TR EMERITUS

I came across this commentary 2 days ago titled 'Singapore's hunt for global tech talent will benefit Singaporeans too' by an academic. It was no sheer coincidence that an academic’s pro-Tech Pass commentary was published weeks after the government had announced their intention to launch this special category of work passes. Apparently, the acute shortage of tech talent has been a global phenomenon for the past decade and many countries in the world have chosen to address this by adjusting their immigration policies to lure in the next Michael Zuckerberg or Sundar Pichai. The issue here is countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, Thailand, Vietnam and even the US are courting after the same limited pool of talent.  Hence, what will be the tipping scale for the tech crème de la crème to choose Singapore over the rest - lest we forget that our political climate is not conducive for creativity, innovation & entrepreneurship? If we can’t convince 500 of these special tech gurus to our shores, what’s next for Singapore? Don’t we have a readily available pool of local talent to tap on? After all, in one of the university rankings for engineering & technology, NTU (8th) & NUS (10th) outdid the likes of Harvard University (12th) & UCLA (19th). In fact, the irony is that the university of the academic who wrote the article had started an Overseas College program in 2002.  This is an internship programme with a strong emphasis on technology entrepreneurship. A sizable chunk of these interns ended up working in Silicon Valley thereafter and whom the PAP found it hard to convince to return home. It is baffling that even though multiple cohorts of local tech talent have been produced year in year out, we still end up competing with other countries for the limited pool of foreign tech gurus. MOE claims that “Singapore’s university education prepares students not only for today’s world but also for a world where there will be jobs that have yet to be invented and challenges not yet foreseen”. If we have the talent from our own breed (and I strongly believe that we have), then the self proclaimed visionary leaders of the PAP should attest to that statement and keep faith in our thoroughbreds.  Otherwise, there is much soul searching to be done on our education system.     *Facebook post by Bryan Lim Boon Heng.     .  Read More →

Workers Party (WP) MP Jamus Lim was conducting routine house visits at 308A Anchorvale last week when he shared his experience interacting with the Wong family. The Wong family - which has 3 generations staying together - spoke to him on a variety of issues. The popular politician and economics professor - whose presence is seen to have contributed to the win of Sengkang GRC in the recent Generation - felt that the "one topic that appears to cut across generations, however, is the matter of CPF savings." The Professor said that this was a topic that affects all the age groups. For the middle-aged, their CPF balances are often tapped on to purchase their residential property, resulting in a "larger share of incomes devoted just to securing a roof over their heads, rather than contributing toward retirement". This is made worse when property prices are rising and CPF is sometimes tapped on to help with school fees of their children. The issue of the CPF is also present for the elderly, who are faced with rising medical costs. In turn, this brings about the question on whether existing limits for Medisave utilization are adequate for the older generation. Indeed, the Mercer Marsh Benefits 2019 Medical Trends Around the World report shows that the medical inflation was 10% in Singapore last year - 250% the 4% interest paid on the MediSave account. Netizens praise Professor Lim for his insightful comment Going by comments on Facebook, Professor Lim's comments seem to have resonated with netizens. Arut Siva commented that Singapore "is the only country where 37 percent of Salary are gone into cpf and is locked for life" and this was too much considering that "many people in [their] 50s have their houses fully paid and [on] top of that they still have funds exceeding [the] minimum sum." Another Netizen, Peng Lum Soh agreed: "When the dividends paid on your CPF is lower than the inflation rate, it becomes a diminishing asset. Given that a large portion of CPF contribution goes into leasing your government owned HDB flat plus the high medical costs, many Singaporeans will not have much left over for retirement. This situation gets more aggravated with time." Worker's Party Manifesto on CPF - a better alternative? According to the Worker's Party Maifesto, the party proposes 3 viable alternatives to the current system. Perhaps the most significant policy proposal is that the WP has proposed a special dividend on our CPF savings. The party takes the view that since the GIC indirectly invests CPF funds, then it should follow that CPF members "must be given transparency on the nature and performance of their money". In this regard, WP champions that CPF members should be aware of the "10-year moving average difference between the investment returns of GIC and the net interest payable on CPF member balances". One-third of this difference should be credited into CPF members’ Special Accounts to boost retirement adequacy. Next, the WP is also aware that many - such as full-time home-makers and caregivers undertake "unpaid labour in the form of caregiving" and thus struggle with retirement adequacy due to their lack of CPF savings. The WP thus believes that the government should relax rules on the transfer of CPF funds before the age of 55 to older relatives in one’s extended family. Finally, the WP champions that the CPF Payout Eligibility Age and CPF Life eligibility age should be lowered to 60, whilst account holders whose balances that exceeded their Minimum Sum should also be allowed to "withdraw a reasonable percentage of their excess CPF balances during times of crisis". Will a higher interest and more flexible withdrawal rules bode well for CPF members?    Read More →

One of the largest stories last month was the beheading of a teacher, who had shown cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Three teenagers were charged with his murder and the result was something of a diplomatic row between France and the Muslim World. French President, Emanuel Marcon was even declared an “enemy of Muslims,” in Indonesia: [LINK] Details of the background story can be found here. The dispute between France and the Islamic World is the second time that a European nation has come into conflict with the Islamic World over the topic of blasphemy. Shortly before heading to Saudi in 2006, I remember living through the Jyllands-Posten incident when the Danish newspaper published “offensive cartoons,” of triggered off mass protest across the Muslim world, which included the burning and the burning of embassies. The main argument in the Western World was the fact that this was a freedom of speech issue. While most rational heads in the Islamic World had condemned the violence, there were many who were critical of the Western government’s failure to protest religious sensitivities and “respect for religion.” I remember interviewing Saudi Deputy Minister for Islamic Affairs, Dr. Abdullah Ilhidan in 2006, who argued that there was a need to protect everyone’s religious sensitivities. Let’s start with the obvious point here. The cartoons from the Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo were downright offensive. If you leave aside the Islamic prohibition against depicting live images of anyone, let alone “God’s Last Prophet,” the cartoons were by all accounts provocative and accused the Muslim world of causing every terrorist incident around. For the sake decency, I am publishing a cover from Charlie Hebdo, which can be interpreted as a France’s attempt find common ground with its Muslim population. There is also the question of whether it was necessary to publish the cartoons. In layman terms, it’s your right to say and publish what you want but do you need to go out of your way to piss people off? I remember asking PN Balji, who had just retired from his second stint in Today, whether he would have published the cartoons of the Jyllands-Posten. He said no because it was potentially explosive. Singapore tried to straddle the middle ground between the Western view of “Freedom of Speech,” and “Respect for religion,” line. Our “least conflicted,” Minister, Mr. K Shanmugam, said that in the Singapore context “Freedom of speech stops at the boundary of giving offense to religion.” [LINK] Having said all of that, there is no justification for the violence that was perpetrated against Danish Embassies in 2006 and against Charlie Hebdo cartoonist in France and calls to boycott Danish (in 2006) and French businesses more recently are what you’d call overblown. The French, for example, have since World War I not invaded any Muslim countries for personal gain (the French loud critics of the 2003 invasion of Iraq) and both the French and Danes have been relatively generous in giving asylum to Muslims freeing persecution from Muslim countries. So, how is it such that Western countries that have a record of relative benevolence against Muslim majority states would be the subject of ire in the Islamic world over a couple of cartoons? While I don’t have direct answers to the question, one might suggests looking at who is calling to defend the “honour” of the faith. In the 2006 Jyllands-Posten incident, it was found that in Palestinian controlled areas, the charge against all things Danish was instigated by Fatah, the secular party that runs the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the party that both the USA and Israel see as a “partner for peace.” Hamas, the Islamist party that both the USA and Israel, regard as a terrorist organisation, did not instigate violence against things Danish. In Egypt it was the foreign minister of the “secular” Egyptian government that branded the Danish cartoons a scandal and launched a multinational effort to prevent recurrence of such insults to Islam. In Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemned the cartoons but also commented about militants who discredit Islam by their acts. Sistani underlined how un-Islamic acts of extremism are used as justification to attack Islam. Khaled Al Maeena, my former editor at Arab News described the violence against all things Danish as “Foolish.” There was no doubt that an amount of religious fever involved in the violence, one needs to look beyond the headlines. The events of 2006 and the current events might indicate that there are a good number of secular political players exploiting religious passions for good old fashioned secular purposes like power and money. So, the question would be where does one draw the lines between freedom of speech and religious respect come. Freedom of speech, as they say, will involve a huge amount of offensive speech. As a rational person, I’d say that the best way to deal with offensive speech is to ignore it – a case of I don’t like what you say so I won’t listen. I’m also fortunate where I live in Singapore where people express their frustrations online but don’t take to the streets. I also understand the government’s position when it says freedom of speech stops when it causes offense to religion. While our last race-based riot was in the 60s, the government is not wrong to argue that our religious and racial harmony cannot be taken for granted. Having said that, there is a problem, namely the problem of “definitions.” Hence, when a minister talks about “responsible” speech, the question is one of “responsibility.” When you talk about “not offending,” there is a question of what defines “not offensive.” The ground level compromise in Singapore is fairly visible. In any given hawker centre you’ll see how trays are divided into halal and non-halal sections. Muslims happily sit alongside non-Muslims, who may guzzle pork dishes. On the ground level, there seems to be a working compromise. However, when things go a level above the ground, there is a grand flip-flopping on what constitutes offense to religion. This is a government that has barred Muslims from serving beyond a certain level in the military but at the same time, sees no issue in reserving the presidency for a particular race and religion. We say that we must not be “offensive to religion or race,” but at the same time we had a former politician who was in the habit of writing all sorts of “Truths” about how people of a certain faith were not integrating, remarks which did hurt the community. So, perhaps we need to relook at the rules and their application. Yes, there should be certain limits on freedom of speech but these limitations need to be there for a good reason. As a Buddhist I may get offended if you call Gautama Buddha a mad oversexed hippy. It may be offensive to me as a Buddhist but it’s not provocative or done with the possibility of getting some nut job to do me or my family harm. What should be limited is if you label say, “All Bald Singapore Chinese men as serial rapist,” in the public sphere. Such comments are likely to damage my ability to get a job as a toilet cleaner or worse put me in the cross hairs of some nut case. Secondly, we need to raise our standards. If we are to say that provocative speech ends where it causes offense to a religion or even a race, we also need to look at who says it. If a coffee shop auntie says something offensive, the answer should be – who cares, the old lady is entitled to an opinion, no matter how offensive. However, if we intend to make causing offense a public issue, surely politicians should be slapped harder when they do so – after all their words have a greater impact on society. We live in a world that currently needs to find more opportunities for dialogue. There should be freedom of expression and people should listen to opinions that they don’t necessarily like (as anyone who contributes to the internet will testify to). Having said that, we do need to accept that harmful and inciteful speech needs to be watched. It’s how you ensure there’s a social dialogue with rules that everyone can agree on.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →