The pictures that tell the mood at HLP

This was the moment Teo Ser Luck was mobbed by his fans/protesters as he started his round. Notice the boy sitting in the foreground, oblivious of what was going on? What did it say?

Ser Luck doing his round. Notice how calm and comfortable he was?

These two pics of children dancing were taken a few minutes after the 'heckling' incident. Anything unusual? Any tension?

This is the famous mound of Hong Lim. Speakers need not bring their own stools or boxes to stand on like in Hyde Park.

These 3 pics are the friendly protesters demanding for the return of their CPF money. There were more younger people coming to join them. Would these people heckle the children?

Is America ready to be Number Two

This was the topic for discussion in the CNA programme Perspective hosted by Teymoor Nabili on  prime time 3 Oct 14. The panel guests included two American dons, Prof Thomas Magnanti and Assoc Prof John Donaldson, the American Ambassador Kirk Wagar and Manu Bhaskaran, a CEO of a consultancy. This is a good programme to watch not so much as to the subject matter but the temperature generated and how sensitive the subject was to the American dignitaries present. Watch the repeats on CNA

From the very beginning the position of the Americans was clear. Teymoor used the Great Roman Empire as an example of everything that goes up must come down.  He hit a wall. No such thing as America being Number Two to a rising China. Even if China becomes the biggest economy, so what? What they avoided saying was that they carried the big guns and could turn the table anytime they like it and China would be history. That’s the message.

It is interesting to watch the nuances and the body language of the American panellists, especially the Ambassador. I could not believe that an academic discussion on an ‘iffy’ question could cause so much uneasiness and sensitivity. And Teymoor, one of the best presenters you can find, was doing his best to balance the tension and you could sense that he too was affected by it. But being an old hand and very adept at what he was doing, he did manage to control the situation very well without upsetting anyone, but still not able to hide the discomfort in him.

The topic was about a hypothetical case in the future, what if the economic statistics are correct and China surpasses America and becomes Number One economically, or the Number One superpower. Of course everyone can dispute on the definition of what Number One means as the overwhelming American military might is unquestionable for a long time to come. The American economy could slow down, but the American expenditure on military would always be maintained to keep this pole position unchallenged and unsurpassed. To the Americans, this is a non issue. They would ensure it would not happen.

Who would ever think of the Soviet Union being what it is today? Who would ever imagine, even 30 years ago, that China could transform itself from a poor backward communist state to challenge the Americans for the pole position in international affairs? Some crystal ball gazers would say that the rise of China is inevitable, like the fall of Singapore as equally inevitable. The chips are all in place for the rise of China and the fall of Singapore. Somehow everything is in place not by intent but it just happened.

Whether China would overtake America as Number One is a moot point as no one would agree with the definition. But the rise of China as a superpower, as an economically and technologically successful nation is on the card.

And it is best not to discuss such a topic with the Americans. It rubs the wrong way and nerves are extra sensitive, like special needs children.  America will never be Number Two! China can never dream of being Number One. No way, not in the near future, not in the distant future.

PS. The Chinese were given a pleasant surprised when they were shoved up the be the Number Two when the Soviet Union self destruct. They too could not believe that they could be Number Two so fast, without any effort on their own.

Kopi Level - Yellow

My proposed rules and regulations for protest rallies

Given the fiasco that happened on 27 Sep 14 at Hong Lim Speakers Corner, a site specially designated for free speech and public protest, ‘the protesters’ overall conduct was so egregiously bad that a few would think the public censure that followed was overdone’, I quote the ST editorial today, new rules and regulations must be introduced. I may further add, protesters must behave better, behave decently, not to shout, not to disturb the peace, not to look like thugs and gangsters, not to….I can go on and on. Basically, protesters in a public protest must conform to some expectations of decency by the decent and nice people.

Given these as the back drop and the expectations, I would like to offer some suggestions as to how a public protest rally should be like and how the protesters should behave. The authority may be pleased to take liberty to borrow my suggestions for future rallies in Hong Lim Park.

Not in any order of merit or importance, I will just rattle it off the hip, no need to think too much. Like the American cowboys, just shoot first and think later. It is easier that way.

Ok, first thing to do, protesters must bring along a decibel meter to measure the din they are making. What for? They must not be insensitive to the other park users, like special needs children, like babies in the prams, like senior citizens playing chess or having a snooze. Let the authority come out with the exact decibel they can make and the type of loudspeakers that are allowed henceforth.

The protesters must also bring along measuring tapes to mark the distance they should keep away from the other park users, and pay special attention to special needs children. These children like the Park very much for its special ambience and the heat. For this group, the distance must be double than the normal for other normal children.

Whatever the protesters do, they must not appear to be heckling anyone in the park, especially special needs children that happened to be there. Just because the Park has been specially approved by Parliament for protesting and demonstration, it does not mean that they can anyhow behave like protesters do. For this matter, it is good that they bring along their own video recorder to record the event in case there is a dispute as to them getting too close to the special needs children, ‘heckling’ them or disrupting their activities. This is for the own good of the protesters as people who were not at the scene may have the wrong impression and anyhow accused them of misconduct later.

Protesters are allowed only to march in rows of twos, not too many as it would look very rowdy. Look at how nice school children walked in schools?  If they could hold hands, that would be nice. This is the standard that the protesters should try to emulate. And yes, wear clean and nice clothing to look smart and not like hooligans and gangsters. Wear a badge if possible to read ‘I am a protester’ so that people can identify who you really are.

And when the protesters are protesting, please, put on a smile on your face. Don’t look so grumpy, so fierce, like gangsters. The authorities or public may think you are thugs and, yes, gangsters. Now that is really bad publicity and bad image if photographs or videos of them were to be flashed in the media.

And when the police or authority demands for their identification, please do not argue or be rude. Be polite, just hand over your identification papers and all will be fine. And don’t demand from the police or authority for their identification papers. That is outright rudeness. In this exceptional city, anyone who come to you and tell you they are the police or the authority, they must be real. No cheats or thugs would dare to impersonate the police or authority. So there is no need to go through that hassling.

And another thing, when the protesters go marching around the Park, please show some courtesy and friendliness and stop to shake hands with whoever is present for goodwill. Oh, an exception, perhaps this should be avoided when approaching special needs children as they may be too sensitive and can get frightened by the protesters. Be extra sensitive and mindful of the people there and shout only when you are at a safe distance from them.

If protesters are to follow the above suggestions, I think everything will be alright even if there are other events in the Park. And how can I miss this, please double confirm with the authorities your designated area so that you do not encroach into other people’s areas. In the past this was not required, but after the 27 Sep pathetic incident, this is necessary. All future applications will have designated areas allocated to them in advance, not last minute to avoid a clash or conflict by encroachment.

Basket, why I spent so much time, thinking so hard, for all these suggestions and not getting paid a single cent for them?

Kopi Level - Yellow

The drumming continues

Roll out the big drums and keep drumming.
Stoke the amber and fan it into a fire.
Now who is beating the drums and fanning the fire?
Who is doing the heckling and who is being heckled?

What do you think?

Free university education?

Can this be true? Even if it is true, the quality must be bad. How can free things be good? You want quality you must be prepared to pay for it. The more you pay, the higher the quality. It must be, like our world best govt.

Effective this year, the whole of Germany will provide free university education when Lower Saxony decided to abolish university tuition fees. Wow, this is like fiction. Actually many countries in Europe provide free university education. Bloody hell, I am like a frog in a well. Only today then I heard about it, read about it. Scandinavian countries like Norway, Denmark and Sweden have been providing free university education for many years and it seems that this is a trend and other countries are following suit. In UK, Welsh university education is free for Welsh.

According to a chart from Source: http://www.zmescience.com/other/germany-education-fees-01102014/  Scotland and several East European countries are also providing free university education for their citizens. University fees in Spain, France and Belgium are less than 1000 euros per year while Portugal, Italy and a few East European states are charging less than 3000 euros. No wonder their rankings are lower than our world best universities.

How much are we charging our students? Britain charges more than 9000 euros for their universities, the most expensive. I think we must be modeling after Britain and using Britain as a benchmark in fees and quality. Our universities are comparable to the best of the British in both counts so it is only appropriate to benchmark against them.

Why are some of these countries starting to offer free university education to their citizens? Simple. It is an investment. The better educated the people are, the more productive they are and better serve the country and its economy. Put it the other way, if the university education is so expensive that the people are not university graduates, how are there going to contribute to the economy? Would they be happy to be hawkers and crane drivers? In Sin City, many graduates are now good enough to drive taxis.

What if our citizens are all non graduates, would we be importing all the top and highly paid employees from abroad, the foreign talents? Highly skilled jobs and professions need university education. You cannot have doctors, engineers, scientist etc without tertiary education. Wait a minute, I may be wrong here, there were doctors in the past without university education, like sinsehs, dentists and many other professions. Could be self taught. Is this a contradiction? Never mind if we can live with fakes.

We need high quality university education. And of course quality means money. The buildings, the foreign talent professors, the land, very expensive here, the material, everything needs to be paid for. No money how can?

And providing university education is a big commercial business and can bring in a lot of revenue. Maybe this is one of the main reasons why our universities are so obsessed with university rankings. It is a big money making business. But can we also follow those countries to provide free university education to our citizens and make foreign students pay instead of providing free education to foreign students and make ours pay? Funny right?

The Welsh are providing free for their citizens? The European Unions are charging their member country students a lower fee than those outside of the EU. Is there anything we can learn from this news? Are we doing the right thing or the wrong thing?

Kopi Level - Green