The price of being rich?

"This is something that is supported by the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans."

- Joseph Koh, Singapore’s High Commissioner to Australia

In the seemingly endless debate about Singapore’s mandatory death penalty, Mr. Koh’s statement caught me by surprise. But on hindsight, maybe I should have expected it.

(I won’t bother getting into the death penalty. There has been enough comment on it, on this blog and all over the web. Just Google ‘Australia’, ‘Singapore’, ‘Death Penalty’ and lots should come up.)

I have mentioned how Singaporeans generally outsource most thinking vis-à-vis policy issues to the Government. We stay focused on the important things in life – making money and watching movies.

However, we have also outsourced final opinion to the Government. Frequently, a Singaporean Government official or civil servant will make a sweeping statement about ‘The opinions of Singaporeans’ that he/she really has no way of knowing.

Mr. Koh is an intelligent person. His cogent argument in yesterday's papers, “Separating Fact from Fiction’ succinctly highlights why Singapore will go ahead and execute Australian Nguyen.

But I really wonder how he knows that the death penalty ‘is supported by the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans’.

Was a poll done? I never took nor heard of one.

Does he assume that because we voted in the PAP that we support the death penalty? That would be an enormous intellectual and representative leap. Even if our elections were over specific issues, the death penalty has never been tabled.

All said and done, he is probably right. But we will never know. Because public opinion here in Singapore is brewed in a sacred chalice. We know what it tastes likes, but not where its ingredients are from.

“Most Singaporeans are against homosexuality”

“Most Singaporeans would like a Casino”

“[Death penalty] is something that is supported by the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans."

You will frequently hear these declarations, booming from one beacon of authority to another – Diplomat, Minister, The Straits Times, yet you never see the hard statistical evidence that backs them up. There are neither polls nor referendums.

Even if the above statements are correct, you then have to wonder how Singaporeans arrive at these opinions. And you will sadly conclude that we are prone to opinion inbreeding, pack mentality and circular reasoning.

Let me explain. Our opinions are driven by the Powers that be. We have been told that the death penalty is essential to maintain safety and security in Singapore, and that’s all we need to know. Our parents tell us that. Our teachers tell us that. The local media outfits tell us that. Anybody who detracts is a looney tune. There is no organic, independent thinking on an issue. We only have opinion inbreeding.

Next, let’s suppose I decide to be very un-Singaporean and question a policy in my head: “Can a mandatory life sentence serve the same deterrence function as a mandatory death penalty?”

(Note: For those who care, very cursory Googling on the Internet suggests that the answer is YES)

If I dare arrive at an answer that differs from Government (and hence popular) opinion, the pack mentality pulls me back to sense and sensibility. There is no such thing as a different opinion here. Only a wrong opinion.

Circular reasoning: every time a Government official speaks on behalf of ‘the majority of Singaporeans’, there is an element of circular reasoning.

So, I would agree (although I would never know for sure) with Mr. Joseph Koh that the death penalty ‘is supported by the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans’.

However! However, this hides the fact that our opinions are wholly formed by the Government and the Government controlled media. A classic chicken and egg. Sure, perhaps you could say that every Government tries to shape (and later reflect) public opinion. But ours does so to a much greater degree than any other democratically elected one.

But you know what? This is just how our country functions. The Government thinks for us, and we work hard (for those who've read a few of my postings, you've heard this ad nauseum, sorry). It is no secret formula, we haven’t been hoodwinked for generations. Our dear architect Lee Kuan Yew has openly admitted that our people can’t think for ourselves, and thus he and his cadres have to.

What do we Singaporeans think about all this? There is a great commentary from Alkman Granitsas in today's Straits Times, republished from Yale Global. You should really read it. It's about Americans, but he rounds off with a De Tocqueville quote:

“There is indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions…the discharge of political duties appears to them to be a troublesome impediment which diverts them from their occupations and business.”

SCC 7s at the Padang

This past Sunday, old Raffles Number 8 and my good buddy Kuang Yuan managed to score some VIP passes for the Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) Rugby 7s at the Padang, Singapore's famous green that sits in front of our City Hall.

Views: You really get to appreciate Singapore's mix of modern and colonial architecture. St. Andrew's Cathedral, City Hall, Suntec City, The Durians etc. etc. Really is quite stunning, and also perhaps a more attractive backdrop than cities like New York and Hong Kong, which are so crammed that they feel too claustrophobic. I'm a big fan of our urban planners.

It was a rollicking good time, great rugby, as the Fijians won again,
much to our delight, though we wished the others put up more of a
fight. Free Heineken beer, always a good thing, served by Hooters
girls no less. At the risk of exposing my superficial bastardness, the
average Singaporean girl does not a quintessential Hooter make. Pretty
in their own right, just not a Hooter.

Beer, good looking women and rugby. What more could we want? Alas, my
social justice radar couldn't be turned off.

We had the fortune to sit in the Sponsor's booth. Big companies had
paid top dollar for a weekend out for employees and honored guests. I,
somehow, was one of the latter. At most events, I'm used to small
Sponsor's Booths and Large general admission areas. Not here. There
clearly seemed to be more people in the VIP Sponsor's Booths than
everywhere else around the field.

Here's the kicker - about 90% of the people in the Sponsor's Booth
were Ang Moh. Gweilo. Mat Salleh. Expats. Nothing wrong with that,
really. They are nice folk. They probably work (or are guests of) big
rugby-loving companies. And they're in Singapore. Why shouldn't they
be here?

No reason. Except that KY (yes, he's used to the lubricant jokes) and
I felt slightly out of place after, oh, 5 minutes. There we were, in
the 'exclusive' VIP booth, surrounded by expats, taking in the show,
while the other Singaporeans were either serving us icy beer, cute
sandwiches and fried wontons or sweating it out in the 'General
Admission' stands below.

The Irrational Nationalist in us screamed for us to stop sleeping with
the enemy and join our brethren in the pits below. Nah, free beer too
good.

There was nothing morally wrong or illegal going on really. It was
just one of those moments in life where you take a step back, look at
how things are....and wonder how far we've come from colonialism...how
far we've come from Orientalism...whether we're living in a system
that really lets the disadvantaged raise themselves up....or one
that's just going to perpetuate the madness. (Yikes! I probably sound
like a flaming Berkeleyan Communist now....don't take that last line
at face value. Just a musing)

Big show was on at the Padang, our Padang. Singaporeans hardly in
sight. Foreigners partying it up. A service-oriented country?
Servicing who?

Will continue with another post about my Singaporean friends'
attitudes towards and perceptions of foreigners, which i find
illuminating and disturbing...

Bit more on Australian Nguyen and the death penalty

Connie Levett, an Australian journalist based in Bangkok, read this blog last week and then called me up in Singapore to interview for a piece she was writing, "Fighting against the tide of opinion"
Hopefully there'll be more discussion of the death penalty soon. Like I told Connie, if Singaporeans want the death penalty, then fine, so be it, we should be allowed to live how we want.

But I just don't think enough people are actually taking time off to think about the issue properly. Which is a real shame.

The hangman cryeth!

Amazing!
One day after I wrote and wondered about Singaporean hangmen....this article is published:
Singapore executioner wants out

Click and read. What a kill rate, huh?

One day later, this one with a photo...
Unmasked

Does the hangman cry?

I would like to thank Maureen Tee, charming SMU student I recently had the pleasure of working with, for giving me the procrastinating-blogger kick up the butt I needed. It has indeed been too long since my last post.

In my last post, I spoke about people whose job incentivizes them to bring sadness to others – the parking ticket auntie, in that case. And then I thought of another thankless Singaporean profession – the hangman. Given that our country kills more than 50 people each year (mostly for drug related crimes), each Singaporean hangman might kill more people than a Republican GI in downtown Fallujah.

Is the hangman incentivized as well? I.e. Is it a fixed monthly salary or do they get paid per killing? If there’s a commission, do they cheer when another one bites the dust? And cry if it’s a particularly dry month at border control? Scary thoughts. But we should always bear in mind the effects our system has on individual psyches.

The Editorial of The Australian today highlights the case of Aussie Vietnamese Mr. Nguyen Tuong Van, who will soon die in Singapore. He was desperate and stupid enough to be in possession of 400g of Heroin in our spick and span Singapore Changi Airport.

Now that I think of it, it is quite chilling that the manicured, pristine environment of Changi is where so many people every year first realize that they are going to be hung. Can you imagine their ‘Singaporean Tour’? Off the plane, heavenly Changi Airport and then the Gallows. There is perhaps no emotional journey as traumatic, as roller-coastery.

Because every other crime that warrants the death penalty leaves a scar and fills the perpetrator with guilt. Think of a murderer – they are filled with an intense emotion (hate, jealousy, whatever) and then they see the suffering in their victim. They spend the remainder of their lives as either guilt-ridden fugitives or convicted criminals – there is no simple after-life. (There are some exceptions I suppose, like those who kill in the name of God, whether it’s a Jihad, an Inquisition or Lord Ram’s Birthplace – they might actually feel really good about themselves post-homicide. Another scary thought.)

But not the drug trafficker. The drug trafficker never sees the pain his actions cause. The ODed Heroin addict. The death by dehydration E popper. The obese, overeating stoner. Drug trafficking leaves almost no moral blemish inside a person. While commiting the crime, it seems at worst like an adult version of hide-and-seek.

So, when the drug trafficker first realizes that he is going to die. Wow. That is one cataclysmic downer.

Anyways, back to our unfortunate Australian. Mr. Nguyen was in transit. Many drug mules transit in Singapore because of the belief – not unfounded – that final destination countries’ customs will be more lax with passengers from Singapore, given our draconian security. But the mules don’t realize one thing – our policemen scour transit passengers as if they were all wearing ski masks and “I love Arafat” t-shirts in downtown New York.

Mr. Nguyen admits to the crime, and claims he did it to drag his brother out of debt. Well, the law really doesn’t care why he did it. He almost certainly will die. Quite soon, actually – in Singapore, we don’t keep people hanging around on death row.

His case has raised a number of important issues:

1) The Death Penalty itself

A well-flushed out for/against debate can be found in many places.

On Deterrence:

Liberals argue that statistics prove it doesn’t really act as a deterrent. I think it may not in a country like the US, where nothing really seems to deter criminals.

But, in a socially controlled and micromanaged society like Singapore, I think it does in fact act as a deterrent. Does anybody want to do a controlled test?

I am against The Death Penalty for one simple reason – the possibility that we might kill an innocent:

All judicial systems are prone to human error.

If human error wrongfully puts somebody in prison for life, we can make up for it.

If human error wrongfully kills somebody, that’s it. Finito. The person is gone.

I cannot support any system that may erroneously kill innocent people.

Some also say that having the death penalty brings added economic costs to society (lawyers, death row etc.). It’s cheaper to keep them incarcerated.

Once again, probably not true in Singapore. Here, we kill the sentenced very quickly. If we suddenly abolished the death penalty and had life-long sentences, then there’d be an added economic burden.

That’s precisely the problem. We measure everything in $ and cents here. We have to stop putting a price on human life. I’m in favour of life-long sentences, even if it does mean an extra 0.1% on our ridiculously low tax rate.

2) Racism

Apparently, the Australian anti-death penalty squadron has not been as vociferous over Mr. Nguyen as they were for a Ms. Schapelle Corby, recently sentenced to 20 years in prison (later reduced to 15) for smuggling 4kg of Marijuana into Bali, and the ‘Bali 9’ – 8 Australian men and one woman – currently being tried for smuggling 8 kilograms of heroin into Bali.

Why not? The anti-racist lobby thinks it’s because poor old Mr. Nguyen is an Asian, while the others are white.

Still others disagree, claiming that race has nothing to do with it, but rather the fact that Mr. Nguyen has pleaded guilty, while the others claim they’re innocent.

Probably a bit of both.

One thing’s for sure, as far as the ‘race is not an issue’ people go. Hippy, neo-liberal humanists in the West always underestimate the level of xenophobia in their own countries. Many I’ve met are painfully ignorant of racist sentiments that the more insular folk in their country harbour.

In reality, it’s probably no safer for a Turbaned Punjabi to drive through middle Australia than it is for a White Couple to go skinny dipping in the Tehran Public Pool.

3) Neo-colonial Interference

The Australian Government, public and media have been trying to pressure the Indonesian and Singaporean Governments into letting their citizens off with a little slap on the wrists.

This is probably what riles us Asians the most – when a Western Government and Public try to tell us how to run our country. Few things get our blood boiling as much as this re-enactment of the good old colonial days. (remember Michael Fay?)

(Anyway, Americans have lost their right to preach about human rights to anybody. Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, etc. etc. have knocked them well off their moral high ground.)

The facts of the matter are always clear – they knew about the death penalty and they were caught in possession. Why should they get off while our criminals die?

Do Asian countries ever ask Western countries to give our citizens special judicial treatment?

The bloody cheek of it all.

4) Singaporean Apathy

For those who’ve read this far, some might have been perturbed by my flippant description of Mr. Nguyen’s plight and the death penalty. Well, I’m mimicking the average Singaporean’s take on these issues.

(Actually, that’s not true. The average Singaporean probably would never hear about ‘Mr. Nguyen on death row’. Too busy, either eating Chicken Rice or trying to make more money.)

Anyway, this is an extremely grave matter that we must start thinking about. It is most tragic that Mr. Nguyen is going to lose his life. We must start thinking about what kind of a country we want to be.

Thinking? Hah, that’s a good one. Sometime in the past forty years, as we were shedding our rags and kissing our riches, we decided to outsource all thinking to our dear Gahmen (Singlish, for Government). The Gahmen thinks for us, and we vote for them. It’s a symbiotic relationship that has made us rich.

And that’s all there is to life after all, isn’t it?

The Ticket Auntie only strikes fear in the hearts of some

“What la, these fellas, spend hundred dollars on petrol, one two dollars also cannot put,” said the Skinny Tamil as he walked past me. I was sitting on the Astroturf at St. Wilfred’s Sports Complex, off St. George’s Rd, Bendemeer. I quite like playing there. Except for the micro black rubber sand that squirms into every possible crevice on your person – shorts, shirts, boots, hair. Oh, and falling on that frictionfull pitch can leave you with a nasty burn.

Skinny Tamil had just walloped the ball out of play (the tennis players on the adjacent courts were by now used to Size 5 Adidas balls bouncing in, interrupting their games. HAHA! There’s another class juxtaposition for you: Soccer vs. Tennis players) so that all the car-owning players could rush off the field, snatch their car key from their sport bags, and rush to their car before the Ticket Auntie got there. The Ticket Auntie? Yes, the dreaded Ticket Auntie. Dressed in white and blue. Prowling Singapore’s car parks for cars sans coupons. Keying offender’s details into their mobile computers and then issuing ‘samans’ (fines). I would hate their job. Their job is to bring misfortune to others. The more sadness they bring, they more money they make. Can you imagine? Every time you make money, you infuriate somebody. And nobody likes getting fined for parking offences. Especially when there are tons of spots available. I mean, what’s the Marginal Cost of me parking there, right? ZERO!

Anyway, somebody on the sidelines had screamed, “Ticket Auntie here!” a desperate call to action that most players initially dithered over. Once it sunk in, and Skinny Tamil had booted the ball out, the car-owners sprung into life, and raced off the field. Some got there in time, a few others ‘kena saman’ (got fined). Ticket Aunties showed no remorse. They had to make a living.

But Skinny Tamil had a point. Why do the few Singaporeans fortunate enough to own $100,000 cars find it so difficult to punch out $1 parking coupons? Lazy? In a rush? Cheap? Or that old adage, “Do what you want, just don’t get caught”?

Lazy? Are Singaporeans lazy? We can be if we want to. “Chin Chai la”. "Bo Chup". A bit of laziness in there

In a rush? Often we are. Often we invent it. Often we like to seem it.

Cheap? Again, we can be if we want to. Maybe frugal’s a better description though.

“Do what you want, just don’t get caught”?

That has Singapore written all over it. It’s in our blood, it pumps through our veins, it clouds every decision we make.

I bet that most people who don’t display coupons feel they’re not going to get caught.

“Quickly, lah, I’m sure I can run in and ta pao some char kway teow before she comes round.”

But at a more macro level, this strikes at a very fundamental Singaporean chord. We act according to what we can and cannot do. We think and speak with boundaries firmly in place. We walk where we’re told to, and don’t dance where we’re barred from.

Rules (and enforcement) govern our lives. Completely and absolutely. We Singaporeans have outsourced our moral judgment to our Government. It happened a long time ago. We flush the toilet not because we want to keep it clean. We flush because there is a big fat fine waiting for the pee crime.

When will we move from a culture of negative enforcement to positive enforcement? From sticks to carrots? When will organic civic consciousness grow and the need for top-down Government instruction decline? Who knows. Who really cares.

Why, you may ask, do we need positive enforcement if the negative works? The outcome is the same, isn’t it? Either way, the toilet gets flushed, right? Yes. But the spirit is different. And only when we start flushing because we care for the next user (and not because of a fine fear), will we be able to escape the self-interested, egotistical complex that this system has bred in us.

But this post has gone off-topic a bit. Let me bring it back, unsuccessfully probably. Skinny Tamil, after uttering the opening line of this blog to me, walked to his team’s psuedobench, where their belongings were. And then it struck me. Skinny Tamil’s entire team was there! They were still by the pitch! Not a single one of them had heeded the

“Ticket Auntie here!” call! They must be frustrated with us. Half our team had gone. We were holding the game up.

Half our team had cars, none of theirs did. Our team was Chinese (save for a Manjew – half Manjen, half Jew – and me), theirs was Indian.

All said and done, the wealth disparity in this country is startling.

This is not a jack against the powers that be. I doubt they can do much about this instantly. No silver bullet. In fact, we already live in a splendid meritocracy. We have tremendous equality in educational opportunity, compared to many other nations. No country has yet learnt how to redistribute wealth well, especially when the disparity falls along racial lines.

But we must keep trying.

The first one

I have finally decided to start a blog. There are many reasons why I should have one, I suppose. Airing my thoughts. Exchange of ideas. Meeting fellow souls. Something to do now that I am unemployed. Improving my writing.

Of the above five reasons, only "Meeting fellow souls" is a vaguely Singaporean thing to do. (Being unemployed, and wanting to write, sadly, are not). I hope you appreciate how I've had to fight against my cultural upbringing.

I have however also had many anxieties and misgivings about my own blog, which perhaps explains how overdue this whole thing is. What will people think? One's words are sometimes too much of a window into the soul. Am not sure if I really want people knowing who I really am. But oh well, here goes.

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