Who is advising Hsien Loong?

‘The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) strongly urges the Government of Singapore to stop this harassment and ensure that bloggers are proetected against such unjustified interference with or reprisals for the exercise of their right to freedom of expression.

By resorting to this kind of harassment and intimidation of bloggers, Singapore is showing complete disregard for human rights and the rule of law,” said Sam Zarifi, ICJ’s Regional Director for Asia and thePacific.

“The Government of Singapore must stop intimidating citizens who express their political opinions openly. The actions taken by the Singaporean police against the four bloggers do not only constitute an attack on freedom of opinion and expression in the country, but also clearly violates their right to privacy.” He added.’

The above is quoted from an article in the TRE titled ‘ICJ: End harassment of bloggers in Singapore’ quoting source from ICJ’s website.

I am not going to discuss about the subject matter, about what Roy Ngerng, Teo Soh Lung or The Independent Singapore wrote during the Cooling Day of the by election. I will also not touch on the police actions and how they conduct their investigations. I am trying to understand the motivation for the govt or Hsien Loong to allow this to go on the way it did.

Hsien Loong must have a team of political advisers working for him just like his father LKY. These are very experienced and professional people, could be ministers or some people he really trusted for their good judgement and sense of reality and proportion. They are the people that would assist him, give their views and opinions or anything, particularly in this case, political critics.

LKY lived in a very different time, with very different kind of political opponents, different value system, with a less educated population, without the social media, in a world when drastic measures were swallowed without much question by the people and international organizations. The world has since moved on, everything has changed, values, morals, a more educated and enlightened population, more NGOs and a 24/7 social media presence. The social and political tapestry is very different and using old methodology and tactics to deal with current situation may seem out of sync.

LKY listened to his advisors and their views and made his own decision. He decided what should be the final outcome, what should be done, and would throw out bad advices that would not solve the problems but caused him more and greater problems if he went ahead with them. He took many tough decisions and gambled with the outcomes. The situation in his time was tough and rough.

The situation today cannot be that rough and tough. Maybe I did not have the full picture, the full inside story. Under today’s circumstances, the PAP is reining supreme, untouchable, and can afford to have a little criticisms, a bigger tolerance for dissent, and the broadcast during Cooling Day did not do any real damage, water under the bridge, really.

The follow up actions by the police and now the attention from around the world, ICJ, are definitely something that Hsien Loong and his govt need not have to face.  It is baffling to invoke such attention. The Cooling Day broadcasts were tolerable and bearable irritations and could be dealt with with a slap on the wrist. Nothing more and no storm in the tea cup.

What made Hsien Loong to allow this mess to go on the way it went? Ok, I am being presumptious here, that he knew and approved the whole process. I could be wrong and I stand corrected. Hsien Loong could be totally uninvolved and the whole incident was left to someone else to handle as that someone deemed best.

All I can say is that it is something unnecessary and there is no need to kick up a dust storm when there is no need to. Why invite the unnecessary attention that is anything but good for Singapore and the govt? This is the 21^st Century, not the days of LKY and the Communist Insurgency. The political climate and players have changed, the people have changed, the risks have changed, the challenges have changed.

Would Roy Ngerng or Teo Soh Lung present such a big threat or challenge that it is necessary to send a bull into a theatre? The PAP shall rule till SG100. Relac.

‘We will not be lackey to anyone’

Now who said that? What do you mean by being lackey to anyone? This statement was made by the incoming Filipino Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay. The Foreign Minister was confirming some of the foreign policy statements that the incoming President Rodrigo Duterte has been saying since his election. The Philippines foreign policy will be independent of any foreign powers and will be conducted from the interests of the Philippines and its people.

This is a clear change from the policies of Benigno Aquino that has been leaning towards the US and reinviting the Americans to their former military bases in Clark and Subic, in a way turning the Philippines into a semi colony of the USA once again. The Philippines will be the third Asian countries that allowed the Americans to station troops in their own soil as semi colonies. And Benigno is very proud of it, to be the lackey of the Americans. And his rewards, a WW2 museum piece that he called his biggest warship to take on China.

In the case of Japan and South Korea, they were reluctant to remain as such and wanted the Americans out but were unable to do so. The American troops are there to stay, to protect American interests and keeping the two states as part of the American Empire. The situation in the Philippines is different. Here there is a Filipino President happily and willingly subject his country to be a semi colony of the Empire by invitation, by choice.

Duterte would not have such nonsense. The Philippines will not be the lackey of any super power. This man has pride and is a nationalist.  How many countries would go so low to welcome a foreign power to be their overlord, to become a semi colony, a lackey to a super power?

A Petition and an Open Statement from the Workers Party

The police investigation on Cooling Day postings by Teo Soh Lung and Roy Ngerng has reached a new high that there is a Petition signed by 150 political activists from all colours appealing to the police to cease the investigation. You can read the petition in TRE and TOC.  

And the unusually non partisan and quiet WP has even issued an Open Statement,

‘The Workers’ Party is concerned about the manner in which the current investigations into alleged violations of “Cooling Off Day” regulations are reportedly being conducted.

We understand from the public record that other individuals or entities who were reported for similar violations in the past were not known to have faced the same lengthy interviews, and searches and seizures of personal equipment.

We urge the authorities to ensure that consistency and proportionality are applied to all investigations, as these are key to maintaining confidence in Singapore’s law enforcement organisations and legal system.’

The Petition and Open Statement may all come to nothing given the state of affairs in this island. At best it would be to register their disapproval and put it on record. Nothing will come from these actions. The investigation will go on.

What would be interesting and meaningful would be for the 150 signatories to the Petition to do something concrete and meaningful. One thing they could do is to approach the WP or the SDP to join the parties to run in the next GE. These 150 activists are mostly professionals in their own rights and would be a force to be reckoned with, to add to the strength of whichever party that is willing to take them in en bloc.  Put aside all the personal differences for the bigger objective.  See the bigger picture and think big. This is the kind of things that would be meaningful and impactful if that is what they want to do. Otherwise words don’t kill and would not come to anything.

And if the WP and SDP did not want to welcome them, the 150 activists could launch a new political party and invite all with the same thinking in the opposition party camp, WP and SDP included, and all the professionals on the sidelines to join this new party without any historical baggages but with a clear objective, to be the political party to stage a real challenge to the ruling party. This is the way to go forward.  Start preparing for the next GE now. There is no time to waste if they want real change for the good of country and people. Just do it.

Put the Petition and Open Statement aside and do something that would lead to greater change to our political landscape and the good of the people and country.

Education – I had a dream

I dreamt that in the future all our students would turn out to be scientists and engineers equipped to live in a futuristic world with all the skill sets they need embedded in them by a microchip. No need to go to school to learn anything anymore except morality and moral values. And they will live through their lives like perfect human beans, with no sickness as this will be taken care of by the microchip that regularly dispensed medicine and supplements needed for their good health. And their intelligence will be several notches higher than the average beans around the world.

Then I woke up to a rude shock. The plight of the PMETs are still around where many are still unemployable as they no longer have the skill sets to fit into the workforce. What is happening? We are trying and planning for the future but forgot about the Now, the people that are living now and turning obsolete, falling down the economic and social ladder of the society.

Then I read the papers and was again filled with hopes and promises of a greater future as the govt are tweaking the education system again to be the best education system in the world, to teach and educate our people to be the brightest and best all rounder, and most important, to be employable again. But the result is in the future and we will have to wait for that to happen, maybe in SG100 when Singaporeans will be the happy people, fully employed and leading a good life.

Then I started thinking, what is the point of the future when the present is a failure, when our people from our education system are no longer competitive and no skill sets to even get a job. So, before we embark on another wild goose chase, another untested experiment, we need to know what is the basis of our futuristic education system, proven or modelled after some successful model or just another trial balloon? Because someone took some drugs and hallucinated that this is the best way to go?

Why don’t we do the real thing, the logical thing, look at the successfulo working models and copy what people have done successfully, no need to reinvent the wheel when the wheel is another trail and error, unproven game of hope? Look at all the talented people that are coming to Singapore to replace our no skill set PMETs and young graduates! Does that ring a bell, that these are the products of a good education system, to be able to produce the graduates and professionals needed by our industries? If our education system can do the same, there is no need to keep tweaking and toying around our education system and telling the people it is really good.

Be real. Look at the countries that are producing the talents that we need. The most talents we are getting are from India. This is the hard truth. You can see them all over Raffle Place, MBFC and Changi Business Park, or is it now called Chennai Business Park?  What does it mean? It’s so simple. The Indians are doing all the right things in their education system.  No need silly and expensive foolish ideas. Just get the basics of education right. That is why we are hiring all the Indian professionals with the right skill sets to replace our no skill sets PMETS and young graduates. It must be. We can’t be hiring them if they are no good unless we are so hopelessly stupid. We can’t be employing fakes and cheats to replace our PMETs right?

So, with this understanding clear and bright, the solution is very simple. Stop mucking around with our education system and pretend that we are doing the right thing. And those people who have no idea of what education of the young is all about better shut up and don’t pretend they know. Go to the experts, go to the countries that have done it, and done it well. And no country has done it better than India. The results showed. Walk around Raffles Place and MBFC and you will know where the foreign talents came from.

I would advise the MOE to stop mucking around, send our MOE staff to India to learn from them. They know best and are producing the best talents that are in our industries and govt services too. And in the interim, before waiting for the result to be seen in 20 years or 30 years down the road, quick, send our A level students to the universities in India for their undergraduate and post graduate studies. Forget about NUS, NTU, SMU. Forget about the Ivy League universities in UK or USA. Send them to India, University of Mumbai is one of the best in India. That would be a good start.

The success of India’s education is no fluke shot. Look at the number of Indian nationals helming big corporations in the USA, the UK and also Europe would be enough testimonies to logically conclude that India is doing the right thing. They are producing the world’s current and future honchos in the corporate world and do not need all the silly university rankings to feel good. Their universities are unranked, many several hundred notches down the ladder of infamy according to those ranking agencies. But the Indians are soaring to the sky. And this is real, not magic!

Stop all the funny tweakings and experiments using our young as guinea pigs. Haven’t we wasted a whole generation of our graduates with no skill sets from our world best universities?

Stop smoking. I too have woken up and seen the reality. We have an education system that looks good on paper but cannot be eaten, not worth a cent but the students have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete the highly flawed system that at best is dysfunctional, the graduates good to be taxi and crane drivers or hawkers.  We need another 30 years to produce top finance and banking professionals!!!! What kind of shit is that? What are we going to do in the meantime? What have we been doing in the last two or three decades?

Would anyone dare to say that the Indian graduates we hired are rubbish and we are hiring all the rubbish and to say what I wrote is rubbish?

The Undiplomatic Diplomat

Yes, being a little red dot, Singapore is often forced to walk the tight rope in international politics, between the super powers, and juggling our core relations with the Israelis that came to our aid in our time of needs and our two giant neighbours that are more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. It is not a job for kids to think that Singapore has an easy task to dribble around these powerful forces and to live on unhurt or unscathed. This balancing act not only demands great diplomacy and contortionist act, but also the quality of great statesmanship to steer through the rough sea. Children should never attempt to do what is normally done by adults. Acting big, talking big and thinking big are different from whether people think you are big and if you are up to it.

The difficult job in diplomacy needs not be made more difficult by callous talks and insinuation to ruffle the feathers of interested powers unnecessary. Yes. LKY did that and got away with it. But he was LKY and he could do and say a lot of things that many national leaders would disagree but deferred to him and would not be rude to him by telling him so in his face. And if you are not LKY, please do not behave and act as if you are LKY.

The Singapore today is not the Singapore of LKY. In his heyday, Singapore, or the Istana, is like a temple of wisdom for world leaders to pay homage and ask for blessings and a piece of good advice or wisdom from the Oracle.. Today who bothers to call on the Istana to have his fortune told? There is no need to go around antagonizing others when there is no need to. There is no need to commit our national interests to the interests of big power to offend anyone.

Singapore is not a Chinese country and it is right to remind China of this fact. But there is no need to apologise or feel a sense of guilt that Singapore is a Chinese majority country. Without the Chinese majority, what would Singapore have become today? Would Singapore be still in the ranks of the third world countries with no toilets and the people shitting in the open with slums everywhere? Singapore is a Chinese majority country and we have done well for all the races here. This is a heritage that we should be proud of. And Singapore would chart its own course for the benefits of the people of Singapore, with great sensitivities to the feelings and cultural backgrounds of its people without showing favour to any or discriminating against any. 

Our diplomats must know the sentiments of the Chinese majority and not shooting off ignoring their existence. The Chinese majority is not homogenous, there are the bananas, the anglophiles, there are also those that are rooted in their ancient civilization and culture. Are they anti China or pro America?  Most of the bananas are anti China, but there are those who do not think and share the values of the bananas. Any diplomat lashing out at China is not speaking for the Chinese majority or being sensitive to their sensibilities. Would offending some sections of the Chinese majority or offending China be good for our national interests?

Singapore may need the help of the Americans in the future and we should call the USA our friend, for the USA is the only trigger happy country that would have no qualms to pull the trigger on our behalf when called upon.  In this sense the USA is a very reliable protector. But we should also not be silly to think that the Americans would do this just for our own good. It is also for their own good, a symbiotic relationship. We need the Americans and the Americans need us just as badly for a safe and reliable foothold to support their Empire and world hegemony ambition and agenda.

While we need the Americans military muscle for our national security, we also need the Chinese economic power, the market, to spur our economic growth. In this sense we need China and its economy more than China needs us. The majority Chinese Singaporeans did not see China simply on cultural and racial familiarity but an avenue for our continued economic well being. Did we not send many many govt missions to China to carve out a little niche for ourselves and for our own economic growth? Did we not become one of the biggest investors in China? Did we not build Suzhou Industrial Park, Tianjin Eco Park and the many property projects in China? We are trying so hard to cling onto the Chinese economic bandwagon to share a bit of their growth.

Is there a need to slap the Chinese in front of the Japanese and the world, to embarrass them and to call them names? What is all that for? What are we trying to achieve by painting the Chinese as enemy and not to be trusted but hoping for crumbs left on the floor by them?

If slapping China and expecting China for hangouts is diplomacy then I would have to go back to school to relearn this new trick. Now I have a reason to spend my $500 in the Skills Future Fund. Is this the highest level of diplomacy red dot style? Has anyone heard of this new diplomatic doctrine, what Doctrine shall I called it, the Doctrine of the Little Red Dot?

Do not take China for granted, for a fool. And please do not take the USA as angels. Ask yourself a simple question, would China allow you to slap its cheek and turn the other cheek? And would the USA give you no strings attached military backing? Remember how the phrase ‘You are either with us or against us’ came about and how we ended up supporting a war that we should not be involved and compromising our national interests precariously?

Diplomacy is an art of the skillful statesmen but a bungling act for little boys and girls. Be reflective and know who we are and what we are. Learn from George Yeo, the former Foreign Minister. Don’t be ‘boh tua boh suay’. Know your rightful place in the international stage of realpolitiks. You don’t get away for taking cheap pot shots at the big powers or medium powers or even small powers.  Be contrite and be wise. A day of drunken glory would end up with a nasty hangover.

Kishore may be outspoken, but he is all diplomacy and even countries like China would seek his views on international matters in some way like a smaller oracle. A diplomat is a diplomat unlike a national leader. Can a diplomat be undiplomatic?