Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Lee Kuan Yew told his audience recently how a lot of policies in Singapore were the result of his experiences overseas. For example, deciding on having an underground train system over a network of tunnels for buses. Hmm, wonder which country has tunnels constructed for bus usage only. Here's another version.

Thr MRT system was a fight between Ong Teng Cheong and Goh Keng Swee because latter felt it was not economically feasible, "If an all-bus system is just as good as MRT, why have MRT if you have got to subsidise it?"

Ngiam Tong Dow explained his own involvement in the debate and elaborates on Dr Goh Keng Swee’s rationale for opposing the MRT:

"I was very much in favour of Mass Rapid Transit. But as we all know, Dr Goh was against it. So Finance Ministry was against it. But Minister for Communications and everybody else were for it. We really had to fight our way through on this one. We really had a public debate because the sum involved in those days was tremendous - $5 billion. So I think [then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew] wanted to be dead sure that we were right in investing this sum of money.

"But I told [then-PM Lee], I said, "Look, there is no way that you can solve the transport problem without this Mass Rapid Transit because land is limited. How much more road can you build for the buses to run through, if you depend on the bus system?"… In fact, Mr Howe was also telling him. Mr Howe Yoon Chong was very much involved in this. "Unless you are prepared to drive off all other vehicles from our roads, then maybe a bus system will work. But if you are not prepared, then I think the Mass Rapid Transit system have to be brought in." In any case, ours is both a bus as well as a MRT system until today. But it cannot be a total bus system. Impossible.

"But Dr Goh's view was that it was a very lumpy investment and if we are wrong, we can be very wrong. He thought that by adding buses, you add one bus at a time. If you are wrong, then you just write off one bus. But I disagreed with Dr Goh. I told him that this MRT is a way of providing access to the whole of Singapore, and our land prices were bound to appreciate. It was like opening up Singapore. Just like in a huge country, a railway system opens up the whole country. Similarly, the MRT is also a means of opening up the whole of Singapore. You can have quick transport.

"So I looked at it as an economic development project. But Dr Goh looked at it as just a pure traffic project. You can ask him if you interview him. He nearly overturned it. MINCOM put up a paper [saying] the benefits of all this. So he said, "Okay, what are you aiming at? You want to bring the MRT into the city. How many more new jobs can you accommodate in the city with the MRT?" I think we gave some figure. Mr Lim Leong Geok gave some figure. Then he said, 'Okay, $5 billion divided by this number. You mean to tell me that you're going to spend a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars just to be able to bring one more worker into the city?'

"He nearly torpedoed it. It was a sort of minimalist approach. Whereas my approach was the other way round. With the MRT we open up the whole of Singapore. Land values will go up. You can.locate offices [and] factories in various places. You can locate shopping centres in various places. In fact, you can disperse the concentration in the city to the outlying areas. Economists are very dangerous people. Dr Goh is an economist. I am also an economist. [It's] how you interpret the situation. He looked at it from a very narrow point of view. Anyway, thank goodness, the pro-MRT won and the anti-MRT lost.”

See how somebody always tries to grab all the credit? Mercifully, Al Gore already claimed he invented the internet.

Signs Of Senility

After a lifetime of toil, slaving to pay off the house, car and kids' education, so it's back to the grind, only to work for a younger, less qualified boss at reduced wages? That's the wise man's formula to boost productivity in Singapore.

"We've got to make old people productive and I don't think there should be a retirement age," Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew told the Singapore National Employers Federation members gathered to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Retirement is supposed to be a golden period to do the things you never had the time for, like enjoying the 1,612 pages and 1.5 million words of Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy". Or sitting through the Lord of The Rings triology at one go. Or bouncing the grandchildren on your knees. Stopping to smell the flowers. Admire the clouds in the sky. In other words, enjoy life without the demanding constraints of an office routine.

More exotic options like visiting the Niagara Falls or the Sphinx will require cash from the nest egg you've been squirreling away for. Unless you've been conned into upgrading your HDB flat and suddenly discover that the CPF account has been depleted by Mah Bow Tan's affordable housing prices. Or inflation has chewed away your bank balance, thanks to spiralling transportation charges, utility bills and medical costs inflicted by a dose of bad government. Not everyone has the luxury of inventing job titles and setting your own salary scale as you age.

It's in the order of nature that mental and physical agilities decline with advancing years. That's why the young with the faster reflexes should ascend the stage and bear the responsibilities of building a new society. Introduce fresh ideas rather then digging up old grandfather stories about communist threats and justification for detention without trial.

Life is short. Poor lawyer S. Tarwari retired in 2007. Only to suffer a headache and die of brain haemorrhage barely 3 years later at 64 years old. Hardly time enough to reflect upon a life time of accomplishments and sterling service to the nation.

Here's advice from a really wise man who was asked, "What do you do now that you're retired?"
"Well . . . I'm fortunate to have a chemical engineering background, and one of the things I enjoy most is turning beer, wine, Scotch, and margaritas into urine."

Dastardly Journalism

The offensive phrase, which some may even deem defamatory, was not found in a filler article by some cub reporter, but was part of a multi-page special section on mega churches. Whether the orchestrated compilation on local worship services was a covert fishing expedition is yet to be determined, but the waving of dirty laundry, not national day flags, appear to be a plausible agenda. A similarly toned effort on mega GRCs would be more welcomed. Fortunately, the pastor whose father's reputation was tarred and feathered for reasons unknown remained faithful to his preaching from the pulpit - he turned the other cheek, as the Good Book taught, and salvaged the ongoing national campaign to promote filial piety.

One does not have to be a vigilante to spot the danger of the words used in the delicate social fabric of a multi-cultural melieu that is Singapore. A publicly spirited citizen was outraged enough to pen his protestion in a Forum letter:

"Your report ("Rise of the megachurches"; July 17), and in particular its reference to Pastor Joseph Prince's father as "an often drunk Sikh priest...", displayed an unacceptable disregard for minority religions in Singapore.
It is entirely up to Pastor Prince to decide how he wishes to describe his own father. But a national newspaper in a country which prides itself on racial and religious harmony should have known better than to report it.
When a mainstream newspaper reports such a comment, it conveys a false caricature of Sikh priests as drunkards and irresponsible fathers. It also suggests that there was good reason for Pastor Prince to convert from Sikhism to another religion.
The report could have simply mentioned that his father was a drunkard. There was absolutely no reason for the reference to the father's religion.
The report has hurt the feelings of the Sikh community in Singapore."

The epistle was signed off by a Mr Surjit Singh, Chairman of the Sikh Advisory Board. The Straits Times followed with it's standard minuscule "that was never our intention and we apologise for the error of judgement" response.

Larry Flynt wrote of his battles with the mainstream media, "The lie gets printed in bold headlines on the front page, then the retraction appears beneath an underwear ad on page twelve" (page 78, "Sex, Lies & Politics; The Naked Truth", 249 pages). It is no credit to our nation that The Straits Times has a lower sense of journalistic integrity than a porn publisher.

Their Dreams, Our Nightmares

National Day is 2 weeks away. The exhortation on the billboard reads "Live Our Dreams, Fly Our Flag". Going by the type of fluttering fabric on display at these HDB blocks, life must be more nightmare than dreamland for the lesser mortals. Just think over crowded trains, unaffordable housing prices and insurance premiums that threaten to escalate because of Acts of God.

The larger than life portraits staring down from their dreamy ivory tower heights can afford to smile - each of them gets at least $14,500 per month. That's on top of their day job. And lots of juicy paying directorships to collect along the way. The figure may be outdated, their MP allowances rise faster than the flood waters at Orchard Road. S Iswaran is featured prominently, he's Indian, but the rest of the mega GRC team all have Chinese surnames. So who's speaking up for our Malay brothers and sisters in the West Coast?

In 1988, the ruling People's Action Party amended the Parliamentary Elections Act to create GRCs and to move away from the single member constituency system. The official justification for GRCs is to allow minority representation. The Elections Department website clearly states that, "At least one of the MPs in the group representing a GRC must belong to a minority racial community, either the Malay community or the Indian and other minority communities." With the floodgates opened wide to welcome foreign imports from India, especially the snooty types who look down on the local community in Serangoon Road, it's no wonder Mas Selamat Kastari prefers to reside in a Malaysian cell.

On 28 April 2006, Lee Kuan Yew justified the GRC system thus, "You watch the 9 single seats. We fielded 9 male Chinese, the Opposition also fielded 9 male Chinese. What does that tell you? Without group representation, no minority candidate would be elected nor any woman candidate." Critics were quick to correct his fading memory, J B Jeyaratnam won the 1981 Anson by-election in a Chinese-majority constituency, and ever since the GRC system was implemented, minority representation in Parliament has actually declined. PAP's own Dr Seet Ai Mee became the first Acting Minister of State to be defeated at the polls in a straight fight, not because of minority issues or gender politics, but for making a beeline to a water tap after reportedly shaking hands with a fish monger in 1991. (Her personal beef on this incident was that it was a pork seller, and that PM Goh Chok Tong did not check with her before airing her hygiene obsession at the General Elections rally.)

Opposition parties know the real story, however, GRCs are just another tool to make it even more difficult for independent and opposition members to get elected, since a steep group deposit of S$13,500 per candidate is required to stand for election in a GRC. Low Thia Khiang reflected on how institution and legislation could act as barriers to the opposition, "The re-drawing of electoral boundaries (in 2001) wiped out the ward across the road from my house — Cheng San Group Representation Constituency (GRC) — and it became part of Aljunied GRC. Cheng San GRC was where The Workers’ Party almost won in 1997."

Is Shadrake Doing Us A Favour?

The cogs of justice may spin slowly, but sometimes they do move in the right direction.

After Justice Steven Ching threw out the drug consumption related conviction of odd-job labourer Lim, on the basis that his confession could not be relied upon for conviction without scientific evidence that he had actually consumed the drug, lawyers reported that several drug cases have also been affected. Judge Thian Yee Sze also adjourned the cases of a man and a woman facing drug consumption related charges, using similar reasoning.

The Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) now have to bear the unfamiliar onus of demonstrating to the High Court that the testing procedures of the Health Sciences Authority are not as complacent as the security measures at Whitley Road Detention Centre. Or the drainage maintenance schedules of the PUB. Tree inspection programs of the NParks. Oh, you get the drift.

Given the guilty unless proven innocent approach typical of the Singapore Police Force, one seldom hears of the forensic work that routinely despatches many unfortunates to the gallows. But German national Julia Suzanne Bohl escaped an appointment with veteran hangman Darshan Singh after laboratory tests showed the amount of pure drugs found in her apartment weighed only 281 grams, less than the 500 gram limit for cannabis which automatically invokes mandatory death sentencing in Singapore. There were no details about the accuracy of the measuring instruments used in the determination, how much of the abusive substance was lost in the handling of the powdery evidence, or if the same Health Sciences Authority laboratory tests were used by the cops. It was also the first time the purity of the drug was raised by the defence in a drug related case. Some credit the efficiency of the German government officials for applying pressure on Singapore, threatening economic reprisals. Bohl's 5 year jail sentence was also reduced to 3. While we applaud the humanitarian efforts for not stretching her pretty little neck, Amara Tochi of Nigeria was hanged over 15 grams of heroin. Neither the accuracy of the quantity nor the purity of the offending substance was challenged in court. You don't have to be a dope pusher to appreciate that the trade is such that all along the supply route -- from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to the streets -- the drugs are likely to be cut and diluted with various substances to increase the profit margins.
Discussion of the handling of drug offences in his book could have ruffled feathers and landed Alan Shadrake in hot soup. That should dissuade the likes of fellow author Ross Worthington from landing at Changi Airport until the system of justice sorts itself out.