Move With The Flow

Tasting fresh raspberries from the vine for the first time at an Australian farm, the initial observation was that it was just like the ice cream  flavour. That's the problem of growing up in the cloistered cocoon of Singapore. Fortunately, international sales and marketing provided the opportunity to see and taste what the real world out there is like.

That's one reason why the U.S. presidential debate is so addictive. No topic is taboo, no stones unturned. When Obama and Romney faced off in town hall style for their second of three debates, the audience is not primed with die-hard grassroots supporters to favour the incumbent. The moderator Candy Crowley made it clear at the beginning that neither participant had prior knowledge of the questions asked. Our own prime minister won't even take questions from the press in his last official visit to New Zealand. Their PM John Key says it best, "It is Mr Lee's wish and is the nature of the Singapore system." Rumour has it that our local press are issued a prepared list when interviewing our ministers, maybe factually yours can clarify that tit-bit.

When 20-year-old college student Jeremy Epstein asked, “What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?” he wasn't told "What do you think?" It all goes to show that those in our cabinet have it too easy for too long.

Ex-minister George Yeo's candid remarks with China Morning Post explain it too well. For 23 years of his political tenure, all he did was move with the flow. "If you want to fight the flow, you will be very tired," sounds mighty strange from an ex-general who was supposed to lead the fight into the enemy. It is stranger still from an ex-foreign minister who was expected to defend our sovereign rights in international affairs. No wonder, at the first taste of defeat at Aljunied, he turned tail and flew out in a hurry.

About the technical knock-out that made him face the harsh reality, Yeo said: "I thought if there was not something that I could change, because it was not something about me, maybe it was time to open a new chapter of my life." Let's hope the rest of his comrades still enjoying the ride will have the same sense knocked into their thick heads.

Sorry, you have to take the questions. This is not Singapore system.