The days of the Miserables…lawyers

Who do you think lawyers? Are we seeing the days of the miserable lawyers and the legal profession? Or things will go on as normal? The respect and high regards for the legal profession and the learned counsels, will it be tainted or will it continue to glow and shine?

I think it all depends on the outcome of the EGM and whether the legal eagles find it important enough to even attend this EGM. Would the 50 calling for the EGM be the voices in the wilderness and abandon by their colleagues in the profession? Will they be the only 50 members present?

Alienation of the leadership

There was a time when aspiring leaders will shout, follow me, and jump into the deep end of any crisis to face the bullets first. Leadership is by leading, by setting examples, by telling and doing what leaders expect the followers to do. When leaders lead by examples, the followers will follow all the way. When leaders say charge, and they stand behind to watch, who is going to charge, who is going to be the idiot to be shot first? Only the soldiers can do that.

When leaders eat rice, the men eat rice. When the men eat porridge or gruel, the leaders too did the same. That is what leadership is all about, be with the people, share wealth and toil, share joy and woes. The men will not mind if the leaders have rice and they have porridge or gruel. It would be something else when the leaders have meat and fish and the men have only plain gruel. Got it?

When leaders demand to be paid in the millions and told the people it is alright to live with $1k pm. When leaders demand to live in 20k sq ft properties and build smaller and smaller flats for the people, and tell the people to live within their means, I think you got a problem.

When leaders declare that wide income gap is normal and the wider the gap the more normal it is, you got a bigger problem. There is a big gap, a credibility gap. The daft followers will continue to follow blindly. They are not daft for no reason. But not many are daft, and not many will remain daft all the time.

Serve NS to protect what? To protect the huge properties and wealth of leaders, or their little shoe box flats? Heard or pragmatism? Or nothing of their own to protect since they don’t even own a little flat to cover their heads? Only daft Sinkies will protect other people’s wealth and well being when their well beings don’t mean anything to those they are protecting. Does this make sense or so difficult to understand? What is an aspiration? A belief that is good to believe in only, a make belief.

Is there a connect, or a credibility gap between the leaders and the led? Do the leaders lead by setting good examples that the people will die for, or to die for an aspiration? Is everyone is part of a bigger whole, everyone feels that they are part of a bigger entity called nation and country?

Maybe the people don’t mind living within their means and dying for their great leaders bathing in wealth and glory. After all they have been told to know and accept their lesser stations in life.

Racism in Singapore

Recently the outcry against racism is getting louder. Many, even a minister, are raising issues of racism openly. Yes, there are incidents of racism in this island and there is nothing to hide, or better to sweep them under the carpet. The case of this elderly man berating his Indian neighbour for unpleasant smell, unhygienic lifestyle, and turning his flat into a squalor, has been given special prominence by the minister in his Facebook posting. What is the intent of the minister, to prove that there is racism, to use this as an issue in the national dialogue or to say that racism exists in little pockets in the society?

Short of saying that this elderly man’s IQ or EQ is suspect, that he did not find anything wrong complaining to Minister Shanmugam who is obviously an Indian, I just dunno what to say. With such a strange behavior from an elderly man, it is equally strange to trump this as a good example of racism. And the case only helps to confirm the mindset of those who see racism as a big issue in this island. And some took the opportunity to beat drums and gongs to the screams of, hear, hear, there is racism in Sinkieland.

And the drum and gong beaters are raising their pitch higher, which is very unfortunate. No one in his right mind will deny that there is racism here and everywhere in the world. It is a matter of degree and seriousness. No one will accept the racial slurs by the elderly man even he if he is not the average Sinkie man one encounters in the island and thus not excusable.

The point is this, is racism really a big issue in the island? Since 1969, has there been any racially incited conflict or killings, of people being attacked physically or verbally abused in public because of race? There were a handful of racist postings in the blogs by some hot young men and they were immediately taken to task by the police. And these were about the most serious incidents of racial discrimination one could find. It is quite embarrassing really.

What more can you ask for? For those who believe that this island is a racist place populated by a racist majority victimizing the minorities, why not choose a country that has a more pleasant environment where different races live in better harmony than in this little island? No we are not perfect, but trying to.

Yes, I am offended as a Sinkie. I seeing more accusation and agitation of racism in this country I called home. And no, I am not saying that there is no racism, but when they manifest, they are so mild and so few in between to warrant the sounding of a tsunami coming. There are bound to be a few bad hats in all communities. But the bad hats here don’t beat up people or shoot people with guns. This is Singapore, a multi culture and racial city state with no equals in the world as far as race relations is concerned.

Sinkies should feel offended when people keep harping about racism in the city and tell the racist off. Only racists go around seeing everything racist using their racist lens.

Attack the complainant and miss the complaint

The elderly gentleman was complaining about his neighbour because he was Indian. Any insinuation? No, this elderly gentleman must be a racist at heart. Right or wrong?

By the way, what was he complaining about? Bad smell, dirty habits, and what else? Now that the focus is on this elderly man, what happen to his complaints? Were his complaints valid and need to be addressed? HDB flats are homes to the ordinary Sinkies, not a farm or pig sty for pigs. The residents deserved to have a clean and healthy environment, no dirty and smelly neighbours and neighbours clogging up the walkways or turning their flats into health or fire hazards. No IMH patients running around abusing or threatening the neighbours with physical harm.

While the complainant now has been turned into a villain, a racist, it could be easier to accept his complaints as valid if he is not so dense to keep repeating the fact that the neighbour was from a different race but just about the problems. Then his complaints may be accepted and dealt with. In this case everyone forgot about the reasons for the complaints.

A similar case was Sylvia Lim raising the disquiet in Woffle’s case in Parliament. She was questioned and intimidated as if she was the wrongdoer. Is this the proper way to deal with a complainant, a messenger or a whistle blower? It is like killing the messenger of bad news to avoid hearing more bad news. Divert the attention from the issue and make the complainant the problem.

Of Hope, Heart and Home

Someone asked me why I am still subscribing the ST, on weekends only, when many refused to touch it for their many reasons. The answer is simple. You need to know what it is, what it is printing and what it is not printing. You must know the subject or you can’t make a fair comment or judgement of it. Likewise many have openly declared that they would shun Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally Speech. I did not, or else I would not know what I am writing about the speech.

It is not very normal to see someone speak in three languages at the same time and on a very serious subject like the nation’s future. Other than his command of the languages, his elephant memory is abnormal, to be able to speak through a couple of hours without making a glitch. It was scripted and rehearsed many times, true, but even a news reader would make mistakes here and there for such a long script.

Many of the misgivings and gripes of the people were tackled satisfactorily with many yeses instead of the usual no’s in the past. Many were happy that the govt is listening to their grouses and willing to act on them positively. What was not so good is that it was kind of reactionary. The govt was simply reacting to the cries and the problems raised by the people. And many of these problems needed not happen if govt policies were implemented with a heart. Yes, the heart was missing or misplaced for many years.

Hsien Loong’s main themes were the heart, hope and home. When the heart was not there, hope was dashed, and home became a big burden and a troublesome factor in their lives. Many pains were inflicted on the people because of the missing heart. Policies were shafted down the people’s throat in a very arrogant way, dismissing the people as non entities. This is how I am going to do it. Like it or not, the people just have to live with it.

What is really needed, instead of reactionary piece meal solutions, is to flush the slimy little heart, if it is still there, with sulphuric acid to get rid of the black stains of the past, to start with a new heart. Instal a new set of heartware into the system and hope and home will fall into place.

The old mindset of dictating to the people, not giving the people any choice, or real choices, must stop. Take the CPF scheme. Many would continue to keep their money in the CPF after retirement. Many would want to buy some medical or annuity insurance for their own good. There is no need for compulsion when a scheme is really good for the people. Some will get their money out, some more, some less. But with a good scheme in place, with better terms, interest rates, the people will make choices that are to their advantage. There is no need to compel the people by compulsory schemes. Give the people the choice, let the people decide what is good for them.

The missing heart is most evident in housing policies. All the blocks, deciding who can buy or cannot buy, what they can buy and cannot buy, are simply arrogant and dismissive. Get back to the basics of public housing, build homes for the people. The affordability issue should be more about people wanting to buy beyond their means, wanting to commit to bigger units when they could not afford so. And not forcing people to buy bigger units, or into the private sector, deciding their affordability and how much they must spend, with no regards to their commitments, retirement plans and prudence.

The same applies to mean testing in hospitals. The hospitals must meet the needs of the people. And if more people wanting to opt for lower quality services, provide them. Why compel people to spend more and consume higher quality services when they don’t need and don’t want? Silly isn’t. And the mean testing must go. It only reflects how mean policymakers are.

As for hope, education is where the govt is pointing. We need to provide the places for our children in the universities. Lawrence Wong’s recommendation to offer more places for marketable degrees is sound. Take care of our children instead of other nation’s children. Forget about gaming those impractical and silly ranking systems. A good university is in its products, the graduates. Not the number of foreigners.

And the reality is that our education system is a flop from schools to universities. The fact, we cannot produce good quality grads to fill up many top positions and have to rely on third world grads, from poorly equipped schools and universities, to fill up these top positions. I said our schools failed despite the straight As because these straight As, when sent overseas and returned, were also found wanting. So what is the craze about gaming to score high in those silly rankings? Make sure that our grads are in demand and good enough for all the top positions in the country. If they are not, then it says the system is not good enough. Hope is missing or misplaced when our world class universities could not train our grads to be world class. When foreigners are sought after and walked in to replace our locals in good jobs.

Hope and Home will follow when the heart is in the right place. It is frightening when sometimes one wonders if there is even a heart.