5/15/2007

Cooking a Prime Minister

Taking on what Balji had said about the recruitment process of Singapore's future Prime Minister and his view that the current process may not be able to find one that meets our future needs, he presumed that there are other better methods for this. Now, what's wrong with the current process? It is a meticulous and systematic process, done in a methodical manner. It is just like a recipe. You decide on what you want to cook, find the material, go through the whole cooking process and pop, the perfect roast lamb or suckling pig is ready to be served. The academics would have a lot to pick from such a system. The choice of the final product, whether it is best to have a roast lamb or curry chicken or sucking pig, is very subjective. Then the quality of the ingredients will also be questioned. Can we pick or cook a national leader the way we cook a general or top civil servant? Historically a national leader, an exceptional leader, was thrown up by events and circumstances. They used to say that history makes a leader, or is it a leader makes history? Compare our system to the Western model and the Chinese model I think ours is closer to the latter. The American model chooses leaders based more on public appeal, a good looker, a smooth talker, and a lot of marketing and packaging. Not much intelligence needed. The Chinese model churns out a national leader through the many levels of screening and sieving. And the leader must prove himself all the way up. He needs to fight all the way, and that needs quite a bit of intelligence, real leadership and perseverence. Ours is a handpick system that looks at the quality of the candidate based on a known recipe. The leaders of today or yesterday will describe what they think the future leader should be like, and they go around looking for one that fits the mould. It is a cook leader. Is there a better system, or which is the best? Very subjective indeed.

7 comments:

The Oriental Express said...

You give a recipe to different people and you will get different results.

Lucky - the dish turns out to be tasty and great.

Unlucky - yucks.... even a stray dog will refuse to eat. Mom would probably frown and say, "Buay chiak ah!"

PS. Once one of my chefs cooked for the staff meal. He must be in a bad mood, for his cooking was quite terrible and hence a lot of left overs. I gave some to my favourite stray dog that belonged to Mitre Hotel, Orbit. He sniffed urinated on the food and ran away. I laughed and told the chef the incident! After that his cooking improved! :-)

Anonymous said...

Is it possible to overcook?

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Amazing. The premise underlying this fella's musings is that a PM can be "nutured" or "designed".

No mention is made that eventually the PEOPLE will have to choose a PM; afterall, that is the due process of a representative system of government.

So the academics, the "elite", the fucking "know-it-all" social engineer cocksuckers... but what about The People?

Who's country is is anyway? A bunch of "elite" groups and their tax-funded ball-licking "intellectuals" or The People: Joe and Jane Average and their kids, friends, family and extended family?

By leaving out THE FACT that The People eventually choose their PM by due process... it MUST BE CONCLUDED that S'pore is no different then from a plutocracy, monarchy, feudal state... or variations of such coercive political structures.

MATILAH SINGAPURA!

Anonymous said...

I would like a leader who can 'fix' people without anouncing to the whole world!..lol

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

it is such a great feeling to have everything under control, like the sculptor and his clay.

and anonymous, cheeky huh?

Anonymous said...

I thought that the PM is chosen by the Members of Parliament, not by the people who voted.

Correct my misconception if I am wrong.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

can it be overcooked or designed by will? we have redesigned many orchids the way we want it. when man thinks he is god, god gets frighten of man. the tower of babel will be fallen.

overcook or undercook? other than the two constants of the master chef and the process, the variable is the ingredient. is it prime beef or scraps from the bottom of the barrel? some things will forever be 'sa buay sek' or cannot be cooked no matter how long it takes.