building more bridges

Bridge obsession One thing I can say about Malaysian leaders, they are obsessed with building bridges. Penang island has two bridges now. Probably a third is in the pipeline. Singapore has two bridges, and more are expected. Abdullah has said that Malaysia and Singapore should be joined by many bridges. We have, many people to people and business bridges. One other thing that I find it strange is the need to burn or cut bridges to build new ones. The causeway is the most efficient of all the bridges that are built to link two places. Why the need to cut it? If the Malaysians are really interested in improving land transport then a simpler way is to expand the causeway to a 10 or 20 lane land bridge. And if they still want to build more bridges, I know that collecting toll is a very easy and sure profit business, they may want to think of links to the eastern coast of Malaysia and Singapore. A link to Desaru will be more meaningful while the present causeway be enlarged to cater for more users when the IDR takes off. Travellers to the east coast can have a short cut to their destinations, saving travel time and distance. The days of thinking crookedly to built crooked bridges should be thrown away to the dawn of history and a rationally conceived bridge should be built to benefit both sides, cheap and efficient. And not expensive and good to collect higher toll fees.

of law and lawlessness

The two granite executives arrested in Karimum have been let out of their windowless cell where 4 prisoners were cramped in and with one toilet hole to share. But they cannot leave the island, reportedly Batam. Or is it Karimun or Sumatra? The little cell that they were imprisoned may be adequate to the villagers, but to Singaporeans who are used to modern sanitation comfort and cleanliness, this is equivalent to mental bashing. And what had these two executives done? They were mere employees of a company engaging in lawful activities in an Indonesian island. And they were arrested when they voluntarily went there to assist in an investigation on a sabotage and bombing of their company's facilities. And they were kept incommunicado from the world for several weeks, without visitors. The world must take note of such tribal acts and be wary when sending their executives to such a country. The foundation of law in that country is built on lawlessness by the law enforcer. The arrest of the two executives is clearly politically motivated. There is no reason or justification to treat 'assumed' commercial crime violators in that manner. They are innocent until proven guilty. But in this case, they were more than guilty for things they are presumed to have done which everyone knew that they did not do. Compare to how China handled the case of Ching Cheong, the Straits Times journalists, when they had been monitoring him for years and have all the evidence to arrest him. He is being treated more humanely than our executives. And his charge is treason, espionage. He could be jailed for life. When is Indonesian gonna join the civilisation of a new and modern world?

Aspiration of the Young

I want to be a doctor. I want to be a pilot. I want to be a teacher. These were the aspirations of a time not too long ago. The aspirations of the new generation is to become a millionaire or multi millionaire. And children in schools are writing about becoming ministers. To them this is the surest road to becoming instant multi millionaires. I want to be a minister is the new aspirations of the Singapore Young.

Are extraordinary, or are we first world?

We have been looking at economic numbers to support our claim that we have arrived at the corridor of first world nations. If the qualifications are limited to just money, we are quite comfortably in the safe zone of being first world. No one can deny that what we have, and what the people have, generally, is money and material wealth. We are rich, real or on paper, but we are rich. We can afford many creature comfort and have taken them as basic needs, for granted. Let's look at another aspect of whether we are there. One area to look at is the viability and acceptance of the political system and the fate of the political leaders when they step down from office. Would the new govt and leaders continue with the system that they have inherited or would they do a house cleaning and throw out the old and in with the new? And would the political leaders exit the political arena without any hiccups, not charge in courts and thrown into jail or have to escape from paradise? We have seen many countries where there were regime change and new systems were brought in to replace the old system. And political leaders have been thrown into jails or threatened with all kinds of charges, corruption, nepotism, abuse of power etc. All these had happened within the ASEAN countries, in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam etc. The three relatively more settled countries in terms of political system and the fate of their political leaders are Brunei, Malaysia and ourselves. Brunei's ruling royalties are very well regarded and they treat their people very well. That system looks like going to be there forever. Malaysia has proven to be quite stable until Anwar was thrown into jail. But he has been rehabilitated. A small blemish. And Mahathir is still around, happily shooting at anyone at his convenience. In the case of Singapore, we have not have a regime change as yet and things look quite good. The way it goes, our top political leaders would be able to enjoy their retirement from politics gracefully and enjoy their fruits of labour. And the political system will endure and continue in perpetuity. In this sense, we are extraordinary and deserve the first world label. I cannot forsee a new govt coming into power and tear away at all the systems that have been entrenched and legally protected by the Constitution. And neither would our leaders have to flee once they step down from power, like Marcos. And this is first world standard that we can expect.

a new direction needed

The Extradition Treaty and Defence Cooperation Agreement have been signed. The sand ban is still there. Our men are still in their cell, not charged in court and not allowed visitors. A few of the barges have been released but many still detained at the Indonesian's pleasure. Nothing is going to change when the legal systems or the way laws are administered are so different. The signing of the two agreements should be the beginning of disengagement. Singapore shall seriously work out ways to develop other relations and cooperations with other countries that have similar legal systems and mindsets as us. When law is equivalent to lawlessness, we are asking to be slapped in our face every now and then if we continue foolishly to flirt with people of a different dimension. Compare to the Malaysians, with Mahathir out of the way, and if he is not replaced by another psychopath, there are many reasonable men over there. And our history, political and legal systems are very similar. We can expect to be treated more fairly and be able to talk sense when parochial politics is out of the way. Let this be a lesson for Singapore to reassess the situation and strike out on a new direction. We cannot be self sufficient in many things. But we cannot be dependent on unreliable partners.