Francis Seow – The good, bad and ugly, they all shall pass away

These few years, and the next few years, we are likely to see the last few remnants of the pioneer generations kissing the dust. No one can escape this force of nature. Everyone shall decay and turn to dust. Whether they be rich or poor, acquired mountains of fortune or lived their last days as paltry recluses, good riddance.

Francis Seow had a meteoric rise to the cream of our history, to be there, but not there. His flash of success was clipped by his detention and humiliation in the cells of Mount Pleasant. He had gave the Singaporeans a glimpse of what actually happened behind those walls in the tranquil setting of a verdant forest in the most prestigious and expensive ground in this most expensive city state.

Francis Seow’s exile and eclipse from the corridors of power would be what Singaporeans remember him most, a victim of the politics of an era, hopefully never to be repeated again. The two camps would have different ways to commemorate his passing away and that is expected.  You would not hear good words from one camp or negative words from the other.

Our history, or modern history under the PAP, written and approved by the PAP, is only 60 years. What would our history be in another generation when memories of all the key players and their direct beneficiaries and victims have gone cold?  For the moment, the good, bad and ugly are well documented by official memoirs and the media. Would their places be switched when the powers change hands in the future? Would our history be told differently and the villains and heroes be named differently?

Now, who is next to join the list of has beens, came and left and turned to dust.?

Ip Man 3 – A nation building perspective

Ip Man 3 the movie is going to set records all over the world as a very watchable movie. Movie making has taken a paradigm shift, from the funny slapstick cartoon like fighting sequences of the past to more stylish and gravity defying stunt done at great speed, and appearing very realistic. The choreography of fighting scenes is like watching fighting men moving with the grace of dancers. This generation of movie making has made the movies of the past looked so amaturish. They are really very enjoyable to watch.

The themes and plots are fairly standard and familiar. But fans of kungfu movies did not pay just for the plots, though they made the movies more watchable. They went for the actions. Many also went to see Ip Man and his brand of fighting skills against his opponents, seeing the triumph of a skilled kungfu exponent taking on fearsome opponents and won. Good for the adrenaline and comforting for the soul.

There is another important aspect that many missed, the big picture. Ip Man’s movies were scripted in a period when China was the Sick Man of Asia and Hongkong 1959 was a British colony. The island was ruled by foreigners and the local elites were shameless, powerless, greedy and selfish individuals that only cared for their own good. They did not mind the foreigners taking over the govt, taking over the businesses and industries, bullying the helpless and poor country men, kicking them around, as long as they, the elite, could lead a good life.

The foreigners were everywhere and calling the shot.  Jobs were few for the locals and getting a job from the foreigners was a big thing, even being discriminated, being bullied and underpaid, and having to please the foreigners and enduring their abuses.  The masses were poor, hungry and angry, but could not do a thing. They could not depend on the local elites that were in cahoot with the foreigners to exploit them.  They could only hope for an Ip Man to stand up and fight for them. And they screamed for their hero. But the victory was empty. The system, with the foreigners in charge and calling the shot, and the locals as the disenfranchised people, with little rights, with no help coming from the elites, was the order of the day.

They did not know the island was lost. They were conquered and ruled by foreigners and depending on the mercy and charity of the foreigners. The parasitic local elites were more interested in enriching themselves, country or no country never mind. Life was good for them and their families. The masses could be left to be bullied by the foreigners, beaten by the foreigners, the elites would turn a blind eye. The elites were also fearful of the foreigners as the foreigners were in control, in charge of the country.

The historical context of the Ip Man movies was a lost people,  lost country, a people with no dignity, no will to fight for themselves, no pride, no money, no jobs, but waiting helplessly for things to happen, waiting for more Ip Mans to stand up to fight for them.

When a country turned into a Sick Man of Asia, that would be the fate of the people. They lost everything, their country, their jobs, their self respect, their dignity, their right to live as normal citizens of a country. They did not know how to fight back, to regain their rights in their country, to retake their country from the foreigners and the corrupt elites. The elites were were the real enemies of the people, not the leaders of the country.

Ip Man was just a flash of hope but would not change anything. The people need to rise together, to throw out the corrupt elites and the foreigners.  It took several revolutions, millions of death, and a lot of pain and suffering, to retake China from the corrupt regimes and the foreigners and later the return of Hongkong.

Look beyond Ip Man in the movie. There is a very important lesson in nation building to be learnt. It is not the fighting skills of Ip Man. It is not one man to change the world. It is the helplessness of a people that had lost their country to foreigners.

Singapore is an exceptional place on earth

When the whole world is threatened by terrorist attacks, Singaporeans can sleep in peace, partly due to the exceptional govt and the exceptional men in blue. 27 terrorists were arrested and deported to Bangladesh without doing any harm to Singapore.

What was remarkable is the discovery of this terrorist cell in the island. What is more remarkable is that the terrorists were not planning to hit Singapore. They were planning to hit Bangladesh. Now you see why Singapore is so safe? The terrorists would not dare to hit Singapore or would not want to hit Singapore. Isn’t that remarkable? This is uniquely Singapore. International terrorists were here, at least 27 of them, excluding whatever local terrorists known and unknown, and we are safe.

The other remarkable thing is that Singapore is an open country and people come in freely. The govt is very happy to have more migrants coming to work in the island. And many of the migrants, more than 2m are here, are from terrorist prone regions and countries. And up to the last arrest, only 27 out of more than 2m foreigners are terrorists. This must be some kind of record.

Singapore is safe because the terrorists want to make it safe. They are here but would not attack Singapore. So nice. We can open our immigration door wider for more foreigners to come in. Oh, maybe our integration programme is very successful to integrate the foreigners that they have become one of us, like our law abiding Singaporeans, helping to make Singapore safer. Many foreigners are also grass root leaders and helping in patrolling their neighbourhoods.

What a nice feeling to be Singaporeans. The bigger problem here is actually Islamophobia, Singaporeans over reacting to the threats from radicalized terrorists.

Appointed president to elected president to appointed president

The issue of whether the current elected president system should be retained or changed is becoming a hot topic for discussion in Parliament and in the net. Why is this an issue now given that this was the best system introduced only a few years back, thought through by the super talents? Now it seems that this is no longer the best system, a stupid system, and there is an urgent need to tweak it. Before tweaking this, maybe we should go back one step further to know why there was a need to tweak the appointed president system to an elected president system.

I remembered that there was a fear that the appointed president was purely ceremonial and cannot check a rogue govt that may spend away the nation’s reserves.  They forgot that there was no need for a president to check on a rogue govt when it is appointed by the rogue govt. They should all be together in the rogue camp. So the idea of an elected president holding a second key can say no to a rogue govt, can refuse to open the reserves was born. Wasn’t this clever? Wasn’t this a well thought out scheme? Now who is saying that this is a hare brain scheme and needs to be tweaked because they forgot that the president could be a rogue president that would give trouble and pain to a good govt that needs to open the reserve but the rogue president says no? Don’t ask me why they did not think of this. Maybe the only assumption then was a rogue govt that needed a good president to cheque on them and not the possibility of having a rogue president that needed to be chequed.

Not the dire situation is a rogue president making life difficult for a good govt is going to happen. So how, go back to the old system of an appointed ceremonial president that is nice to the incumbent govt and they will all work happily together chequing each other. Like that sure no problem…unless both the appointed president and the incumbent govt are rogues. Then finish leow. But this is unlikely, to have a rogue govt appointing a rogue president. Our political system has been carefully designed and fine tuned to ensure that rogues will not be elected to govern this island, only righteous, honourable and selfless men and women will be selected and elected. The citizens cannot be so daft to elect rogues to form the govt right?  A 70% majority must be right. Can we trust our highly educated citizens to be daft and to elect rogues to form the govt?

Come to think of it this may be possible if the assumption that Singaporeans are daft is true. Singaporeans are famed for being daft, for allowing foreigners to come in and steal their jobs and never complain, accepting that this is the right thing, the good thing, because they cannot see anything further than the tip of their nose. They did not know what is going on around them.

Maybe before tweaking the elected president, I have a better idea. Create a third key. The third key can be held by an elected senior president or an elected COI, Committee of Inquisition, to cheque on the elected president and his second key. When two keys cannot work, not enough security, have a third key. Like that sure can work. And if the third key still cannot work, set up a senate of senior citizens. This one, the senior citizens must all be ex senior civil servants or ex ministers. Like that sure powerful enough to cheque on the elected president and senior elected president.

My idea can jalan or not?

Singapore Education 2016 v1.0

With two young ministers fresh from the election oven put in charge of education, things are going to be hot and exciting. A one minister ministry may find the excuse of being overloaded and no time to do much, two ministers mean a lot of spare capacity to do more, to do new things. In the media on 20 Dec, it was reported that changes will take place in the next 5 years to revamp primary school education to scale down emphasis on academic results and to provide more time for students to pursue their interests in and out of schools.

Why the change? The media reported that the policy came amid expectations from educators, parents and the pupils to revamp the current system based strongly on academic results. I read this simply that the new education policy is determined by the educators, parents and the pupils, what they want the education to be. Fair enough, and the ministers are just appeasing them, and must agree with them. It must be, for if the ministers have different ideas of what education of children is like, they would want their views to be part of the input. Then the education policy will be the result of the expectations of the ministers, educators, parents and the pupils.

As the changes are for primary education, I think it is fair and harmless. The educators, parents and pupils and the ministers can decide what they like for the children. What about secondary and higher education? Who should determine what higher education should be like, to meet whose expectations? Should the policies of higher education be determined by the expectations of the professors in the academia, the parents, the students and the ministers? Or should they also include the expectations of the employers, what the employers want and expect from the education system? Would the expectations of the employers be the most important element in determining what higher education and its products to be like as they are the ultimate users of the products of the education system? If not, they may say, no relevant skill sets, unusable, need to find those with relevant skill sets in less pretentious schools from the 3^rd world villages. Then our graduates would end up as temp job seekers or selling hamburgers at fast food joints. Then how?

A mismatch will be obvious if the policy of higher education is to meet the expectations of parents and students, or even the academics when their interests and expectations could be totally misaligned with the expectations of the employers.

While the policy of primary education is changing, I hope they will invite the employers to have a say as to what they want from the education system and we don’t end up with misfits from the higher education system that are not what the employers want. We are having this problem now, and some are very serious ones like the dearth of IT and banking and finance talents that no one seems to be responsible or accountable for it.  At primary level the blame can be put to the parents and students for wanting to have a fairy tale education disconnected with the realities of adult education and employment. At higher education, there is no luxury to mess around with the pragmatic and functional objectives of education.

The victims of past flirtations with dysfunctional education models and policies that are detached from the realities of adult life and leading to the lost generations of talents for IT and banking and finance industries must not be allowed to be repeated.  No more fooling around please. Education of the young is a very serious matter and there is a big divide between education for education’s sake, education that parents and students would love to have, and education to earn a living, education to meet the needs of the industries.

PS. I will love to decide my own education, read whatever I like, no exam, have a lot of fun and experimenting, if I don’t have to work for a living.