The Backbone of Anything

Social media is a wonderful thing. One of the great pluses from social media was being able to reconnect with my school friends whom I’ve not seen for two decades and who live a few thousand miles away. Another great plus of social media has been to show me the very people that I shouldn’t socialize with. This has been particularly true of the current spike in Singapore’s COVID 19 cases, most of which were among Singapore’s foreign worker population, who mostly from the Indian Subcontinent.

This incident has brought out the best and the worst in my fellow citizens. It’s been heartening to see how some of volunteered time to help out and how some have raised money to help the workers, who are at the bottom of our social heap.

On the other hand, its exceedingly disheartening to see some comments in the opposite direction. What’s even more disturbing is that some of the comments are not made by the old folks who never went to school One of the gems that I picked up was from someone who was around my age, if not younger regarding a petition that someone else had sent on line about looking after foreign workers:

“Stupid petition! Do they want the government to waste resource ? It will only drain the national fund and could lead to national risk! My suggestion - two ways!

Non humane way : put them off in a deserted island and let them die -since they have so much to complain. Did they not know that their home countries could be worse?

2nd option(humane way): send them home and let their government take care of them . This way they shall know how much singapore government has done for them! Why are they still not appreciative and throw away the food singapore government gave them?

Bloody idiot disobedient unappreciative workers!

Ipetition against this stupid petition!”

It goes without saying that I believe that any “normal” human being should be offended by such remarks. Look at the choice of words, especially the word “disobedient.” It reveals the mentality of the writer, who seems to believe that poor people should be grateful for being allowed to clean the shit of the well to do.

We all know that the workers from the Indian Subcontinent have traveled the world to work in the “rough” jobs elsewhere because it’s better than what they get at home. For the most part, these guys are appreciative of the opportunities they’re getting. Nobody is saying that you should put these guys up in a five-star hotel or triple their salaries.

What we are saying is that these guys should not be treated unfairly. The same basic rights like getting your salary on time and living in a place that does not cause you to die of disease, should apply to them as it applies to anyone else. The same writer who feels that dark skinned labourers should be grateful for cleaning our shit, has the opposite view when it comes to dealing with people at the other end of the social scale.

He says, “ There aremany reasons that the whites are the top class race.  Gone were the days that Asians tried to color their hair with yellow orwear blue contact lens.  Now, they are trying to be “Twinkies” to make their behavior like thewhites.  Are they not racists to themselves?  They discarded their identities and languages to make themselves more likethe whites.  Actually, such behavior is very important for us to adopt because we areserving the world leader, the USA.  Otherwise, we can be outdated because the world is depending on USleadership.  Many countries are following the USA for politics, businesses, andentertainment.  US currency is used for international transaction; the movies and themusic in the USA are always the most popular in the world; American slangshave influenced the world; and the education in the USA is always at the top.  For that, we have no reason to discriminate the whites.”

Unfortunately, his misunderstanding of the USA is almost as large as it is of the Indian Subcontinent. He assumes that America is a “White” nation, which it does not claim to be. He forgets that American heroes of sport and music like Samuel L Jackson, Michael Jordan and Mohamad Ali are not white. While he has rightly pointed out that America is a world power and world leader, it is not because it is a “white nation,” but because it celebrates heroes or people who excel regardless of their pigmentation.

Perhaps he sees his points are based on his upbringing. In Singapore, most our manual labourers are from the Indian Subcontinent and generally dark skinned and many of our senior executives are white expatriates. So, pigmentation becomes tied with your income and if this is all that you see, then you assume this is natural. Like many people, he probably has no malice towards the downtrodden, he merely does not see them and when the downtrodden speak up about their lot, he gets upset that they have upset the natural order of things.

I think back to my national service days, when the Chief of Artillery organized a live firing demo of a 155-gun howitzer in the aftermath of the tragedy in New Zealand. The demo was run by the senior specialist of the artillery formation. All of them had served for at least 20-years a piece and all of them had volunteered because they believed it was necessary to get a batch that had seen their friends die from firing the 155mm to believing in the 155mm.

Their reward for this was to be sent on a mission to clear blinds (rounds that did not explode upon hitting the target). This is a dangerous job (what is blind can become unblind) and if you think of the climate and terrain in Kanchanaburi Province Thailand (you have to climb hills in hot weather – hot defined as in approaching 38 degrees centigrade).

Yet the powers that be did not order lunch for them. The packed lunch was supposed to be reserved for the evaluators, who are all commissioned officers, nearly all Chinese and their main job is to “observe” the unit in action from a land rover.

The demo team got their lunch but only after a struggle but the point remains, there was no thought for the guy on the ground, or the guys doing the tough and dangerous work. There was no malice intended but as far as the officialdom was concerned, the guys sitting in a land rover were more important than the guys who had cleared blinds. The best part was, it was the guys who had to clear blinds who had proven their loyalty to the organization through years of service.

Nobody was asking for anything special. The specialists were not saying they wanted to be fed caviar nor were not saying they wouldn’t do their jobs. They were simply asking for lunch before doing physically demanding work.  Likewise, when people are asking for better treatment for foreign workers in Singapore, what we’re asking for is not for foreign workers to get champagne brunches but for them to be put in housing that does not kill them of disease.

We’ve had a situation for too long where the guys at the bottom of the heap are merely not visible to the rest of us. I hope that Covid-19 changes this. Just as the Specialist core is the backbone of the army, we need to remember that the guys doing the work are the backbone of the economy and our prosperity.

Take Care of Your Men and They Will Fly for You

It’s generally accepted that in most democracies that “civilian control” of the military is a given. In the US, for example, the highest ranking general or admiral always reports to a “civilian secretary,” and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who is the highest-ranking soldier is merely an advisor to the civilian president. It is accepted that this state of affairs has allowed militaries to be kept professional and democratic societies safe from military take overs.

While most people accept that the military is always subordinate to civilian interest (including by those in the military), its sometimes hard for civilians to understand the bonds that the military feel amongst themselves. Early this month, the then Acting Secretary of Navy fired the Captain of the Theodore Roosevelt, after he wrote a letter asking for more help in evacuating his crew who had come down with Covid-19. The act made him Captain Brett Crozier an instant hero with his crew and when the civilian authority chose to fire him, his stature among him men increased. A video clip of his send off can be seen at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abjx57T0lUc

To compound matters, the Acting Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Thomas Modly proceeded to go to the ship and ranted to the sailors about their beloved captain. Unfortunately for Mr. Modly, this controversy reached such a level that he ended up having to resign. The news of Mr. Modly’s resignation can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJX37J0mRM

I bring up this story because it underlines one of the key points about leadership, which is the fact that leadership is as much about looking after the people under you as it is about telling them what to do. Leaders that are perceived as only being in it for themselves lose respect quickly and leaders who are perceived to have the interest of their men at heart are revered.

You often see this most in the military where people are placed an exceedingly stressful situation and those that succeed in leading people are those who have been seen to take care of their people. While the military environment is where this is most obvious, this leadership principle applies to other aspects of life.

I remember my course commander telling us when we graduated from our artillery specialist course to, “Take care of your men and they will fly for you.” Never quite understood what he meant until the end of my national service career.

This was in the aftermath of the tragedy in New Zealand and the then Chief of Artillery organized a live firing demo as a confidence building exercise. This demo was staffed by the senior specialist of the formation and somehow, I ended up volunteering for this. The funny part was the senior specialist (Master Sargant and above, all with at least 20-years of service) were then sent to clear blinds. The administration of this exercise was such that lunch was only indented for the evaluators, who were all commissioned officers.

The commander of the demo team (First Warrant Officer) ended up quarrelling with the Chief of Evaluator (Head of Intelligence at HQ SA, a lieutenant colonel) and ended up taking the lunch for the demo team. The only provision was that I would not have lunch, as I would be returned to my unit. Upon seeing that I was without lunch, my course commander sacrificed his lunch for me. When I protested his sacrifice, his counter was, “You are my trainee and I will always care for my trainee.”

This is something I have always remembered. I was, in his words a “f** up trainee.” Operating the 155 was not exactly my strong point. However, he still regarded me as his trainee and someone he had a responsibility to care for.

Reading about the incident on the USS Theodore Roosevelt brought me back to this incident. I remember my course commander fondly because, despite yelling at me and calling me affectionate names like maggot and idiot for nearly two months of my life, he took care of me and showed me he looked after my welfare.

Now, if you apply my very personal lessons onto a national scale, it becomes clear about why some leaders are revered and some are despised. It becomes especially true in a crisis situation. When a leader shows he or she is clear headed and in it to care for the rest of us, we are more willing to take whatever crap might come our way. Think of Jacinda Arden in New Zealand and how she’s handled two crises in as many years (Christchurch Shooting and Covid-19). New Zealanders have followed her gladly because she’s shown that she’s on their side. It’s something that any aspiring leader should remember.

The Richest Man in the Cemetery

Steve Jobs, Apple’s legendary founder, is reported to have said on his death bed that he felt that his life had been an absolute waste even though he was judged to be an absolute success by every metric society used. His reasoning was simple, he had spent his time pursuing wealth and “success” which was at the cost of the time he could have spent with his loved ones. He said, “There’s no point being the richest man in the cemetery.”

I think of this at a time when earning a living has become exceedingly tough. If you’re like me, working on contract or part-time basis, its especially tough. The guys who used to give you lots of work can no longer do so in as much as they don’t have the business to give you the work.

My blue-collar existence vanished because restaurants are no longer allowed to have dine-in customers, hence there’s no need for service staff. My income from the white-collar existence is curtailed because nobody wants to meet, so I can’t “sell” the services. The media is also not interested in anything beyond the outbreak of infections in worker’s dormitories, hence there’s also not much prospect of drumming up publicity work. If I was to take a job as an “essential” worker in say, a hospital, the wife and kid would shoot me for putting them at risk.

In the meantime, bills need to be paid. While the banks are supposed to be more sympathetic, they still demand loan installment payments and so on. So, what can one do? In my case, it is a case of living very simply, staying in touch with the people who may be in the position to give you work so that they’ll remember to give you work once they can and also looking for other things that might earn you a few bucks. I’m blogging more than I used to. While what I earn of advertising revenue barely buys me a cup of cheap coffee, I keep the brain active and stop myself from rotting.

So, I am actually sympathetic to people who have been protesting against lockdowns and stay at home orders. I think of people who are demanding to go back to work. The desire to earn money isn’t just limited to “ruthless” billionaires who want more money. Worrying about money is a very common thing and I am living the frustrations of people who see their financial resources being depleted and the bills continuing to pile up.

However, I’m reminded of what Steve Jobs said. There’s a reason why businesses are not opening and why stay at home orders have been issued. With the exception of perhaps North Korea, countries around the world loosened up the restriction of movement of people because this brought prosperity and by extension more revenue for governments. So, when revenue hungry governments shutdown the movement of people and start dolling out cash, there has to be a good reason.

As Steven Jobs said, “There is no point being the richest man in the cemetery” and if you apply that to a state or national level, there’s no point having a roaring economy if you have a virus that cripples people.

Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni has described the current situation as being akin to being in a war, where you should be glad you focus only on the basics of survival. He’s right, the coronavirus has maimed and killed people and the only proven way that the virus has been kept in check has been through social isolation methods.

The statistics are very telling. In the USA, there are now 49,845 deaths as a result of the covid-19, that was in a matter three months. By comparison, the US lost 54,246 lives in the Korean War over a period of three years. Who is to say that the figures won’t rise further?

The best part of the coronavirus is that it’s a silent killer and you never know who might have it and who can give it to you. I remember discussing this topic with a Belgium fellow who felt that people were overreacting. My line to him was “How do you know I’m not infected and can’t pass it to you?” In such situations, a dose a paranoia is healthy survival.

Furthermore, its not just a case of “my body – my choice.” You might be healthy and fit but the fellow next to you may not be. If you get the virus, you may be able to survive but if you pass it onto other people, they may not be able to. Unwittingly, you became a case of death.

Then there are those who complain that Covid-19 kills less than the flue. Well, that may be true but then again death isn’t always the worst outcome. Studies have shown that those who have recovered end up getting infected again and being weakened – not exactly the best thing to keep the economy thriving.

Yes, stay at home orders are bad, especially when you have bills to pay. The alternative is worse. So, what do you do, except wait out the period and figure out how to tide things over? Losing patience could lead to losing more.

It’s Not What You Have but How You Use It

I’ve always been fascinated by Vietnam and the Vietnamese. I’ve always had this fascination long before I got married to a Vietnamese lady who brought a little girl who would change my perspective on life. I guess, it was the fact that the Vietnamese were the first guys who took on the world’s biggest military power and won. While my school friends at the International School of Hamburg saw Rambo as being cool, I identified with the little men in black pajamas.

Now that I am now married to a Vietnamese girl, I can see that I was not far off in those childhood images. The Vietnamese are a tough people, who have endured a lot. Vietnamese women in particular are tough cookies.

Age has allowed me to better understand my sympathies for the Vietnamese. These were small, poor guys who took on the world’s biggest powers and won. History has made it such that we can never forget the Americans flying off from their embassy in Saigon despite dropped numerous bombs on them. History is also littered with records of how the Chinese have invaded countless of times and always returned home with a bloody nose. The thrill in life is not being part of a big unit but being a small and puny thing that beats the world's big guys.

In the age of the Coronavirus, that image of Vietnam has become even more pronounced. In the early days of the virus, Singapore rushed to grab international headlines of what a great job it was doing. Yet, at the time of writing, Singapore is Southeast Asia’s hub for coronavirus infections with some 9,125 infections (which it is quick point out is mainly foreign workers) and 11 deaths. America, the world’s greatest nation has 824,698 cases and 40,297 deaths. Vietnam by contrast has 268 cases with no fatalities. The real model for pandemic measurement is Vietnam.

This achievement is even more impressive when you look at Vietnam’s relative handicaps. Unlike the USA and Singapore, Vietnam shares a border with China and regular border crossings are a part of Vietnam’s history. Unlike Singapore, Vietnam is a large country with developing communications infrastructure., which means that enforcement of the rules, particularly in remote areas is a challenge. More importantly, Vietnam has a weak healthcare system and unlike Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan, Vietnam does not have the financial resources. So, how did Vietnam succeed where more advanced nations failed?

A detailed article on Vietnam’s success can be found in the following article from the Diplomat:

https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/the-secret-to-vietnams-covid-19-response-success/

I believe that the further point that’s not mentioned is the fact that Vietnam understands its own strengths and weaknesses. While Vietnam has achieved impressive economic growth and been a beneficiary of the US-China trade dispute with manufacturers moving from China to Vietnam, the Vietnamese understood that they didn’t have the resources to cope with a full-scale pandemic. As such, Vietnam took the view that prevention was better than the cure and acted quickly and early on.

By way of an example, when I landed in Hanoi airport in early January of this year, Vietnam had installed thermo-cameras at the airport at the airport and all airport staff had to wear a mask. By comparison, Singapore, a global model of efficiency, was still debating on whether you should wear a mask if you were unwell. A week later, when I returned to Singapore, the Vietnam Airlines staff all wore mask on the flight. By contrast, the staff at Singapore Changi Airport did not have mask.

Something similar was visible during the Vietnam War. The Americans with their superior fire power and military tactics won all the pitched battles. The Vietnamese realized they couldn’t take the Americans on in a full scale pitched battle, so they merely made life difficult for American troops (including ensuring the GIs ended up with the diseased hookers) and ensured that when American fire power was used, it was always done for the world’s cameras, and the nation that was used to being the “good guys” did not look good. While Americans troops looked at the battle, their opponents looked at the war and its long-term objectives.

If Vietnam has anything to teach the world, its probably to understand what you have and don’t have. It’s a case of being clear about what you want and utilizing your strengths quickly so that your weaknesses don’t become a part of the equation. While other nations have grabbed headlines, Vietnam has focused on its objectives and been the real-world beater in dealing with this virus. Vietnam’s understanding of itself will make it the country to be in Southeast Asia.

  

Our Oooppps Moment

Singapore has just won something it doesn’t want to win. It has become the country in Southeast Asia with the greatest number of Covid-19 cases thanks to a record spike of 1,426 cases on 20 April 2020. Singapore had been lauded as a model of how to manage the pandemic. The government implemented contact tracing policies and somehow, our numbers remained relatively low without a full lockdown. Then things changed. In the last two weeks, we’ve seen our numbers jump. From two-digit daily increases, we started seeing daily increases of three digits on a daily basis.

What happened? How did Singapore’s thus far “Gold Standard” management suddenly collapse? For me, I don’t think it’s a case of the Singapore government’s lack of capability in crisis management. Rather, it’s a case of the neglected part of Singapore coming to bite us back.

If you look at the dramatic rise in the number of infected cases, you will note that its primarily from the foreign worker population who are concentrated in foreign worker dormitories. As mentioned in a previous posting, these workers are primarily from South Asia, working in labour intensive industries and for the most part live in a different, more brutal reality from the rest of us. A second cousin once removed said it best in an article in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/16/singapores-new-covid-19-cases-reveal-countrys-two-very-different-realities/

Whatever is said of how the government has managed the pandemic, I’m inclined to agree with Professor Donald Low of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who argued that the one area in which the government should be blamed in the area of foreign worker management. Professor Low’s analysis of the government’s handling of the pandemic can be found at:

http://www.academia.sg/academic-views/coronavirus-right-lessons/

Professor Low rightly distinguishes between “known Unknowns” and “Unknown Known.” Everything about the virus was based on “known unknowns,” in as much decisions were based on available information at the time and the decision makers had to do with what they had.

The issue of foreign worker dormitories is however, is a “unknown known.” This is an old issue and NGO’s such as TWC2 have raised this issue before in the public domain. This is not the first time that foreign workers have died from diseases due to unhygienic living conditions as a 2012 article from the Straits Times reveals:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/rat-borne-disease-suspected-in-foreign-workers-death

The system as they say, is stacked against the foreign worker and employers do have the right to view foreign workers as an exploitable asset. Getting medical leave, for example, can be perilous for the worker’s economic well being as the list from TWC2’s website points out:

http://twc2.org.sg/2019/09/15/survey-of-doctors-reveals-barriers-to-healthcare-for-migrant-workers/

There is no possible way that the government could not have been aware of this potential time bomb. One can only attribute the lack of serious action in this area to “self-interest.” These workers are the ones who keep strategic industries like ship building and construction running. Hence, the government has not been willing to “raise costs” for employers.

The more worrying trend, is that the population, particularly among the older Chinese are inclined to think of our dark-skinned workers (the proverbial “darkies”) as dispensable too. The Chinese daily, Lianhe Zaobao published a forum letter from a reader that blamed the migrant workers for the current situation:

https://mothership.sg/2020/04/migrant-workers-zaobao-letter/

While Singaporeans have come out, calling out this writer for obvious racist attitudes, the frightening thing is that plenty of people seemed to agree. The following article from Rice Media provides some valuable insight into what the letter reveals about society:

https://www.ricemedia.co/current-affairs-commentary-zabao-forum-letter-singapore-echo-chambers/

The Law Minister, Mr. K Shanmugam has gone public to decry the underlying racist attitudes, but as welcome as having a high-profile minister cone out to state the obvious, this sounds like rushing into the ICU for a problem that was diagnosed a decade ago.

Singapore’s mortality rate from the virus remains relatively low. While the government has done a relatively competent job, in as much as it has taken care of the population that votes. However, it has completely disregarded a segment of the population which does not have a voice.

A government that is renowned for having superb foresight has been caught by a glaring blind spot. This is an organization that holds a lot of power. It could have tried to listen to the voiceless. As a society we need to understand that treating people like humans is in our self-interest.

Too much energy is focused on international window dressing. In the early days of this pandemic, our ministers became prone to comparing our well-disciplined machinery to the “idiots” in Hong Kong, which up to that point was racked with street protests. Just as Singapore recorded its first four digit increase in cases; Hong Kong recorded its first day without a new case. As Professor Donald Low argued, humility and humanity should be the lessons we learn from this virus.

You Should Be Mocked

I’ve read a comment on TRemeritus on a piece of mine that they picked up. This particular commentator claimed that he could identify me by the number of digs, both subtle and overt at America and that I had a biased and myopic view based on my East Asian Heritage.

Well, he is partly right. I am ethnically Chinese, which means I have East Asian heritage. However, as my late grandmother lamented, my command of Cantonese and Mandarin is so poor that it would be hard for me to claim full rights to having “East Asian Heritage.”

I am not “Anti-American.” I have been blessed by America on a very personal level. My step-dad, Lee taught me that family was not necessarily about blood and when my Dad married my first stepmother, I got a bonus of what is best about America in the form of my step-grandma, Joan.

These families I got represented what makes America Great. They  were not just ethnically diverse but also welcomed members of different sexualities, religious views and even political points of view. Yet, despite the many differences, we came together as family. We loved and we laughed together and our bonds have remained as strong as they’ve been. My stepsister, Carol, in particular has done a wonderful job of keeping this group of differing personalities together. For the record, both American families that my parents married into are White and Lee’s side of the family cannot claim to be vastly wealthy.

Unfortunately, it has become imperative to stress these last two points to make the point that I have experienced ordinary white Americans (as opposed to the “wealthy liberal” elite far removed from the issues this administration claims to solve), who are distressed by the current administration’s antics. My distaste for Trump as I’ve often said on every public forum available to me has nothing to do with left or right political leanings but human decency and dare, I say competence. The White America that I know and call family are intrinsically decent and rhetoric of us versus them only offends them.

So, where I do take digs at America, is not so much America as a country but at the ideas generated by this administration. In my defense, I am probably only doing what countless American comedians do, though I think their digs are wittier than mine.

The need to ridicule this administration and its copycats around the world has never been greater. The incompetence level in the handling of the coronavirus is such that it is probably as much of a danger as the virus itself. The most recent bout of “competence” from this administration was for the President to tweet and publicise his support for protestors who were protesting against “stay at home” orders in states which incidentally had governors from the opposing party. The Trump chose to cast these protests as a case of “liberty against tyranny,” with his tweets to “Liberate Virginia” and so on. More can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SkAJAuM5Y4

In fairness to Trump, he’s not the only world leader to protest against “Stay at home” orders. In South America’s most prominent nation, the self-styled “Trump of the Tropics,” Mr. Jair Bolsonaro has been doing pretty much the same thing. Brazil’s President has downplayed the virus and urged Brazilians to ignore social distancing measures introduced by his own health ministry. More can be found at:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/10/brazil-bolsonaro-sabotages-anti-covid-19-efforts

Both the Original and Tropical versions are clearly doing something dreadful. I get it, “stay at home” orders are not good for the economy. Businesses like retailers, particularly your mom and pop shops are going to take a beating if nobody is going out and spending money. I also get it that being cooped up at home can be maddening. This blog post is being written while I’m at home.

Having said that, if it’s a choice between having less money and not catching a highly infectious virus that kills people, most people would choose the former. More importantly, most people would expect their leaders to protect lives. I think of the late Steve Jobs who once said, “There’s no point being the richest guy in the cemetery.”

Social distancing, stay at home orders and so on have been proven to be effective measures against this highly contagious virus. Taiwan and Hong Kong, which are next to China implemented such measures early on have 420 cases with 6 deaths and 1,026 cases and four deaths respectively. Vietnam, a poor communist country with a weak healthcare system implemented shut downs early on and at the time of writing has 268 cases with no fatalities.

Should anyone feel that I am being biased in my myopic East Asian view, there are also examples of “Caucasian” countries that have handled the virus intelligently by implementing the same measures. New Zealand is a shinning example with 1,105 cases and 12 deaths. If you need an example of a big country that has managed the virus well, there’s Germany which has an admittedly high number of cases at 145,184 but a relatively lower number of fatalities at 4,586.

Nobody has made digs at Germany or New Zealand in this situation because they’ve handled the situation responsibly. By comparison, one should be making digs at America, which stands out as a “World Leader” with 764,177 cases and 40,591 fatalities. To put that number into perspective, the USA has lost 2,216 in the ongoing war in Afghanistan and 4,576 in the 2003 Iraq War (figures including the occupation which ended in 2011). So, when you look at these numbers and then at the efforts of the “Commander in Chief” to undermine the very things that have kept the infection rates down, is at best a travesty (what becomes more ridiculous is the fact that a certain section of America would accuse you of being a “left wing conspiracy nut job who is naturally biased against this president”)

The same is true for Trump’s Brazilian counterpart, who only gets less publicity because Brazil doesn’t quite command the same global attention as the USA (except during the Soccer World Cup and whenever the Amazon Forrest burns). Brazil’s statistics at 38,645 cases and 2,462 fatalities are also less significant than the US figures, though as the US example showed, infection rates can and do sky rocket (it took around three months for the US to become a world beater in covid-19 cases and fatalities.)

I’ve always maintained that the US has been on the balance of things, a benevolent power. However, when you have a situation where you have a pandemic, making thousands of people deathly ill, your health care system is being overwhelmed and you have your “leader” undermining the measures that have been proven to keep infections under control, then, I’m sorry, you cannot expect people not to mock you. Nobody is going to take you seriously as a world leader worthy of respect if you make it a point to undermine the solution when the problem is so large and you convince people that questioning your actions is a “left wing conspiracy.”  

When You Celebrate Incompetence Over Achievement

There is an article in the New York Times, which was about how Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and Chairman of the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation, had become a target of right-wing conspirators for the mere sin of disagreeing with the Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s response to Covid 19. Mr. Gates, who built one of the largest fortunes in history and is now making an effort to put that fortune to some use, has since been attacked as an evil conspirator who created the virus so that he could profit from it. More can be read at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/technology/bill-gates-virus-conspiracy-theories.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR0JQBAE1CEN9RFFMTShGaxmtfANuGYqWOqTFBhOOQGGtvlVdPi1ebsAy2Q

While some of Mr. Gates’s business practices were predatory, Mr. Gates has been a hero in many aspects of the word. Mr. Gates had an idea, exploited it and made many fortunes in the process. While Microsoft has not produced the “sexy” and “revolutionary” products of its rival, Apple, it made what was once a complex tool into something the everyman could use. I’m old enough to remember the age when computer studies really required studies. These days, I write documents with Microsoft Word, track financial transactions with Microsoft Excel and create basic presentations with PowerPoint. I am far from IT savvy but I can function in a variety of roles thanks to Mr. Gates and Microsoft.

Mr. Gates built a tremendous fortune by making life easier for the rest of us and in addition to making a tremendous fortune for himself and his partners (Paul Allen and Steve Balmer), Mr. Gates made becoming rich an attainable goal. Seattle is filled with “Microsoft Millionaires,” ordinary folk who went to work for Microsoft, got paid a salary and received stock options that gave them wealth beyond their wildest dreams. Mr. Gates has since left his mission of creating wealth to trying to solve the world’s worst problems.

Mr. Gates does have his detractors. These used to be in the tech industry, where people complained that he abused his monopoly power. One of the most prominent examples was how he used Microsoft’s monopoly power the personal computing space to force users to chose Internet Explorer over Netscape. Mr. Gates had a talent of hoisting inferior products onto the rest of us (all tech guys will tell you that Microsoft’s products are no where near the class of Apple’s).

Having said all of that, Mr. Gates is by most definitions a great man, who has on the balance of things been good for the human race.

So, after having made America Great by doing so much for the human race, you’d expect that people would give Mr. Gates some credit for doing a lot of good. You would expect this particularly in a time of crisis, when people look for leadership and the main proponent of that leadership is an obvious incompetent, who has obviously made the situation worse.

Mr. Gates had stated as far back as 2015 that America was not prepared for a pandemic. Business Insider even records Melinda Gates talking about how they were stocking up on food in their basement in anticipation of a pandemic. Story can be found at:

https://www.businessinsider.sg/bill-gates-was-storing-food-for-years-anticipating-a-pandemic-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

As a private citizen (even if his wealth does give him a certain influence that private citizens don’t enjoy), Mr. Gates, through his foundation donated some $250 million to make medical supplies available and to help scientist.

By comparison, the other billionaire, who currently controls the resources of the most powerful government machinery on the planet has prepared for the pandemic by denying it existed, then claimed it would go away like a miracle and then claimed it was a hoax. In his latest tirade against facts, the Occupant has been leading the charge to “Liberate” states from social distancing and isolation methods. While social isolation methods have not been good for the economy, they have helped control of the virus. However, according to the Donald, they are too tough and its perfectly acceptable to go to war against the one organization that has the global capacity to fight a global pandemic.

More on the Trump’s efforts to keep Covid-19 under control can be found at:

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/493445-trump-defends-demonstrators-protesting-social-distancing-restrictions

By calling out the Trump, Mr. Gates has placed himself in the cross hairs of his supporters. This is tragic. How did a nation which has produced so much of our advances produce people who take the side of incompetence over intelligence?

Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer described America as having a strain of “Anti-Intellectualism,” which equated ignorance as having the same value as expertise. I’m from Singapore, which has the opposite problem – an official love affair with scholars, so I can sympathise with people who argue that professors don’t always make the best decision makers. I celebrate when the half-educated man on the street outsmarts the PhD.

However, there is a difference between celebrating the triumph of the ordinary man over the supremely well-schooled and celebrating irresponsible behavior that endangers life and hinders attempts to solve serious problems. There is a difference between celebrating the lay man’s common sense over the experts’ pie charts and celebrating the right of the ignorant to prescribe unproven lifesaving treatments to the vulnerable.  

At the time of writing, the US has more cases of Covid 19 than the next five countries combined. This is not the time to dismiss facts as left wing or right wing. This is not the time to stop measures that have been shown to save lives. This is not the time to demonise people who have the means to help.

America was a byword for human progress. Under this administration’s incompetence, it is becoming like what their president called a “Shithole.”

The Problem with Elephants that Dance Badly

If you look at geopolitics through the lens of Covid-19, one thing should be very clear. Neither the world’s big economies have distinguished themselves. Both China and the US have behaved in such a way that leaves much to be desired.

China is the obvious bogyman. The virus started here. While China has gained applause for locking down Wuhan, one cannot accept everything from China’s government at face value.  The Chinese government did try to cover it up. The doctor who tried to warn the world died and there have been enough reports floating around the net to suggests that all is not as well as the Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”) would have you believe. China’s sudden generosity should remind one of sayings like – “Beware the naked man offering you his shirt.” There has to be a catch somewhere.

If China is untrustworthy, the US is arrogant and stupid. The nicest thing that one can say about the Trump Administration’s handling of the pandemic is that it has given comedians material for the next decade. Comedy aside, watching the pandemic unfold in the US is tragic. The nation that gave us human progress has now become a bad zombie apocalypse movie in denial.

Unfortunately, the rest of us seem rather beholden to the elephants of the global economic system. America in particular is listened to because it underpins most of the global security architecture that supports our entire global system. While I have said that America is the world’s most benevolent superpower in history, the problem is that American foreign policy has always rested on the principle of “Us versus them.” During the Cold War, this was easy. The USSR was strong enough to be a challenge and the system of Communism was obviously “bad.” With the fall of the USSR, the US had a tough time trying to find a polar opposite. It tried with Saddam Hussain but even then, nobody thought Saddam was a serious threat to the rest of the world. When America goes into “With US or Against US” mode, the rest of the world gets stuck as it means losing potential business to keep Americans happy.

It seems that the rest of us are stuck between an untrustworthy and a stupid elephant. It sounds like a case of choose one and the other squashes you. Navigating between them becomes something of a thankless art form. There is, however, a third way – namely for smaller countries to find ways of cooperating.

In this respect, the Europeans got it right. After the second World War, the Europeans realized that the two world wars started between competition between France and Germany. The trick was to tie French and German interest so closely together that they’d realise there was more to gain together than to go to war.

The European Union is by no means perfect. Covid-19 has shown how little unity there is behind the talk of a United Europe as countries shit themselves down. There is also more bureaucracy than one might consider healthy. At times it seems that the great beneficiaries of the European project are the armies of bureaucrats in Brussels.   

Having said that, the EU has succeeded brilliantly in its original aim, which was to ensure peace through prosperity. Nobody from the Baby Boomers onwards imagines that its possible for war to break out on the European continent. The generation before never imagined peace would last in Europe.

While the individual economies of the Europe are smaller than the two elephants, the EU as a collective with a single customs union is bigger than either China or the US.

Where the EU fall short is on the issue of defense. As of the time of writing, the Europeans have not been able to create a unified military structure in the same way it has created an economic structure. There was a tacit admission from Angela Merkel that Europe had been too dependent on American military support after Donald Trump scolded European leaders for not spending enough money of defense. A more aggressive Russia and an unreliable America should give the Europeans an incentive to change this.

The rest of the world should take note of the EU as a project. There have been mistakes made. There is, for example, a sense that Europe is a fortress against the rest of the world. However, the idea of small nations getting together, pooling resources and trading with each other, is healthy. Poland, for example, has prospered by being in the EU. It trades with America and China but it is not dependent on either because it has trade with its neighbours.

There is a downside to regional groupings. In many cases it becomes replacing dependence on the global elephant with a regional one. Europe is lucky because the regional power is Germany, which has been relatively benign and stayed dug into the European project. There are less benign examples.

The answer may be to form unions that are close enough to encourage trade with neighbours but at the same time allowing individual member enough space to be their own nation.

Encouraging greater cooperation is not going to be easy but as Covid 19 has shown, depending on elephants for your needs is not an option, especially when the elephants in question have obvious flaws. Elephants are still necessary but smaller players need to know how to band together in order to secure their own destinies.

The Men Don’t Get it.

I have a terrible confession to make but I’m something of a misogynist and the thought of women in positions of power fills me with dread. I guess it had something to do with having a female battery sergeant-major, who while outwardly pleasant, was insecure and petty. The battery was run politically. Our “specialist extra” (extra as in extra duties, the standard punishment for those holding rank) was wonderfully empty but at the somehow some people would always have significantly more duties than others. As one of her fellow sergeant-majors said, “You never signed on paper, but you signed in her heart.” While the batteries were not a bed of roses, they were run with a degree of honesty. Ours could politely be known as the battery of three bitches (the battery commander, I suspect was a repressed homosexual – forty plus year old man with a five-digit salary and still living with his mother and the second in command was a girl who looked like the ninja turtle and that’s insulting to ninja turtles).

My experience in national service scared me from dealing with women and to a lesser extent, repressed homosexuals in position of power and if you look at the Asian experience, particularly the South Asian variety, the record of women in power hasn’t been good, as I wrote in a posting this time last year. The prominent leaders in this part of the world who came topower like Indira and Sonia Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, the Begums of Bangladesh,Aquino and Aroyo and Megawati were ruthless abusers of power who were as bad ifnot worse than the men who they succeeded and succeeded them.

Thanks to Covid-19, I’m now being forced to change my views on women in leadership. If you look at a map of the countries that have kept their infection rates in control are all run by women. The most prominent in New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden, who followed up her commanding performance after the Christchurch shooting last year, with another master class in leadership. Ms. Arden communicated clearly and concisely and acted swiftly. At the time of writing, New Zealand has a grand total of 1,072 cases and 9 deaths (by comparison, Singapore which has been hailed by the international media as a master class in managing the virus has seen 2,918 cases and 9 deaths).

Ms. Arden is not alone. In Taiwan, a country that isn’t allowed to be part of any world organization and is next door to the bogeyman of this situation – China, President Tsai Ing Wen has presided over 393 cases with 6 deaths. Hong Kong, which is China (though my Hong Kong family and friends will protest vigorously), has seen 1,010 cases.

The pattern of women in charge doing a better job at keeping COVID-19 cases down has also moved Westwards along with the centre of the pandemic. Finland, which has a 34-year old Prime Minister who was raised by two women, has seen 3,065 cases with 56 deaths.

Now, if you argue that all these countries are small and remote places, you need to look at Germany, which is Europe’s most populous state and the world’s fourth largest economy (read – country that counts), where there have been 130,072 cases. While this is higher than France and Britain (both run by men – though Boris barely fits the bill), Germany has had 3,194 deaths from the virus compared to France (14,967) and Britain (11,329).   

The contrast could not be starker than with the countries run by men, particularly the men claiming to have large amounts of testosterone. The most tragic case is in the United States, the world’s greatest economic and military power. The only thing you can say about the US situation is that it shows that Donald Trump has kept his promise that there would “so much winning, you’d get sick of it.” America is by far and away “winning” in terms of number of cases (587,337) and in the number of fatalities (23,649). The Trump, who enjoys playing for the global media, has been busy solving America’s problems by blaming everyone (media, China and Obama) while he’s playing “War President” three months after the first signs emerged.

In fairness to Trump, he’s not the only world leader compensating for something. Brazil, which is run by the self-styled “Trump of the Tropics,” Bolsonaro, has seen a mere 23,753 cases and 1,355 deaths.

In Asia, the situation isn’t much better. Thailand, which had a revered monarch who was the living example of power through personal morality and now has a monarch who is busy hiding in Germany with a hareem of 20 women has seen 2,613 cases and 1,405 fatalities. India, which has a Prime Minister that bases his power on his ability to muscle through things has seen a mere 10,363 cases and 339 deaths (that is if you can believe India’s statistics – and virus figures aside, Modi’s lockdown has displaced millions). Since New Zealand has been mentioned, one would be extension have to mention Australia, run by Mr. Scott Morison. Australia has seen 6,400 cases and 61 fatalities.

It is clear that the girls have done a better job at managing this virus than the boys, especially the boys who depend on being macho. The following article from Forbes provides us with some reasons as to why the girls have been doing better.  

https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/#65cb66863dec

If I could hazard a guess as to why the girls have been more successful in managing the pandemic, could probably lie in the fact that women as a rule of thumb have been less ego driven. Tradition has dictated that women play a supporting role rather than front role. Wives, for example are supposed to support their husbands. Men, by contrast, are supposed to stand out and lead, whether it’s the household, the unit, the company or even the nation.

This “traditional” role has helped women focus on the job at hand rather than on themselves. Margaret Thatcher, the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was said to run the country like a bossy housewife. She watched the purse strings and knew how to keep the boys in line. Mrs. Thatcher knew what she wanted and was smart enough to know when she needed to let people get on with it. The Falklands War was the prime example. She knew her objectives. She allowed the military to do what it needed to do.

If you look at the way Angela Merkel or Jacinda Arden have managed the crisis, you will have note that they have acted decisively and quickly. Communication to the masses has been credible because they’ve been courageous enough to tell the truth and spill the bad news. There is a sense of how they are merely preparing us to face the painful issue, thus making us more inclined to follow their instructions.

By contrast, the men cannot help but make themselves the centre of the issue and the weaker the man’s character, the worse the problem. Think of the infamous phrase “We have it under control,” as the cases began to spike and “It’s a hoax to get rid of me.”

The men don’t get it. You become a hero by actually solving the problem not by trying to being the problem. You lead by actually doing the work to solve the problem rather than talking about it.

God Gave You Brains

As a Buddhist student of Christian theology, whose life has inevitably been blessed by Jains, Hindus and Wahabi Muslims, I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between the Almighty and humanity. I’ve seen extremely Godly and Ungodly behavior from people of all faiths. So, while I may believe that we are more than just a sum of molecules, I believe that no religion has a monopoly on the Almighty just no religion has a monopoly on arseholes. Covid-19 has helped enforce this belief.

While much is not known about the “coronavirus,” it is clear that one of the fastest ways to spread the virus is at gatherings of people. We know for a fact that perfectly healthy people, showing none of the obvious signs of infection can be carriers. Put a carrier into a room with enough people and the virus will spread like wildfire. Hence, countries around the world are going into lockdown, banning travelers from elsewhere and getting people to stay at home despite the obvious economic damage and great gatherings like the Olympics and Wimbledon have been postponed or cancelled. Macau (for reading Americans – this is part of China, the land that gave us the virus), for example shut down its casinos, despite the fact that casinos are pretty much the only economic activity.

Sports and music events are, however, easier to deal with than religious ones, even if sporting events can trigger a religious fervor. You can cancel a sporting event and disappoint a fan. However, when the said fans realize that you’re doing it to keep them alive. It’s also easier in as much as the focus of the sporting event can be enlisted to support you (football players, runners etc). Religious events are different, especially when the believers are convinced that attending the event protects them from whatever ails the rest of society.

There are some religious organisations that deserve to be mentioned in a positive light. In Singapore, the Catholic Church and MUIS deserve credit for stopping Sunday Mass and Friday Prayers respectively. Both organizations argued that God was more interested in protecting his people than their ritual gathering. This happened prior to the government stepping in. Singapore, however, is predominantly a secular state and religious organisations have a habit of complying with laws of the land and as rule of thumb encourage people to follow secular leanings.

What was equally impressive was the fact that Saudi Arabia, a country that claims to be the heart of the Islamic Faith (or as the more cynical might quip, the great exporter of religious fundamentalism) took steps to cancel Umrah, the minor religious pilgrimage. Not only is religious tourism big business for Saudi Arabia (second only to oil), Saudi Arabia is a highly conservative society that claims the Quran as its constitution. It is big business for Saudi Arabia to act in this way.

So, in light of this, why are minor religious organisations not encouraging their followers to behave rationally? In nearby Malaysia and Indonesia, religious gatherings have gone ahead despite the obvious risk. Around 24 March 2020, it was estimated that 60 percent of Malaysia’s cases were linked to a religious gathering which took place from 27 February 2020 to 1 March 2020 that was attended to by 16,000 people. Not only did the event affect Malaysia, it also affected people from Bruni, Singapore and Cambodia. The rise in fatalities caused Malaysia to declare a national lockdown, which has since been extended.

Neighbouring Indonesia (largest country in Southeast Asia and world’s most populous Islamic Nation) saw a gathering of 8,600 people despite warnings from officials. One organizer reportedly said they were more afraid of God than of the virus (I’ve seen a Facebook clip of a woman holding up a sign saying “Fear Allah, not the virus”)

Such behavior is not limited to the “Third World” or the Islamic Faith. In America (read – the global leader in just about every form of human achievement), you have stories of how church gatherings have persisted despite official bans on gatherings. I’ve just seen a Facebook post from my cousin, who lives in Florida, who states that there are Federal and State mandates that Church is essential.

I’ve seen plenty of social media postings from my more religious friends who have talked about how there have been instances of “supernatural” healings and protection from such events. While I don’t want to disparage anyone’s faith, the evidence points the other way. Such have been the source of increased cases. America, which has, for generations been the byword for an advanced society is starting to sound like a war ravaged third world country because people simply don’t want to follow simple common sense.

I’m not saying that miracles cannot happen and I’m not even saying that God doesn’t exist. I am saying what a Malay taxi driver once said to me, “Didn’t God give you a brain.”

Many religious teachings place the emphasis on “faith.” However, as one Christian pastor once said, “It does not mean you are stupid.” While animals generally act on instinct, human beings are supposed to act on reason, for the simple reason that they are capable of it. You should, by all means believe, especially if it makes you a better person. However, faith should not be an excuse to shift the blame onto someone else (A young Saudi once told me that you need to say Insha Allah when setting up an appointment, otherwise, you’d actually be obliged to be there at time you said you would be).

The Dalai Lama once said that humans had been praying for centuries and nothing had happened. He said that if one met Buddha or Jesus Christ, they would tell you that the problem started with you and therefor the solution would have to come from you. It’s something that the so called “religious” people should bare in mind as they refuse to look at the evidence of what their actions can lead to.

The Things We Learn from Evil Twins.

With the exception of watching old war documentaries of the Japanese kicking the crap out of the British in the invasion of Singapore and being captain of the school karate team, I’ve never had much of an interest in Japan or Korea. I was always more interested in China, India and the Arab and Persian World. This only got exaggerated as I got older. My benefactors were inevitably from the Sub-continent and by the time I started working, China had become the market for just about everything.  

Well, I’ve suddenly found myself becoming more interested in the Korean Peninsula thanks to the “circuit breaker.” I’m getting to know Netflix and its offerings and one of my great discoveries is Korean TV series. The most recent Korean TV series to have caught my interest is Crash Landing On You, which is the love story between a South Korean Heiress and a North Korean soldier. The story is unrealistic and shmoltzy but its great fun. More can be found at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_Landing_on_You

What makes this particularly interesting is North Korea, the evil twin of South Korea. While the South is a hyper-capitalist democracy that gives the world all sorts of electronic gadgets, the North is a Stalinist State that has been run by the third generation of the same family. It’s famously impoverished and its sources of revenue include nuclear blackmail and weapon sales. While South Korea is vibrant democracy that impeaches presidents and throws strongmen in jail, North Korea lives in fear of whenever the State Security decides to move in.

While no North Korean Actors were involved in Crash Landing On You nor were any scenes actually shot in North Korea, it used North Korean defectors as consultants and apparently the show has gotten around 60 percent of what life in North Korea is actually like. The most touching scenes in the entire series focus on how the main characters adjust to life in the different Koreas. I suspect the show would be just another Korean drama were it for the differences between North and South.

One of the more interesting points about the show is that North Korea is an exceedingly unequal society. It turns out that the male lead is the son of North Korea’s Director of the General Political Bureau. While he’s a mere captain in the army trying to live a low-profile life, people’s reactions change the moment they discover who is father is. There’s a lovely scene where the hospital director discovers who he is and starts sucking up and begs him to use the hospital as his own.

This is not to say that hierarchy is unimportant in less authoritarian states. The South Korean father is clearly head of his home. The heiress is used to getting her way because she’s the boss of her company and has plenty of money but “Who you are” and “Who you are related to,” don’t seem to matter in Seoul as much as they do in Pyongyang.

North Korea does not have the cash that South Korea has. Throughout the show, you see the shock that the North Koreans whenever they see the prices in South Korea. However, in the totalitarian North, the real currency is not so much money but power or proximity to it. There’s a lovely scene when the lady who owns the major department stores in Pyongyang complains that although she soaks up the dollars in Pyongyang, she is still lower on the hierarchy that the Director of the General Political Bureau. She has money but he has power.

While having money often goes hand in hand with having power, the two are actually different and throughout the show, there are example of how power and desire for power trumps everything including money. We often associate money as being a corrupting influence and forget that power corruption exists too. The male lead is endearing because he tries to get on with life without using Daddy’s influence and only uses it when he’s trying to do something for the female lead and to get out of a gulag (a case of needing his boss to know who his father is).

The beauty of power corruption, particularly the variety in totalitarian states where power is everything, is that you don’t need to do anything. As mentioned, the male lead never says, “You know who my father is,” – people merely have to see his father with him and in the one case he uses his father’s influence, he does it through rumors.

The other take away from the show is that blood is not thicker than water, particularly when money and influence get involved. While the heiress has a more comfortable life than her newly found North Korean friends, she’s psychologically scared by her families infighting. Her mother neglects her and her brothers and their spouses are constantly plotting against her. Her second brother even goes as far as to instruct a group of thugs to ensure she never returns to South Korea. When she talks about how her brothers are probably glad, she’s stranded in South Korea, her North Korean love interest says, “They’re family, you’re their sister, no matter how much siblings squabble, they’ll still look out for you.”

The other great scenes all come from the shock the North Koreans have of seeing the plenty in the South. They go crazy eating fried chicken on a regular basis and one of the seniors tells his juniors that he’s not to get distracted by all the cars on the streets.

The best scene comes when the North Koreans are captured by South Korea’s National Intelligence Services (“NIS” or the “KCIA”). They try to psyche themselves up from being tortured and one of the main scenes comes when one of the North Korean troops holds out, shouting he won’t break under torture only to realise that the NIS have attached a lie detector to him rather than an electro prod.

The North Koreans have been programmed into thinking that the South will torture them and the show plays up their shock when they discover that the what they were told all their lives is not true. Conventional wisdom as they say, can be proven wrong.

Perhaps the most enduring part of the show is that it is based on as impossible a relationship as it gets. It’s a heart-warming message that as different as things may be, we are at the end more similar than we are different. The South Korean Heiress finds love and friendship with North Koreans, who knew her and stood by her at personal risk. Her brothers by contrast couldn’t be happier to get rid of her fast enough. As they say, don’t look for the skin-deep differences but for the similarities of the heart.

Global Chemotherapy

I remember hearing Donald Trump being described somewhere as “Political Chemotherapy.” At that time, I didn’t quite appreciate that description but as I sit at home reading news of the daily outbreaks of the coronavirus and the Trump administrations mishandling of the outbreak, I am gaining a greater appreciation of that description.

Trump’s latest tirade is against the World Health Organisation (“WHO”), which he’s described as being “China-Centric,” and has recently declared that he intends to cut funding to the WHO. It’s stating the obvious that his tirades against the WHO at a time when the outbreaks of coronavirus cases in the USA (434,144) is more than the cases in the next three highest places (Spain – 148,220, Italy – 139,442 and Germany -113,296) combined is unhelpful and counter-productive.

However, Trump has helped to remind us that the world has been, for far too long, unhealthily dependent on America and American leadership. America has been the key to every world issue. If you want security, get the American military to set up a base in your region. If you want economic growth, export to America. If you want advanced technology, send your brightest to an American University. I live the example of this – Singapore and the ASEAN region as a whole went from poverty to wealth in a single generation because our business model was simple – sell goods to America and the American fleet that was parked in Subic Bay meant that all of us in ASEAN refrained from getting involved in military conflicts with each other.

America remains the biggest funder of global organisations. Just name a global body and you’ll find that the US is inevitably its biggest funder and “world bodies,” providing “world solutions,” mean “American bodies,” and “American solutions.”

If Donald Trump’s tirades against the WHO should do anything for us, it is to make the rest of us understand that we can no longer look to America for leadership and solutions to global problems. Somehow, the world has to solve its own problems. Global bodies like the UN, IMF and World Bank in particular have to find a way of not being dependent on the American tax payer and being at the mercy of what we’d call America’s increasingly dysfunctional political system.

Ironically, the greatest beneficiary from the Trump Administration may be the world’s favourite bogyman – China. While China’s companies have a large domestic market to cushion them from a global battle with the US, many of China’s businesses realise that they cannot depend on it. Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s CEO has gone out of his way to become a global diplomat, trying to show the benign face of Chinese capitalism and more importantly, Huawei and other Chinese firms have become painfully aware of their dependence of the US to provide the necessary parts for their business and so rushed to develop their own technology. China may end up shooting up the technology food chain because the Trump Administration gave it a need to do so.

The inevitable global fall out against China as a result of the coronavirus will force it to restructure a few things. Brand China will need to contribute more to global organisations in future, rather to do business while letting America fund and protect the rest of the world.

The European Union, likewise, will need to look towards doing more for its own defense rather than waiting for America to do it for them. I’m old enough to remember when the former Yugoslavia went to the dogs. I sat in the UK (then part of “civilized” Europe) while people were slaughtered in Europe. The French and Germans remained either unable or unwilling to send a force into their own backyard to stop atrocities that the modern generation had only read about in history classes.  

America will suffer from the Trump Administration’s incompetence and the rest of the world will suffer along with it. However, as we go through the social and economic pains, we should learn to find our own independence and not to rely on a great power. Leadership is necessary but we need to learn to survive and thrive in spite of it rather than because of it.  

See to It that Your Workers Can Live So That Your Customers Can

I have a new morning routine with the wife. I sit at my computer dealing with the day’s activities, while she learns English from a “Zoom” video conference lesson. Our new daily routine was something that was forced upon us by what the Singapore government calls a “Circuit Breaker,” which is in practice a lock down. Businesses with the exception of the “essential” ones have been shut down and everyone is working from home. With the exception of going out to buy food or being rushed to the hospital, people are supposed to stay at home.

This measure was introduced by the government after Singapore saw a spike in cases of Covid-19 cases. Initial measures seemed to be working but then they started jumping and the government, which had previously worked on surgical measures, then decided to use a blunter instrument.

What is noteworthy about this spike in cases is the fact that the key clusters have been linked to dormitories housing foreign workers. More on the story can be found at:

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/106-new-covid-19-cases-39-linked-to-known-clusters-at-foreign-worker-dormitories

The question is, why are we surprised that something like this didn’t happen sooner? As I’ve often said, the Indian and Bangladeshi workers who clean our estates, build our swanky buildings and man our shipyards are the bottom of the proverbial food chain in Singapore. They do the jobs we won’t do no matter how bad the economic climate and the local population generally views them with disdain (The common complaint is that they smell when they get on the train – I’ve had to make a point that nobody is bound to smell good after 12 hours in the hot tropical sun).  Not only do these guys do the backbreaking work for very little money (overtime can be as generous as $1.26 an hour), they are the backbone of a lucrative industry called labour supply (Polite term for slave trading – I give you 1 worker at $20 an hour but pay the worker $5 an hour), which also feeds another industries like supplying accommodation, phone cards and cheap booze (which was blamed for causing a riot in 2013, though the “unimportant” detail of the police seeming more interested in helping the bus driver than ran over a worker is not mentioned)

While the dormitories that the workers are often housed in, are not the slums one might imagine them to be (For full disclosure, I’ve seen Westlite Toh Guan from the outside and it was surprisingly pleasant), the living conditions are at best cramped. Even the nicest dormitories will squeeze a few guys into a room (Westlite Toh Guan has capacity of 7,800 beds and a total floor area of 33,371 square meters). More on the state of workers dormitories can be found at:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/coronavirus-covid-19-s11-westlite-dormitories-workers-12614988

Westlite Toh Guan is actually considered five-star on the scale of things. The business of workers accommodation is generally as case of cramming as much as you an in as little space as possible. To be fair to the Minister of Manpower, she is absolutely correct when she says that standards must be raised.

However, while what she’s saying is correct, she and her predecessors have been saying this for nearly two decades. However, as she’s mentioned, in the report by ChannelNewsAsia, the construction industry has consistently squealed and complained that this would add to their costs and the government has not been willing to offend the construction industry. As mentioned, foreign labour is lucrative for everyone except the foreign labourer and from the government’s perspective, who gives a shit about the plight of the workers from India and Bangladesh?

Hopefully Covid-19 will change things when it comes to foreign labour. The system has survived because everyone seemed to function in a separate world. The Indian and Bangladeshi workers put up with their lot because they had a means of earning money they could not have earned back home. They were willing to work and live rough. The rest of us didn’t care as long as they didn’t complain and we only saw them as figures on a construction site (A former Minister even went as far as to celebrate how the virus has stopped workers and maids from sitting in parks because his residents were concerned that foreign workers had the audacity to want to be human and “chill out” on their day off).

Covid 19 is truly Singaporean in as much as it affects people regardless of race, language or religion. It has shown that it has no regards for the barriers we place on ourselves. It has shown that the conditions of the workers do have a consequence for the rest of us. Industries that depend on foreign labour are going to have to revamp and restructure. Profits will have to come from being excellent rather than on squeezing workers to the last penny.

Nobody is saying that industries have to pay extra to workers. What we are saying is that you have to ensure that workers don’t live in conditions that you would never live in. By all means have a few to a room but make sure its not a manner that will cause diseases to break out. When people talk about the treatment of employees and customers, this is the ultimate guide – see to it that you workers can live so that they don’t kill off your customers.   

Hunky After 40 During Covid 19

I’ve never been what you’d call a “gym-type.” The last time I went into the gym, it was back in the day when I was still married to Gina, which was some 20-years back. Exercise was limited to the compulsory physical fitness sessions I had to attend for failing to pass IPPT, the physical fitness proficiency test that is compulsory for all Singaporean men of military service age (Last time I passed was when I was still in full time national service). Getting fit was not my priority and I ballooned sometime in 2006. At one stage, my little Chinese frame had to carry around 99 plus kilos of weight.

So, given my rather distant physical relationship with the concept of physical fitness, I find myself at the age of 45 (not really old but definitely not young), being described by someone significantly younger with adjectives like “hunky looking” and “strongest one.” I was a little shocked to receive such descriptions and it took my sister to remind me that adjectives like “hunky” are not associated with men over 40 and I should just accept the compliment.

I bring up the story of my sudden bout of physical fitness because I’ve been busy helping my main client move boxes of documents to his home in preparation for Singapore’s Covid-19 “circuit” breaker, which has forced offices to close and people to work from home. This was an exercise involving lots of logistics and the only other person doing heavy lifting in the company is the same age as me. We, the “Old Farts,” became valued for our physicality. While its flattering to be known for your physicality after a certain age, it is a worrying inditement of the generations after you and hopefully this is sometime that “Covid 19” corrects.

The crux of the problem are actually good things. The increased availability in education and scientific progress reduced the need for human muscle to do a good number of jobs. Survival has moved from being the ability to escape being a predator’s lunch to earning a wage. Why should human life be put at stake on any given task when you can get a machine to do it.

There is, however, a downside. In the last 50-years, there has been a “stigmatization” against jobs that required a certain amount of physicality. This has been especially true in Singapore, which is a society obsessed with progress and status (which is a good thing in as much as our obsession with material progress has made us materially successful). I’m old enough to remember when parents and teachers used the threat of “sweeping the streets” to get us to study hard, get into a good university, which automatically lead to a well-paying job in an office.

We became so successful at getting our kids to study hard, get into university and a good office job that we found that nobody wanted to do jobs that required them to be anywhere outside an airconditioned office for more than an hour at a time. Singapore’s fabulously clean streets are inevitably cleaned by people from elsewhere. If you see a Singaporean in any of the “non” office jobs, they are usually very old, or crippled.

The situation was such that if you were a fit and healthy Singaporean with more than a primary school leavers certificate and happened to be working somewhere other than an office, people automatically assumed there was something wrong. I think of the “horny” aunties who assumed I was a former convict based on the fact that I was serving them in the Bistrot.

Nobody saw value outside the office. As far as Singapore’s average Joe was concerned, the Bangladeshi, Indian and Filipinos cleaning our streets and looking after our kids where bloody lucky and shouldn’t demand much money. Sad to say officialdom encouraged this attitude. When it came to discussing a pay raise for our ministers (average salary of $100,000 a month – the emphasis being on a month), the discussion was always about “talent attraction” or “talent retention.” When it came to talking about a pay raise for cleaners (average salary $1,000 a month) it was always about the need to “raise productivity.”

If there’s anything that “covid-19” does, I hope it shifts attitudes and people start to appreciate the value that people like cleaners, nurses and all sorts of humble jobs offer society. Covid-19 is bringing us back to basics. In the past few days, I’ve met with “professionals,” coming to grips with the fact that what they do is not an essential service. Suddenly the janitor is more valuable to society than the private wealth manager earning multiple times more. Hopefully, Covid-19 will get people like movie stars and sports stars understand that the multi-millions they earn are what Angelina Jolie calls “silly money,” and channel some what they earn to those lower down the food chain.

I am optimistic that we will beat this virus. I just hope that when we do, we remember the people who were kept us safe during vulnerable times. I’ve never said we should go out of our way to make people rich but I do think that its time that society stop begrudging people like cleaners the ability to earn a livable wage.

I would also ad that as much as I am flattered to be described as “strongest one” and “hunky looking” as I enter my later years, I hope the kids of today remember that being physically capable is not sometime you do for fun or as part of a fashion trend but an important part of having a life.