We don’t need another freedom fighter

Many Afrikaans are remembering Nelson Mandela as the man who fought for their freedom, who fought discrimination against them by the European rulers of their land. Many world leaders are also doing the same, praising a man who fought for the freedom of his people.

How many ever noticed or realised that the South Afrikaans were the native of South Africa and they had to fight for their freedom from foreign rules, from foreigners? It is so pathetic that if the white men did not conquer and colonise their country there was no need for any fighting at all, no need for so many deaths and wounded, no need for so many to be imprisoned and tortured as terrorists. And definitely no need for so many tragedies and tragic stories of broken homes and families.

The painful stories of the South Afrikaans must not go in vain. People of the world must treasure their country, protect themselves and their way of lives from cunning and scheming foreigners that would seize the opportunity to take over their country and turn them into subjects, servants and slaves in their home land.

Sinkies have lately starting to reveal how they are being cheated, discriminated in their own country by foreigners who were invited in hordes to live and work in their country. The foreigners are quietly turning against the Sinkies and the daft Sinkies are happily going about their lives, taking it for granted that they will always be the owners of this island. If the foreigners keep coming in and gang up against them in the near future, the fate of the South Afrikaans can be theirs. By then it would be too late to resist. And they can only hope that 100 years down the road, their progenies could have the chance to celebrate the release of one of their freedom fighters like Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years and branded as a terrorist for fighting for their freedom that were taken away. And in the meantime, till that day comes, they will live as third class oppressed citizens in their homeland, ruled by foreigners and be discriminated by foreigners in all areas, their homes, land and jobs taken away from them.

The daft Sinkies must understand the lessons of history and not to take for granted their rights and freedom as citizens of their homeland. When it is lost, it will be a very costly and dreadful affair to think of taking back their country. Sinkies must be aware and be politically conscious of what is happening around them, what is happening to their country and fight at the slightest sign that their country is being sold or taken away from them by foreigners. The foreigners must not be allowed to gain a foothold here to take over this country and run the citizens into gallows or into the seas.

Pray we don’t have to worship a hero as a freedom fighter. We don’t need that hero, we don’t need that experience, we just want to be the way it is. Wake up daft Sinkies, before you lose everything and be cursed by your children and grand children for losing this country for them. What is happening in recent years is not fiction or wild imagination. Don’t there be a day when your children or grandchildren were to ask you in your face, ‘What were you doing when the foreigners were taking over the country?

The 7 Highest Paid Political Leaders in the World (2013) You must be joking!

The rankings below is by Yahoo, Ryan Ong of MoneySmart – Thu, Mar 21, 2013

7th Place: Francois Hollande, President of France

Approximate salary: SGD $291,680 per annum
Needs to manage: Approx. 65 million people, 675,000+ square kilometers, at least 400 kinds of cheese
In Singapore, his pay amounts to: Inability to buy a car with his entire month’s pay cheque. Come on, France.

6th Place: Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada

Approximate salary: SGD $387,351 per annum
Needs to manage: Approx. 34.4 million people, almost 10 million square kilometers, hockey violence and American tourists
In Singapore, his pay amounts to: His entire month’s pay cheque should just about make the down payment on a 5 room flat.

5th Place: Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya

Approximate salary: SGD $390,561 per annum
Needs to manage: Approx. 41.6 million people, 580,000+ square kilometers, and convincing the International Criminal Court that he hasn’t committed crimes against humanity. His case is probably next in line, after the producers of Jersey Shore.
In Singapore, his pay amounts to: His entire month’s pay cheque is less than Nparks once paid for 26 bicycles. Also, people need to stop cracking jokes about corruption in Africa. I’m just saying.

4th Place: Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

Approximate salary: SGD $404,950 per annum
Needs to manage: Around 4.5 million people, 84,000+ square kilometers, and a self-inflicted pay cut. Approx. 65 “Irish invention” jokes per hour.

In Singapore, his pay amounts to: An average golf club membership. If he doesn’t go for too many frills.

3rd Place: Barack Obama, President of the United States of America

Approximate salary: SGD $500,720 per annum
Needs to manage: Around 314 million people, 9.8 million+ square kilometers, Republicans, and the Free World.
In Singapore, his pay amounts to: His entire month’s pay cheque might cover the Cash Over Valuation of a resale flat (in a mature estate).

2nd Place: Donald Tsang, Chief Executive of Hong Kong

Approximate salary: SGD $642,173 per annum
Needs to manage: Just over 7 million people, 1,100+ square kilometers, more triad violence than a mongrel has fleas.
In Singapore, his pay amounts to: Something we’d consider “a good start”, every time we review the cost of living.

1st Place: Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore

Approximate salary: $2.2 million per annum
Needs to manage: Around 5.1 million people, 710 square kilometers, high inflation, immigration issues.
His pay amounts to: About four or five other people on this list…combined.
But hey, we’ve got a safe, clean country. And if you’d like to spy on other people’s salaries some more,...

Know any other highly paid leader we missed? Comment and let us know!

Yahoo and Ryan Ong,  are you joking? Every one of our cabinet minister is earning more than the second highest political leader in the world. Even our ministers of state are earning more than him. Close my eyes I would say at least 30 political leaders in Singapore, unless our ministers and ministers of state are not political leaders, are earning more than Donald Tsang, the second highest in the whole world. And if I am not mistaken, even our parlimentary secretaries and mayors could also be earning more than him and Obama.

You want to know more? Ask the MPs how much they are earning.

And you may want to include the bonuses, if you are talking about per annum. Used to be up to 24 months plus 13th month and another month for leadership.

Being pro active or reactive?

Preventing racial enclaves forming has been a corner stone of our social harmony policy to avoid racial clashes like those happened in our past. This policy has been in force in the allocation of HDB flats to the citizens for years. Given an estimate ratio of 75/15/8/2 among the races, the distribution of ethnic groups in the housing estates is more or less in accordance with this formula.

Boon Wan has said that he is now studying the distribution of foreigners in HDB estates as the percentage in some blocks is as high as 9% or even 18%. Foo Mee Har had raised this as a concern early in the year and suggested a 10% cap to prevent tension among foreigners and locals. Boon Wan is still studying and will come out with the magic number in due course. Did they know that this will happen when HDB relax the policy on subletting to foreigners? Would they have thought about it earlier and come out with some numbers by being proactive?

The presence of huge numbers of foreigners and their peculiar customs could be uncomfortable and irritating. So too would our lifestyle be to them. The worse aspect is the security of the family members, the oldies, the young and the womenfolk in the presence of strange foreigners. We have just read a case of a foreigner that was driven into desperation to commit daylight robbery in Geylang. When they are comfortable, things may be peaceful. But things can get ugly when some of them got into drugs or gambling debt and would do anything to save themselves.

The other bigger problem is the enclaves of foreigners in private estates and condominiums. Is it acceptable to have foreigners forming a majority in private developments or even taking over the whole estate? Anyone thinking about this? Any proactive bugger starting to scratch his head? Or would they wait for something painful to happen before they put on their thinking cap?

Is there freedom of expression?

The ST reported that Hri Kumar continued his attack on WP’s silence on controversial issues this morning. WP was invited to a seminar, dunno who was the organiser, with a topic, ‘Is it true to say…there is freedom of expression in Singapore’. Two days before the seminar the WP declined to send a representative. In Hri Kumar’s view, WP had missed a good opportunity to talk about such a hot and troubling issue in this city state. And as usual, WP chose to remain silence.

The attitude or strategy of the WP is something only they understood and outsiders can at most speculate on what they were up to. Coming back to freedom of expression, whether there is or there isn’t, nothing will come out from a seminar except allowing some blowing of hot air.

To some quarters, there is definitely freedom of expression here. If in doubt, ask the politicians, or ask the main media. They will swear with the lives of their grandfathers that there is definitely freedom of expression. Just because the WP chooses to be silent and many people choose to be reticent do not mean there is no freedom of expression. It is their fault for not speaking out. How true. For those who want to be double safe, just say the right thing and you can express anything you like. Why is Alex in court? This is nothing to do with freedom of expression. He was allowed to express his view freely. That was how they heard him. Otherwise they would not know what he said.

I remember an old Russian joke of an American leader visiting Moscow in the days of the Cold War. The Americans could not help to take a jab at the Russians by challenging them about freedom of expression whenever they met. The American said to his Russian host, ‘In America, we can even say fuck President Johnson in public’. The Russians nodded and said they too could do that. And he climbed on top of a table to mean business and shouted, ‘Fuck President Johnson’. See, freedom of expression.

Anyone wants to argue there is no freedom of expression here?

US needs balanced Asia policy

US needs balanced Asia policy
Updated: 2013-12-06 07:19
By Colin Speakman ( China Daily)
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The Cairo Conference held 70 years ago between leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and China, resulted in a declaration broadcast through radio on Dec 1, 1943, that all the territories Japan had taken from China such as northeastern China and Taiwan, including the Diaoyu Islands, should be returned to China.

Japan finally signed the Instrument of Surrender on Sept 2, 1945, and by doing so accepted the terms of the Potsdam Proclamation of July 26, 1945. That proclamation stipulated, in clause 8, that the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and that Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to four specified islands, which did not include the Diaoyu Islands.

History tells us that the next steps were not so straightforward, especially in relations between China and the US. There followed a testing period in international relations, including an unhelpful 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which failed to recognize China's territorial interests as both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan were absent.

Equally unfortunate was the decision in 1972 to include the Diaoyu Islands in the scope of the reversion of Okinawa prefecture to Japanese rule, after the latter was placed under US trusteeship in 1945. This resulted in the current situation, in which the disputed islands are seen by the US as being within the range of the application of the Japan-US Security Treaty, while saying that administration does not imply sovereignty.

It was the Chinese people who suffered at the hands of the Japanese during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression that started in 1937. As someone who has lived in Nanjing and visited the moving Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum, it is not hard to understand the pain and suffering of the Chinese people when Japanese troops killed about 300,000 Chinese nationals, including women and children, in Nanjing, then China's capital, in two weeks in December 1937. It is equally hard to understand why Japanese leaders, in the face of overwhelming evidence, often deny the scale of the Nanjing massacre, claim that Korean sex slaves worked willingly and continue to worship at the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors World War II criminals. This is in stark contrast to Germany apologizing for its World War II crimes.

Yet China remains focused on peaceful resolution of disputes - and the Diaoyu Islands have been a disputed territory for more than 30 years - and has been willing to put the islands' issue on the back-burner for later generations to address, as Deng Xiaoping suggested, "when there is more wisdom" and perhaps when global interconnections make unnecessary friction clearly undesirable.


It was Japan that re-ignited the issue in September 2012 when it announced the "nationalization" of the Diaoyu Islands. The action is nothing but part of Japan's greater aggressiveness toward China.

China has realized that passively accepting Japan's aggressive actions would lead others to believe that no issue of territorial integrity is involved in the Diaoyu Islands dispute. So China has rightly responded to the provocation. Japan has had an ADIZ for many years, so China has the right to establish one over the territory it claims. When such events occur, it is not helpful for the US to appear to take sides.

US Vice-President Joe Biden is paying a visit to Japan, China and the Republic of Korea this week and, as an experienced hand in foreign policy, he should know that a balanced approach to international relations in the region is needed.

By appearing too readily to support the aggressor in Sino-Japanese issues, the US is exhibiting a lack of understanding of Chinese people's feelings. Also, this does not help the relationship between the two most important powers of the 21st century. The Diaoyu Islands dispute must be resolved directly between China and Japan. The US and China fought together to defeat a Japan bent on territorial acquisition and that lesson of history must not be forgotten.

The author is an economist and director of China Programs at CAPA International Education, an UK-US based organization that cooperates with Capital Normal University and Shanghai International Studies University.

(China Daily 12/06/2013 page9