Keppel O&M cannot come at a better time

This thunderbolt from Brazil finally struck and many were stunned as to how to react. Damage control was uppermost in many people’s mind. The fine of a few hundred millions is nothing or of little concern. What is a few hundred millions? What is more difficult to deal with is the punishment for those involved. Fortunately, by an act of God, no one really knew what happened. Everyone did not know nothing about the scandal. Honest, trust me. So a warning from the AG office would suffice. This episode further strengthened the belief that Singapore is a country that is free from corruption. And if there is a corruption in a GLC and in another corner of the earth, it is reasonable to believe that those in charge in Singapore would not know, not a clue about it. It is so far away, for goodness sake.
 
But the severity of this corruption case involving tens of millions and only one PR, an American citizen, would still be a good reference to other corruption cases in Singapore. How this case is handled or dealt with, the severity and the punishment of people involved or associated with it would or could be used to measure how other corruption cases in Singapore are being handled. It will set the standard or what is acceptable or not norm.
 
The WP MPs must be quietly smiling. They would be comparing their Town Council case with this case. The Keppel O&M is a proven corruption case involving US$55 million. What about the Town Council case? Has corruption been proven and if it does, how much was involved? Can the WP MPs also use the excuse of not knowing, did not know, not aware, so may be a warning would suffice?
 
The debate in Parliament about how innocent the management of Keppel Corp in Singapore is and how they should not be held accountable for a crime they did not know would be carefully studied by the WP. How would the WP use this case in their defence of the Town Council case still in question would be interesting. The law is impartial and one set of law shall be applicable to all, one set of punishment must also be applicable to all. The lighter the punishment given to the Keppel management, the better would be for the Town Council case.
 
The WP MPs must be taking down notes of who and who saying what and what in the defence of the Keppel O&M case in Parliament and how to use the same arguments in their defence. Listen to the great arguments propounded and the moral high ground taken, and the excuses. The ‘not light or did not get off lightly’ penalty would come under the spotlight when the Town Council case is heard in court.
 
Godsend?

Singapore Bicentennial 2019

Singapore Bicentennial 2019

Celebrating Racism, Slavery and Exploitation

By MIKOspace

Next year 2019 has been designated Singapore Bicentennial to mark the 200^th year of the founding of Singapore by the Englishman Sir Stamford Raffles, working for the British East India Company (EIC) on behalf of the British Colonial Empire. Singapore history is actually more than 200 years old with official verifiable records from the middle of the first century (about 100AD), some 1,800 years before Raffles.

Of course, Raffles did not “discover” Singapore. Singapore was neither lost, obscure nor an isolated and uninhabited island. Much documentary evidence points to events and activities involving ancient kingdoms, wars, communities and economic trade.

History has been revised to refer to Raffles as the founder of MODERN Singapore.  This attempt at re-creating history is even more dangerous and particularly disingenuous in the absence of any evidence that any specific past British Colonial policy was designed to create “modern” Singapore. 

In a 10 June 1819 letter to his friend Colonel Addenbrooke, Raffles stated that “Our object is not territory but trade, a great commercial Emporium, and a fulcrum where we may extend our influence politically, where circumstances may hereafter require. By taking immediate possession we put a negative to the Dutch claim of exclusion, and at the same time revive the drooping confidence of our allies and friends; one Free Port is these Seas must eventually destroy the spell of Dutch monopoly; and what Malta is in the West, that may Singapore become in the East.”  

Singapore colonial history has been carefully packed in chewable childlike lessons: a barely inhabited quite virgin island; Raffles’ landing (exact location unknown); promotion of free trade; growth of entrepôt trade; growth of immigrants from China and India; town planning; building of government centre; and the development of necessary infrastructure to support British rule over the local population and to preserve law and order so as not to disrupt British and EIC business interests.  The result is the erroneous conclusion that her 140 years of British colonial rule has been the springboard and foundation of today’s Singapore. 

Our school history textbooks have also propagated this alternative reality.  It was familiar and uncontroversial, also comforting without provoking any anti-colonial sentiments by fabricating false colonial history to foster an unthinking and uncritical mind-set that the tools of colonial subjugation have exceptionally moral good impact in Singapore, but not seen in any other British Colonies!

As Singaporeans enter the buzz and business of the Bicentennial, we need to deconstruct the myths of benevolent colonialism to discover for ourselves, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, the awesome truth that today’s MODERN Singapore would be impossible if we had continued with British colonial rule.

Racism

British colonialism, like the French, Dutch and American, is based in part on racism even as it is appears to be motivated by material wealth, financial gain and territorial expansion. They believe they have a God-given right to govern and subject indigenous people in continuous subjugation with their power and resources. The idea of a master race is inherent in imperial powers to justify their right to exploit, degrade, humiliate and rule over non-white peoples. 

Many racist comments in post-colonial Singapore can find its origins in British stereo-types, especially targeted at Malays.  A 1883 observation by Maj-Gen Sir George Leith, that “They (Malays) are incapable of any labour apart from the cultivation of paddy fields” sums up British sentiments regarding the Malays at that time.

Years earlier by the 1870s, the British had already placed Malays at the bottom of the racial competency order.  In the 1879 Commission Report into the Police of the Straits Settlements, the Singapore Attorney-General Thomas Braddell indicated that he preferred the “Klings” [Indians/Indian-Malay] to Malays as being more intelligent and more active, and better disciplined as a body” as more suitable to be as Police recruits.

A British tourist, Isabella Bird, also observed the Malay’s lack of interest in industry in The Golden Chersonese, 1883, p357: “The Malays won’t work except for themselves”

In May 1823, Sophia Hull, Raffles’ wife, founded the Singapore Malay Female-School. A report, betraying its racist bias and stereotype, expressed surprise at the progress made by some of the students "considering their native habits of indolence, and their want of energy." 

It is clear that race relations and racial conflicts in post-colonial Singapore are very much a result of nearly 140 years of British policies based on their racist altitudes and stereotypes regarding the Malays, Indians and Chinese communities. The various communities were also separated into spatial residential clusters and allocated to jobs based on “the ‘inherent’ biological traits of each race”. The consequence of deliberate geographical segregation and institutionalisation of jobs based on race effectively formalised the (artificial) differences among the races.  They also prepare the stage for the eventual economic inequality among the races with the Malays and Indians in lower pay jobs as compared to the Chinese.

Slavery

The growing workforce of colonial Singapore in the 19^th and early 20^th century composed of mostly indentured labourers.  The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought increased maritime activities to Singapore as the larger steam-powered ships became the major ocean ships.  Eventually, Singapore became the major port for the thousands of labourers brought by labour agents from India, China, Bugis (West Indonesia), the Malay Archipelago and the Dutch East Indies for the tin mines and rubber plantations in Malaya.  The Port of Singapore thus became the major slave labour hub in the region even though slave trading, but not slavery itself, was officially outlawed by the British in 1807.

Colonial Singapore would not have prospered without the forced labour needed to build roads and bridges, work on the booming rubber plantations and tin mines, as well as providing prostitutes, concubines and domestic maids to serve the rich businessmen, British and Anglophile elites for nothing or pittance.

Under the British, Singapore became a prominent network hub of slave traders which linked villages in China and Japan to procure slaves and prostitutes. Even before Raffles, Bugis ships have also regularly brought slaves captured from the Indonesian Archipelago for trading or as gifts for government officials.    

True, we did not get to where we are today by accident or natural evolution.  However, we also did not get here through British Colonialism.  The transformation of Singapore from a fishing village to modern metropolis was not driven by the vision and foresight of British politicians in London and their colonial administrators.  True again, independent Singapore on 9 August 1965 did inherit a collection of laws, institutions, structures and processes after a brief 2-year “marriage” to Malaysia. These colonial legacies however were neither appropriate nor designed for nationhood and nation-building.

For example, the economy of Colonial Singapore was centred on entrepôt trade, which became obsolete in the post-war global international trade faced by a fledging Singapore economy.  The journey to modernity was not easy for an independent Singapore.  As with Hong Kong on July 1997, the British colonial masters had not actively address the critical issues of housing, education and health because their only goal was economic and the only interest was a British, not Singaporean, future. Raffles’ 10 June 1819 letter (see above) clearly attested and confirmed as much. 

The notion that British colonialism was a tool for the moral good of Singapore, and therefore should be celebrated as the driver of our modernity and as the catalyst of Singapore nationhood is sorely misguided.  It is a fallacy and has no historical truths.

As we carefully deconstruct our long history of more than 2,000 years, we will realise that most of us today (80%) came or were born after the British surrendered to the Japanese in 1942.  And about half (50%) of us are born after Independence.

Singapore was in fact abandoned by the British in the greatest surrender by the powerful British military to a much inferior Japanese Imperial Army on bicycles.  Colonial Singapore ended on 15 February 1942, ostensibly the best Chinese New Year “ang-pow” present if not for the subsequent Japanese unmitigated pogrom of cruelty, rape, killing and torture of all things Chinese.  The epiphany of Singaporeans during the 1942-1945 war years was the realisation that we could only depend on ourselves, and not the British or any outsiders.  This is now deeply ingrained in Singaporeans and drives the motivation of our National Servicemen and the indomitable Singapore Armed Forces.

The Japanese surrender on 12 September 1945 saw the shameless return of British colonial masters who thought, wrongly, that business would be as usual with her former colony. In April 1946, Singapore became a British Crown Colony to be ruled directly from London. Again, Singapore was treated like a commodity not unlike the prostitutes in her ‘red-light’ districts of Change Alley, Geylang, Keong Saik and River Valley to be mounted by any conquerors.

The Japanese war years have toughen Singaporeans to resist the restoration of Rule Britannia. The British imposed martial law – The Malayan Emergency - from 1948-1960 on security grounds to counter the emergence of communism, whose fighters were bred and trained in the Anti-Japanese Army during the war.  During the Emergency, the British suppressed legitimate civil and political protests through legislations controlling the newspapers and radio, introduced arbitrary detention with trial, banned workers unions and legitimate trade union strikes, deny ordinary civil rights (enjoyed in Britain!), and banned legitimate anti-colonial societies eg student unions, old boys association, farmers associations and trade unions.  All forms of challenge to British colonial rule were ruthlessly struck down and make illegal.  

Know that the celebration of 2019 Bicentennials would also glorify the failed measures of the Malayan Emergency.  Ironically, if these measures were successful, there would be no MODERN Singapore!   

It is clear that British rule over Singapore was never fully and effectively restored after the War.  And the battle for MODERN Singapore began in 1945 with the Japanese surrender. 

MODERN Singapore is the creation of a small group of politicians and activists of various political parties with somewhat conflicting ideologies, and NOT the natural outcome of British colonialism.

The People’s Action Party (PAP) led by Lee Kuan Yew eventually won the electoral right to flesh out and actualise the aspirations of Singaporeans for a free, sovereign, just, prosperous and equal nation. All the infrastructures, education, human talent, social services and armed forces needed for MODERNITY were built from scratch from the ground up.  Nothing needed for MODERNITY was inherited from the British colonial past. In repeated fair and transparent general elections over the past 50+ years, the PAP has assured and ensured that Singapore will never again be subjugated and subjected to the humiliation and indignity suffered under the British and the Japanese.    

The proposed Singapore Bicentennial celebrations must provide the true history of Singapore’s journey to MODERNITY which began in 1945.  Otherwise, it would be just a celebration of misplaced and wronged history! Suggest we should wait for 2045 to truly commemorate 100 years of MODERN Singapore.

“Until very recently Singapore’s past was a matter of supreme indifference for most Singaporeans simply because they believed this island never really had a history worth remembering…” – S. Rajaratnam, ‘The Uses and Abuses of the Past’, 1984.

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4G PM hopeful not fixated to be PM

Indranee had said that the fourth generation PM candidates are too busy focusing on other things like jobs and social issues and not fixated on being the next PM. This speaks very well of these PMs to be, that they only care about the people rather than their promotion to be the next PM. I like it. You can smell the sense of selflessness and righteousness in them.
 
From a personal perspective that these are unselfish men that did not care too much about being the next PM and rather work for the good of the people is admirable and laudable. This is probably the first time that a country has so many such noble men waiting on the side line to be the PM but not really interested to be, or not concerned if they become or not become the next PM. Even the most eligible candidate, Tharman, has openly expressed that he is not interested in the job.
 
From another angle, this is bad, that no one thinks of running this country. How come nobody is interested in the top job and paying millions? If no one is interested, would the reluctant candidate be pulling his weight when thrust into the job? Or would he use this as an excuse eventually if he did not perform, that he was not really interested in the job, so don’t blame him? Or would the job eventually go to someone who volunteers to be the PM, like this a social service work, doing charitable work?
 
Whether these crown princes like it or not, this is not a wishy washy job for someone to volunteer or for someone that is not interested to take up. It is the most important job in the country and the well being of the people depends on it. This job is no pray pray thing. Whoever wants the job better be serious about it. There is nothing more important than wanting to do this job well as the viability and well being of the country and people depend on it. You don’t want a misfit to be the PM and eventually runs it to the ground or hands it on a silver platter to another country or to foreigners, simply because he is not interested, never mind if Singaporeans would be the losers in the end.
 
The PAP was very serious about who would fit into the shoe of the PM in the last two changes. They did not want to risk putting a dud as a PM. Chok Tong had 5 years of apprenticeship to see if he was fit for the job. Perhaps 5 years were too short and Hsien Loong had 14 years to measure up to it. Now we have less than 5 years before Hsien Loong retires. Would there be enough time to train the next apprentice? Trump, who do you think?
 
By the ‘callafarre’ look of things, this apprenticeship thing is really not important. Or at least this is the impression given, no hurry, never mind, they have more important things to do than to go under training for the job. If this job is not important, what else is? Or is it that the apprenticeship scheme is really unnecessary and thus whether they have 5 years or 14 years OJT, it does not matter?
 
How can it be? Even being an MP needs to be OJT to run a town council first to prove one is capable to being an MP. The PM job is definitely more important and complex than running a town council. If an MP needs to prove his worth in running a town council, a potential PM must prove his worth while an apprentice before being pronounced fit to be PM.
 
Maybe, maybe all the trainings are applicable only to opposition politicians. The crown princes are no ordinary politicians. They are super talents and born to be leaders, to be PMs. So got OJT or no OJT would not make any difference. They will be fit to be PM regardless, when the time comes.
 
So there is absolutely no need to rush to put them under the apprenticeship scheme. They are born natural leaders, born to be PMs. No one needs to worry why no crown prince is being appointed and to go under the wing of the PM, to be tested and to prove himself. Did I get the spelling right on crown prince?

What is the intention of China

In every conversation, forum or western think tank talks, this question would pop up. What is the intention of China's growing economic and military power? What a stupid question to ask. The Americans and the West are getting stupid but they should not think the Chinese are stupid. What kind of answer are they expecting from the Chinese? What would they think they would do or intend to do if they were in the position of China?

The only sensible western academic that has some sense of propriety and reasoning is Hugh White. His answer was simple commonsensical. When one is rich and powerful, one would just be rich and powerful just like the Americans. Are these westerners and Americans still believe that China would live in a world created and dominated by the West for the last two hundred years and continue to be subject to the rules of the West and the existing balance of power?

For more than two hundred years since the invading hordes of European colonialists went about conquering and colonising the rest of the world, the balance of power is such that they should be holding all the powers in the world and the rest of the world must be subject to their power. They would want to possess all the weapons of mass destruction and no one else should have them, and if anyone else has them, the West or the Americans must have 99 pieces while the other one can only have one. And every piece of the American or western weapon is to be bigger than the one possess by the other one. This is the balance of power for the last two hundred years. The Israel is trying to impose this formula on the Arab/Muslim countries as well.

Any country that want to have more than one weapon, even two or three, is immediately branded and demonises as aggressive, unconstructive and destructive, and not playing by the international rule they created. The Americans can have all the military bases around China, fly and sail their military craft on the coast of China, and this is the norm. The American Carrier Battle Group can sail freely in the seven seas to challenge and threaten any country, including China. China cannot fly or sail its military craft out of China or the seas around China. China cannot have military bases outside China. Doing so would be an aggressive and provocative act. China having anti carrier missiles to deny American CBGs from threatening China is accused of being an aggressive act. The Americans sailing CBGs to the Taiwan Straits to intimidate China is not aggressive? The bombing of Chinese Embassy in Belgrade is not aggressive? The rapes of Iraq and Libya and Syria are not aggressive?

The Americans can build military fortresses in the Indian and Pacific Ocean filled with nuclear weapons and WMD and not aggressive. The Americans proliferating nuclear weapons all over Europe and Asia not aggressive? China cannot have a few aircraft or naval ships in its islands in the South China Sea. This is provocative, expansionist, aggressive act that upsets the balance of power?

What is China's intent in doing all these? Do the Americans and the West believe that China, with all its economic clout and military might, would continue to be holed within its land and sea boundaries and allow the Americans to have free play around its borders, flaunting their military prowess and might?

Do the Americans and the West really believe the Chinese are so daft that after being invaded, their country looted and plundered during a time of weakness, would accept the same status quo imposed on them by the colonial and imperial powers of the West then and today?

China may not want to be like the colonial West or Imperial Americans, to want to control and dominate the world militarily. The least China would want to do is to look at the Americans straight in the eyes and to tell the Americans to back off and not to cross the path of China in its economic development and growth and in building its military power to defend itself. The least that China would want to do is to stop the Americans from telling and coercing them in whatever they are doing. China would want to be an equal member in the community of nations and would not allow the Americans or the West to dictate what China can or cannot do.

The balance of power would be 50:50 and no longer 90:10 in favour of the Americans and the West. If the Americans can have 11 CBGs, can have 1000 military bases all over the world, China would also want to have the same if their economic and military strength allowed them to do so, not that they would go that way.  China did not have the ambition to be an Empire and need all the military bases and CBGs to protect the Empire, to bully the world and to rule the world. China just want to be a rich and powerful nation, to chart its own destiny for the prosperity of its people and perhaps also for the prosperity of the rest of the world, without being a military Empire.

Did I answer the stupid question being asked by the West and the Americans? Or are they hoping that the bankrupt West would continue to dictate the terms of international relations in their favour when China is strong enough to say No to them, that China must continue to be push around by the West, by the Americans?

HDB/CPF transaction – Dead man is alive

I am wondering if this is a good analogy of the transaction involving the purchase of a HDB flat using CPF money. Many would believe that once the purchase is fully paid up, by cash or CPF money, the deal is done, the end of the story. In reality the purchase of a HDB flat using CPF money, even when fully paid, is like a man suffering from cancer. The ‘dead’ man may not be walking around, but inside him the cancerous cells are fully alive and kicking, non stop. Even if the man drops dead, the cancerous cells continues to multiply until the body is burnt or rotted away.
 
Many would thought they would have peace of mind once they have fully paid for the property even with CPF money. If it is cash, the transaction is done and everything ends. Once CPF money is involved, the whole deal is alive and kicking, because someone said the CPF money is not yours. There are two parts to this deal that will continue to be alive like the living dead. One part is the financial obligation owed to the HDB that could be changed over time. The second part is the interest owing to the CPF money which is rightly your money, but to some not your money.
 
In the case of the HDB part, when you sell the property, the HDB has the right to impose a levy on your capital gain. Who owns the property? And when you resell the HDB flat, you would have to pay up, to the HDB, a percentage of the sale price as levy. It is your property, you pay property taxes, but HDB is sitting there waiting to rob you of your capital gain as if it is a passive owner of your HDB flat. Clever or sneaky, up to you to call it. In the case of a really private property, you sell and get back whatever is the transacted price.
 
The CPF part is that though the money is yours, though the purchase is fully completed, the CPF is still counting the interest on the CPF money you used for the property. There is no such thing as a done deal. The CPF interest is forever kept alive, like cancerous cells. Some were so intrigue by this ridiculous thing of paying interest on using your savings to buy properties. When you sell the property, the interest would be computed, back dated to the day you buy the property with the CPF money. Clever or sneaky, say what you like.
 
It is as good as dead man alive. When one takes a bank loan to pay for a property, this transaction is fully closed. The part that is alive is the repayment of the loan taken from the bank. When using your CPF, you will still be owing interest to your own money you withdraw from the CPF. You borrow from yourself to pay for a property and you owe interest to your own money. If you die without selling the property, I dunno whether the CPF would insist on your beneficially to pay for the interest when they sell your property. Presumably they would not as you will be dead and gone.