asian I admire most was never Mr. Lee; it was Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. Mr. Lee was merely a British colonial administrator of a different colour. By contrast, Mr. Ho was something I could look up to – he overthrew the established orders on the battlefield. He was the little Asian man in black pajamas who drove out the French colonial order and ensured that both the USA and PRC got a bloody nose for trying to invade Vietnam.

So, for someone who has a natural tendency towards figures who smash up establish orders, it may come as something as shock that I’ve always been sympathetic to monarchies and monarchs. While every logical cell in the brain tells me that the monarchy is something of an outdated concept of governance, there’s also something very compelling about it. Let’s put it this way, a “King” sounds more impressive than a “President.” I don’t think I’m the only individual to be fascinated by “Kings” and “Monarchy.” Just listen to the way Americans, the people who came into being by getting rid of a “Royal Family,” speak of how families like the “Kennedy’s” are their version of the “Royal Family.”

Generally speaking, nobody in the Western world would probably go back to the concept of “Absolute Monarchy.” The system of “democracy” has proven to be a decent enough system of allowing talented people to rise to the top and more importantly, it has provided the only effective system of removing incompetent government in a bloodless manner (losing an election is more peaceful than say a coup).

Having said all that, there’s something to be said for the unelected silver tea spoons that countries call monarchies. I look at the British monarchy as an example. You could say that the monarchy gives the people a sense of stability that the elected politicians fail to deliver.

You look at people like Prince Charles and you end up having more admiration for them than many of the politicians that get voted in. Prince Charles may have terrible taste in women (the man who threw out a beautiful blonde for an old hag,) but he’s also stood for principles that the people so admire. I take his refusal to attend State Dinners of visiting Chinese dignitaries and deploring them as “dreadful wax works” at the moment when every British politician is “kissing arse” in Beijing. He’s Princes Trust has put an untold number of homeless people to work and you got to give it to him for handing over a portion of his income to the treasury when he didn’t have to.

Prince Charles or at least the reports I read of him, is a man of principle. My mother thinks he’s the best reason to restore the absolute monarchy – her argument is that whoever is in power is going to screw it up anyway, so you might as well go for the guy whose heart is in the right place.

Here in Southeast Asia, the monarchs have actually been essential in protecting the people from their elected representatives.

The most prominent example is that of Thailand’s King Bhumibol. Under the Thai constitution, the King has no formal powers. Yet, the King has behaved in a way that has given him tremendous moral power (OK, Thailand has strict Les Majeste laws that make criticism of the King a crime and nobody doubts that there’s been a good amount of media/ image manipulation but by and large nobody doubts that the people’s love for the king is genuine.)

I think of 1992 when the then military government decided to gun down protestors in public view. It was the King who stepped in and saw to it that democracy was restored.

I also think of the way in which the King berated Thailand’s judges for allowing Thai Rak Thai to run in a snap election in 2006 where it was the only party running (the others boycotted it thinking it was a Thakshin trick). His exact words were, “How can there be an election with ONLY ONE party – that IS NOT DEMOCRATIC.” Ironically, the unelected monarch’s views would be spoken a few months before Singapore’s elected politicians proceeded to explain how their version of democracy with only one party running was special and uniquely Asian.

Further South, in Malaysia, the institution of the monarchy has achieved a similar feet with the spat between Johor’s Crown Prince Tunku Ismail questioned the Prime Minister for not showing up at event that questioned a corruption scandal. When a Minister berated the Crown Prince for meddling in politics, the Prince replied that the Minister was a Minister and NOT GOD and should remember that he was there to serve the people – this has drawn the masses to the palace shouting “Dauluat Tuanku.”(I think the closest translation is “Long Live the King.”)

This is not to say that Southeast Asia’s royals are saints. The Malaysian Royals used to be known for abusing their status of being above the law. Something which was eventually removed. Just as Thailand’s king is revered, the Crown Prince is known as something of a crook.

However, as far as a good number in Southeast Asia are concerned, the problem in Southeast Asia is not so much unelected Royals but politicians that nobody can get rid of.

So here lies an interesting question? Why is it that various royals have found themselves being thrust in the role of guardians of democracy? 

I like to think that elite (What is a Royal except the pinnacle of elite) upbringing does involve instilling a sense that privilege involves care for the less fortunate rather than being something that one is entitled to. I think of my own upbringing in a minor Public School in the UK. We were told that we were privileged to attend the school that we went to and we had to work to justify the said privilege. As another person who had been to a similar school to mine said, “The Public School system trains you to get along with people of all backgrounds.”

One of Asia’s most ancient text is the Ramayana. The young Rama who is groomed to be a king is told that, “A King is greater than a normal man – therefore his responsibilities are greater.” The Ramayana latter tells of how Rama has to send his much loved wife Siti away because he overhears one of his citizens complaining that the king is effectively living with an adulteress.

This is of course an ideal. History has shown that Kingship has produced a series of horrible leaders who have screwed up the nations they were meant to lead for their personal gain. The Romans had to get rid of their kings because they guys were a useless bunch who thought it was quite acceptable to plunder the city they were supposed to rule.

So, ironically, the removal of political power from monarchs might actually have been good for them. Once they were without power, the Royals had to find a reason to exist. The ones who were thrust into the lime light had to find something to do and new purpose. If money is no object, what better way can one create a purpose for oneself than to “care for the people.”

By contrast, the elected politicians succumbed to the same problem that monarchs used to have – entitlement to wealth and power. In Malaysia, the ruling party has remained in the same hands for over fifty years. While Singapore’s government has a better track record of governance, there are people in Singapore who would argue that our politicians something forget that their jobs are not an entitlement.

Let’s look at India as another example. India had Maharajah’s who had untold wealth and power. When they stripped of their wealth and power, they had to reinvent themselves. Many became businessmen renting out palaces and a few of them actually did good things. The new “Royals” became people like the “Gandhi-Nehru” dynasty, which an Indian friend of mine described as the biggest curse to India.

Or let’s go further north to the Himalayas. In Bhutan, it was an absolute monarch who brought in democracy and rule by the people to guarantee their wellbeing. The Dalai Lama, by tradition and belief did the same for the Tibetan people in exile. Contrast that to Nepal’s royals who thought they could seize absolute power, screwed up the people and were abolished accordingly. Incidentally, Nepal’s politicians haven’t done much better.

While one may not always appreciate monarchies for what they do, its perhaps time for us to acknowledge that they can be institutions for good.  Unchecked power in perpetuity for any particular group has never been known to be healthy. This has been true of whether its Royals or politicians. While one has to applaud the way in which the reinvented Royal Families have stood for the people against the tyranny of entitled politicians, it would nice if Asia as continent could find ways of strengthening institutions and establishing better rules of law that go beyond particular individuals.  

Fighting is OK provided the other guy doesn’t hit back

Personally I don’t like Amos Yee, the 16-year old who posted a Youtube rant cursing the late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and the even later Jesus Christ. The kid has a smug look on his face and when he opens his mouth there’s the temptation to shut it with your fist. I’m going to exercise my right to be a prick but I’ll say – he’s got a face that’s looking for a good beating.

Unlike my fellow bloggers, I don’t want to turn him into some sort of martyr for free speech. I’d rather turn my attentions to people who are well….more sympathetic.

Unfortunately, the government has decided that Singapore needs a new martyr and so, in the wake of ensuring young Amos gets jail time for his online rants, they decided to slap another teenager who did something far worse with 10-days in detention.

Daryl Lim decided that he was bored and it would be laugh to try and beat up a couple of foreign workers. One fine day, young Mr. Lim and his mates decided to beat the crap out of a 48-year old Chinese National and then do a runner.

For beating the shit out of someone, young Daryl was sentenced to 10 days in detention and despite being involved in four incidents between September and October 2014, the judge decided that reformative training wasn’t necessary and somehow his probation officer decided the risk of him reoffending was rather low.

So here you have it – jail time for a kid who behaved stupidly online and as slap on the wrist for a young hooligan. What’s going on here?

Well, let’s start with the obvious. Although most sensible people would say that Amos’s actions were the lesser of two evils, he made the mistake of offending the powerful. Both Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and Jesus may have gone to their graves (Christians would argue that Jesus has gone further – he’s ascended to heaven and Mr. Lee did say he’ll raise again if he thinks Singapore is screwing up)  both have power beyond the grave. If you insult Jesus, you could be striking up communal tensions. If you insult the late Mr. Lee you risk endangering Singapore’s social fabric. Hence, although young Amos kept his comments to cyberspace, he was deemed the greater threat.

Young Daryl by contrast realized that nobody really gives a shit if you beat the crap out of foreign workers. A few members of the Ka-ni-na and Pundek families might actually cheer you on from the sidelines for teaching those PRC’s and Kelings a thing or two about taking jobs from Singaporeans and daring to think they’re entitled to ride on the MRT alongside the respective Pundek’s and Ka-ni-na’s (Pundeks an d Ka-Ni-Na’s forget that unlike the foreign workers they don’t actually do work hence they’re in no danger of having their jobs stolen – that is if you consider drinking all day a job - oh wait, the workers buy their own beer)

So when you look at things this way, are we surprised that Amos got the book thrown at him and Daryl got a slap on the wrist?  

I’m no lawyer but I think something is very wrong with this outlook on life. We’re supposed to be better than this and I’m offended that Daryl thinks he and I are both Singaporeans.

We’re a nation that supposedly prides itself on equality before the law. We’re supposed to be the society that rewards people for working hard and for having fire in your belly. We beat our chest about how we’re the small nation that defied the odds and earned the respect of the world. We talk about how much we punch above our weight.

Yet, when these glaring comparisons happen, I got to ask myself, are we really the nation that claims to be what it is? I’m rather inclined to think that we’re a nation that only knows how to fight against people who can’t fight back. 

The Prince

Singapore’s Founding Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew was laid to rest on Sunday, 29 March 2015. The ceremony marked the end of an incredible week for Singapore. Nobody, including the government lead by the late Mr. Lee’s son expected the sudden outpouring of grief from the public. The government, which had a worldwide reputation for efficiency, found itself challenged managing the logistics of dealing with the crowds of people who gave up their working day to pay respects to the man.

Suddenly, everybody remembered the great things that Mr. Lee had done. He had, as many people said, brought us up from the swamp of third world poverty to a thriving metropolis. There were of course, one or two voices that talked about his darker side; the people he locked up without trial or had been sued into bankruptcy but other than the odd voices, Singaporeans were content to deify Mr. Lee.

When I read through the online comments from friends, the news reports and clips of his old rallies, I’m inclined to ask myself, who was the real Mr. Lee. Was he the saint who devoted his life to the betterment of the people, or was he a power hungry maniac who kept the people under his thumb? I believe the truth lies somewhere in between.

Let’s start with the obvious – Mr. Lee was a natural politician who recognized power and relished it. For the man, power was not about enriching himself or his family – it was there to be used by him to the fullest extent. Mr. Lee had a genius for moving the masses, either through himself or his deputies and he had an equal if not greater genius for playing the great powers. At times, it seemed that he understood the ground in big Western democracies better than the leaders of the said democracies. Mr. Lee could afford to have an American teenager canned for vandalism despite protest from the US President – the reason was simple, Mr. Lee ensured that the average citizen in the USA agreed with him. Likewise, the same was true when an Australian citizen was hanged for drug trafficking despite protest from the Australian government.

While Mr. Lee claimed that his favourite sage was Confucius, the truth was that he was, by his own admission, a student of Niccolo Machiavelli, who argued that it was better for a leader to be feared than loved. You could say that Mr. Lee was the “Prince” that Machiavelli wrote about (The comparison is apt, Singapore is by geographical size is similar to the Italian City States in Machiavelli’s day.) The “Good Life” that Singaporeans enjoy comes from the fact that Mr. Lee understood power.

The fact that Mr. Lee loved power is obvious. His early political career was spent maneuvering between Communist (mainly from Singapore’s majority Chinese population) and ultra-nationalist in Malaysia. The Colonial power of the region, the British had no interest and money to maintain the protection he needed and the new power, the USA had other priorities. Mr. Lee had to find a way of taking on and winning against ruthless opponents who had more resources.

However, when he had defeated his early enemies, it seemed that he missed the “fight to the death” challenges of his early career. Opposition politicians were ruthlessly crushed for the mere crime of being politicians who disagreed with him. Nobody ever thought that JB Jeyeratnam was a threat in the same way that the Communist were but Mr. Lee made it a point to use every trick in the book and the vastly increased resources of the state to ensure that Mr. Jeyeratnam would die a poor and broken old man.

Mr. Lee justified his ruthlessness in the name of National Security. It was better to crush Marxist and Islamist than to risk the nation being destroyed and dragged into conflicts. However, one has to ask if it was really necessary to hound even old allies like Devan Nair for the crime of having a disagreement?

Mr. Lee’s love for power and political fights and maneuvering was however, matched by wisdom and the understanding that it was better to have people working with you rather than against you. Being ruthless was necessary to get power and to maintain it. However, Mr. Lee understood that being ruthless was only one aspect of power.

For one, he understood that he needed the people on his side. He had the strength of character to allow competent deputies like Goh Keng Swee and S. Rajaratnam to do the work unhindered by political considerations and money worries. They worried about implementing ground policies and he worried about the politics. It was a combination that worked.

It worked for the simple reason, the lives of the people improved and the majority of his government’s policies proved to be correct. Singapore’s GDP per capita figures have become a religious mantra for the government and Singapore’s prosperity is not just in its statistics. Singapore remains a beacon of what a country should be to many in the region.

Mr. Lee’s success for Singapore turned out to be a model for the rest of the world. In the end, he was not only mourned in Singapore but in India and New Zealand, which both flew their flags at half mast.

In the end, Mr. Lee was a force of good for Singapore. He was by no means a Saint and you could say he did a few things that you could call diabolical. But in the end, Singaporeans have benefited from his leadership and for that we should be thankful. 

Harry’s Unexpected Lessons.

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore first Prime Minister died peacefully in the early hours of the 23^rd of March 2015. The tributes have been coming in and Singapore’s cyberspace has been ablaze with comments about Mr. Lee’s leadership and how he brought Singapore from third world to first.

Now that Mr. Lee has gone, it seems like a good time to ask ourselves what were the things that made Mr. Lee the leader that he was. Many have talked about his brilliance and his passion for Singapore. There are comments about how he led us into independence and how we thrived despite all the odds against a small nation surviving. There are of course certain less charitable comments that pointed out to Mr. Lee’s ruthlessness and the way he obliterated people into bankruptcy and ruin. There were also comments about how he claimed the credit for work that was done by others, namely his deputy Goh Keng Swee.

There’s a certain amount of truth in all these comments and I believe that this enough reason to see how all his qualities made him the success that he was. Here are some of the key factors that I believe made him what he was:

Change the Dream!

Much is said about how Mr. Lee Kuan Yew led us to independence. However, the truth is rather different. Mr. Lee in his biography, “From Third World to First” states very clearly that independence was something that was “Thrust upon Singapore.” He even went as far as to describe the idea of an independent Singapore as a “ridiculous notion.”

The idea for Mr. Lee was simple, Singapore would be a thriving part of Malaysia. He saw Singapore as a city that would be the dynamo in a thriving country called Malaysia, filled with natural resources and space. You could say that Mr. Lee’s vision would be something like Dubai, a prosperous and thriving metropolis within the larger entity of the UAE.

However, this wasn’t to be. The Federal Powers in KL thought that Mr. Lee was too much of a trouble maker and kicked Singapore out of the Federation. Suddenly, Singapore was thrust out on its own and Mr. Lee and his team had to find a way of surviving. – The rest as they say is history.

Adapt yourself to the Market

It makes me laugh when Singaporeans make it a point not to speak Mandarin as a way of distinguishing themselves from PRC Chinese. Competence in English has served Singapore well but to ignore the world’s largest market in the world seems rather ridiculous.

Lee Kuan Yew didn’t believe in cutting of his nose to spite his face. If anything, .Mr. Lee proved to be exceedingly adaptable to market conditions, especially when you look at the way he returned back from England and found that his “own kind,” the English educated didn’t start revolutions or get involved in political activity, particularly against the colonial power that they had grown to identify with.

Mr. Lee had never spoken a word of Mandarin or any Chinese dialect prior to his return from studies in the UK. To him, it he wanted to speak “English like an Englishman.” Like the Peranakan (Straits Chinese), Mr. Lee’s language was English and Malay. To the Peranakan’s, the Chinese dialects and Mandarin were languages of the street not of the elite and therefore not something that was learnt.

However, Mr. Lee understood that if he wanted to get into power, he would have to reach the man in the street. To this end, Mr. Lee made it a point to teach himself Mandarin and Hokkien (Dialect of Fujian province, the province when most ethnic Singaporean Chinese come from) in the space of a few months. Not only did he learn to speak both languages, he found the ability to move crowds in languages that were not his own.

Mr. Lee knew what he wanted and he was willing to go beyond his comfort zone. He understood that the Chinese educated and Chinese speaking masses were the key to getting into power and so he did what he needed to do to reach them.

Give Brilliant People a Free Reign.

Much is now being said of how the real architect behind Singapore’s success was Dr. Goh Keng Swee. To an extent it was. Dr. Goh was the man who built up institutions like the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) and the Economic Development Board (EDB).

While there is no doubt that Dr. Goh did the work, we have to remember that government isn’t always about achieving the best outcomes but about achieving them despite the opposition to them. 

When business people talk about results they usually mean who makes the most money. When politicians talk about results, they usually talk about compromise.

In the case of Singapore, Dr. Goh managed to do what he did without compromising his plans. The reason for this was simple – he didn’t have to fight political battles. His boss did it for him.

Mr. Lee had the strength of character to surround himself with highly brilliant people. He had, by own admission, huge rows with his cabinet colleagues and somehow, when they could convince them of what they proposed, he would back them to the hilt. The Lee-Goh team was good for Singapore because their strengths complimented each other. Mr. Lee left the policy details to Dr. Goh, but Dr. Goh needed Mr. Lee to keep the politics of his back.

It did help that his cabinet colleagues knew who was boss. Dr. Goh was a powerful deputy Prime Minister because he didn’t have ambitions for his boss’s job. Mr. Lee didn’t have to look over his back for a deputy with eye on his job.

Having a good team is not enough. You have to be able to utilize their talents and in this respect, Mr. Lee was brilliant. He was willing to invite ideas from experts like Dr. Albert Winsemius and to let competent deputies like Dr. Goh to run with things. Mr. Lee’s genius was in utilizing other people’s brilliance for his own end.

Stabilise the Home.

One of the most overlooked aspects of Mr. Lee was the fact that he stabilized his home. Mr. Lee did his job free of worry about what was going on in his home.

Mrs. Lee, who was Mr. Lee’s intellectual equal and some say his superior, kept a low profile. He was always the star of the show. She ensured that the children were well brought up and domestic issues would never disturb the man from his job.

The Lee family has remained low profile despite the power awarded to them. Unlike the Suharto’s of Indonesia, the family never allowed itself to be associated with the less pleasant things of the power they’ve enjoyed.

Lee Kuan Yew died a respected part of the country he created. When you think of how his contemporaries like Marcos (exile) and Suharto (house arrest) died, that is an achievement. May Mr. Lee rest in peace.   

Life after Harry

The Chinese Year of the Goat is starting on a rather auspicious note for Singapore. The Goat Year, which is supposed to be a fairly gentle year, started out with the news that Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew had been taken to hospital and is now on “life support.” While we should wish Mr. Lee a recovery, we are witnessing an end of an era. Mr. Lee has been visibly frail since the death of his wife in 2010 and at the age of 91, he’s lived beyond the two score and ten recommended by the Bible. His passing should be something that we expect.

While Mr. Lee has remained out of the public eye since he resigned from the Cabinet after the 2011 Election, he’s been the driving force of modern Singapore. I remember a prominent journalist describing as the “Era of Lee Kuan Yew,” and he went on stress that this was despite the fact that, “Lee Hsien Loong [Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s son] is now the Prime Minister and Goh Chok Tong was the Prime Minister for 14-years.”

Mr. Lee was our first Prime Minister. He and his initial governments played a role in creating the policies and institutions that have made Singapore what it is. Mr. Lee was a great visionary. He insisted on things like integrity in the public service and promotion by merit.

Not only was Mr. Lee a visionary, but he also had the rare gift of being a visionary with a pragmatic streak. He had the good sense to surround himself with competent deputies like Goh Keng Swee and Rajaratnam. Mr Lee fought the political battles and allowed his deputies (especially Dr. Goh) to get on with the work.

The results of his vision and pragmatism are visible. Singapore is now a thriving, prosperous, green and safe metropolis. Despite its limited geography, Singapore is held up as a model of what a city should be. The emerging Asian giants, China and India have sent government officials to Singapore to study how Mr. Lee did. India’s recently elected Prime Minister, Narendra Modhi is a fan of Mr. Lee.

While Mr. Lee did some nasty things like ruin his political opponents (there are political prisoners who have been incarcerated longer than either Nelson Mandela or Ang Sung Su Kyi), he has been on the whole a good force for Singapore. Let’s face it, Singapore measures up pretty well in just about everything and these days that comparison is not with third world backwaters like Angola but with the developed nations of the West like the USA and members of the European Union.

So, why aren’t Singaporeans, especially the younger generation showing much emotion over the possible demise of the man who was probably the root cause of the good life that they enjoy.

My personal feeling is that Mr. Lee forgot one of the most important lessons of business – never fall in love with your own business. The man who made “succession planning” and obsession couldn’t help but to create consultancy positions in the cabinet of his successors. He was Mr. Goh Chok Tong’s “Senior Minister,” and then, when his own son took over, he became the “Minister Mentor,” or the man they still needed around to “mentor” the people he chose to run the country.

While nobody can doubt Mr. Lee’s wisdom and the fact that he’s been right about so many of the crucial issues, there comes a point when one forgets that times change and the methods that worked yesterday may not work today. You could say that Mr. Lee was the father of the nation and he was the father that forgot that the children had grown up.

One of the most common failings was to stick onto the myth that he and his party created – they were the party that brought the nation from swamp to thriving metropolis in a generation.

While the PAP and Mr. Lee deserve credit for bringing Singapore up in the world, the message had become lost on a generation that never lived through things like the Japanese Occupation or the riots of the 60s. There’s no point telling a retrenched manager with a mortgage and family to feed that he has it easy when compared to the generation that survived the Japanese occupation. What he wants is to find a way of making a living so he can feed the family.

There were also times when the obsession with the past record was more than just out of touch – it was self-serving. One of the worst moments came when Mr. Lee proceeded to sold Singaporeans for being complacent about national security when there were calls for the Minister in charge of national security to resign after that Minister allowed a terrorist to waltz out of a secured facility. Mr. Lee was known for being ruthless with his own ministers in extracting the highest standards and competence and integrity. Suddenly he was proudly defending the incompetence of his son’s ministers. To a generation of Singaporeans who had grown up thinking of Mr. Lee as a great man who did things for the nation, this was a rude shock. Had he grown to love his power more than his people?

As a young Singaporean, I find Mr. Lee’s demise sad but hopeful. The man had faults and his frailties. These weaknesses have damaged certain aspects of Singapore. However, when you compare him to his contemporaries in Southeast Asia, he did place some safeguards against himself. Singapore’s elections are really run in a “free and fair manner” (the ballot is secret, even if the ruling party may like you to think otherwise.) Mr. Lee did step aside in 1991, unlike Suharto who had to be pushed and confined to house arrest or Marcos who had to flee the nation.

 If one looks at Mr. Lee’s family, you have to hand it to him for ensuring they stayed in line and played by the rules. Our current Prime Minister was required to take the same exams that everyone else took. As a reservist colonel pointed out, “Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Hsien Yang went to OCS (Officer Cadet School) and trained – they did not get 12-year deferments of National Service and then got posted to study soil.” The Elder Mr. Lee has kept certain things in line, which many of his contemporaries did not – one only has to go back to how the Suharto family seemed to own as well as run Indonesia.

You could say Mr. Lee’s problem was to set high standards for public officials and the angst that many Singaporeans feel towards the once almighty government is the fact that they feel its moved away from the standards that Mr. Lee set.

It would take courage to admit this but should any government recognize and act of these mistakes, they would have secured Mr. Lee’s decent legacy for the betterment of Singapore.

When You Invade Us it’s a Crime. When We Invade You – It’s called Liberation.

I’m not American but I have family from the States, so you could say that I have something of a special relationship with America. American and Americans have been a “blessing” to my personal life. By some twist of fate, my mother remarried, Lee, my first stepfather and that provided me with the experience of growing up in the West. My Dad remarried Nora and that gave me a special relationship with Chicago. As I’ve grown older, I’ve found myself getting closer to my American siblings Tara (Mum’s daughter with Lee) and Max (Dad’s son with Nora). My American families (yes, I can claim more than one) rock!

Without descending into mindless patriotism for my American family and friends, I do believe America deserves the title of “Greatest Nation” in history. The USA is the only nation that I can think of that was founded on the right of the individual to pursue happiness – it even says so in the Constitution. That little idea spread around the world and has helped unleash more prosperity and scientific innovation that has raised the human standard of living beyond anything before it. American power is not just about corporations or the military but also in its universities, which are centres of excellence. While America may have an inequality issue, it remains the one place that rewards excellence and so continues to rule.

While I have fond feelings for America and Americans in general, I’ve noticed that a worrying trend of late. American politicians and corporate types seem to be developing a rather entitled world view. One only has to think of the way in which American bankers (encouraged by the American media) were happy to lecture South East Asia about the need to let bad banks go bankrupt back in the Asian financial crisis of 1997. A decade later, what were the Americans doing but bailing out banks that had criminally taken money from hard working Americans and lending it to their cronies who then proceeded to invest the proceeds in bonuses for – themselves.

I don’t dispute that it was important to let Asia’s bad banks go under. Many had made bad investment decisions, often shoveling money to the dubious scams of the well connected. Life is that simple, when you do something wrong, you face the music and that was the case for many of the businesses in the region.

But why didn’t the same medicine apply to America? Well, there was this phrase called “Too Big to Fail.” Translation – there would be too many finance types looking for jobs and that would be somehow bad for the world?

I guess there’s some justification to protecting the greed and stupidity of an elite few in the same way that American politicians justify invading other people. Think of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, which was sold as “Liberation” of Iraq. Yes, they got rid of Saddam but the Iraqi’s didn’t quite see it that way and started shooting back at American troops. Net result – ISIS.

By some strange logic, the American politicians who invaded Iraq to “Liberate” (we’re doing you a favour by bombing you) were quick to denounce the evils of Vladimir Putin who managed to annex the Crimea (majority population ethnic Russian) without firing a shot. Not sure how that worked but apparently Putin is wrong for doing what America did….

In the latest round of American corporate humbug, you have the American airlines – specifically Delta, United, Continental and American Airlines whining about how Emirates, the plucky little airline from Dubai is stealing customers through unfair government subsidies.

Thankfully, the Chairman of Emirates, HRH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, has a simple message for his detractors – “offer the best to passengers and people will fly with you.”

Emirates is an affordable airline. I prefer to fly Emirates when I go back to Europe. Service is good and the planes are well kept. By contrast, Delta, United, Continental and American Airlines offer miserable service. Is anyone surprised that they’re losing customers to Emirates?

America, as I’ve said on so many times is great and as a nation it’s been a force of good. However, American corporate honchos and politicians need to understand that there are no entitlements in the real world. Asians, Africans and Europeans have a religious duty to ensure that Americans (particularly the White variety) don’t get their way automatically. It’s the only way you make the world a better place. 

The Cautious Captain Who Got the Ship Between the Rock and Hard Place

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud died last Friday (23 January 2015) of old age. The desert monarch had ruled the desert kingdom for a better of a decade and had found himself playing a very unique role in what is one of the most turbulent regions of the world. World leaders like US President Barak Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel paid tribute to him as leader with vision, courage of conviction and a reformer who supported women’s rights. At the other end of the spectrum human rights groups lambasted the man for keeping women’s rights down and there were those who called him an “A Zionist Agent who kept his fellow Muslims poor.” (Didn’t help that one of the tributes came from Israel’s president).

The demise of King Abdullah comes at an “interesting” time for Saudi Arabia. At the time of writing, the price of oil has dropped tremendously and after years of budgetary surplus, the Kingdom now faces a few years of deficit. The world media has made much of the fact that the Kingdome faces the fanatics of ISIS on its northern border with Iraq and a resurgent Al Qaeda in the southern border with Yemen. Youth employment remains stubbornly high. King Abdullah’s legacy will perhaps be judged by the way Saudi Arabia deals with these issues.

I personally hope that Saudi Arabia makes it through and that the new King Salman finds the wisdom and ability to do what needs to be done. For all that it said of Saudi Arabia, it remains the country that gave me my proudest moment as a PR professional when I assisted Dr. Amin Kurdi, the former Saudi Ambassador to Singapore in the smooth running of the visit of the late Prince Sultan to Singapore in 2006.

I remember that job as being one of the most of the most challenging for the very fact that I stood in between a host of conflicting interest. There was a cultural clash between the Saudi and Singapore side. Add to that, there were a host of other conflicts that needed to be managed. The two ministries I had to deal with on the Singapore side had a private turf war. On the Saudi side, you had something similar. The 40 odd journalist who had come along the ride didn’t exactly enjoy the presence of the chaps from the Ministry of Information (“Ministry of Misinformation” – as one of the more prominent Saudi editors called them). Yet, somehow, I managed to get things done and at the end of the day, when I spoke to the words “Insha Allah – we will meet again,” to the departing Saudi Party, I meant it.

You could say that what I faced on that job was merely a microcosm of Saudi society at large. For the most part, Saudi society is conservative and traditional. However, the majority of young people are young. The royal family draws legitimacy from its alliance with the Wahabi Sect, one of the strictest versions of Sunni Islam (the Saudi King’s most important title is “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosque”) and yet, the same royal family understands not only the need to be part of the modern world but enjoys aspects of the modern world. You are talking about a society where women are required to dress from head to toe in black robes to “reduce the lust of men” but at the same time, Saudi women are one of the biggest buyers of lacy underwear.

It takes skill to manage a society with that many contradictions and while Abdullah may not have lived up to the billing he initially received in the Western Media (“reformer”), the man did get things done without disrupting the system.

I guess you could say Abdullah ranks somewhere between Gorbachev and Deng Xiao Peng. I’m old enough to have lived through the Gorbachev era when we hailed him as the reforming visionary who would end the Cold War. The man suddenly opened up the once closed Soviet System and we hailed him as a great hero, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

However, events proved otherwise. Mr. Gorbachev underestimated a genie that had been bottled up for long. Political openness unleased pent up emotions that Mr. Gorbachev didn’t know how to handle.

By contrast, Mr. Deng knew how to tinker with the system. First a zone here and zone there was given a bit of freedom and slowly but surely parts of China prospered. While China remains a Communist Dictatorship, it’s a very prosperous one. What freedoms that people have come from the fact that the masses have tasted the good life and won’t allow the turning of the clock back to the old days of Maoist absolutes and the Cultural Revolution.

King Abdullah, may well be a milder version of Mr. Deng. Like Mr. Deng, King Abdullah has maneuvered a minefield of special interest.  Like Mr. Deng, the King has shown his ability to be ruthless. Who can forget that it was the “Great Reformer” in Mr. Deng who authorized the killing of Tiananmen Square in 1989? It’s the “reformer” Saudi King Abdullah who sent troops into neighbouring Bahrain to crush an uprising and sent money to back rebel forces against Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad, many of the groups of which formed part of the notorious Islamic State.

However, like Mr. Deng, King Abdullah did take risk that have touched parts of Saudi society. I remember filming women in Al-Faisaliyah Mall in Riyadh in 2006. The assigned tour guide commented on how much things had changed under Abdullah – young Saudi’s worked at Starbucks like coffee joints and women were fairly happy to be filmed.

Doesn’t sound like much to anyone outside Saudi Arabia but if you look at my guide’s comments, the Abdullah reforms had brought about some release for the people. There was some form of progress.

On the economic front, King Abdullah should also be given credit for recognizing that the Saudi economy needs to run on something other than oil. While the economy remains heavily dependent on oil, the Saudi’s have started to court foreign investment in the ‘non-oil’ sector via it’s agency “TheSaudi Arabian General Investment Authority’ or SAGIA, which is staffed by young, bright and Western Educated people like its Asia Pacific Director General, Meshari Al Khaled.

Furthermore, King Abdullah’s reforms have to be seen in the context of his contemporaries. While the Saudi System may not be perfect, many of the comparisons in the region aren’t much better – one only has to think of IS. Saudi Arabia may not be a bastion of women’s rights but Saudi women do go to school. Doesn't happen in the IS run parts of Syria and Iraq.  

Perhaps the most significant initiative that King Abdullah came up with was his 2002 and 2007 plan for peace in the Middle East. The offer was simple – Israel would withdraw to its legally recognized borders of 1967 in return for diplomatic recognition from all 22 members of the Arab league. This was an “Arab” idea made public. The man called for the US or Europeans to support him. Unfortunately, he was effectively screwed by his American ally who proceeded to encourage Israel not to even consider this. I will always remember Dr. Amin Kurdi’s reaction when he was asked by Clement Mesenas who interviewed him for the Today Newspaper what the Arabs felt about Israel’s need for security. He said, “We gave them a way out of their security problem and they rejected it.”

History has a way of judging rulers. Abdullah promised reform but many of his reforms were only delivered at a glacial pace. It should be no surprise that the youth are impatient for change and the more conservative fractions of Saudi Society have not forgiven him for the mild reforms of appointing a woman as deputy minister of education. Some Western papers have called him a “failed reformer.”

I believe that you need to look at the man in the context of his society and what he faced. The fact that he managed to get the few things he got done without a major revolution that is common elsewhere around him should speak volumes of his skills as a leader. Let’s pray that the King Salman, his successor finds the same skill to bring the Kingdom into the new world in the same manner that his predecessor started to do. 

The Man Who Gave Made the Law Just.

Singapore lost one of its most prominent criminal lawyers on 7 January 2015. Mr. Subhas Anandan, Senior Partner of RHTLaw Taylor Wessing died of heart failure at the age of 67. In more than three decades, “Subhas” as he was known, defended some of Singapore’s most notorious criminals like Antony Ler, the man who paid teenagers to kill his wife and Took Leng How, a retarded man who was accused of killing the China-born toddler Hwang Na back in 2004. Subhas was known as a man who would happily defend some of the “worst” criminals free of charge (back when it wasn’t common practice for lawyers to do pro-bono work).

The tributes are pouring in and one of the most common points about the man was that he was someone who stood up for people. The act of taking on scum bags and defending them in a court of law was a reminder that justice is only done when even the scum bags have the chance to present a case in court and they get convicted on evidence rather than political convenience or popular opinion.

All these things about Subhas are true. However, to me, Subhas was more than just an advocate for scum bags. He was an important figure in my childhood, who would remain in the shadows of the life is lived like some mysterious guardian spirit.

Subhas was my mother’s university mate and they remained good friends for over four decades. Her friendship was such that when I first moved back to Singapore for National Service, her first words to be were, “If you’re in any trouble – give Uncle Subhas a call – he’ll defend you. He won’t do it for the money – he’ll do it because you’re my son.”

Well, thankfully, I never had to call on “Uncle Subhas” to get me out of a sticky situation. The closest I ever got was needing legal advice when I was planning to get out of a very troubled marriage to Gina. Uncle Subhas wasn’t a divorce lawyer but he got me over an hour with two of his colleagues from Harry Elias Partnership free of charge (An hour with a junior associate with a big law firm is usually enough to bankrupt most people). That very crucial meeting set me on the path of getting out of a relationship that would have been disastrous.

Many years later, I’d run into Uncle Subhas at MediaCorp studio. He was the legal advisor on a show that was talking about domestic violence, while I was one of the interview subjects. Half way through, he actually said,”A man who hits a woman is a coward.”

This was him at his vintage best. While Uncle Subhas was a great lawyer, he was also a man of the people and he stuck to his principles, even when it was worse for him (he served a prison term). The law for him was about seeing that some form of justice was done and yet at the end of the day he never became blinded by his beliefs. I guess you could say that he was an idealist and a realist at the same time.

With the exception of a few encounters of the street, I never saw Uncle Subhas again. Mum would take pains to visit him and his family whenever she was in town but somehow, I never visited. As such, I can’t claim to really to have known the man in his final years.

However, he was an important character in my life. He was Mum’s divorce lawyer, even though he didn’t really believe in divorce. Yet, the way my parent’s ended their marriage was perhaps a blessing for me in that they did it with minimal harm to me and I think he had an influence in that respect.

I also think of the role he played in mine. I think the two instances I’ve had with him, was his way of showing me that there is a right way of doing things. By some fluke, Gina and I ended it legally and cleanly and I think he had a role to play in that.

I can’t say I’ll mourn him the way my Mum will. However, I can say that I’ll miss him. Although, I never really saw much of him other than what I got to see on TV or through reading his book or hearing my Mum talk about him, he was a presence that made a difference to me.

I wish I had made a more prominent effort to keep in touch when I first moved back to Singapore. The little I got of him, helped me at crucial junctures in my life. I wish I had the chance to know him better. He was the man who believed in justice in the law. His life touched so many and it was my privilege that my Mum insisted I call “Uncle.”

You May Not Like the Presence of Darkies from Other Parts of Asia ...But .....

The New Year is barely five-days-old and Singapore’s patch of cyberspace is once again ablaze with self-righteous indignation.

Apparently, a Filipino radiographer at Tan Tock Seng Hospital “tweeted” something unfortunate about how the Filipino’s were taking jobs away from Singaporeans and were going to take away our promised land from the wimps that we are.

Singapore’s so called guardians of national pride are up in arms. The general refrain is that “how dare this Pinoy whom we gave his cushy job to insult us – fuck off back to Pinoy land if you don’t respect us.” The usual complaints about how the Filipino’s and other dark skinned Asians don’t know how lucky we Singaporeans are has allowed them to come in and work at wages that they could only dream off.

The comments that were made, were indeed rude. They were insulting to Singaporeans and let’s face it, no host likes being insulted.

Having said that, they were stupid remarks and should probably be left there. You could say the guy is an arsehole and leave it at that.

What we should not do is to try and get ourselves worked up over the presence of the Filipino community in Singapore, which is the community responsible for helping us enjoy the cushy things that we do. Whatever one may think of the Singapore government, one has to admit that our physical infrastructure is pretty darn good – it’s actually comparable to anything you get in the developed nations of Western Europe or the USA. What we should remember is that someone has to maintain it and keep things going and that task falls heavily on the Filipino Community.

I’ve worked in a restaurant for the past two years. The restaurant business is great place to see how things function in Singapore. We, as a well to do nation enjoy the fine things in life. Singapore’s national pastime as they say is having a good meal. As we become more affluent, we start to appreciate finer dining establishments, serving things like good steak and a nice bottle of wine. If I take a look at who the big spenders at the restaurant are, I’d say that there is an increasing number of local Singaporeans. Yes, the Expats spend more on average but local Singaporeans can no longer be counted as bread and butter customers.

Unfortunately, you need people to keep things moving. The restaurant business is a people business and despite the technological advances we’ve made, you still need people to serve you, cook the food and wash the plates. This is a business that is notorious for long hours and low pay (As stated a few times before, I’ve made more from writing a single press release than I have in a month of working in the restaurant).

Herein lies the rub – there’s work to be done but it is physically demanding and the pay is nothing to shout about. You live with the fact that your busiest hours are everyone else’s rest periods. This combination makes the job terribly unappealing to Singaporeans with more than two brain cells.

So, who steps in to do the work? In the case of Singapore’s restaurants it’s usually the Filipinos. The community has become essential to the backbone of Singapore’s food and beverage industry. Go into any dinning establishment and chances are you will be severed by a Filipino.

What you won’t see is the fact that the Filipino chap will often be the most overworked and underpaid person in the establishment. If you think of small establishments, you’ll find that the Filipino is often the chap who has worked in both the kitchen and the service line. As well as working as the waiter and kitchen helper, he will also have to double up as electrician, plumber and general repair man. This is the chap who works 12 hours a day, six days a week and does so without much complaint.

By contrast, you have the Singaporeans who won’t take on fifty percent of the jobs that are available. I’m not talking about people with pots of money who shun these jobs. The people who shun the jobs on offer, are the very people who could do with the money. In Singapore’s rather strange definition of “pride,” these are the people who are too proud to be seen to scrub dishes in the kitchen but are proud enough to ask you to top up their bus cards and buy them a few beers.

The most common excuse that these chaps give for not wanting to do jobs that are done by the Pinoys and other Asians is the fact that they can’t afford to work them. Wages are too low for them and apparently you can’t support a family on the wages that are on offer. However, the guys who make these statements are the guys who haven’t supported their families in years and somehow they’ve got the idea that no pay is better than low pay

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That’s at the most extreme. If you get Singaporeans entering the industry, you’ll find that they’re the least inclined to work properly. I think of my Christmas in 2014. I wasn’t scheduled to work the lunch shift. However, I got a call begging me to come down to help out. The reason was simple, the Italian and Pinoy that I work with were overwhelmed with customers. Their assistant was Jie-Jie-Ka-Ni-Na (Hokkien for Older Sister Motherfucker). Jie-Jie’s idea of help was sit by the cash register and avoid trying to push buttons in the cash register. After two attempts at pushing buttons, the young lady in question was about to go into cardiac arrest from overwork. My presence in the restaurant helped boost morale or rather it was the fact that I showed up, carried three dishes and reminded Jie-Jie-Ka-Ni-Na that there is no such job title as “Bosses Wife.”

Sad to say, what I’ve seen doesn’t stay in the restaurant business. It applies to many crucial industries. Take nursing as an example. Everyone wants to be a hot shot doctor. Nobody wants to be a nurse and so, where do we get the nurses from? We got to get them from elsewhere.

Like it or not, we’re an island filled with “Proud” people who won’t lower themselves to do “menial” work, no matter how bad their personal situation. As such, the reality is that we do need to get people from elsewhere to do basic jobs.

You might not like the presence of Pinoy’s, Bangla’s, PRC Chinese at al in Singapore but unless you’re willing to do the jobs, they’re here to stay.