Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. -- Hamlet [I, iv, 90]

I was taking a taxi home today from training with a teammate, and the taxi driver was supposed to take a left turn off the highway to drop her off at her place, before continuing on to mine.  As we approached the appropriate turn, my friend noticed he was about to miss it.  "Uncle, can turn left please?" she called out -- but by then it was too late, and he had missed the turn.  He cried out an apology, swore softly ("God!") and had to take a long detour to make it back to her flat. 

Later on, after she had gotten down from the taxi, he apologized once more to me. 

"Sorry ah, I was thinking about the Worker's Party."

"Worker's Party?"

"Ya, I live in Aljunied.  Worker's Party, nearly lah."

(laughing) "Oh, yeah, 56 to 44%.  So you support opposition is it?"

"Ya.  Actually last time, Braddell Heights, then Marine Parade, then Aljunied.  Braddell Heights 48-52% you know! Very close."

"Yeah, I'm sure things will be better next election.  I think Aljunied will get it.  So uncle, why you support opposition?"

"Oh many reasons.  I think the government does not care enough lah.  You are student right? Or working?"

"I'm a student."

"You all student, I'm sure you work very hard.  My son and daughter, also work very hard.  Work so hard, graduate? No job.  My son degree in electronics engineering, now no choice, become what? Teacher.  Government don't care.  Never create job, then never provide.  And you know, government no family values."

"Yeah, did you hear about the retirement villages?"

"Retirement villages? What?"

"You know, Khaw Boon Wan announced that because it's cheaper to buy land in Johore, Bintam and Batam, they will send our elderly there instead, cos here it's too expensive."

"Ahhh, you see? No family values! Who will take care of them there? Nowadays, divorce rates going higher and higher.  Government, only think about profit.  Money, money, money.  Never think about its people."

Even as I continued to make small talk with him, my mind was making connections with what I'd heard only this morning, when Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Bilahari Kausikan, visited my school for an N.E dialogue.  He made an opening address which, though short, was concise and illuminating of typical Singaporean foreign policy, which is essentially as follows: what's this thing called humanity? There's no such thing as friendship in politics, there's only a convergence of interests.  The world wouldn't be any different without Singapore in it, so we must strive to make ourselves extraordinary.

This was alright in and of itself, but that mentality started to come across more and more strongly as questions were asked.  One student stood up during the question and answer session and asked about the impact of outsourcing on our local population.  Though that wasn't an entirely relevant question to pose a man from the MFA, he had no qualms with answering it as follows:

"We have to be realistic.  There is a limit to how much re-training we can do for some workers, so we have to look overseas.  Look at my generation, more than half of them didn't even complete primary school education.  What are we going to do? They are not going to conveniently die off..."

At this point, I was so flabbergasted I stopped listening to the rest of his answer.  Perhaps he didn't think he had to watch his words very closely, as he was only speaking to a bunch of teachers and students.  I don't even think many of them caught what he said.  But his callous attitude was so typical of the government's seeming attitude towards the 'chaff' of our society.  The fact that older workers stubbornly remaining alive had little to do with whether or not we should be protecting domestic jobs for our own workers (like that taxi driver's son, an engineer) didn't seem to concern him.  He just took his time wending down the garden path of why we should outsource jobs, and the fact that we had an aging population was just a by-the-way manner of illustrating his point.

The same attitude, though more subtly manifested, was present throughout the rest of the dialogue session as well.  When asked about what ASEAN planned to do about Burma's recalcitrance to international authority with regards to its human rights situation, he said: "There's nothing we can do.  Regime change is useless, and economic sanctions won't work." A student stood up, and said --

"Does that mean if thousands of people are being slaughtered in Burma, we won't do a thing because it's not in our self interest?"

"Yep."

"But if everyone thinks that way, nothing will be done."

"You're right, and most of the time nothing is done."

I proceeded to question him thus --

"You say that regime change is futile with regards to Burma, and economic sanctions don't work.  Yet it is interesting that these very same punitive measures were applied to Iraq, and that Singapore had no qualms whatsoever in being a part of the coalition of the willing that showed support for the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003.  I have three questions, then: 1) Does that mean that though we supported the Iraq invasion, it has been a futile endeavour? 2) Did we make ourselves more of a target by announcing our support for the invasion, considering we are surrounded by countries with dominantly Muslim populations? 3) Did our willingness to be a part of the coalition have anything to do with the signing of the landmark Free Trade Agreement signed between Singapore and the USA soon after the Iraq invasion?"

To which he replied,

"The Americans were deluded, it doesn't mean we supported them because we thought it would work.  I believe the question you are too polite to ask is, did we suck up to the U.S? Well, yes, our basic interest was to show support for the USA, you are right.  But what did we really commit to it? How much of our assets did we lend to Iraq? We put one plane in the air and one ship in the sea.  And were we more of a target because of it? To which I reply...we were already a target before the invasion."

Okay, freeze-frame a moment here.  I believe this man was being extremely loose with his words because, again, he was talking to a bunch of kids (900 or so of them).  Hence his carelessness with language.  But I appreciated this hour and a half of candour because it gave me a lot of insight, personally into how Singapore operates like: a cold and calm automaton of self-interest.  We don't care about whether or not the Kurds and the Shi'ites are being helped by regime change -- we don't want to implicate ourselves too badly by, God forbid, actually committing troops or doing something more than 'one plane in the air and one ship in the sea'.  And we were willing to do something that made us more of a target, knowing full well we were already a target of hostilities to our dear neighbours Malaysia, Indonesia, etc., so we could profit from a FTA.  There is no interest in common humanity here, there is only a cool-headed weightage of pros and cons.

This is, of course, an entirely attractive idea.  Look out for your own selves and you shan't have to bother about the person next to you unless it is expedient for you to do so.  A student asked him why we were unwilling to help to build the bridge between Malaysia and Singapore as a gesture of goodwill between neighbours, and he said:

"You want to build a bridge? Sure.  But make it worth my while."

This mentality of self-interest -- which, let's call a spade a spade, is really selfishness -- sounds well and good until we begin to consider a few things.  Firstly, I'm quite concerned that Singapore's selfish tendencies may just come round to bite us in the behind at some point.  Our reluctance to do anything about Burma means that ASEAN is weakened from within, and our reputation as a region tarnished overseas.  Our small-mindedness about the matter of goodwill and ties between Malaysia is not only downright obnoxious, but spells out ill omens for diplomatic and trading ties between the nations in the future.  And let's not even talk about what will happen when the water agreement expires.  With regards to Iraq? Our insensitivity to our neighbours' needs and our willingness to 'suck up to the US', which he essentially conceded, is hardly going to endear ourselves to Islamic radicals in the region.  Gee, I wonder which secular, Westernized, urban, capitalist, soulless, amoral, small, vulnerable, nation-state in Southeast Asia we shall bomb today, Azari Husin?

More than that though, our selfishness in our foreign policy is an outward reflection of an inward ugliness, which is to be coldly calculative of our interests and to be perfectly willing to sacrifice human welfare in the process, if we deem it a fitting sacrifice.  The taxi driver's lament of "money, money, money" is precisely what Kausikan is articulating more verbosely with his "international relations is governed by no other obligation than a convergence of interests".  When I say that it is our basic and fundamental moral obligation to people other than ourselves, and I use that to justify needing to temper our foreign policy with some measure of goodwill and genuine concern for the people of Burma and Iraq, others cry 'idealist'! But do these same people realize that unless we affirm this fundamental duty to someone else, a capitalist society like Singapore will always and forever place the interests of the rich above that of the poor, and tolerate, even condone the suffering of some in order to further the interests of others?

Look at this extract from an article by Asiaweek magazine, here:

"What happened to Singapore, the land of plenty? In its rush to forge a manufacturing, then a high-tech economy, the city-state rarely bothered to look back at those who were lagging.  Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew developed a system based on hard work and government support for industry.  Singaporeans were expected to earn their rewards.  The results were astounding: a middle class emerged to build Asia's second-richest country.  But with the advent of globalization and an influx of cheap foreign workers, Singapore's economy is becoming increasingly ruthless.  According to its own statistics, the nation's rich are getting richer and the poor are falling further behind.  To most Singaporeans, the mere existence of poor folk in need of care packages comes as a shock.  And this realization has prompted an uncharacteristic bout of soul-searching.  The rich-poor disparity strikes right at the heart of Singapore's development model - and challenges the city's smug self-image."

Though the article is dated 2000, nothing much has truly changed since then.  In fact, our idea of finding solutions for the old and the poor are to a) buy them off with quick injections of cash via the Progress Package at election time, which has virtually no long-term implications for a sustained increase in national income due to the fact that the multiplier effect for government spending is minimal as we have a highly open economy with many withdrawals, and b) ship them off to Johore, Bintam and Batam.  Oh yes, and let us not forget c) the raising of the minimum retiring age, so that more old people can sell tissue paper and clean toilets.

The truth is that Singapore should not, any longer, be willing to countenance the compromising of human welfare in order to feed its own selfish interests, which revolve around the rich and the middle classes.  What about those who have been retrenched, who have worked hard but are unable to find jobs -- what about the elderly and the disabled? Our citizens are not units to be judged and weighed according to the marginal revenue each one brings to our coffers.  This is a mentality which we have to accept in our domestic policies, but one we seem to be currently deadset against.  Our foreign policy is a reflection of how we treat our own people: with expedience.  Baldfaced, unashamed, expedience.

I appreciate and commend Mr. Bilahari Kausikan for a candid and open discussion, which generally had no holds barred (except when I asked him about Temasek Holding's takeover bid for ShinCorp and how that had had negative bearings on our bilateral ties with Thailand, to which he promptly and categorically denied any government association with the deal and insisted that the MFA was not consulted, 'nor did it want to be consulted').  But honestly, I'm creeped out by the fact that our government is probably populated with people who think just like him.  And the general feedback I received from everyone was this: "He was good, but boy, I wouldn't want to be his friend." That's Singapore.  Good at what it does, extremely efficient, no doubt, but boy, I'm embarrassed to be a Singaporean sometimes.  We're not making very many friends, and neither are we, to be honest, being good friends to the very people in our midst who need our friendship and our helping hand the most.  Who says beauty is on the inside? The ugliness within is the same ugliness without -- only, I think, with far more devastating consequences for our people.

I've been in contact with someone from inside the media industry and I requested that he/she write a short piece for my blog to tell anyone who visits what it's like to be inside the organisation which has failed us in so many ways during this General Election, and before, and after.  There have been many calls for journalists, reporters, cameramen etc. to step up and tell the world what really goes on there, but it's always easier to stand outside a glass house and throw rocks at it, rather than stand beneath its roof and do the same.  I can't reveal the name of this person, nor any of his/her particulars, but nevertheless the truth of the message is far more important than the identity behind it.  Suffice it to say that the person has had experience in the coverage of the general elections these past few weeks.

I had no illusions about the independence of the local media when I first started my job as a [------] in Singapore. I knew that my work would be edited, and possibly censored for political safety, and I was mostly fine with that - no media channel anywhere in the world is entirely free from some form of editorial trimming, after all.

 

What I didn't bargain for was individual self-censorship, unspoken policies and rules, and the stoutness with which people swallowed their journalistic dignity and integrity (because it does exist, even strongly, in some places) to toe the party line. Incredible as it seems, reporters in Singapore do have the same fierce pride in their work as reporters anywhere else; I think this is especially evident in sections of the media that don't touch on politics.

 

But when it comes to political news, particularly something as sensitive as the elections, many of us leave our brains and consciences at home and resign ourselves to doing what we're told and writing what's being dictated. To some extent I appreciate the rationale of this - there really is a very close watch being kept on the media and when we're kept in line it's largely for our own safety.

 

However, as someone still young and naive and idealistic, it's hard for me to swallow the indignation I feel whenever I see the local media doggedly ignoring its otherwise sharply-honed news sense. Articles and TV programmes are edited to balance out pro-opposition views; awesome camera opportunities - like the opposition rallies - are studiously left out of media coverage; banal and unfair quotes and tactics are highlighted and headlined simply because they are tools of the ruling party.

 

There are many things journalists see that the eyes of the public are not privy to, and that we would like to report on but can't. Please remember that when you read an article or watch a broadcast that seems particularly, emetically subjective. And help spread the word that a lot of us in the media are sorry that we can't do the job we want to. It may not mean a lot to you, but it sucks for us that for every day that we covered the elections, people's opinions of us plummeted - despite the fact that we worked our asses off in 14-hour days with no breaks on weekends or public holidays to bring you our version of the news.

 

And for those who think it's as easy as quitting your jobs and following your conscience - grow up. This is a job. It puts food on our tables. We can all up and leave, but it's ridiculously easy to replace us with more party-line-spouting drones. With educated and politically aware journalists in the local media, at least civil society in Singapore stands a fighting chance. So despise and condemn us all you like, but whatever you believe in, it's highly likely we believe in it too. And it's also likely that we're doing something about it, in our own little ways, even if it's as small as writing about and expressing our dissatisfaction with the system from the inside.
 

Don't give up on us. We haven't given up on our ideals.

Vaclav Havel was the last president of former USSR satellite state Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic.  Reading John Lewis Gaddis' book The Cold War, I came across a mention of Havel that struck a chord so resonant and strong that it might well have been a direct message to me, as a Singaporean.  I felt I had to share it with you.

Havel did not call for outright resistance: given the state's police powers, there would have been little point in that.  Instead he encouraged something more subtle, developing standards for individual behavior apart from those of the state.  People who failed to do this, he wrote, "confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system." But people who were true to what they themselves believed - even in so small a matter as a brewer deciding to brew better beer than the official regulations called for - could ultimately subvert the system.  "[W]hen one person cries out, 'The emperor is naked!' - when a single person breaks the rules of a game, thus exposing it as a game - everything suddenly appears in another light, and the whole crust seems then to be made of a tissue on the point of tearing, and disintegrating uncontrollably."

p191-192, John Lewis Gaddis: The Cold War

Havel was a staunch advocate of non-violence to achieve change.  He led the Czech people out of the totalitarian system they had lived in under the USSR in the Velvet Revolution (termed such because of its non-violent nature) of 1989, as their President, and was re-elected after the creation of the independent Czech Republic state soon after, in 1993.  He was the one who coined the phrase 'post-totalitarianism', which he described as a state wherein people could 'live within a lie'.

That describes Singapore perfectly.  Our 'prosperity and progress' government has carefully constructed a system which is comfortable to live and thrive in.  It is one that enables us, all too easily, to look away from the trash heap beneath the bed, because it makes us uncomfortable.  We can afford to ignore so many things because of our easy lives.  But what's left on that trash heap? Lives, reputations, common consideration for every layperson's rights and dignities.  But it's alright, to most Singaporeans; in order for me to be safe and sound, the show must go on.

True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say? -- Havel.

A grave: what has died, what do we bury, what do we mourn? Hopes and aspirations, common sense? Yet perhaps it's easier not to ask too many questions.  I've wondered countless times why I continue to dig this pit for myself by blogging about politics.  I know others have done the same.  If we quit now, if everyone just spontaneously - shut up - maybe the bad things will go away.

The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less. -- Havel.

Except we shouldn't.  That is what it comes down to, doesn't it? We could just look out for our own hides.  We could just content ourselves with what we have.  We could just go elsewhere if we're not satisfied.  But what should we do? What is our fundamental moral obligation to our country?

Today, we do not need to revolt violently in order to achieve change.  We do not need to jeopardize everything we have worked to create for the past forty-odd years.  The revolution must happen within us before it can happen without.  We have to realize that we can change the mindset, change the system, because we are not powerless, nor are we alone.  I have to believe that by putting this post up on the Internet as a declaration of my vision of Singapore as a transparent and accountable democracy, I can move some people to think, some people to feel, some lie to unravel.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both. -- Havel.

The relationship of governance operates both ways: the act of governing, and the act of being governed.  If we do not hold up our end, if we do not agree with how we are being governed, then that relationship is fundamentally altered.  They don't get to determine the outcome of the equation.  Havel is right when he says, furthermore, that 'everyone has a small part of himself in both'.  The powerful are powerful because we have placed them there, and given them that power over us.  The question is: now what?

In the coming posts, I'm not going to indulge myself in too much griping any longer.  My piece has been said, and now it's time to turn my attention to actually scrutinizing the coming developments and issues that determine Singaporean politics.  But this principle, this underlying principle that Havel articulates so brilliantly, will always be in the back of my mind as I do so.  In whatever I write and say, both to utter strangers as well as to my friends and family, I will remember his words, and my aspirations.  I hope you will undertake this journey with me.

"Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in Parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I'm going to spend all my time thinking what's the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters votes..."

-- PM Lee, 3rd May 2006

I think PM Lee says it better himself than I ever could.

Extract from channelnewsasia.com:  Singapore News
	Time is GMT + 8 hours Posted: 04 May 2006 2046 hrs PM Lee says Singapore's future is key issue in General Election By S. Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia Related News   DPM Wong dismisses opposition's pledge over full-time MPs   FM Yeo wants to move on from Gomez issue, focus on Aljunied residents' needs   Singaporeans not getting the opportunities they deserve: SDA's Steve Chia more>>

SINGAPORE : Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said the most important issue in this General Election is Singapore's future.

He asked for a strong mandate on May 6, so that he and his People's Action Party (PAP) team can take the country forward.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Mr Lee made it clear that there are bigger issues at the polls than opposition candidate James Gomez.

The James Gomez issue has dominated campaigning the last few days, and Mr Lee wants to put it aside.

Mr Lee said he should not have waited for the Workers' Party to respond with details of what exactly happened.

He said the PAP had taken the matter as far as it can for now.

Mr Lee said: "I am not letting it go, that's why I am saying after elections there will have to be a proper public resolution. Right now, the more urgent priority is polling and I want people to be in the right frame of mind when they vote, and to have the right considerations as they sit down today, tomorrow, before they vote, to think what they want to do."

The campaign for the 2006 General Election is nearly over, and Mr Lee said he wanted to refocus on what this election is all about.

Mr Lee said: "I called this election for three purposes. First, to secure a mandate for myself and my team. Secondly, to decide on the future of Singapore and thirdly, to endorse a new team of leaders and MPs to take us forward in the next 15, 20 years.

"In one word, this election is about our future. We have presented the manifesto many times and you are familiar with it. What does it mean? Cast it in a different way, it means Peace and Prosperity for Singapore - PAP."

Oh, so now they want to talk about 'key issues' -- with one day left in the campaigning process! Gee whiz, the PAP must be really concerned about our future to devote one whole day to discussing key issues.  How sad that Singaporeans only got to pick up their newspapers today and read the PAP's last word on 'key issues' on Friday, when by Saturday night we'll know the polling results.

I think the PAP figured out they can't really pull the wool over Singaporeans' eyes any longer with this issue.  Not a single person I've talked to buys the PAP story about how Gomez wants to 'wayang' his way into deceiving everyone.  Everyone's sick, tired, scornful, and now they want to talk about 'key issues'.  My dad would say: my toe can laugh.

I don't think we've seen the last of the Gomez issue.  But for now the PAP is beating a tactical retreat to get in the last word on the key issues that have swung this election.  But I don't think it'll work.  I think they went too far this time, and that the Opposition, in contrast, has conducted themselves in a far more dignified and honourable manner than Them Who Shall Not Be Named.  The Opposition's concerns have been consistent and pushed for:  Healthcare costs.  Upgrading.  Means testing.  Transparency.  And what is the PAP doing? Running away.  On the issue of healthcare costs: no answer.  On the issue of selective upgrading being unethical: no answer.  On the issue of means testing: we'll talk about it later, and anyway maybe we won't implement it after all.  On the issue of transparency: Gomez, Gomez, Gomez -- which people don't buy.

Tomorrow we'll know if Singaporeans decided to let them get away with it.  I hope not.  I think not.  I think tomorrow we'll make them hurt, maybe not too much, but enough for them to know that they can't play this game with us for very much longer.  No landslide victory, no 75% mandate this time round.

Singaporeans, please let me believe in you.  Lee Hsien Loong got one thing right -- it is about our future.  That is the real 'key issue': if we want our future to continue to be one of being bullied, cowed, and distracted into being yes-people, or if we can find it in ourselves to be something more.  Something greater.  Not just a rich country behind whose back everyone laughs at, but a country with real dignity, who can't be pushed around.

They wanted me to care.  They said they put me in a cream-of-the-crop education system and spent money on me so I would care.  They wrote in my Social Studies textbook that I had to care.  Now I care, and I dare them to tell me to care in any other way. 

Melodramatic? Yeah.  Angsty? Rather.  It's not that I'm not self-aware ;) I generally disdain ranting and raving and white-noise diatribes.  But I think tonight, I have that right -- no, I have that obligation, to dare to feel something for the key issue of our future.  And I will make no bones about it, nor apologies. Cheers everyone: tomorrow we will know.