TR EMERITUS

Issues of race, nationality, clan, family, are very sensitive because they evoke a primordial instinct. This instinct comes from the gut, bypassing rational thought. We have this instinct because we are social animals. If we lose this instinct, we probably lose our humanness. So, we may pretend and wear each other’s ethnic clothings on Racial Harmony Day, play traditional games of different races, preach understanding, tolerance and have dialogues, but when push comes to shove, things can become ugly very fast. These issues are always there, they can only be ameliorated by blurring the distinctions over long periods of time. I was once teaching a group of Nepalese kids mathematics in a local primary school. After many generations of cross marriage, most of them look somewhat between Chinese and Indian, with brown skin, almost like Malays but with Chinese and Indian facial features. Occasionally, some of them look 100% Chinese, Indian or Punjabi, but they all speak Nepalese and seem to consider themselves as one race. I once let these kids play some group games, and in one group was a girl who looked 100% Punjabi - tall, fair skinned, long dark brown hair, large eyes, sharp nose and chin with a petite mouth. I thought she was Singaporean, so I asked if she understood what the group was saying as they were conversing in Nepalese. Instantly, and rather indignant, she shot back, “Mr Foong, I am Nepalese!” They are not classified into different race, unlike us, and they seem to have more success in ameliorating racism. However, that instinct to belong is always present, and in their case, strongly exhibited in their nationality. During recess, they like to play football, and it almost always is Nepalese versus Singaporeans and their local friends inevitably get a thrashing. The point I am trying to make is that if we want to ameliorate racism, then don’t emphasize race. Let the people mix in the melting pot and eventually race will seem an alien concept and people will identify themselves only as Singaporeans. Anyway, to continue the story, I began to form the impression that Nepal must be a harmonious place. However, I was told that there are deep seated antagonism nevertheless, most obvious but seldom talked about openly, is that the rich don’t like the poor, and vice-versa, which sounds correct to me because I sense that when the kids tell me so-and-so’s father is an officer and my father is a policeman. In fact, I believe there is a distinction in the accommodation they get at the Gurkha Camp near Mount Vernon depending on their rank. This class consciousness seem endemic in humans. So, the rich seldom mix with the poor and vice-versa, and the rich spend most of their waking hours thinking how to accumulate more wealth while the poor think of hare-brain schemes to join their ranks. It seem a quirk to me, as if this tendency is a dangerous mutation in the human gene which can lead to its destruction. If we see a monkey hoarding bananas, we probably think it is mad because how many can it eat? However, we admire, envy or are jealous of a man who has accumulated wealth that can last a few lifetimes. We are also the only living thing that slaughter its own kind, en masse. You know of another living thing that does that? So, this obsession to go one-up over a fellow human is real. We can call it class war or elitism but it goes on all the time, covertly. So, if the impediment to the rich businessman making more money is a lack of manpower, he may influence the government to bring in more workers from a willing country, and if India fits both their agendas, India it will be. And if the people in the home country feel uncomfortable and start protesting, then brand them as racists and you can quickly shut them up because the other races will quickly jump on them. So, race is often used as a bogeyman to cover up inconvenient intentions, be they profits or political power, and we should all be aware and expose such evil whenever they occur because darkness retreats in the presence of light.   Foong Swee Fong      Read More →

The risk of injury from covid vaccination is low. The number of injured people represents a small proportion of those who are vaccinated. The benefit from the vaccination outweigh the risk. The government promised a compensation (called Vaccine Injury Financial Assistance Scheme or VIFAS) to people who are sick or died from the vaccination. Several claims under VIFAS for death following vaccination were rejected by the government as their panel concluded that the deaths were not caused by the vaccination. How can this panel be absolutely sure that the vaccine does not contribute to the deaths? Common sense dictate otherwise. If someone died shortly after vaccination, it is likely that the vaccine had contributed to this outcome in sme way. The experts in America made a different finding on the cases that occurred there. See this report. The risk is very low, i.e. 12.6 per million. But it does happen. That is the purpose of the VIFAS scheme. It is to compensate the small number of people who are affected. I hope that the Minister of Health will be wise to reverse the bad decision to reject the claims.   Tan Kin Lian        Read More →

Among other things, Chan Chun Sing said (in a video that has since been removed) that the government is considering mandating all eligible students to be C19 vaccinated. This news must cause great alarm and anxiety among informed and thinking parents. Evidences have shown that even people who have been fully vaccinated can still contract C19. Experiences from overseas have also shown that young people who contracted C19 are much more likely to suffer mild or no symptoms and much more likely to recover on their own compare to older people who may need respirator or ICU care etc. If such a plan is allowed to materialise, I genuinely worry that many of our students may be harmed, injured or died from the vaccines than by C19. I ask why has MOH changed it stand in >6 months exempting young people from taking the vaccines to contemplating mandating students to be vaccinated when Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines have not become more effective, our students are still in the same age group except that the virus has mutated to become more transmissible and more virulent? Our students are our future and every parent's dearest life. They are not some lab mice or collateral damages used for meeting the herd immunity threshold in order to open up our economy agendas. My children are grown-ups and they are not affected by this 'student mandatory vaccination' maddness but I do not wish even for pap supporters' children to be used a lab mice in pap government's rush and agenda and possibly ended up as collateral damages. Any one young life lost is one too many. Some serious common sense is obviously missing among pap ministars. The pap ministars must not be blinded by their worship of herd immunity and the re-opening of the economy. What they really should do now is to pause and allow the US's CDC to finish with their investigations into their 13 year old C19 vaccination related death and understand the situations better first. In short, should anything bad happen to our juniors en mass, we as a country will have much, much more to lose and it might just dealt us and our country a self-inflicted knockout blow. It is better to be safe than sorry. Parents with student children should not keep quiet and leave it to the pap government anymore because your children's safety is in your hand now. Worse comes to worst, if your C19 vaccinated sons and daughters should suffer any adverse consequences, you and only you have yourself to blame for being a sucker. Think.   Simon Lim      Read More →