TR EMERITUS

The pandemic has exposed the dark underbelly of our country, the 8th richest in the world in 2021 according to IMF. The cleaner who was first infected in the airport cluster is an 88-year-old Singaporean. Most of his Singaporean colleagues who were likewise infected are in their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. The younger cleaners are mostly foreigners. I also recall, from reading the daily Covid cases, that quite a few Singaporeans are working two jobs and one man is even working three jobs, presumably, to make ends meet and not for exercise. Of course, there are the usual Grab drivers and delivery personnel. Why are citizens in the 8th richest country exposing themselves to Covid-19 in their twilight years and holding more than one job to make ends meet? A major factor has got to be the excessive emphasis and power that the PAP government has bestowed on big business. Employment and labour laws have been amended to favour investors, agreements in the form of FTAs have been signed to guarantee foreign investors their rights, immigration has been relaxed to drive down wages, ministers and MPs are sitting on the boards of many big businesses while formulating laws in Parliament, among others. The end result has been that employees have little to no bargaining power vis-a-vis employers and are thus squeezed to the last penny. Then there is the incessant greed to chase every business opportunity. It is fine if we have excess resources but quite another when all resources are fully utilized. Given our limited size, to generate the GDP that we do, we have to import many foreigners as well as exert huge inflationary pressure on limited resources like land, resulting in a never ending increase in the cost of living. Although our GDP is high, only a relatively small proportion goes to the Singaporean worker in the form of wages. The rest goes to foreigners and investors. With the increasing cost of living, it is hardly surprising older folks can’t enjoy retirement but have to work, even at lowly jobs to make ends meet. We may read with quiet unease during this pandemic, that fellow Singaporeans are exposing themselves to Covid while struggling to make ends meet, but if we don’t voice out for change, the same fate may befall us. Why would an employer employ a retrenched mid-career executive when he can employ a younger foreigner, perhaps at lower cost? What rights does the Singaporean worker has when the labour union is sleeping with the enemy? Why would our CPF be sufficient for retirement given the incessant inflationary pressure? If we don’t voice out for change, we have only ourselves to blame. We have been warned.   Foong Swee Fong      Read More →

I have read in CNA online news yesterday that China has announced a major policy shift, ie, it will allow couples to have up to 3 children after census data showed steep decline in birth rates. China scrapped its decades old one child policy in 2016 replacing it with 2 child limit which has failed to lead to sustained upsurge in births. Just look at China. As far as tackling their declining total fertility rates (TFR) issues is concerned, they have so much to teach our greedy, lazy and sleeping pap ministars. Let me explain. Despite having a population of over 1,400 million people, their attitudes toward their declining TFR is world's apart from our millionaire pap ministars. It was only in 2016, just 5 years ago that Chinese couples were allowed to have a second child and once their census data confirmed that the policy wasn't achieving the intended results, they move swiftly and firmly to address it, totally unlike the complacent and very well-fed pap ministars who sat on our declining TFR challenges for years and years... Now, many years later and looking back, it has become so clear to more and more people that they had not only neglected our falling TFR problems, their decision to opt for mass importation of foreigners to prop up our declining population was such easy and lazy solution totally oblivious to how such policies and their accompanying social costs and ills will extract and impact our society and how our people will have to bear them in the years ahead and by the time some of those social and national ills show up and hit us in our face, some of those ministers might have bitten the dust while others would be enjoying their millions and their more good years in retirement somewhere. Today, as far as salvaging our TFR is concerned, we are as good as done. Our original identity, the familiarity, the kampong spirits among our different races and the fabric of our society etc will be diluted over time and maybe beyond recognition. Native Singaporeans' loyalty to this place that we call home will ebbed and foreigners will treat this place as a springboard to greener pasteurs elsewhere all thanks to a bunch of useless and much hyped up pap scholars and general leadership. To my sucker friends and you know who you are, what do you all suckers think? Think.   Simon Lim      Read More →

There’s a joke in Singapore, which has become something of a bade of National Pride. We call ourselves as “Fine City,” because you can get finned for a host of infringements. As well as fines, we famously hang drug traffickers and we cane vandals. Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Independent Singapore took great pride in having strict rules. As far as he was concerned, he needed to be harsh because it made Singapore the clean, green and rich place that the world admires. Being harsh is a great political cover too. What better way to show the people that our government is not a Western stooge than caning a Western kid for vandalism or hanging one or two for drug trafficking? The respective Western government will make some noises about being concerned about their citizens, our government will then make even more noise about our Asian Values prioritizing social order and stability over the rights of a few hooligans and our ambassador in the country in question will be busy selling the Singapore side of things so as to ensure the Western leaders understand that a portion of their voters’ clap for us. I’m old enough to remember Americans supporting the canning of Michael Faye for vandalism. As a people, we’ve grown used to the heavy hand of the state and it’s almost as if most of us agree with the official position that the heavy hand of the state is necessary for Singapore to be the “celestial kingdom” that it has sold itself to be. However, is that really the case? Is the heavy hand of the state necessary in ensuring prosperity and a decent living environment? I got to admit, I do like the fact that we’re a litter-free place and my estate gets cleaned. Well, to an extent, harsh penalties work up to a certain level. You don’t litter because, well, it’s simply not worth the fine. No high from any drug is worth the prospect of the gallows. However, is it really necessary to have a heavy hand? I noticed our great comfort with the “heavy hand” back in 2006 and 2008. In 2006, the Gaza had one of its exploding moments, particularly as Hamas won the Palestinian elections. In 2008 there was the Beijing Olympics, which was marred in the “democratic” countries where Tibetan protestors made noises as the Olympic Torch was making its way to Beijing. A few friends actually commented to me that they could not understand why the Palestinians and Tibetans were doing what they did because it was pretty obvious, they were not going to win against an opponent who was that much stronger. People were even critical of the Dalai Lama for “Trying to make China look bad.” These moments have remained with me because it gets me questioning whether we’ve become so used to the heavy hand that we’re totally unable to sympathise with people who have been on the wrong end of the heavy stick. I will admit that the comparison is in some ways a hard one to make in as much as they heavy hand they’re under is a “foreign power” displacing them from their home land. However, the examples do make the point that there are limits to the “heavy hand.” Take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an example. A “militant” group like Hamas will fire a few rockets at Israel, who will in turn use advanced weaponry on the Gaza strip. Israeli civilians will be scared. A few may die. On the other side thousands will die and the infrastructure of the Gaza strip be set back a few decades. The Western press will trumpet the line that Israel has the right to defend itself. The “liberal” press will talk about the Palestinians being oppressed. I’ll leave the broader discussion to more informed people to continue. However, I will ask the simple question of whether the “heavy hand” of the Israeli military has worked? Hamas was elected in 2006. There have been clashes between the two in 2008, 2010, 2011. 2014, 2018, 2019 and 2021. You would have imagined that after the first few beatings, the Palestinians would have gotten the message that they were not going to win and turned-on Hamas. That clearly hasn’t happened. Israel has a lot of firepower and the residents of the Gaza strip are well aware of that. Yet, they have not become more sympathetic or fearful of Israel or at least fearful enough to get the “militants” to stop provoking Israel. If anything, the only real beneficiary of the bombardment of Palestinian areas are Israeli politicians needing an election boost and the recruitment arm of Hamas and other militant groups as stated in paragraph 75 of the May 2007 end of mission report of Alvaro De Soto, former United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. A copy of the De Soto report can be found at here. The Most Effective Way to Recruit Terrorist – Copyright South China Morning Post Let’s make take another military example close to home. The Vietnam War of the 1970s. The Americans dropped more bombs on Vietnam than they did World War II. Yet, the only thing that the world remembers about the Vietnam War is the American’s running away from the top of their embassy. How did this situation happen? The Americans were clearly the superior force (even if the “other side” was aided by North Vietnam, China and Russia – in the same way that militant groups in the Middle East are always aided by Iran) and should solved the problem in a matter of months. Well, you could argue that they got a little over reliant on the single word that General Westmoreland used to sum up his strategy – Firepower (in fairness to the US, there were a few attempts to have “hearts and minds” campaigns but that inevitably played second fiddle to the shock and awe). These military examples have shown that overwhelming force isn’t as effective as effective as we’d might imagine, especially if you’re talking about a side that believes it has nothing to lose by going up against you. The heavy hand only works if it’s combined with something else – namely the buy in from people. There’s the example of the Malayan Conflict of the 1960s. The British did use some harsh techniques. However, they didn’t approach it as a conventional conflict from the beginning and implemented effective intelligence strategies and waged an effective “hearts and minds” campaign. This wins wars as much as heavy firepower -copyright weaponsandwarefare.com I don’t disagree with the heavy hand of the state. Sometimes the situation warrants it. In the current pandemic for example, you do need rules enforced and rule breakers shouldn’t get let off because the rules are there to protect us. However, the harsh heavy hand of the state isn’t going to be enough to make a society safe, clean, green or even viable. Yes, harsh penalties against littering make Singapore clean but they don’t necessarily make Singapore a clean people (back in the day, all you needed to do was to visit Johor where you’d find Singaporeans littering with glee in a place where slipping 50RM – or 15 bucks to the cops fixed things). In the military context, our harsh penalties against littering are like heavy fire power. For better results, we should look at the Bhutanese, who pick up their own litter because they’ve been taught to appreciate their environment. The Bhutanese government works on a “hearts and minds” campaign to get its objectives. Takes longer but in the end its probably more sustainable. The heavy hand of the sate may have uses. However, you cannot rely on that alone to ensure that society functions.   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 →