50 posts tagged “politics”

In my attempt to make unbiased sense of this phenomenon some years ago, I have thought and said quite a bit about it.

 

So, for now, I would simply say to those attempting to, or utilising violence for the attainment of political ends, “Stop it.”  Violence will render your cause, justifiable or not, abhorrent to many.

 

To the rest of the globe and the United Nations, I would say, “give these people a podium of enough significance via which their grievances may be confidently voiced and addressed.”, and, in tandem, redefine your antiquated and geographically insulated idea of the nation-state.  These 3, amongst others, obviously have a notion of familialarity that transcends our present nationally-fragmented conception of it.

 

If not, all that is going to ensue, as it has in the past, is mutual victimisation.  Critical introspection required on both sides.

I personally prefer dialogue bolstered by empathy as opposed to a monologue of tears orchestrated by mutual apathy.

 

according2,

 

ed

 

“Aiyah!  The west no good lah.  Their tax so high!  Here good!  If I don’t earn much like businessman, then I don’t have to pay tax.”

 

Is something I’ve oftentimes heard over the years. 

 

How do you tax a nation without taxing them?

Ans: don’t call it tax.

 

Yes, I’m sure there are many who appreciate the ‘tax’ nature of the ERP, COE, GST and ETC. 

But how many appreciate the many forms of Invisible taxation here?

 

Here are some instances.

 

Not being allowed to draw out your entire CPF upon ‘coming of (irrelevant) age’, or having to keep a minimum amount in, or being able to take out only a small sum every year, which results in the amount accrued by the government via its continuing investment.  This also applies throughout from the point that you start accumulating your CPF till death makes a formality out of a reality that has long been the case.  What do you think is the amount made by the government, but which you don’t get is?

 

How about the minimum amount that one has to now keep in their stored-value Mass Rapid Transit cards?  It’s $3.  If one was to take an end-to-end ride, that would be $2.  That means you have just contributed $1 as TAX.  And as most people do not take end-to-end rides, it would amount to more.

 

How about that plate of ‘cha kway tiao’ or ‘hokkien mee’ or ‘kway tiao goreng’ or ‘mee pok’ that is ‘oh so shiok to eat’? (local dishes whose main features include an exorbitant price garnished with too much monosodium glutamate)  Ever consider if the amount contained within your plate is worth the price?  The profit margin will inevitably contain a particular portion that is derived from the attempt to save and get wealthy in the face of top-down financial pressures and which is passed on to you.  That is TAX.

 

Let’s look at the ‘peak-hour charge’, ‘call-for-a-cab charge’, ‘midnight charge’, ‘etc charge’, what do you think that is?  The same applies as in the previous example.

 

Let’s look at the price of HDB flats, the interest rates, the stamp duty fees, etc, what do you think that is?

 

 

How about that salesperson who talks you into buying a product which isn’t too good and which leads to repair costs, or upgrades, etc. -  What do you think that is?

 

And how about that favour which a friend did you, which you are most ‘grateful’ for, and which might just impact on your development, peace of mind, future endeavours, ambitions, alleviation of stress, etc, but which you pay back with just a simple ‘hor fun’ or cup of tea?  What do you think that friend has just paid but which translates to your gain and which in turn translates to your having more to be taxed more?

 

And aren’t you one of those strange people who just has to have that latest mobile phone, fashion item, tech item, Prada or Coach bag, a condo where a HDB flat would suffice, a car where the MRT would do?  How do you think this gross perspectival retardation on your part, which is shrouded by an innocuous-sounding ‘being trendy/hip/fashionable/cool/etc’, lead to you forking out taxation?  A consumerist identity is a viable source of tax mate.

 

And how about the scheme to make aged people more marketable that enables the underpayment of the elderly in various corporations?  How does that inflate the corporation’s profit margin?  What do you that inflated amount translates to?

 

And most importantly,

 

How about Invisible Corporate Taxation of the individual worker?  In conversation with a non-local, I said that one of the most significant forms of taxation in this country is Invisible Corporate Taxation (author’s term). (By the way, this bloke didn’t really like my peer-style of speaking.  Most ‘whites’ don’t, after staying here for a few years and having their posteriors lip-marked by locals.  And I couldn’t help noticing how the others at the table were falling over themselves to ensure that his posterior would have an imprint of their heads thereafter.)  Of course, the examples cited above are as, if not more, significant.  But it is spread out across different scenarios, relationships and so on.  The totality of the tax derived from it would, of course, be significant.  However, in Invisible Corporate Taxation, it is in a single relationship that much is extracted.  One of the reasons why the government might not impose much tax on the people is because this is extracted through the taxation of the corporation.  In the corporate world, time is money.  And with the castration of unions, time is monopolised by the government vicariously through the Corporation. 

For instance, working long hours; coming back on weekends to ‘finish up’ some extra work; meetings at night; flight times for business trips; a single worker taking on the jobs of two or three individuals by being a ‘multitasker’; expecting local salary scales to be competitive with foreign ones; not having a greater CPF contribution; work improvement teams; idea generation teams; etc, are some of the many examples of time being translated to cold hard profit for the company, and which translates to a greater taxation amount being extracted by the government.

 

And this is one of the significant means for the production of Popular Mutual Taxation which results in the other examples given above.  If you follow the money trail for all of the above, amongst numerous other examples, you will know what I mean.

 

Taxation is, essentially, the extraction of monies for, officially, the maintenance of society.  But in a nation where the intellectual economy is top-down led and popular intellectual individualism is decrepit at best, one of the significant ways the nation might compete effectively and successfully in the global arena is by way of investing in countries where intellectual individualism is high.  As their own nation, having fetishised conformity, uniformity and the eradication of difference and intellectual individualism, for the interests of political longevity amongst the elite, can generally do nothing more than play copy-cat, investing in the intellectual capital of vibrant nations to circumvent local idiocy becomes necessary.  Hence, the inflow of money to the government cannot see an equitable outflow, as is the case in any competition-based economy.  But this is exacerbated in a nation of intellectual rabbits who will not have even a modicum of checks to ensure that, at least, in times of personal or national economic crises, that which they put in during times of fortune, would translate to continuing fortune for themselves despite so-called economic crises.  In the long run, the extraction of monies for, officially, the maintenance of society, will be little different from the ‘the extraction of monies for, unofficially, the maintenance of a status quo that has seen the mutation of government-imposed taxation to a Popular Mutual Taxation maintained, in no insignificant part, by Invisible Corporate Taxation.  And in this whole scheme is the greatest of invisible taxation.  This is always the case where a fascistic harmony becomes the norm and everyone does her or his best in alleviating the discomforts that comes from confusing their knees for their feet.

 

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

“

S/he who fetishises Prominence will access it via Hindsight,

As opposed to Insight.

~ ed

 

 

One thing that never ceases to amaze me in Singapore is how the proposition is mirrored in the opposition.  They both, for instance, tend to fetishise prominence, and thus discount insight where it is not paired with the said prominence.  And, as a consequence, they inevitably undermine their own relevance in the progressive march toward democracy with a subconscious-led infighting that does more to serve the interests of the proposition than the efforts of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men put together.

 

As I had said before, the problem with those who seek instant gratification by desiring to act against injustice with immediacy – for its cathartic and self-validation benefits – is that they will tend to seek out well-worn(out) ways of ‘opposing’ as all one has to do is to do what has already been done as opposed to seeking and contributing greater insights to the movement by a relatively more tedious study, research and introspection.  And as a result, they will inevitably laud the efforts of those whom have accessed these ways in the past and acquired prominence for their efforts.  From here comes the worship of prominent oppositional voices, and through that, the worship of Prominence in itself. 

 

Just as the supporters of the proposition congregate around their prominent icons, as do the Young PAP along with numerous others amongst the population around Lee Kuan Yew for instance, we have a similar congregation amongst the opposition whom unquestioningly, and with glazed eyes, are fixated on their thus-transfigured icons such as, for instance, Chee Soon Juan and JB Jeyaratnam, and to a lesser degree, James Gomez, Catherine Lim, and ‘Mr Brown’, amongst others.  While I do indeed respect the achievements of the former two, I do not, like most, allow their prominence to lead me to believe that they are prototypical oppositional figures.  The most I can justifiably accord them is credit for tenacity in the face of much odds.  They, and especially the former daring duo, didn’t allow themselves to be bowed or booted out by the proposition and stuck by their beliefs and quest for justice.  However, when it comes to insight, that is another matter altogether. 

Insight, I would divide between 2 categories.  The first, and most obvious, is an understanding of the technicalities of the status quo and the tweaking required to improve it.  The second, and less obvious, is the appreciation of the fundamentals of the status quo and the attempts to reevaluate the basis upon which arises the superstructure of ‘reality.  The former leads to renovation, whilst the latter deals with relocation.  I would place these oppositional deities in the ‘renovation category’.  They are contractors, whilst the activists, their workpersons.  Lee Kuan Yew, however, I would place in the latter category.  He appreciates the fundamentals comprising the socio-psychological-political reality and relocates the human persona to ensure its amenability to a status quo of his construction.  Unfortunately, to date, no opposition leader seems to be able to discern that which he has.  But the oppositional activists still perceive their leaders as deities and generally follow them without question.

 

Why the need for these deities?  

Well, in significant part, their deification validates the means by which these oppositional voices are able to ‘get active’ immediately, and from this, as stated, immediately enjoy its self-gratifying, cathartic and self-validation benefits with little self-preparatory effort.  It enables ‘activists’ to reduce the psychological tensions that emerge within themselves from their own experience of injustice, or/and, the conflict between the socio-political reality and their laudable sense of justice.  And we must keep in mind that these desires would be more pronounced amongst all oppositional minds given their marginalised status relative to those of the proposition.  Their negative feelings will be more enhanced and thus the need to give them a vent, more pronounced.  Without these oppositional deities like Chee or JBJ, they might have to grope around for means and methods that have yet a deity to validate them. In other words, there is a subconscious appreciation amongst many ‘oppositional’ minds that the perspectives, means and methods they utilise is validated for its significance and viability by those whom had gone before them and acquired prominence whilst engaging in them.  In other words, it is ‘prominence’ that is perceived to validate the methods, perspectives, and their leaders who engaged in them as opposed to its relevance.  The equation, if it gets you attention, it must be relevant, would hold true in their eyes.  This is not unlike a child who engages in bad behaviour in order to garner an otherwise inattentive parent’s attention.  Once the attention is acquired, the method is validated. 

In this, local ‘oppositional’ minds are not alone as they also have the company of many amongst the global oppositional elite and their congregation of followers.  But in this, one could say that their so-called ‘activism’ is based on their being most active in desiring to alleviate themselves from the negative feelings and stresses that comes from their being marginalised, or their sense of the injustice in society.  In this, it could be seen as a self-indulgent act as opposed to a socially conscious one.  For if one was truly socially conscious, one would not get activistic with immediacy and just simply slip on the shoes of their predecessors, but engage in enough study and critical introspection before, or in the course of, doing so.  As this is not generally the case, ‘activism’ here is more of a feel-good activity to alleviate the consequences of feeling bad.  And this is most evidenced by their reverence of oppositional figures, or their claims to empathy when all they are doing is just serving their own self interests.  For in such reverence, they are able to act immediately and alleviate negative affect.  And in this, they are not too dissimilar to those on the side of the proposition who also act out of self-interest.

 

In conversation with ‘Activists’ with regards to their revered leaders

I recall a few conversations I had with local ‘activists’ at different times with regards to their ‘revered’ oppositional figures.  I have compressed these to a series of single conversation below for clarity and relevance.  These illustrate my view of the problem with oppositional deities.

 

I

When asked what I thought about JB Jeyaratnam.  I said,

“Oh, personally, you have to give him credit for his tenacity.  He never gave up and kept plodding on despite the numerous potholes on the path to democracy.  He was a firebrand of an activist and his speeches, tone, language and resilience was nothing short of inspiring.  But the problem, at some point, was that he became a traditionalist and ceased to tune his ways to the ever-changing political and problematic milieu.” 

I was then asked, “So you think JB lost his way?” 

I replied, after a little thought, “It’s not so much that JB lost his way, but rather, it was a case of ‘the way’ having lost him.” 

In response to the looks of askance that greeted this statement, I added, “His methods were great, but whilst a chankol (sort of a spade) may be appropriate for plouging a path of mud and earth, it becomes quite irrelevant on a path of mud-turned-tar.  He failed to consider the need for what I would term ‘oppositional congruence’.  That is, identifying the new locale of the traditional or initial (governmental) source of a problem, or the spread of a problem to new locales, or the evolution of a problem to seemingly non-problematic locales, amongst others.  In that, JBJ failed to realise that a problem can, if it is allowed to persist long enough, begin to spread to others like the population, culture, or even the opposition themselves.  That is when that it is not only the government that has to be contended with, but the people, the culture, the opposition, and especially those dancing in reverence to the rhythm of a revered opposition leader as do monkeys to an organ-grinder.  And it is then that an oppositional leader descends to being little more than an organ-grinder in relation to monkeys, whilst, unwittingly, being a monkey her/imself in relation to the organ-grinder that is the proposition (government)”.

 

II

In other conversations pertaining to another prominent oppositional figure, I stated,

 

“He is a most personable fellow.  I met him close to a decade ago and I liked him immediately.  His smile, tone, and approach seemed genuine to me, and I couldn’t help but be warmed by his sincerity.  However, he seemed a bit unsure as to the fundamentals of what really was The Problem and betrayed a face-value appreciation of it.  I suppose to most, whom have not appreciated the fields of sociology, psychology, history, political philosophy, etc, etc, he would indeed seem insightful.  But as I’ve always said, to know better, you have to know more.  If you can’t prove the latter, you cannot trust the belief in the former, and along with this, your opinions of leaders.”

 

When I stated that this oppositional figure was ‘another Lee’, an activist, in one conversation, immediately interjected with, “No he is not.  I know him personally.” without asking why I said this.  Though I didn’t say it at that time, my thought was, ‘on what perspectival basis can you claim that you ‘know’ him if you decided to be an activist without the requisite study and introspection?  Isn’t that similar to those who look up to Lee, and whom you view as ill-informed?  A sheep ‘knows’ a shepherd in a way entirely different from a human.  Your knowledge of a person is determined by your own self-perceptions in relation to that person.  If you are a follower, then you will know him from downside looking up.  Prove your intellectual individualism before arrogantly claiming that you know’ him.’  But what I did in fact say was,

 

“Though I like him as a person, and definitely give him credit for his tenacity as I do JBJ, I was quite disenchanted when I was told to just follow the leader of the youth wing and not rock the boat with my ideas as I was ‘new’.  He said it very nicely, but in that I couldn’t help thinking that his basic approach was not dissimilar to Lee.  Of course, those ‘knowing their place’, underdeveloping accordingly in the opposition, and having become an ‘activist’ without the requisite studies and introspection, would not encounter this.  The leaders of the youth wing, then, also exhibited this and mirrored authority in the proposition and the working arena in Singapore as well.  Novel ideas suggested by ‘newbies’ or those lower in rank seemed to indicate to them their own ineptness and they disliked that to the point of discounting these ideas and even insinuating that I was a spy for the proposition.  My propositions, for the record, included the construction of a library for political studies for all those joining the activists; conducting seminars whereby we could exchange ideas on the fundamentals of democracy, the various means and methods by which this is being compromised besides the obvious; strategies to take on the Young PAP on the ideological front and perhaps inviting them to open debates; amongst others.  These were discounted by the leaders of the youth wing, as are ideas in the working arena when they are not passed top-down.  And when I brought this up with the leader of the party, he responded as I’ve mentioned above. 

I suppose when power and prominence is valued above all else in the general milieu, by way of intellectual underdevelopment ensuing from the fetishisation of conformity and uniformity amongst others, the only way to maintain one’s self-respect and hence, command the respect of others is by way of seniority and control as opposed to debate and reason.  Oh, they aren’t averse to debating with those perceived to be their foes, but engaging in this amongst ‘their own’ seems to be anathema to them. 

I couldn’t help, at that time, but wonder why these oppositional leaders did not push for education amongst ‘their own’ in ways that would enable the ‘proles’ amongst the opposition to become a viable source of ideas that do not necessarily conform to the ideas of its elite.  I personally expect this in my own personal social circles and despise hero-worship.  The moment people start admiring me, I always perceive this as an impending excuse to live in my shadow.  In that, I can only lead and not learn, and that bores me as it leads to my own underdevelopment.  So the same applies to these revered lords of the opposition and their followers.  If I was a leader of the opposition or any group, I would say, if you want to learn from me, do so that you might oppose me.  In that, I’m a teacher worthy of my position.  This is lacking in the opposition and in their leaders.  And in that, I see a deficiency amongst them all despite their achievements.”

 

And to all of this, the activists remained silent and without acknowledgement before moving on to another topic which basically involved their reciting the perspectives of their leaders which seemed most superficial and trite.  I sensed that the belief with which they were reciting these lines was based on it being the opinion of their leaders.  There was little or no analyses on their part, and as it was with the leaders of the aforementioned youth wing, my analyses of various issues was passed over without question or acknowledgement.  Seems that little has changed from a decade ago.

 

III

“I also remember a Catherine Lim (Dr. Catherine Lim to some) writing an article some years ago with regards to popular disaffection with the government.  The government took her to task as it began to create quite a supportive furore amongst oppositional voices.  When I read the article, my first thought was, why was there such a fuss being made by the government over this?  She was simply stating what were obviously the sentiments amongst some in the population.  To me, it contained little, if any, insights.  Then I realised that the reason why the government was annoyed by this was not that she had anything insightful to say, as it was already being said by many non-prominent oppositional voices, but that her credentials meant more would pay attention to her.  And the oppositional minds themselves rallied around her statements for as much reason.  In this, I thought, the insightful, whom are not paired with prominence or/and credentials are protected from scrutiny and appreciation by an opposition whom have been trained by the proposition to equate value with either. 

I suppose, if I was in the government, what I would do after training a population to value either would be to accord prominence to those oppositional voices whom aren’t insightful and thus ensure the underdevelopment of those whom are appealed to by the said prominence.”

 

Throughout these various conversational occasions, compressed and illustrated in the above, I could sense hackles rising around me as I begin to ‘blaspheme’ against what was taken to be the immutable sanctity and perpetual relevance of these oppositional deities.    These statements of mine were generally met with uncomfortable silence and no questions were asked thereafter as they moved on to other oppositional topics.  In other words, information was reflexively being discounted on the fly – a phenomenon that is endemic here, and one that I did not experience in, for instance, in the UK. 

I recall an MRT station staff stating, in the aftermath of JBJ’s passing, that there would never be another one like him.  I thought to myself, ‘I would certainly hope not.  What we need is not another JBJ.  The purpose of a giant is not only to provide its descendants to stand atop their shoulders to see farther, but to stimulate the rise of other giants whom may afford others their shoulders as well!’  But, unfortunately, all we are seeing here is low-res copies of the original.  Pathetic state of affairs actually.  But who was I, a ‘nobody’, to dare criticise these people who have verifiably done much for The Cause? 

 

That’s where the problem lies 

How is it that these oppositional figures can be verified to have ‘done much for The Cause?’  In the local context, it can only be ‘verified’ by their prominence.  As I have stated, when prominence and power is lauded above all, and this transmitted via the intellectually diminishing means of uniformity, conformity and subservience, people will necessarily become stupefied enough to laud nothing more than the said power and prominence be they in the proposition or opposition.  And where these oppositional figures are supported by a whole train of activists who seek immediate gratification by simply accessing well-worn traditions when it comes to appreciating the idea of ‘opposition’, they would not possess the requisite perspectival intelligence to tell the difference between ‘value by prominence’ as opposed to ‘value by insight’ as their own perspectival development will be largely led by the ‘insights’ of the prominent. 

They seem to be well prepared by the general milieu (the perspectival infrastructure that transmits these ideas to the subconscious) to ensure that their own perspectival development does not develop outside of the perspectives and pronouncements of their thus-created icons.  And being thus disabled, they will themselves be ignorant enough to confuse the obvious observations by oppositional deities for insight. 

And to exacerbate matters, the advent of ‘blogging’ immediately accords all ‘bloggers’ peerage on the simple basis of their utilising a shared platform to host their views.  In that, a ‘peer’ is discerned by her/is utilising a blogging platform.  In this, the propensity to discount insight because it is coming from another ‘blogger’ is amplified.  ‘It is just another ‘blogger’ after all, just like me, so why should I accord her/im more credit as I do the prominent?’, seemed to be the unstated thought of all bloggers.  And in that perception is betrayed their own preinstalled depreciation of themselves as a source of insight as opposed to their leaders-by-prominence.

 

This is a whole downward and pathetic spiral that leads to the increasing irrelevance of the opposition in the progressive movement toward democracy.  In this, their own minds serve as the potholes delivering a bumpy ride on the highway to democracy.  And in this, it is not just a local phenomenon, as I first observed it in the global milieu some years ago as I studied and wrote about the oppositional and ‘new social movements’ in the west, amongst others, before returning, briefly, to study the local scene. 

 

Mutual antagonism amongst the proles in the opposition 

When we worship prominence in itself, we will not only tether our intellectual development to the loins of a Deity-by-Prominence, but also value ourselves in terms of how we value (I say ‘loins’ because we’ll be on our knees in the face of a revered leader). 

When it comes to peer relationships amongst the proles on both sides of the thus illusory opposition vs. proposition divide, we will either seek company and coalescence amongst those whom are similarly afflicted with the malaise of confusing their knees for their feet, or disregard those whose shoe size do not fit comfortably around their knee caps. Hence, in the local milieu, be it in the propositional or oppositional camps, this Internal Harmony act, scene 50, idiocy is reinforced by the company it keeps. And besides this, with the worship of Prominence, ‘insight’ or ‘worthy of attention’ is identified via source as opposed to consideration. – one of the reasons why the prominent oppositional Singaporedaily.net online newspaper selected my post on Lee Kuan Yew’s quotes for linking as opposed to an article of mine featured above it entitled, ‘In Praise of Lee, 2009 a.d. to 220 b.c.’, that could arguably be of greater perspectival advantage to the opposition if they were to consider its contents.  Can it be that even to the opposition, the insights of one of their own pales next to the pronouncements of the icon of the proposition? 

Ah, Freudian slips abound indicating that ‘opposition’ is a close synonym for ‘proposition’ in spirit, if not in content.  Where the spirit is compromised, so is the content.  And if they chance upon some verifiably oppositional voice who is able to afford insights which does not diverge too far from the pronouncements of their revered leaders; does not contradict them; or is easily understood with the aid of their top-down bestowed formulae; quite a few unashamedly plagiarize in their own writings and statements without due credit being accorded to its source – as I’ve experienced quite a few times over the years.  Those whom are not prominent don’t deserve the credit.  Well, I suppose nothing is to be personally gained by giving credit to one who isn’t prominent enough to validate them.  This is experienced, not only in the oppositional scene, but in the propositional milieu, the working arena, and as I have experienced, in social circles as well in Singapore. 

Said a good Chinese associate of mine who is currently working in the UK, ‘Ahh, it’s ok ed, one day people will recognise what you are saying.’  To this, I laughing said, ‘No. when they do become objective enough to appreciate these points, they will take these ideas without recognition of the source so that they can get more prominence in their circle, or bolster the prominence that they already enjoy.  As it is the culture of the general populace in all arenas, so it will be in the oppositional scene as well…as it already is.’

 

In this approach, these ‘house negroes’, (as opposed to ‘field negroes’ – ref. Malcolm X’s speech on the difference between either.) playing at activism underdevelop not only themselves.  With such a stance and due to their relative numerousness, they set the perspectival trend for future entrants into the oppositional market.  They, by remaining in the ignorance-inducing twilight of the shadows of their leaders, will not learn enough to question the foundations or superstructure that thus serves as a mausoleum wherein their own potentials as great thinkers and truly oppositional voices will remain interned with a stake in the head.  And this will afflict the new entrants into the activist scene with an identical debility just as they themselves were. 

Their leaders are also underdeveloped as they will remain unquestioned and will thus be validated by such worship to carry on doing what they have always been doing with the aid of similarly validated and trite perspectives. 

And last, but certainly not least, the non-prominent, whose ideas are appreciated silently via plagiarism, or/and with little, if any, validation, can lead to their ceasing to produce novel perspectives and just join the diarrheal flow of either propositional and oppositional camps; inciting their move away from involvement in local politics; or, in the worst case, cause them to be inactive completely.

 

These factors play a significant role as an inbuilt mechanism – of propositional origins – amongst the local and global ‘grls n bois’ playing at being opposition whose motivation seems to emerge, not from their ill-understood idea of the ‘democracy’, ‘egalitarianism’, and ‘progress’ they purport to placard for, but from a childish, ignorant, and ID-ian (ref. Freud’s ‘ID’) clamour for instant and self-validating gratification that has, thus far, seen the idea of ‘progress’ being more redefined than refined by the proposition whom certainly find an advantage amongst such an ‘opposition’ that confuses itself for one.  That, i dare say, gives a wholly different and self-gratifying meaning to the idea of 'activism' and 'activists'.

 

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

“

Ancient China considered itself the centre of the world and called itself the Middle Kingdom. And well it should. It was far more advanced in every way than Europe of the Dark Ages.” – Dr Mahathir Muhammad, ex-PM of Malaysia.

 

In a word, nonsense. 

 

That which we deem to be ‘far more advanced in every way’ betrays the degree to which we ourselves are developed or underdeveloped as a personality.  We are, in this context, making sense of history on the basis of which aspects of it is most pronounced in the present.  That is why, for instance, when I came across a documentary some years ago that stated that the Neanderthals died out after conflict with the ancestors of today’s humans, I wondered why it did not occur to those ‘scientists’ that there could be a possibility that the Neanderthals did not ‘die out’ post-competitive conflict, but actually fused with the Homo Sapiens.  I realised immediately, that whether or not this was the case, it was evidence that, perhaps, people were making sense of the past on the basis of what is taken as the norm today.  In other words, the equation of today – civilisation=product of competitive conflict – is utilised to make sense of the past.  In that, the past is shorn of other valuable perspectives that might have been predominant than, as opposed to the present.  And with the aid of the ‘sci-fi’ of today that projects the here and now into the future and civilisations in allegedly distant space, the status quo is promoted as natural by way of the human imagination being confined within a here and now that ridiculously takes itself as the starting point of all history past and beyond.  

 

Getting back to China’s ‘greatness’…

 

I view China as the least advanced back in the Middle Ages and throughout its history post 221 b.c., compared to, amongst others, the western European civilisation.  In a global status quo based on, amongst others, the fragmentation of humanity via the nation-state, China would indeed stand out as a great nation in the ancient past as they are, arguably, one of the longest-standing nation states. In other words, we are validating present via a partial appreciation of the past, and appreciating the past via a biased appreciation of the naturalness of the entirety of the present.  However, if we imagine, with or without the aid of ‘sci-fi’, a global status quo comprising a singular nation of humanity that takes as the norm that the realisation of humanity requires the maximal development of all, for all, and by all, then we might look at the history of China, amongst others, as the ‘dark ages’ of human history.  Think along the lines of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. 

 

Now why I would say that China was not ‘more advanced in every way’ compared to the Europe of the ‘Dark Ages’ is because the ‘Dark Ages’ was an incubatory period for the eventual emergence of the Renaissance, Reformation and Scientific Revolution.  The ‘Dark Ages’, as Mahathir mistakenly calls it, and which is more accurately called the ‘Middle Ages’, was perceived to be ‘dark’ because the people experienced something the people of China have never experienced since 221 b.c. - cultural and political collapse and the faith, as opposed to reason, based system that did not augur well with the pioneers of the following eras.  China has, since the end of the Chou era, always moved from one tyrannous period to another with little or no popular intellectual individualism.  We could say that it has been a ‘Christendom’ or ‘Roman era’ for more than 2000 years.  This was not the case in Europe with the fall of the Roman Empire, the corruption of Christendom, the numerous political divisions and intrigues, the Crusades, amongst a host of others.  These provided the basis upon which intellectual individualism, as illustrated by the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution would emerge.  It was a period pregnant with potential as top-down authority was collapsing and being perceived as corrupt in perspective by more and more people.  In other words, we could say that western European history was becoming Chinese history in the reverse.  They were moving from the cultural and political stability of the post-Chou era to the intellectual vibrancy of the pre-Qin or Chou era, or, toward the intellectual individualism that is one of the hallmarks of Indian history, or, to the Grecian Socratic era with an appreciable dollop of scientific thought.  In fact, thanks to the Muslims, the knowledge of the Greeks that was largely lost, was transferred back to the Europeans toward the latter part of the Middle Ages and which contributed to the potentials of the Middle Ages in articulating its move toward the modern age.

 

These are phenomena that have not really been experienced in Chinese history since 221 b.c.   In other words, without the ‘Dark’ Ages, the truly modern one of intellectual individualism would never have transpired.  The Middle Ages presented enough of a breakdown of the preceding status quo, which the Catholic church completed by its corruption in its attempt to take on the persona of the Roman empire, to enable the foundation for the rise of intellectual individualism, the rise of philosophers, science, and later, social science, amongst others.  Unfortunately, as it all transpired within a class-based system, it inevitably led to western banditry in the rest of the world – termed as ‘colonialism’ by some – as opposed to a Mauryan-style (ref. Ashoka’s empire in India) humanitarian intercourse with other nations.   

 

I appreciate the ‘greatness’ of a history, culture, or nation, and accord it due respect, not because it is a ‘history’, ‘culture’, or ‘nation’, but because it holds within its grasp the potentials, or the conditions for the development of potentials, that can lead to the rise of intellectual and empathetic individualism, and the ensuing, maximal development of all, for all, and by all.  In this, China’s history has failed to deliver - and to a significant degree, neither has Malaysia or Singapore.  However, it has delivered the most resilient coping mechanism that, upon practice, can replicate the authoritarian conditions that created it in any time and space.  In that, China’s history might just prove to be ‘great’ in the future as humanity slides down the dark narrow slope toward intellectual ignominy and subservience in the face of top-down imposition.

 

If Mahathir wants to call any age ‘Dark’, I would suggest the present where intellectual individualism is little different from that in Roman times or during those periods when Christendom sought to suppress humanity’s reasoning faculty.  The rise of the celebrity, the fan, the professional, and the juvenile blogger, along with all subsidiary and causative variables, signals humanity’s descent into the dark abyss of juvenile ignorance and arrogance that deems individualism realised simply because it can choose between an ‘ipod’ and an ‘ipod shuffle’ and click on the ‘publish’ button.  Hence, 'juvenile and professional individualism', would be an apt term.  The development of humanity is now, what I would term, ‘catastrophe-driven’, as opposed to being driven by the kind of intellectual individualism witnessed during the periods following the Middle Ages. 

 

But those who worship prominence, on both sides of the causeway (road link between Singapore and Malaysia), might miss the above points.  I dare say that the ‘insight’ that comes from the prominent and hence regarded as worthy of more consideration, as opposed to development via challenge, has delivered to the grave far more insight on the basis of its sources not being prominent.  And, in this, has instituted an intellectual economy where the prominent serve as the ‘demand’, and the hordes of consumers in both propositional and oppositional camps, play the role of imbibing and supplying thought processes that diverge little from the directives of the prominent. 

 

 

Ed

 

 

The following perspective is meant to be the final chapter of my reflections on PAP's 50 years of rule.  However, other chapters will be added as and when it occurs to me.  But this will remain the final chapter.  Anyone who wants to make sense of the essence of this 'asian democratic' phenomenon, and where it is heading, read this. 

Celebrating 50 Years of PAP Rule – In Praise of Lee, from 1816 to 222 b.c.

 

When I saw the new parliament building - that was officially opened on the 4^th of October, 1999 - my first thought was that it looked just like the Forbidden City, and a bit like the American embassy in singapore.  The words that came to mind were, ‘obtrusive’, ‘forbidding’, ‘cold’, ‘confident’, ‘monolithic’, amongst others.  It was, to me, a Forbidden City on the plains of Giza.  A monument to an authoritarian wonder. 

 

Perhaps such sentiments are simply a projection of my aversion to the politically, and therefore, perspectivally, stifling climate here.  Or, perhaps, my democratic spirit simply baulked at aesthetics that did not complement it with a ‘feng shui’ that was fluid, circular, and inclusive in design.

 

The first thing that struck me was the angles and lines that seemed sharp enough to cut through steel.  The grey colour of the slates seemed to complement this and further enhance its ‘cold’ and ‘alienating’ feel.  The largeness of the slates covering it, with few lines dividing one from the other, seemed to present a dominating monolith chiseled from a single block not unlike the monolith in Kubrick’s ‘Space Odyssey’. And the said absence of lines and gradients on the structure seemed to enhance its expansive aura, and which was complemented by the spacious field in front of it. (I designed the interior of my home abiding by some of these principles as well, except, with a warm touch.)  And instead of facing outward like the old Parliament building built by the British, it faced inwards.  Imagine a ship with a bridge overlooking its crew quarters as opposed to seaward – looking at you as opposed to looking out for you, directing as opposed to leading.  And the long thin ‘grooves’ in the walls on the front and sides give one the impression that one was more easily observed from within than being able to observe from without.  It seemed to aesthetically and paradoxically keep the populace penned in by keeping them out.  If there is anything in the structure that bespeaks a lineage to western democracy, it is in the colonnades in the rear, and which seems to say that what is illustrated in the foreground is an improvement on the past.  On the whole, I couldn’t help but admire this perspectival wonder expressed through an architectural medium that seemed to bring together a perfect combination of lines, grooves, space, absence of gradients, colours, amongst others, to present, in itself, a total architectural essay on what ‘modern’ Singapore was, and probably will be for a very long time.   

 

When I compared it to the American embassy here, in conversation with a Chinese acquaintance, I said, ‘well, I suppose I can understand why the Americans built their embassy like a fortress.  They go about the world pissing people off, so I suppose they need a fortress for an embassy.’  My acquaintance said, in return, ‘Ah, that’s why the government here built the Parliament house like a fortress too.  Lots of people pissed off with them here.’  I disagreed. 

 

“

Democracy for what?  Democracy cannot chia what!” (‘Democracy cannot be eaten’. ‘chia’ – ‘eat’ in one Chinese dialect.)

(a phrase and perspective that is not unheard of in this country in various contexts, and which indicates how a people have been kept absorbed in nothing more than self-interested concerns.)

 

But what really surprised me when I saw the parliament house was the presence of only a ‘token’ fence around it.  One couldn’t at all say that it was obtrusive.  To me, that could either be because a government could rely on the democratic spirit of a people whom it truly represented, ground up, to serve as its battlements, or perhaps, it was the irrelevance of democracy to a people that hence rendered an obtrusive fence equally irrelevant.  What can we make of a fortress without a wall?   To me, it bespoke confidence in the acceptance by the people that authoritarianism was such a natural state of affairs that it ceased to be perceived as such.  Hence, it could assert itself without protection.  The spirit of such a people would therefore serve exceedingly well as its wall and moat.  ‘So’, queried my acquaintance, ‘You think that is Lee Kuan Yew’s intention is it?’  I said, ‘I don’t know about that, but I’d say it was, in the very least, an architectural ‘Freudian slip’ that perhaps revealed his subconscious appreciation of the result of half a century of his efforts.’  ‘And’, I added, ‘he deserves nothing less.’

 

Personally, this monument – I wouldn’t call it a ‘parliament house’…at least not in the British and democratic sense of the word – reveals what ‘modern’ Singapore truly is.  Whilst it is said to be a ‘modernist’ version of the traditional British design, I view it as an iconic representation of a democracy turned ‘asian democracy’.  It is, to me, a modern rendition of an ancient Chinese authoritarian perspective that is aesthetically complemented by the Forbidden City, the Great Wall – which to myself is a symbol of political and cultural protectionism – amongst others.

 

“

Give a peasant ‘affluence’, and s/he’ll mistake serfdom for modernity. 

But first you’ll have to redefine the idea of affluence,

along with the identity required to appreciate it.

~ ed

 

I view the construction of the new Parliament building in all its Freudian slip-like glory as most apt.  I cannot but tighten my lips and nod with acknowledgement that Lee is indeed a master craftsman who could easily put the elite in the west to shame with their manipulative helter-skeltering.  The government has managed to effect all sorts of schemes - that would see governments in the west thrown out by their collars by the masses, i.e. stating that Singapore must always have a Chinese majority as they were the most pragmatic and hardworking, detaining oppositional elements without trial in the past, amongst others alluded to in other essays here - without any significant social upheaval or dissent – and which grows increasingly insignificant by the day by the opposition depreciating reality the selfsame way they and the people themselves were depreciated.  Lee recommended Machiavelli as bedtime reading for all politicians some years ago.  I, personally, would recommend Lee, as bedtime reading for all who aspire to power, profit, and political longevity.  Lee is, to me, a major modern upgrade to Machiavelli.  The objective half of my personality cannot but give him credit for what he has accomplished. 

 

The economic affluence for which he is credited for bringing to Singapore means nothing to me, achievement-wise – my immediate ancestors weren’t starving and homeless during the time of the British, and nor were they encumbered with huge debts paired with flexible repayment schemes.  But what is significant enough for me to accord Lee a standing ovation is his redefinition of the idea of affluence, and his pairing the result with the identity of ‘asian democracy’ that in turn inoculated and immunized this idea of ‘affluence’ in the face of the critique of the thus indentified, ‘western’ democrats.  It is simple enough to nobble an opposition with a big authoritarian stick.  And it is on this basis that many oppositional voices shrug off Lee’s achievements.  But it is not so simple to keep the rest of the population turning the apathetic cheek whilst doing so, and finally rendering the ‘asian democratic’ result impervious to western critique. 

 

When I attended the ‘Abolish ISA’ event in Hong Lim Park, I looked at the large empty expanse of field dividing the paltry number of demonstrators – whom I view as ‘hope fetishists’ who worship prominence as opposed to insight – from the qi gong practitioners on the other side.  It is this vacant expanse of field wherein one may find Lee’s achievement.  And the means via which this was achieved could be found in the seemingly innocuous recuperative martial arts event taking place on the other side of the expanse.  The entire scene told a story, but few could read nor understand its interrelation and how this led to the said expanse betwixt.  They failed to realise that the practitioners of what I term, The Internal Harmony Act, on the other side of the field symbolise is just one of the numerous examples of the ‘coping mechanism’ in operation, and which illustrates the movement of society from its confrontational phase to one where ‘confrontation’ had been redefined to mean doing one’s best to circumvent the consequences of popular political failure.  And with the institution of Chinese culture, a ready-made and 2 millennia old ‘coping mechanism’ is delivered to a people who have been reared, in tandem with its introduction, to equate ‘majority’ with ‘race’ and thus ‘naturally’ identify with it.  And those whom aren’t ‘Chinese’, will still be subject to the overarching perspectival infrastructure that results and will be similarly afflicted.  And in that, all, including the ‘opposition’ themselves, will necessarily embody those perspectives that it take to render them a symbiotic part of those on the other side of an illusory expanse.

 

It’s not that I don’t believe that democracy would ever come to this nation.  But if and when it does, it will come on Lee’s terms and post-orchestration of socio-psychological conditions that will give it a vastly different meaning than that which was intended by those who had sought to define and refine it in the west since the conflict between the patricians and plebeians in Roman times.  And China will most certainly be the next ‘asian democracy’ that will owe much to Lee’s vision.  China will be able to point to Singapore’s history and justify its own evolution along an ‘asian democratic’ path.  Singapore, in other words, provides China with a way to finally exorcise the nation of any last vestige of the democratic spirit of 1987 by providing it with a paradigm and an ‘asian democratic’ vocabulary that would thus be impervious to the post-colonial cultural magnanimity of the west.  It has shown China that the thus identified, ‘western’ style democracy isn’t the only way whereby compliance may be garnered.  In fact, we could even argue that ‘asian democracy’ is an ‘improvement’ of western democracy.  In the latter, we have a system whereby the elite attempts to ‘have their cake and eat some of it too’.  In the east, they have managed to bring about a system where the elite can ‘have their cake, eat it, and get the people to look for their own’. 

 

With the rise of the ‘asian democracy’, China, and its diaspora, will finally be able to put aside that abject feeling of inferiority that it has felt ever since the colonialists carved it up and exploited it during the colonial, ‘scramble for concessions’.  This saw revolutions in China thereafter that sought to bring about a system that would be able to rival the west and reinstate a cultural pride borne of a two millennia-old political and cultural isolationism, and development.  It saw the adoption of Communism which, given their imperial history and consequential absence of a democratic and individualist culture and mindset, mutated into state capitalism. 

Hence, they unwittingly placed themselves on the selfsame developmental path of the west which rendered them susceptible to internal and external critique further along the route that culminated in the Tiananmen massacres.  The subconscious cry of the dissidents was, in other words, ‘if we’re going to have capitalism, as in the west, we must democratise it, as in the west’.  But with the idea of the ‘asian democracy’, an asian democracy that has finally been given form, feature, and fortune by Lee Kuan Yew, China will finally be able to access absolution for its treatment of its dissidents, enable the latter to be popularly perceived as anti-Chinese and western fetishists, and get off its knees and out of the confessional.  And along with this, it will be able to place its own development along a ‘democratic’ route lined with terracotta warriors protecting it from the thus cultural imposition of the west.  So with the infusion of ‘asian’ in this scheme of things, the consciously created subconscious of the people will produce the statement, ‘if we’re going to have capitalism, we must democratise it, but if we’re going to be ‘asian’ about it, than democracy has nothing to do with it.’  And with the eventual evolution of China into an ‘asian democracy’, Singapore fate as an ‘asian democracy’ will be sealed as well through a vicarious validation of its perspective via its adoption by a major global and economic power.  And with them, will come other 'asian democracies' be it nations, or states within nations.  Their economic achievements will become a cultural achievement and thus imbue all whom identify with it with that amount of racial identification and cultural pride it takes to perpetuate it.  In this Singapore will be the teacher, and China, a Grecian phalanx-like Great Wall.

 

No doubt, Lee had only a small population to work with, but the principles he abided by in his ambitions is globally applicable.  The elite of the west, be it the Bilderberg group, the Illuminati, the 33^rd degree freemasons, the Council for Foreign Relations, the Bohemian Grove society, amongst others, will be very well advised to pay attention to what might seem to them an insignificant ‘Chinaman’ of a seemingly insignificant nation.  He may be just one individual, but he has brought to bear, in the development of this nation, a 2000 year old perspective that has been shorn of just about all of its deficiencies, and delivered exactly what he willed.  He has built a nation that is the quintessence of the ‘asian democracy’ – the dream of every elite throughout the world that has been worked hard for, but is still quite far from being realised.  Singapore is not only an Aristotelian-like ‘prototype’ for all aspiring ‘asian democracies’, such as China, but, perhaps, a prophecy of what the west is becoming without the knowledge of most except the elite few – the same thing is happening in the west, but being effected via other means. 

 

“

Not much is learnt when we oppose a fool as opposed to a master craftsmen.

~ed

 

Lee, to me, is a man I love to hate. 

For in ‘hating’ Lee thoughtfully, one is able to decipher the perspectives, means, methods and consequences, be it intentional or not, that can deliver the fruits of all kinds of iniquities without the latter being perceived as such, and with the former being perceived as most palatable.  What the elite of most nations might take hundreds of years to achieve, Lee has accomplished in 50.  I’ve viewed history, for quite a few years, as the movement toward the refinement of iniquity to the point that it might be mistaken for virtue.  I dare say that Lee has refined much of the fundamental principles required to deliver this.  All that is required is for them to be cross-applied in consideration of culturally specific variables.  There is a saying that goes, ‘the talents you have is God’s gift to you, what you make of it is your gift to God’, or something to that effect.  Lee, a true son of the essence and history of China – which, in spirit, is an exercise in perpetuating elitism – took from the wealth of Chinese history, and gave back monumentally more in perspective.  If the aim of the disciple is to build upon the teachings of his master, then Lee is a model student indeed. 

 

I view Lee as having brought Singapore forward to the year 220 b.c. - which is the year after Qin Shih Huang Ti (‘the yellow emperor) inaugurated the Qin dynasty, and the 2 millennia old, nation-state of China - because all that transpired in China thereafter was an attempt to refine what Shih inaugurated.  If we conceptualise time, not in a chronological linear order, but a perspectival one, we can ‘fold’ time and space and take it that, ‘what Shih intentioned in 221 b.c., Lee realised the year after’.  All that falls between is an attempt, which Lee finalised.  Thus, 220 b.c.  Lee, being the final master calligraphic flourish on a two millennia old canvas, deserves nothing less.  The study of Lee is therefore not only the study of how elitism may be realised via a feng shui-like relocation and realignment of the human persona, but it also highlights the means and methods oppositional minds have to prepare for, way ahead of their conscious minds.  But he deserves praise all the same despite my democratic proclivities as a job well executed is a job well done whether it agrees with me or not. 

 

Hence, despite my own democratic spirit and having been thoroughly victimised and disenfranchised by the products of this ‘asian democratic’ scheme of things to the point of abject social oblivion, I cannot but respect and view Lee as a direct perspectival descendant of the ‘Yellow Emperor’ whose perspective has ruled China ever since, but which finally saw complete refinement via a single but exceedingly singular mind comprising its diaspora. 

“ 

Lee is indeed a true ‘Son of Heaven’ who, unlike the Yellow Emperor, rules, not by the ‘Mandate of Heaven',

but by rewriting it. 

~ ed

In Praise of Lee Kuan Yew,

 

 

Edwin Savirimuthu Anthony

 

 

 

 

"The line between free speech and inciting violence."

 

I find this a most interesting, um, line.  For most, it might refer to the content of speeches and its potential to incite violence.  For some, it would refer to how free speech might offend their ‘sensitivities’ – which could often simply be just a synonym for ‘biases’.

 

However, for myself, the ‘line betwixt’ refers to,

a. The existence of viable means via which grievance may be expressed and addressed,

b. The degree of popular empathy required to bring (a) into existence and give it consideration.

 

…and not the content of the speech or the human tendency to be violent.

 

 

Picture a room full of methane.  How can we prevent it from expressing its explosive potentials to the fullest?

 

Solutions

1. Install a vent (refer, a)

2. Attempt to cut off the source of the gas (refer, b)

 

3. Or, not bother with (a) or (b) but do one’s utmost to extinguish or cut off any potential incendiary source that might lead to an explosion.

…And let those interned within the room to die a ‘natural’ death brought about by that degree of apathy it takes to blame the victim.

 

What incites violence in this context?  

Some might say it is the human tendency to do so. 

But what incites this human tendency? 

Some might say, ‘free speech’.

 

I, however, would say that it is the absence of (a), (b) without the application of solution (3). 

It is within this context that all ‘free speech’ can verifiably become an inciter to violence.  This is a great formula to bring about conditions that can lead to the vilification of free speech and public disdain for its consequences.  And it is only then that solution 3 is applied and ‘free’ speech is finally incarcerated in its ‘rightful’ place in some ‘corner’ or cranny.  For it is only then that it is freed of its potentials to educate and influence, and a fascistic, stable, and peaceful harmony can ensue, undeterred.

The relegation of 'free' speech to a corner is one of the final moments of the death of democracy, and the birth of its 'asian' variant.  For when it is thus cornered, it is not by any government that it is effected, but by its being encircled by an apathetic majority.

 

Ed

 

 

When I think back about my experiences with gangs in my late teenage years, I realise that that was my first experience of the counterposition between ‘democracy’ and ‘asian democracy’ by way of experience with Indian gangs and Chinese Triads.

 

A Chinese acquaintance of mine once asked me, ‘How come the Chinese have Triads but the Indians don’t?’  I said, ‘because Indian gangs aren’t asian democracies’.  In that, they reflect the general socio-political reality of Indian society.  From that experience, I realised that the study of gangs might reveal more about the overarching culture wherein they plied their delinquent traits. 

 

Democratic Gangs

From 1986 to 1989, I was part of an Indian gang in my neighbourhood.  I did not specifically go out to join a gang but simply joined these boys to play football, which was their daily passion, at a neighbouring basketball court.  Over time, I simply became recognised as part of the gang.  This is an important point since ‘recognition as one of the gang’ was not brought about by some ritual or initiation rite.  Rather, one had to simply prove that one was a ‘friend’ and was willing to stand up for the rest of the gang members as and when anyone had a ‘perkara’ (Malay, for ‘problem’).  And if one wanted to leave the gang, one simply had to cease interaction with them.  Many members of the gang were also simultaneously, members of other gangs, and some, of triad societies.  And whilst most of the members were Indians, they comprised different faiths, educational levels up to college level, and most could speak different languages such as Malay, Tamil, Chinese dialects and English.

 

Through such affiliations, Indian gangs became a loose confederation of gangs spread throughout Singapore.  Another democratic feature of the Indian gangs I had experiences with was that decisions were not top-down.  There had to be a consensus amongst the different age groups, or ‘divisions, ‘A’ to ‘C’, as they were called (a classification derived from their love of British soccer, and which a main pastime of most Indian gangs) before action.  Initiative could be forwarded from either the top or lower levels of the gang, and there would generally be a discussion amongst all in attempts to refine or reject initiative or strategies.  I recall one incident where a few of the ‘hardcore fighters’ and older guys wanted to beat up a particular guy who was giving trouble at work.  I was neither.  But in the discussion that followed, I managed to reason with the rest of the guys involved to think of other ways to handle the situation.  I told them that a better approach would be to get him kicked out of the work team as opposed to assault.  They all thought about it, and then agreed, and began to discuss how they might do that.

 

The only ‘rules’ I encountered were generally those dealing with the general public.  In our gang, we were told not to harass members of the public, and that if we wanted to look at girls, we could only do so if they were on their own as opposed to walking with their families or boyfriends as doing so under the latter conditions was deemed to be disrespectful to those they were walking with.  And if they were 'decent looking', gang members could only look at the but not speak to them.  As for those who looked as if they were married, one could not even look at them as they were considered to be a part 'thai kolam' or 'mother clan'. 

An unstated but practiced rule I observed was that if there was any non-Indian sitting with us, we had to speak a language which they too could understand.  I recall introducing a Malay friend to the gang.  As and when any member of the gang lapsed into Tamil, other members of the gang would chide him in Tamil and tell him to speak English.  And the one who spoke Tamil would immediately apologise to my friend and continue speaking in English.  This was always the case throughout my 3 years of gang experience. 

Another rule that was generally followed was that if a member of another gang or anyone else was challenged to a one on one fight, no other members could get involved even if their own member suffered defeat.  The most they could do was to stop the fight.  This, I personally witnessed quite a few times.  

And one thing I liked about interacting with them was that anyone was open to critique whatever their position.  For instance, those whom could speak better English often made fun of those who spoke bad English, even if they were the most prominent or powerful in the group, and they always took it in an embarrassed manner and were wary whenever the good English speakers were around.  Even whilst they might be leading the discussion of a serious gang-related matter, if they spoke badly, they would always give a sheepish smile when the rest of the relatively good English speakers started laughing.  In this, amongst other instances where the more knowledgeable spoke on other matters, there was a subconsciousness awareness that no one person could be good in all, and that rule was skill specific as opposed to power based.  The top guys never had a problem being humble in the face of their ignorance.

What i liked best about the Indian gangs i had experiences with, besides their recognising superiority on the basis of specific skills as opposed to mere power, was in the way they would tell the young kids in the neighbourhood to go home at six or seven in the evening.  They would say, 'Oi! Go home, go home.  Go study.  Or you'll become like us when you grow up'.  And they would always urge other gang members who were doing well in their studies to stop associating with them.  They would tell them to study hard and make them proud that at least some amongst their number became more than them.  In that, i saw the appreciation that there was more to life than being a gangster.  And where such members refused to leave, they would always be told  by the older guys to take a 'backseat' when there were problems with other gangs, whilst respecting them for their relatively greater intelligence and associating with them. 

 

In these instances, these Indian gangs seemed to be dictated by reason as opposed to rules, autonomy was prized over conformity, and empathy was practiced to an appreciable degree where opponent gangs were not concerned.  Additionally, there was no top-down management.  The best the gang leaders could do was to ‘table a motion’ and from thereon, all members, despite their age, would discuss its merits and come to a mutually consensual agreement or compromise.  and even where there was a consensus, those who disagreed would generally abstain from the activity, and with impunity.  I, personally, never experienced a single imposition on myself or others throughout the experience.  In this, autonomous self-pride was maintained within a collaborative union that valued reason above all else. 

 

I finally left the gang in 1989 after the leader of our chapter of the unofficial and constantly-in-flux confederation of Indian gangs asked me to head the ‘C-division’ (under 19s).  I was quite surprised as, compared to the others, I wasn’t a ‘hardcore fighter’ and had actually never laid hands on anyone throughout my 3 years with the gang – except for one incident where 5 of us were ambushed by 15 guys.  However, he said that what the gang needed was someone who could plan and strategise as opposed to just being a fighter.  He said that my not being a fighter didn’t matter as, in his words, it was brains that mattered.  I thought about it for a few days and then declined as I realised that there was possibly more I could do with my life than being a ‘career gangster’.  Thereafter, I left the gang.

 

Asian Democratic Gangs

My interactions with Chinese triads was through some of my neighbours in my block of flats who belonged to Triads, schoolmates who were similarly affiliated, and through the affiliation of my Indian gang with Chinese triad whom ‘sat’ at a nearby market-cum-hawker centre (food centre).  Through them, I experienced what would strike me as ‘asian democratic’ close to 2 decades later.

 

Unlike Indian gangs, there were initiation rites such as praying to relevant war Gods such as ‘Tuan Gong’, swearing allegiance, loyalty and unquestioning obedience.  Some of my friends whom were initiated into these gangs had to pay a sum of money for inclusion and which often was an amount that was also the ‘gang number’.  For instance, joining the ’24’ luo kuan’ gang, required one to fork out, say, $24, or $18 for the ‘kun tong’ gang whose ‘number’ was 18, or $21 for membership in the ‘Ang Soon Tong’ gang.  Some of my Chinese friends had to undergo a beating as an initiation rite where some gang members would take him into a lift and start beating him till the lift reached the top floor.  Then, the beating would start again as the lift descended.  Additionally, some of them were also taken to shopping malls and a same-age member of the public would be selected for him to assault.  Leaving the gang also generally required one to be beaten up according to the initiation procedure.  And they would also have to pay a fee to leave.  I was speaking to an acquaintance in his early 50s who was recounting his gang experiences in the 70s and 80s, and he too told me about the various ranks comprising triad gangs such as ‘white fans’, ‘straw shoes’, etc.  He also recounted how he himself was initiated.  According to him, in the 70s, he and other new members were taken to some remote hill in Malaysia, told to strip, and then had to pray to Chinese Gods whilst swearing allegiance.  In the course of this ritual, they also had to cut their fingers and make a blood oath of, well, I suppose ‘fealty’ would be a more appropriate word.

 

Decision-making was, unlike Indian gangs, generally top-down.  No ‘second-guessing’ was allowed.  And even if it was, after the airing of an opinion, they would still have to abide by the dictates of the head.  And we were warned by senior Indian gang members not to challenge members of Chinese gangs to one-on-one fights as, unlike most Indian gangs, if their gang member lost the fight, the other members would join in and beat you up.  This is what I’ve heard from Chinese gang members in their accounts of one-on-one fights.  Additionally, in conversation, whether in Chinese gangs or in the social arena, no one seemed to be bothered if one amongst their number did not speak their language.  They would generally carry on with whatever language they were comfortable despite it not being understood by the 'minority' at the table.  

 

In these instances, ‘Asian Democratic’ gangs, unlike ‘Democratic’ ones, seemed to be founded on the same principles of ‘Asian Democratic’ societies.  Unquestioning loyalty and obedience was expected.  And actions were initiated top-down by dictate as opposed to consensus.  Rules were the reason as opposed to reason determining rules.  Additionally, empathy had little place as evidenced by the beating up which gang members had to undergo upon joining or leaving a gang, their having to assault a randomly picked member of the public, and not ensuring that they spoke a language that could be understood by the 'minority' at the table.  Putting these together, power, apathy, conformity, uniformity, discounting of difference, amongst others, seemed to be the core factors determining all behaviours and attitudes within the 'asian democratic' gang.

 

 

It was upon my reflecting on these experiences that led me to believe that one way to study a culture or society is by way of studying the gangs within it.  When we believe a particular paradigm to be alright, that paradigm will open up both worse and best case scenarios given the principles it abides by.  And in the study of the worst case scenario, such as in the study of gangs, we might be able to identify the generic factors that rules the overarching society.  Whether it be in the family unit, the work unit, the political unit, the oppositional sector, intimate relationships, or gangs, the words of the wise Chinese philosopher who said that what the government is, the people will be, or my mother who said, whilst I was recounting these experiences to her in later years, ‘well, India is a democracy, so that's why Indian gangs are also democratic’, seems to ring true, and probably in more ways than that realised by the said philosopher.  In this, I suppose, when a particular political milieu survives long enough, it will tend to be mirrored in its ethos, amongst all sectors of society, and which in turn, serves to keep everyone in their traditional place and maintain the system that brought it about. 

So now, when I think back, I also realise that my experiences with Indian gangs was my first and last experience of democracy in the 'asian democratic' scheme of things.  I often wonder at how my experience with the worst locality  of  the democratic experience  - gangs - was still far better than that experienced in the best instance of an asian democracy perceived to be an 'educated' and 'respectable' first world state.

This article is dedicated to 'the 149 boys' (derived from the number of the block at the foot of which was a round-table we frequently congregated at).  Thanks for the democratic experience.

 

Ed

1950s

In opposition

·         "But we either believe in democracy or we not. If we do, then, we must say categorically, without qualification, that no restraint from the any democratic processes, other than by the ordinary law of the land, should be allowed... If you believe in democracy, you must believe in it unconditionally. If you believe that men should be free, then, they should have the right of free association, of free speech, of free publication. Then, no law should permit those democratic processes to be set at nought, and no excuse, whether of security, should allow a government to be deterred from doing what it knows to be right, and what it must know to be right... " - Lee Kuan Yew, Legislative Assembly Debates, April 27, 1955

·         "If it is not totalitarian to arrest a man and detain him, when you cannot charge him with any offence against any written law - if that is not what we have always cried out against in Fascist states - then what is it?… If we are to survive as a free democracy, then we must be prepared, in principle, to concede to our enemies - even those who do not subscribe to our views - as much constitutional rights as you concede yourself." - Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Legislative Assembly Debates, Sept 21, 1955

·         "Repression, Sir is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love-it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and more brazen in the attack. All you have to do is to dissolve organizations and societies and banish and detain the key political workers in these societies. Then miraculously everything is tranquil on the surface. Then an intimidated press and the government-controlled radio together can regularly sing your praises, and slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the evil things that have already been done, or if these things are referred to again they're conveniently distorted and distorted with impunity, because there will be no opposition to contradict." -Lee Kuan Yew as an opposition PAP member speaking to David Marshall, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Debates, 4 October, 1956

·         "If we say that we believe in democracy, if we say that the fabric of a democratic society is one which allows for the free play of idea...then, in the name of all the gods, give that free play a chance to work within the constitutional framework." - Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Oct 4, 1956

·         "Repression can only go up to a point. When it becomes too acute, the instruments of repression, namely the army and the police, have been proved time and time again in history to have turned their guns on their masters." - Opposition leader Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, May 5, 1959

·         "I pointed to an article with bold headlines reporting that the police had refused to allow the PAP to hold a rally at Empress Place, and then to the last paragraph where in small type it added the meeting would take place where we were now. I compared this with a prominent report about an SPA rally. This was flagrant bias." - Complaining about the Straits Times in 1959.

1960s

Pre-merger

·         "If I were in authority in Singapore indefinitely without having to ask those who are governed whether they like what is being done, then I would not have the slightest doubt that I could govern much more effectively in their interests." - Mr Lee Kuan Yew, 1962

Federation of Malaysia, 1963-1965

·         "Let us get down to fundamentals. Is this an open, or is this a closed society? Is it a society where men can preach ideas - novel, unorthodox, heresies, to established churches and established governments - where there is a constant contest for men's hearts and minds on the basis of what is right, of what is just, of what is in the national interests, or is it a closed society where the mass media - the newspapers, the journals, publications, TV, radio - either bound by sound or by sight, or both sound and sight, men's minds are fed with a constant drone of sycophantic support for a particular orthodox political philosophy? I am talking of the principle of the open society, the open debate, ideas, not intimidation, persuasion not coercion..." - Lee Kuan Yew, Before Singapore's independence, Malaysian Parliamentary Debates, Dec 18, 1964

·         "How does the Malay in the kampong find his way out into this modernised civil society? By becoming servants of the 0.3 per cent who would have the money to hire them to clean their shoe, open their motorcar doors?" — Lee Kuan Yew in the Parliament of Malaysia, 1965

·         "Of course there are Chinese millionaires in big cars and big houses. Is it the answer to make a few Malay millionaires with big cars and big houses? How does telling a Malay bus driver that he should support the party of his Malay director (UMNO) and the Chinese bus conductor to join another party of his Chinese director (MCA) - how does that improve the standards of the Malay bus driver and the Chinese bus conductor who are both workers in the same company? If we delude people into believing that they are poor because there are no Malay rights or because opposition members oppose Malay rights, where are we going to end up? You let people in the kampongs believe that they are poor because we don't speak Malay, because the government does not write in Malay, so he expects a miracle to take place in 1967 (the year Malay would become the national and sole official language in Malaysia). The moment we all start speaking Malay, he is going to have an uplift in the standard of living, and if doesn't happen, what happens then? Meanwhile, whenever there is a failure of economic, social and educational policies, you come back and say, oh, these wicked Chinese, Indian and others opposing Malay rights. They don't oppose Malay rights. They, the Malay, have the right as Malaysian citizens to go up to the level of training and education that the more competitive societies, the non-Malay society, has produced. That is what must be done, isn't it? Not to feed them with this obscurantist doctrine that all they have got to do is to get Malay rights for the few special Malays and their problem has been resolved." — Lee Kuan Yew in the Parliament of Malaysia, 1965

·         "They (the Malay extremists) have triggered off something basic and fundamental. Malaysia — to whom does it belong? To Malaysians. But who are Malaysians? I hope I am, Mr Speaker, Sir. But sometimes, sitting in this chamber, I doubt whether I am allowed to be a Malaysian. This is the doubt that hangs over many minds, and the next contest, if this goes on, will be on very different lines." — Lee Kuan Yew in the Parliament of Malaysia, 1965

·         "Once emotions are set in motion, and men pitted against men along these unspoken lines, you will have the kind of warfare that will split the nation from top to bottom and undo Malaysia. Everybody knows it. I don't have to say it. It is the unspoken word!" — Lee Kuan Yew in the Parliament of Malaysia, 1965

·         "According to history, Malays began to migrate to Malaysia in noticeable numbers only about 700 years ago. Of the 39 percent Malays in Malaysia today, about one-third are comparatively new immigrants like the secretary-general of UMNO, Dato' Syed Ja'afar Albar, who came to Malaya from Indonesia just before the war at the age of more than thirty. Therefore it is wrong and illogical for a particular racial group to think that they are more justified to be called Malaysians and that the others can become Malaysian only through their favour." — Lee Kuan Yew (in 1964 or 1965), — Ye, Lin-Sheng (2003). The Chinese Dilemma, p. 43. East West Publishing.

·         "Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development." - 27 December 1967

Singapore Independence, 1965

·         “For me, it is a moment of anguish. All my life, my whole adult life, I believed in merger and unity of the two territories.”, on August 9, 1965, when Lee announced the separation of Singapore from Malaysia.

·         “Do not worry about Singapore. My colleagues and I are sane, rational people even in our moments of anguish. We will weigh all possible consequences before we make any move on the political chessboard...”, 1965, when he responded to concerns of the British government after Singapore's independence. London was concerned that the young government was not able to keep things in control and might take foolish measures.

Post Independence

·         "We must encourage those who earn less than $200 per month and cannot afford to nurture and educate many children never to have more than two... We will regret the time lost if we do not now take the first tentative steps towards correcting a trend which can leave our society with a large number of the physically, intellecually and culturally anaemic." -Lee Kuan Yew in 1967.

1980s

·         "Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him, or give it up! This is not a game of cards! This is your life and mine! I spent a whole life-time building this, and as long as I am in charge, nobody is going to knock it down." - 1980

·         "Let us not deceive ourselves: our talent profile is nowhere near that of, say, the Jews or the Japanese in America. The exceptional number of Nobel Prize winners who are Jews is no accident. It is also no accident that a high percentage, sometimes 50%, of faculty members in the top American universities on both the east and west coasts are Jews. And the number of high calibre Japanese academics, professionals, and business executives is out of all proportion to the percentage of Japanese in the total American population." - 1982

·         "If you don't include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society...So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That's a problem." -Lee Kuan Yew in 1983 National Day Rally

·         "(Without the CPF), Singaporeans would buy enormous quantities of clothes, shoes, furniture, television sets, radio, tape recorders, hi-fis, washing machines, motor cars. They would have no substantial or permanent asset to show for it." - Asian Wall Street Journal, Oct 21 1985

·         "We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don't do that, the country would be in ruins." - Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, 1986

·         "I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think." - Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 20 April 1987

·         "Look, Jeyaretnam can’t win the infighting. I'll tell you why. WE are in charge. Every government ministry and department is under our control. And in the infighting, he will go down for the count every time... I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy." - As recounted by former President C. V. Devan Nair

24 December 1984, election aftermath

·         "At this rate, the one-man, one-vote system could lead to decline and disintegration" - after the Opposition won 2 seats

·         "Every election campaign starts off on a reasonable note, then in order to get the crowds excited, they make more and more brazen, scurrilous, wild accusations." - Accusing the Opposition of "gutter politics"

·         "The party would withdraw services to the two opposition-held seats of Anson and Potong Pasir" - On Potong Pasir and Anson electing non-PAP MPs

1990s

Leadership transition, pre-1991

·         “I'm prepared to banter with you. I'm prepared to humour you. But if this were an Orwellian society with an Orwellian leader, would we be having this conversation?”, Sunday Mail Magazine 1990 on being a "state out of 1984"

·         “Even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up.” 1988 National Day Rally, when he discussed the leadership transition to Goh Chok Tong in 1990.

Senior Minister

·         "With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries...What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient." - Lee Kuan Yew (educated in Cambridge and speaks English, called Harry when young) in speech entitled 'Democracy, Human Rights and the Realities', Tokyo, Nov 10, 1992

·         "In America itself, after 30 years of experimenting with the Great Society programmes, there is widespread crime and violence, children kill each other with guns, neigbourhoods are insecure, old people feel forgotten, families are falling apart. And the media attacks the integrity and character of your leaders with impunity, drags down all those in authority and blames everyone but itself." - Lee Kuan Yew, Sept 1995.

·         "I have visited (Burma) and I know that there is only one instrument of government, and that is the army...If I were Aung San Suu Kyi, I think I'd rather be behind a fence and be a symbol than after two or three years, be found impotent." - SM Lee Kuan Yew, Reuters, Jun 6, 1996, which sparked a flurry of protests from Burmese students.

·         "Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right.

If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless." - Lee Kuan Yew, 6.10.1997

·         "Mine is a very matter-of-fact approach to the problem. If you can select a population and they're educated and they're properly brought up, then you don't have to use too much of the stick because they would already have been trained. It's like with dogs. You train it in a proper way from small. It will know that it's got to leave, go outside to pee and to defecate. No, we are not that kind of society. We had to train adult dogs who even today deliberately urinate in the lifts." - Lee Kuan Yew on Singapore society, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

·         "Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister...She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul de sac...Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no other way you can govern a Chinese society." - SM Lee Kuan Yew, The Man and His Ideas, 1997

·         "Supposing I'm now 21, 22, what would I do? I would not be absorbed in wanting to change life in Singapore. I'm not responsible for Singapore...Why should I go and undertake this job and spend my whole life pushing this for a lot of people for whom nothing is good enough? I will have a fall-back position, which many are doing - have a house in Perth or Vancouver or Sydney, or an apartment in London, in case I need some place suddenly, and think about whether I go on to America." - SM Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

·         "What people mean by consultation is an imitation of what they see in America; pressure groups and lobby groups..It's an unthinking adoption of Western practices of development without any pruning and modification to suit our circumstances." - Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

·         "The Bell curve is a fact of life. The blacks on average score 85 per cent on IQ and it is accurate, nothing to do with culture. The whites score on average 100. Asians score more ... the Bell curve authors put it at least 10 points higher. These are realities that, if you do not accept, will lead to frustration because you will be spending money on wrong assumptions and the results cannot follow." - Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

·         "I started off believing all men were equal. I now know that's the most unlikely thing ever to have been, because millions of years have passed over evolution, people have scattered across the face of this earth, been isolated from each other, developed independently, had different intermixtures between races, peoples, climates, soils... I didn't start off with that knowledge. But by observation, reading, watching, arguing, asking, that is the conclusion I've come to." - Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

·         "Put it this way. As long as Jeyaretnam [Workers' Party leader] stands for what he stands for -- a thoroughly destructive force -- we will knock him. There are two ways of playing this. One, a you attack the policies; two, you attack the system. Jeyaretnam was attacking the system, he brought the Chief Justice into it. If I want to fix you, do I need the Chief Justice to fix you? Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take my hatchet, we meet in the cul-de-sac. That's the way I had to survive in the past. That's the way the communists tackled me. He brought the Chief Justice into the political arena." - SM Lee Kuan Yew, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

·         "If, for instance, you put in a Malay officer who's very religious and who has family ties in Malaysia in charge of a machine gun unit, that's a very tricky business. We've got to know his background... I'm saying these things because they are real, and if I don't think that, and I think even if today the Prime Minister doesn't think carefully about this, we could have a tragedy." - SM Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, September 19, 1999 on Malays in the Singapore Armed Forces

2000s

Senior Minister

·         "... If you can't think because you can't chew, try a banana", 2000. Lee was responding to a BBC reporter who suggested that Singapore's draconian laws (including the ban on chewing gum) could stifle the people's creativity.

·         "He picked up from me a certain way of thinking, certain logic, certain cut of mind. He has got from his mother a facility with words, and a certain intuition." - Lee Kuan Yew on Lee Hsien Loong, Straits Times, Jun 22, 2004

·         "I ignore polling as a method of government. I think that shows a certain weakness of mind - an inability to chart a course whichever way the wind blows, whichever way the media encourages the people to go, you follow. You are not a leader." - SM Lee Kuan Yew, Success Stories, 2002

 

Minister Mentor

·         "Political reform need not go hand in hand with economic liberalisation. I do not believe that if you are libertarian, full of diverse opinions, full of competing ideas in the market place, full of sound and fury, therefore you will succeed." - Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, Aug 17, 2004

·         "If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it." - Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew evoking the ghost of Deng Xiaoping whilst endorsing the Tiananmen Square massacre, Straits Times, Aug 17, 2004

·         "...because I don't use it so much, therefore it gets disused and there's language loss. Then I have to revive it. It's a terrible problem because learning it at adult life, it hasn't got the same roots in your memory.” May 2005, as Lee released a book, Keeping My Mandarin Alive, relating to his decades of effort to master Mandarin–a language which he said he had to re-learn due to disuse.

·         "At the end of the day, we are so many digits in the machine. The point is – are these digits stronger than the competitors' digits?" - MM Lee Kuan Yew on Singapore workers, History of Singapore, 2005

·         "When I call a man openly, you're a liar, you're dishonest, and you do not dare to sue me, there's something basically wrong. And I will repeat it anywhere and you can't go and say, oh, I have apologised; let's move on. Can you commit a dishonourable -- maybe even one which is against the law -- an illegal act and say, let's move on because I've apologised? You may move on but you're going to move on out of politics in time." -- MM Lee Kuan Yew on James Gomez, Channelnewsasia, May 2006

·         "Please do not assume that you can change governments. Young people don't understand this" -- MM Lee Kuan Yew on the results of the 2006 election

·         "Without the elected president and if there is a freak result, within two or three years, the army would have to come in and stop it" -- MM Lee Kuan Yew on what would happen if a profligate opposition government touched Singapore's vast monetary reserves

·         "Merit over nepotism" -- MM Lee Kuan Yew, in a talk in response to the IMF/World Bank meet in Singapore 2006 (MM Lee's elder son, PM Lee Hsien Loong, is the youngest Brigadier General in Singapore's history, is tipped to be Lee Kuan Yew's successor as Prime Minister from a young age, whose wife is the CEO of the government-owned Temasek Holdings and whose career has also been dogged by a perceived reputation for being arrogant and autocratic.)

·         "That was the year the British decided to get out and sell everything. So I immediately held an election. I knew the people will be dead scared." - On winning 88% of the votes in 1968 (actual share was 84.43%), The Straits Times, March 7, 2007

·         "Low salaries will draw in the hypocrites who sweet talk their way into power in the name of public service, but once in charge will show their true colour, and ruin the country." - 2007, on Minister's Pay

·         "You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again... and your asset values will disappear, your apartment will be worth a fraction of what it is, your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers." - Justifying million-dollar pay hike for Singapore ministers (Straits Times, 5 April 2007)

·         "Singaporeans, if I can chose an analogy, we are the hard disk of a computer, the foreign talent are the megabytes you add to your storage capacity. So your computer never hangs because you got enormous storage capacity," - On accepting foreign talent (Straits Times, 22 April 2007)

·         "When you're Singapore and your existence depends on performance - extraordinary performance, better than your competitors - when that performance disappears because the system on which it's been based becomes eroded, then you've lost everything... I try to tell the younger generation that and they say the old man is playing the same record, we've heard it all before. I happen to know how we got here and I know how we can unscramble it." - On one freak election result ruining Singapore (Straits Times, 26 April 2008)

·         "There is a conspiracy to do us in. Why?... They see us as a threat" - on why Human Rights Groups criticise Singapore's governance (Agence France-Presse, July 12 2008,

“

The complicity of a pastime in the maintenance of a greater evil is dependent on the degree and dimension of effort expended to eradicate the latter prior to the engagement in the former.

 

Where vertical activism is not engaged in, the people are generally left with horizontal activism – that is, attempting to release pent up top-down financial and psychological pressures through, say, ‘working hard’; spending hours eating; going from one end of the country to the other to have a dish that could be purchased in their neighbourhood on the pretext that, ‘the Hokkien mee (Chinese noodle dish) down there very shiok (delicious) you know!’’; being economical with professional integrity to increase one’s profit margin (I’ve often said to my acquaintances and friends, ‘you don’t get professional ‘anything’ in this kind of country.  All you get is professional moneymakers who take shortcuts past integrity to increase their profit margins’); betting on football; buying ‘4D’, etc.  Of course, one could say, ‘hey, they do that all over the world don’t they! Even in the west!’  To which, I would say, the complicity of a pastime in the maintenance of a greater evil is dependent on the degree and dimension of effort expended to eradicate the latter prior to the engagement in the former.

 

This, I suppose, serves to cathartically relieve whatever tensions that might cause cracks in the system whilst turning a potentially and relatively unpredictable democratic top vs. down scenario into an internally harmonious and symbiotic top-cum-down coexistence – I think that just about summarises the difference between the ‘western’ democracy and its ‘asian’ variant ;).  If things turn out bad, it’s simply due to one’s ‘laziness’, ‘stupidity’, ‘bad luck’ or fate, which is expressed in the oft-heard phrase, ‘it’s like that one lahhh’ (that’s the way it is).  As I’ve said before, you need to take a tolerance pill the size of an ox’s testicles to put up with such a state of affairs.  Anyway…

 

Amongst other compensatory rituals engaged in by the congregation comprising the ‘asian democracy’, is…

 

…checking for ‘4D’ results, the ‘asian democratic’ version of, say, the British ‘lottery’. 

The Chinese newspaper you see on the table displaying the ‘4-digit’ lottery results was there when I got to the table.  I thought, when I sat at the table, ‘How bloody sociologically opportune. 4D results on the table…football on the telly.’  An aesthetic concentration and presentation of the horizontally activistic spirit of a people, which, I wouldn’t be surprised, was being replicated across this ‘little numb dot’ at that very moment, and which bespoke a fascistic harmony where everyone knows and reinforces ‘their rightful place and perspective’ through such pastimes in this ‘asian democratic’ scheme of things. 

It brought to mind how Muslims all across the globe are brought together in spirit on a daily basis by the simple act of facing Mecca in prayer, but, where it brought about a sense of familialarity amongst them, in this scenario, they are paradoxically ‘brought together’ in the midst of and due to, the spirit of mutual apathy, antagonism and political disengagement.  How cozy. 

 

People sometimes buy the paper just to check the results….of their disengagement from top-down activism…otherwise known as ‘4D’, or 4-digit lottery.  They subscribe to the results on their mobile phones, await radio broadcasts, engage in online gambling through illegal sites, go on and on about how they just missed the right number, ‘aiyahh! The number that come out is 4351…my number is 4315, or 4352, or 5413!’  ‘Oh for f&*ksake’, I always think to myself, ‘you didn’t miss it by 1 number.  You missed it by all the possible combinations that you might have thought of if you didn’t pick the number and order that you did’.  Of course, what I actually say is, ‘Really! Ahh what a waste man!’ which is exactly what they want to hear.  It’s nicer to hear that you missed nirvana by a dot than an eon.  I sometimes think that this this ‘4D’ thing as an asian democratic rosary (prayer beads used by catholics) through which one expresses hope for the alleviation of discomfort, one bid, as opposed to one bead, at a time.

 

Then, there is football…..

 

Said a ‘Gene’, a Chinese acquaintance-cum-businessman in his 50s, from one coffeeshop I used to frequent in the past, “you think we watch football because we like ha?”.  “Please lah, we get excitement from betting on the gaaaaame.”  So perhaps, it’s not just an effort to make up for the top-down financial pressures, but also an avenue via which they might feel alive.  I also remember a bloke running another coffeeshop who sought advice from myself as to how he might curtail his betting-on-football habit that had, till that time, chalked up about $30,000 in losses.  I did my best, and was rewarded with a 70 cents cup of tea….well, I suppose he had to keep his money for future bets ;)

(pause for a conversation…..)

(ok. Back again.)

At the above pre-parenthesised point of tapping out these musings, I was interrupted by a Chinese coffeeshop acquaintance-cum-pai kia (member of a Chinese triad) in his early 50s who came up to me bemoaning his betting loss in a televised live English Premier League game (I think) that was being aired in the coffeeshop because he had, upon hindsight, unwisely given those whom he was betting with, a ‘1 ball’ advantage.  “Aiyahhh…f$#k man!”, ejaculated he, “I suppose to win 100+, now I lose…last moment the other team score one more…f#$k!’, said he.  I said, in an attempt to console him by echoing his subconscious, ‘never mind lahh, next time can win big and cover your loss.’, and thereby absolved him, confession box–style, from the sin of hopelessness.  But, with an inconsolable puff on his cigarette and another expletive, he turned around and rejoined the rest of his other pai kia friends at a table about a beer-bottle's throw away.

 

Interest in football, perhaps a means via which the generically applicable vibrancy of people in some other countries might be nourished, in an ‘asian democracy’, I suspect, evidences the populace’s having been trained to express the said vibrancy in ways that have been proven to not lead to government-initiated lawsuits for defamation; being detained without trial; losing their jobs; being bypassed in the queue for housing; etc, etc, amongst others.  It serves the dual function of feeding their hope for an alleviation of their financial burden by way of lotteries, betting, and gambling(a main event on the eve of Chinese New Year), whilst enabling them to feel alive with the excitement that comes to many across the globe when they see 22 men in shorts helter-skeltering after a ball. 

 

To all those who attempt to take the government to task on various issues, these people might think of them, as some have expressed to myself, “So stupid la that JB and Chee.  Say all those things, now kenna (‘got’ in Malay) sue.” (‘JB and Chee’ - two oppositional voices who were sued by the government for the public audibility of statements that, according to the government, compromised their integrity in the eyes of the public.)  Such a statement, methinks, could very easily be paraphrased with, ‘so stupid la that JB/Chee, they should just bet on football and buy 4D.’, or, ‘we already buy 4D and bet, so why they make noise about welfare/rights/etc.’  Perhaps, the phenomenon of ‘blaming the victim’ is more a tendency amongst peoples who’ve learnt to take the overarching causes for problems as immutable, or whom are simply ignorant of those subjects that is of little economic utility.

 

I suppose we could see the above as ‘kopitiam politics’ (‘kopitiam’ – coffeeshop. ‘Kopi’ is Malay and Indian for ‘coffee’ whilst ‘tiam’ is, Chinese for, um…I don’t know.  Such words are a relic of the old days when people were quite crosslingual(spoke each other’s languages) as opposed to the present.) wherein people come together to get involved in alleviating the consequences of their disengagement from politics(vertical activism).  Perhaps, by doing so together, it serves to reinforce the validity of this coping/compensatory strategy by virtue of its being commonly practiced.  And as ‘asian democrats’ know very well, what is popular ‘is good one!’(is good)

 

Final thoughts before shutting down my notebook…

 

It seems that this pervasive ‘asian democratic’ perspective that leads one to seek excitement through, amongst others, football, eating, shopping, etc, and relief from top-down financial pressures through gambling and betting,  gives a perpetual ‘two-ball advantage’ to the government - and with most of the nation unwittingly serving as ‘defence’ - in its seemingly competitive (one-party rule) match with itself.  Whilst this places the posteriors of the oppositional voices firmly on the sidelined bench of social oblivion, it places the rest of the citizenry on the stands doing a culturally-orchestrated asian democratic shrug.

 

 

Ed

 

 

 

 

 

 

“

For myself, true freedom is not the freedom to get around the consequences of my stupidity,

but to eradicate stupidity itself so as to allay the consequences.

~ ed

 

 

I’ve cannot acknowledge, on the basis of reason, that the PAP had done a ‘good job’, performed an ‘economic miracle’, etc.. 

 

A 'good job' is a sentiment that is felt by those who know no better.  That always results in a 'bad job' that a dumbed down people are too, well, dumbed down, to appreciate as a bad job.  My criteria for what deserves the credit of, 'a good job', is derived from the inventory and analysis of the resources available, and if they have been used to the max. 

That is verifiably not the case here.  Thus, amongst others, the need for 'foreign talent', telling singaporeans to go find their fortune overseas, asking singaporeans to price themselves competitively with 3rd world nations, etc, etc, etc.  In that, we are seeing the consequences of a 'bad job' confused for a 'good one' being perceived as a consequence of,’it’s like that one lahhhh’ (‘that’s the way it is’).  Of course, one must be able to connect the dots to discern this.

 

Allow me to elucidate.

 

For instance, when I compare the kind of people that I knew back in the 70s and early 80s, whatever the ‘race’, to the people of today, I cannot but feel that the former were far more creative, quick-witted, innovative, and open to novelty.  They were what I would term, ‘multiangular’ thinkers, and I am, in part, a product of that milieu. 

I’ve often said, as I did last night to Sim over a cup of cheap tea at my coffee shop after buying vegetables in Little India, people here just look around them and say, ‘see what the government did!  Good job what!”  And I always retort, ‘you see what’s there, but I see what’s not, given what could have been’.  And I always get a silent rebuttal from a people have been trained to not be able to process novel data on the fly.  I’ve said for quite a while that singapore always had one major resource that could have put it farther ahead than many countries in southeast Asia, including India, which is currently supplying the brains, whilst China the brawn.  That resource I speak of is the existence of various cultures and the positive benefits delivered via cultural miscegenation.

 

Culture and economics

 

If you look at the case of India, I’m not surprised that they steamed ahead in the ‘brain department’ whilst China could only play international copy-cat and host sweatshops in the shadows of their ‘bird’s nest’ stadium.  One of the most significant reasons for this is that India, unlike China, enjoyed the ‘misfortune’ of cultural and historical instability.  With their minds being constantly challenged by the novel and different, they developed a relatively hypercritical nature and became great multiangular and logical thinkers.  Whether it is in politics, arts, economics, etc, it is a great advantage.  They are great talkers because they are great thinkers.  Of course, much of the world does not know this because they know not Indian languages, and especially Tamil.  When one watches their productions, one will witness this in philosophical forums which whole tri-generational families attend (for entertainment!), and in which one might even see 10 year old children comprising adult debating teams.  Their productions, especially South Indian ones, are rich in philosophy, insightful dialogue, poetical forms, analogies, rhymes, activism, etc – though this is waning in recent years with increased assimilation, via the young, to the culture of the U.S.A. 

China, unlike India, as I’ve already discussed in a previous essay, enjoyed the ‘luxury’ of cultural and historical stability.  They may be credited with possibly being the first and longest running nation-state in human history and understood ‘nation-hood’ before the west conceptualised it close to 2000 years later.  In a clampshell, their history may be described as a ‘one-way’ appreciation of reality that was imposed top-down. 

 

I said to Sim last night that no one culture is advantageous in all circumstances.  For instance, Indian culture – which is a culture of amalgamation as opposed to just being ‘Indian’…till they very foolishly kicked the British out for being ‘white’ – is good for the intellectual, logical, or creative phase of economic development as multiangular and ‘on the fly’ thinking is required.  Indians, as opposed to Chinese, process novel information, ‘real-time’, exceedingly well (from which is derived the local criticism, ‘Indians know how to talk only’) whereas the latter tend to simply reiterate their point or statement, or claim the 5^th’, even if it verifiably does not answer the question or consider the points-come-lately.  If the reader has many interactions with Indians and Chinese, and is culturally unbiased, they will see my point. 

However, I must say that in my 2 year stay in Hong Kong, I discovered that the Chinese there do not qualify for this description.  And neither do the Chinese from Taiwan.  The reason for this is that both states had to engage in cultural fusion (miscegenation) when they underwent a period of ‘redefinition’ by one being ruled by another culture, and the other having to redefine itself after breaking away from the ‘motherland’.  Personally, I enjoyed my interactions with Hong Kong-ers who came across as lively, animated, and intelligent people – they also voted in ‘long hair’ into parliament who is a rocker with long hair and who always wore Che Guevara t-shirts and jeans every time I saw him on the television in Hong Kong.  However, in singapore, if one is not shirt-and-tied, one is discounted.  I suppose that is why Hong Kong is the ‘speakers’ corner’ of the Regiment of China ;)

 

Chinese culture, with its popular history of subservience, regimentation, conformity and uniformity, is great for the manufacturing phase.   A country, practicing the perspective of China, will do extremely well in this phase as they can be opened to international exploitation immediately with maximal returns without any unionised upheaval that can’t be put down easily because the overarching culture does not have an history of critical thought – it takes this ‘history of critical thought’ to sustain opposition as it would be encouraged simultaneously by other elements embedded within the overarching culture.  However, what is a boon at one stage can be a disadvantage in another.  In this case, due to the absence of cultural miscegenation and ‘instability’ in Singapore, and the imposition of cultural uniformity and stability, the history of China was replicated here and, as a consequence, India whizzed way ahead and became number 2 in the world in Information Technology – besides also supplying humanitarians, doctors, and lawyers.  In other words, Singularity lost out to Multiangularity.  Short-sighted pragmatism lost out to far-sighted pragmatism.  That is, essentially, the difference between western-style democracies and ‘asian democracies’.

 

If one was to look at history, the greatest thinkers generally emerged from culturally unstable intellectual economies, whereas the great thinkers of culturally stable intellectual economies generally tended to produce perspectives that sought to refine the status quo to the point that it may be perpetuated for the continued rule of an elite.  By doing thus, whilst they might indeed be able to deliver political singularity, they would be disadvantaged whenever they are challenged with novelty and intellectual individualism.

 

One has a choice I suppose.  Adopt the culturally unstable intellectual economy of India, start slow during the manufacturing phase, and eventually zoom ahead in the intellectual, creative or/and logical phase, or, zoom ahead in the manufacturing phase, and begin to stutter in the ICL stage.  But the best part about replicating China’s perspective is that by the time the economy moves out of the manufacturing phase, the people will be sufficiently perspectivally lobotomised enough to attribute the façade of affluence delivered to blame themselves for their slowdown in the ICL stage as opposed to the overarching perspectival milieu.  Their success in the preceding phase will tend to invalidate any notions that the practiced culture of uniformity and subservience will have anything to do with their slowdown later.  Since it was successful at one stage, the culture is perceived to be beyond question.  And that is when self-blame and self-reliance comes in and people will be increasingly exploited as they take on more hours, work harder, take of a few roles at the workplace, be more frugal, become more opportunistic, buy more ‘4D’(lottery), etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

 

But all is not lost for the ‘asian democracy’ in the making. 

 

At this stage, where the culture is imbued with perpetual validity given its initial success in delivering superficial affluence (‘affluence’ is not just a financial thing, but an intellectual one as well mate), all it takes is their ability to come out of this successfully to cement the ‘asian democracy’ in perpetuity. 

 

And here comes the next strategy - the buying up for foreign intellectual capital.  That is, investing in the intellectual and creative produce of foreign nations whom have enjoyed the ‘misfortune’ of cultural instability and democratic ‘chaos’.  In other words, riding on the coat-tails of multicultural tigers as opposed to the fluffy stumps of monocultural rabbits.  And this is done with the monies accumulated during the manufacturing phase from both visible and invisible taxation of the people.  In other words, the money made during the manufacturing phase is used to allay the consequences of the intellectual ineptness of the population that was required to ‘get the money fast’ and perform an ‘economic miracle’ which eventually turns into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight.  From this, the glass slipper can yet fit again thereafter and lead to one confusing a pumpkin of a perspective for a glass carriage once again.

 

This is the strategy of ‘asian democracies’.  In the course of the post-manufacturing phase, we will see an influx of ‘foreign talent’; the buying up of foreign intellectual capital; investing in the cultural produce of others; asking locals to seek their fortunes overseas; blaming the people for not being creative or intelligent enough; coming up with media productions that speak of the rare few locals, usually of one dominant ‘race’, who might have made it overseas (so as to feed the self-blame tendency) ; reinforcing local culture and never ceasing to link it to past successes; whilst gradually educating the people to compete in the intellectual arena where it could already have been accomplished way earlier.  Eventually, the importation of technology and perspective will be accomplished.  And the people will look back at the difficulties of the post-manufacturing days and deem it to simply be ‘like that one lahhh’ (‘that’s the way it is’).  Being ‘dumbed down’ during the manufacturing phase, and made to strongly identify with a non-western culture, they will deem anything of non-economic or recuperative value that comes from the west as ‘not asian, not our way’. 

 

In this, the ‘asian democracy’ is signed, sealed and delivered, and the people will confuse the freedom to shop and eat as the behavioural and attitudinal manifestation of freedom itself.  But this and the monoculturalism that is practiced will yet again deliver other evils whenever true creativity and intellectual individualism will be required to allay it.  I suppose the ‘asian democracy’ could be credited with innovative skills, not in the face of novelty, but in the efforts to circumvent the consequences of not being able to contend with it for intellectual and perspectival docility.  It is the intellectual potentials of a people taken a wrong turn. 

 

For myself, true freedom is not the freedom to get around the consequences of my stupidity, but to eradicate stupidity itself so as to allay the consequences.  Think about it.

That’s a perspective I’ve never detected in the core of even the most intelligent in this country.  But, I suspect, it is known to the elite who know that the popular practice of this perspective will certainly not deliver political longevity.  Perhaps, the ‘asian democracy’ can be summed up as the attempt by the elite to, ‘have your cake and eat it too.’  And here, the ‘asian democracy’ is miles ahead of the elite in the west whom have to think up other strategies to counter the perspectival vibrancy of a population whom have access to a long history of critical thought.  In this, and in the case of singapore, the PAP has done exceedingly well.  I cannot but acknowledge that as a remarkable achievement…albeit in service of the ‘dark side of the force’ ;).  Me Skywalker, you Vader.  But Jedi we are.

 

Personally, whilst being a victim of this pathetic scheme of things, I cannot but simultaneously feel most privileged to witness and study these historical events.  This is not simply a story of an ‘asian democracy’ because it is something that I’ve detected happening throughout the world in various forms.  But I have to thank my internment in an ‘asian democratic’ experience for this knowledge.

 

Ed