Assimilation: the process of making someone (esp a new immigrant) likable to the PAP

Change: an empty promise made as a means to maintain the status quo

Citizen: 1. derogatory. a person who is legally bound to state exploitation

2.  cheap local labor

Constitution: a document that is amended regularly to protect the dominant party’s hegemony

Cost of living: a trigger of clinical depression for those who live below minimum wage (see minimum wage)

Debate: 1. a journey towards a predetermined conclusion sponsored by taxpayers’ money; a farce

2. the act of causing one’s opponents intense frustration with self-righteously delivered rhetorical fallacies

Democracy: a synonym for authoritarianism except when it is paired with the adjective, “Western”

Election: the process whereby the PAP claims to have a mandate; an unnecessary part of the democratic process that exists as an unfashionable alternative to walkovers

Free speech: a prerogative of the PAP

GDP: Growth Determines Pay. The principle of pegging political leaders’ salaries to economic growth even if it benefits only a small minority

Gerrymandering: a legitimate political process whereby political constituencies are reshaped or obliterated.

LKY: 1. a mythical founding father

2. a floundering father

Meritocracy: a common justification for discriminating against those who are socially immobile

Minimum wage: A wage estimated to be around $1, 000, 000 per year as of 2012; the wage below which the future of one’s children are sacrificed.

Note: only ministers are eligible for minimum wage.

News: propaganda

PAP: 1. a) Pinky and Papa, b) Party of Authoritarian Pricks, c) Power Always Perpetuated, d) People After Pay, e) Public Anal Probe, f) Pompous Asses Pwned

2. A joke which everyone finds funny but hates

Parliament: 1. a place that should be as homogeneous as possible

2. a place where political stampedes for the purpose of crushing opposition politicians take place

Peach Garden: ivory tower

Reasoning: the process of parroting nonsense generated by the PAP

Retirement age: the age at which one dies

Singapore: the work of art plagiarized by George Orwell when he wrote Animal Farm

Swiss standard of living: literary. a broken dream

Talent: 1. a rare, highly paid person

2. a foreigner

Usage: the commonly used term “foreign talent” is tautological.

Unlawful assembly: any one person (or more) who has the intent to do something the PAP does not like

Vampire: archaic. a minister

Vote: a currency periodically squandered by the majority

Kuan Yew certainly does not disappoint. Even as he resorts to the exaggerated-misinterpretation strategy (perhaps it is a matter of bad karma that the PAP guys are so often misinterpreted these days), he does so with such breathtaking dexterity that your eyes will forget to close till the hard truths have sunk into your resistant minds. No doubt, he still alludes to his favorite third-world-to-first grand narrative, but he has new truths to share as always. From Kuan Yew, we learn the shocking truth that most people (possibly more than 99%) in Singapore have children whose futures are doomed. I must admit that my contempt for him beat an indignant retreat in the face of his well-armed honesty, which has come out in full force.

Kuan Yew explains with what I can only imagine to be a straight face that Singapore’s progress did not come about by “head-hunting ministers willing to sacrifice their children’s future when undertaking a public service duty.” In Kuan Yew’s world, if someone becomes a minister with a salary that is uncompetitive, his children are doomed. From what we have been hearing of late, we can assume that a $500k annual salary is not competitive by the standards of the PAP, so it is safe to say that with a $500k salary, a minister would have to suffer a drastic change in the standard of living and sacrifice his children’s future. Given that the cost of living is not any higher for a minister than for anyone else in the country, it follows that anyone earning $500k or less per year does not earn enough to secure his children’s future. This is entirely plausible—people in Singapore have 500 children and a $500k annual salary leaves each member of the nuclear family with less than $1,000 per annum.

What tough lives Singaporeans earning uncompetitive salaries lead. This is the sort of first world that Kuan Yew has created for us. Is this what we call a confession?

What the potential plight of ministers tells us about Singaporeans aside, we must maintain Singapore as it is (i.e. as described above) by continuing to take a “pragmatic course that does not require people of calibre to give up too much for the public good.” Certainly, other people can be expected to give up more, perhaps even their lives as in the case of some unfortunate NSmen, because they are not people of calibre. If we do not maintain Singapore as it is, we will become part of the Third World again. And this means that Singaporeans could be flocking to a country that is a virtual clone of Singapore to be embraced as foreign talents there. This is a frightening situation that we do not want to find ourselves in, so let us continue to allow PAP ministers to draw million-dollar salaries while the rest of us sacrifice our children’s future. Sorry kids, Singapore is more important. Our ministers will continue to work for the greater good in the form of stagnant costs of living and ever-escalating salaries.

Please accept my further apologies if any words have been misplaced. Kuan Yew’s words of wisdom are so intoxicating that I am losing the last remnants of lucidity.

If Singaporeans are still unhappy about how some people can pay themselves competitive salaries and be self-righteous about it, they must be reminded that PAP ministers “put their careers at risk and undergo an uncertain and unpredictable election process.” We know how uncertain walkovers are. One day you are preparing for an intense election campaign, the next day you realize that you have no political competition. One day you are happily eating XO carrot cake, the next day you have to ask your lawyer to sue someone for defamation. We cannot underestimate the adverse ill-effects of such unpredictability.

Perhaps Singapore should pay opposition politicians millions of dollars too. They put themselves at risk and often undergo predictable elections and uncertain law suits.

Fine, if you are still unwilling to pay ministers competitive salaries, then you should stop making elections uncertain. If an overwhelming majority of Singaporeans support opposition parties, the next election will no longer be uncertain and you can avoid paying competitive salaries if you are that miserly. See, Kuan Yew is so damned honest he has provided you with a solution to all this nonsense about ministerial salaries. And he’s only drawing an MP allowance and a pension now.

Handout: News article

Lecture Notes:

1. Grace Fu will have a great future in politics as long as Lee Hsien Loong remains in power. He thinks she is “completely right” about how lower salaries (which must be distinguished from low salaries) will make it difficult for talents to join politics, and is very much impressed by her honesty. Certainly, even Fu does not seem to think so highly of herself. She told us that she had been misunderstood, but, as far as I can remember, she has never asserted that her opinion is an immutable truth.

2. Lee Hsien Loong has no originality in his arguments for the high salaries he and his colleagues are drawing and will continue to draw. To be fair, this is totally fine for there are only so many innovative justifications one could generate for so ridiculous a policy. Nevertheless, he would have fared better simply by keeping his mouth shut. Or he could have waited for his father to weigh in on the issue and absorb some of the vitriolic retorts that netizens are probably already preparing.

3. Despite his admiration for Grace Fu, Lee Hsien Loong is not very sensitive to his colleague. Just as she is heaving a sigh of relief thanks to a godsend $10 plate of carrot cake, her colleague reminds everyone of the facebook post which got her so much flake. The prospects of working with such insensitive colleagues are perhaps the factor causing talents to be reluctant to join politics.

4. Lee Hsien Loong does not seem to realize that people have already moved on from Grace Fu to Chan Chun Sing, who saying the same thing. He need not have referred to Grace Fu to rehash her argument. Even though he was speaking in her defense, it seems rather naïve of him to believe that those who have slammed Grace Fu are going to be convinced just because he repeats her point and claimd that she is “completely right.” Does he really think that he has so much charisma and authority? Even if so, he could well have spoken up for Chan Chun Sing instead, just to help out a clueless new colleague.

5. Lee Hsien Loong does not know how to leave a way out for himself. He uses two absolute words consecutively: completely right. Grace Fu is not merely correct. She is right in the eyes of the world’s most highly paid (and hence most talented, as the logic goes) political leader. This leaves no room for debate. And not only is Grace Fu right, she is completely so. Perhaps Grace Fu has become a goddess in his eyes. With such unequivocal phrasing, one wonders how Lee could ever tell us that people have misunderstood or misconstrued his words.

6. Instead of leading his party out of a needless political quagmire, Lee is sinking the team deeper. In what is by far the most amusing political event since Singapore’s independence, the PAP taking a significant pay cut and yet defending itself as if it has just implemented a hefty pay rise. Singapore is the only country in the world where ministers have to justify their pay to the people after taking a 36% pay cut. The PAP should use this as a chance to boast about its accountability.

When the PAP decided that ministerial salaries must increase after the 2006 General Election, it embarked on a series of vehement, if often logically flawed, justifications. Now that it has decided to reduce ministerial salaries after the 2011 General Election, it is still using the same arguments. And who was the one who initiated the salary review?

7. Lee has perhaps forgotten his pre-election apology. He had said, “If we didn’t get it right, I’m sorry. But we will try better the next time.” If Grace Fu is already completely right, it is safe to assume that Lee is not going to try better. Those who voted for him in 2011 should realize that the PAP’s problem is not its inability to get things right. The PAP’s problem is its inability to see what it has not got right, which explains Lee’s use of s conditional sentence in his apology. He was not even sure if he got it right or not. He may have kept his promise to try better, but this is not going to stop him from failing worse.

8. It has become clearer than ever that Singapore has returned to the pre-apology days. (That was actually an exceedingly kind statement. I believe it is completely right to say that Singapore has not moved away from the pre-apology days at all, and it does not make sense to speak of a return.) Only worse off. The PAP thinks it knows what is right. Criticisms are dismissed as noise or baseless flaming. It is worse now, however, because we have to put up with pretenses. The salary review was one supposed to be a major symbol of the PAP’s willingness to change. But if we even begin to question the way the PAP has done it, the PAP leopard snarls again. If we have to deal with a leopard anyway, the leopard that does not camouflage its spots is preferable.

9. If Lee Hsien Loong attempts another contrite apology just before the 2016 General Election, ask him if he intends to get things right the Grace Fu way. It would be more graceful, though, for him to do it the Saw Phaik Hwa way.

10. Molly has helped Lee pen a completely-right resignation message for Singapore come 2016:

When I made the decision to leave politics in 2016, the need for change was not a key factor. The loss of a million-dollar salary, public curiosity about myself and my wife, and the prospects of earning even more money elsewhere were. The people’s increasing preference for cheaper, better, and faster chwee kuey over XOtic chye tow kuey was also an important consideration. I had some ground to believe that my family would not suffer a drastic change in the standard of living even though I would only draw a pension. So it is with my wife’s departure from Temasek. If the number of Lees in the Parliament is reduced further in the future, it will make it harder for anyone to call Singapore a political dynasty.

Exam: 2016

Format: Ballot (Tip: Please don’t refer to ten-year series. The answers are wrong.)

Duration: 10 seconds per candidate

Passing criteria: At least 55% of Singaporeans must vote for opposition parties.

While we have already understood from Chan that politicians elsewhere in the world are not as well paid because those $1.50 chye tow kueys are not as capable, Teo now enlightens us on how politicians in the rest of the world are not even as transparent as the PAP because only the PAP government adopts a “clean wage” policy. In other words, not only are all other governments less competent than the PAP government, they are also less clean and transparent. This sounds like an open invitation to declare war, so Singaporeans must thank God if its ministers are not taken seriously by their international counterparts.

Gone are the days when the PAP could simply tell us to stop comparing because the American President could earn lots of money after his one or two terms by writing books and giving talks. After all, that is just the American President and everyone knows that PAP ministers’ salaries are higher than any political office holder’s in the world. Everyone also knows that PAP ministers could always write books too. On top of that, they could even become Singapore’s President and continue earning impressive salaries. After that, they could write more books, get a post-retirement job in the Institute of Policy Studies and give talks if they so wish. The PAP must have gone through million-dollar brainstorming sessions to come up with the latest rhetoric. It’s amazing that the “clean wage” policy has always been in place and our humble, low-profile ministers have never cared to talk about it all these years when people have been maligning them of rewarding themselves with ridiculously high salaries.

The logic now goes that Singapore has a clean wage policy and Singaporeans know exactly what they earn; in contrast, politicians overseas have hidden perks and benefits that people, presumably, do not know about. How interesting! If these perks are hidden elsewhere in the world, how does Teo know about them? Perhaps Julian Assange sent him some secrets.

Singapore’s clean wage policy is so credible that people do not even bother to find out about non-hidden stuff like make-up pay for ministers. This has got to be proof that Singapore has a system that the rest of the world should follow. There is no easier path leading to world peace than politics made undemocratic and lucrative. Teo’s painstaking efforts in explaining Singapore’s system to us, however, is likely to fall on the deaf ears of the vicious Internet. I can anticipate deranged netizens asking him if Singapore’s ministers still earn more after taking into consideration all the secret benefits in other countries and the pensions, make-up pay, and bonuses in Singapore. Additionally, I’m sure people are going to propose that the PAP can draw a lower salary and get similar perks and benefits without compromising transparency. People fail to realize that transparency justifies any salary. Even if each minister were to draw a salary of $50 million per year and the clean wage system is adopted, the salary has got to be justified.

Of course, Teo is not insensitive to the potential protests that could arise from his reasoning. He tells us also that we should not benchmark our ministers’ salaries to those of political leaders elsewhere. The reasoning, once again, is impeccable. Because Singapore is very different from the rest of the world, we cannot expect Singapore’s ministers to draw the same sort of salaries as their counterparts in the rest of the world. This totally explains why Obama’s salary does not have to be pegged to Bill Gates’ because of the American situation, but our ministers have to have their salaries pegged to the top earners’ in Singapore. What a gloriously repackaged version of the old “Singapore is unique” reasoning!

Yes, when all else fails, tell people that Singapore is different. Because Singapore is unique, we cannot have democracy or rights. Because Singapore is unique, we need more foreign talents than the island can hold, regardless of whether they are talented or not. Because Singapore is unique, we need to conscript all males and turn them into monkeys by paying them peanuts. Because Singapore is unique, the PAP must rule forever (or else . . .).

A move originally meant to win over the people who are disgruntled about ministers’ salaries becomes the seed of greater discontent because this is Singapore.

Firstly, he tells us about what he thinks of his PAP colleagues: “I don’t think anyone of them comes here for the money. They come here to provide a better life for the next generation… One of the reasons why I stepped forward was because I know I’m [sic] joining a team of people that are not here [sic] for the money.”

Maybe one ought to retort in a language which Chan would understand: You think, you don’t think, who confirm?

The PAP’s purported desire to “provide a better life for the next generation” perhaps explains why the party always seems to neglect the current generation. (It pays to remember that there’s always a current generation.)

While one could actually put up with the paternalism involved in the desire to “provide” a better life for people if it is actually done, I wonder how Chan’s colleagues are going to do it. Is it by paying for my children’s education out of his reduced-but-incredibly-high salary?

Chan also tells us: “Money should not be the one (factor) to attract them in [sic]. On the other hand, money should also not be the bugbear to deter them.”

In Fulish words: if the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for anyone considering political office.

Grace Fu would have the right to sue Chan for copyright infringement if not for the fact that she was not exactly original either.

Chan also tries to condescend to the level of peasantry by making a food analogy involving hawker food. Unfortunately his fall to the ground was broken by some heavenly tree branch as he compared hawker center carrot cake to Peach Garden carrot cake.

“You go to Peach Garden, you eat the S$10 XO Sauce chye tow kuay (fried carrot cake), you can be quite happy right? Because you are satisfied with the service and so on. On the other hand, you can go to a hawker centre, even if they charge you S$1.50, you might not want to eat it if the quality is not good.”

Hah? Simi Peach Garden? Boh tia guey leh.

Pardon my inability to evaluate the validity of the comparison. I feel sad that Peach Garden now shares the same fate as Kate Spade, but I have never been to Peach Garden or tasted its supremely delicious carrot cake. Neither can I remember the last time I actually paid $1.50 for carrot cake at any hawker center. Perhaps Chan gets special discounts? When Chan goes to an expensive dining place, it’s not something I can afford. When he goes to a cheap one, it’s not something I can find. This conclusively repudiates any claim that Singapore is a tiny island. How small could it be when it could fit at least two very different worlds, namely mine and Chan’s.

Molly believes that Chan will be glad that at least she is willing to acknowledge her inability to understand his allusions. Many merciless netizens are criticizing him instead. This is really unforgivable. Surely even the dumbest person in Singapore should know by now that he has got to be misquoted, misunderstood, and/or misconstrued. (Synonyms welcomed.)

Instead of being agitated by Chan, we ought to appreciate the Great Truths his words of wisdom contain.

List of Great Truths which we can glean from Chan’s comments:

1. The PAP gahmen is the best on Earth and Mars—and some say Jupiter.

2. The PAP costs so much because of its quality.

3. The salary and quality of a politician are directly proportionate.

Based on the third Great Truth, the world finds itself having to cope with some hard truths.

Premise 1: Those who do not cost as much are not as good.

Premise 2: PAP ministers are the most highly paid in the world.

Shocking Conclusion: No other government in the world is as good as that formed by the PAP.

No wonder the world is so screwed up. But this is a world crisis that has a simple solution. As long as a government decides that its ministers should be as well paid as Singapore’s ministers, it would mean that it is just as good as the PAP. All it takes is some political will and lots of docile citizens. The only foreseeable problem, surely, is that no other government in the world dares to pay itself as much because they know they pale in comparison to the top talents in the world (i.e. the PAP) who make brilliant analogies and implement ingenious policies that worsen the people’s quality of life with each passing day.

Based on the chye tow kuey theory, we could also do some interesting Math.

The ratio of Lee Hsien Loong’s (post reduction) pay: Barack Obama’s is 4: 1

If Lee is $10.50 chye tow kuey, Obama is $2.625 carrot cake.

,

I think I should sell prata instead, Molly.

(Later I will go downstairs and tell the chye tow kuey uncle downstairs that he is more capable than Obama because his chye tow kuey costs $3 per plate. He should really go into politics. At least he is friendly and never talks down to me. Neither does he ever claim that he sells the best chye tow kuey in Singapore.)

The ratio of Lee’s pay: David Cameron’s is 8: 1.

Cameron is a pathetic $1.3125 chye tow kuey. Which makes him worse than the $1.50 one Chan was talking about.

I suddenly see the rationale behind Singapore’s massive defense budget. All it takes is crap-spewer to offend the rest of the world. Using the chye tow kuey theory though, I’m afraid our conscripted soldiers will not match up to those from the rest of the world—they are not even paid a salary and this can only mean that they are amongst the worst soldiers in the world.

I must emphasize, despite all the logic and Math above, that the PAP team did not join politics because of the high pay. (We can only say that they might leave politics or refrain from joining it if the pay is not high enough.) Thanks to Chan Chun Sing, we now can be certain that, over the years, we have wasted millions and millions of dollars on ministers’ salaries and pensions to attract top talent. Since our PAP politicians did not join politics because of the pay, they must have been lying to us when they told us that top money is needed to attract top talent. Or, if they were not lying, it must be the case that they are not top talents, which makes their original justification . . .

Thanks Chan Chun Sing! The nonsensical façade of your comments belie the insights they offer!

Not to worry though. Come 2016, 60% Singaporeans will still buy a plate of $10.50 chye tow kuey that had already expired in the 1980s, leaving the other 40% with severe food poisoning.*

*Statistics for illustrative purposes only.

When I made the decision to review ministers’ salaries in 2011, decency was not a key factor. Loss of votes, public scrutiny on myself and my colleagues and the potential loss of power were. The need create a façade of change was also an important consideration. I had some ground to believe that my family would not suffer any change in the standard of living even though I would experience a drop in income. So it is even if I were to take another 50% pay cut. If the balance is tilted further in the future, I would simply not let my children join politics. ~ lhl

*

When I made the decision to step down as a minister in 2011, making way for younger ministers was not a key factor. Loss of one-party dominance, public discontent, and other hard truths were. The impact on my son’s career was also an important consideration. I had some ground to believe that my son would be able avoid a drastic drop in vote share even though I would lose my position (without losing much power). So it is with Goh’s departure from the Cabinet. If the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for dead statesmen to return from the grave to resume power. ~ lky

*

When I made the decision to join Facebook, communication was not a key factor. Loss of privacy, public scrutiny on myself and loss of personal time were. The need to earn political capital by condescending to make friends with the electorate was also an important consideration. I had some ground to believe that my income would not suffer a drastic drop even though I had to put up with pesky netizens. So it was until the recent pay cut. If the balance is tilted further in the future, I would regret wasting my time on social media and politics. ~ Fuism Founder

“When I made the decision to join politics in 2006, pay was not a key factor. Loss of privacy, public scrutiny on myself and my family and loss of personal time were. The disruption to my career was also an important consideration. I had some ground to believe that my family would not suffer a drastic change in the standard of living even though I experienced a drop in my income. So it is with this recent pay cut. If the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for any one [sic] considering political office.” (Grace Fu)

These days, the PAP is a much-maligned lot. Netizens twisted Seng Han Thong’s totally innocuous remarks and claimed that he was, in effect, making a racially discriminatory remark when he was merely espousing bad spoken English and practising what he preached. Now, Grace Fu is accused of expecting high ministerial salaries when she is telling us that the pay does not matter much to her (still). Our ministers must be sorely missing the good old days when all it takes was a simple defamation suit to preserve their reputations while possibly supplementing their incomes, which must have been compromised by their altruistic decision to serve the people by joining the most powerful political party in the semi-democratic world.

We must therefore be fair to Fu. She does say that “pay was not a key factor” influencing her decision to join politics. The poor woman is trying so hard to show us that she is not materialistic, but still ends up accused of being so. To be sure, she must have taken the pay into consideration, but she is telling us the pay did not discourage her from joining politics. While the pay was not a key factor to her, it was nonetheless one of the potential push factors, together with a supposed loss of privacy and personal time. This must be why she is misunderstood. Crass Singaporean mortals, who would be encouraged by a million-dollar annual pay package, we will never be able to empathize with Fu who was somewhat discouraged by it. She was only able to make the decision to join politics and entertain Singaporeans on Facebook because she had “some ground” (i.e. not much) to think that her standard of living could be more or less sustained. We have a talented politician like her only because the pay offered did not affect her standard of living. Because of our inability to imagine the standard of living that would be compromised by a million-dollar salary, it is easy for us to think that she is materialistic. It is our fault. She is not materialistic. She is not demanding a higher pay. It is just that her standard of living is so inconceivably high that she may face difficulties making ends meet if she were to be paid the average salary of a minister in the developed world.

Perhaps Singapore should implement a social assistance program to offer financial aid to struggling ministers.

Fu is also not speaking for herself when she says that”[i]f the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for any one [sic] considering political office.” She is just saying that if the pay gets any lower, it may discourage any person who is thinking of joining politics from doing so. We must first make the important distinction between “any person considering political office” and “any person out there.” Fu’s assumption is probably beyond the grasp of lower life forms, but it is quite simple: the people who are suitable for political office and hence are considering it are the people who earn significantly more than what a minister earns. As such, if the pay gets any lower, their quality of life can be adversely affected if they decide to join politics. It is unreasonable for us to expect anyone to become a beggar just to serve the people. On the other hand, those who actually earn significantly less than what a minister earns are and do not find it difficult to accept the pathetic ministerial pay package are not in a position to consider joining politics because their low pay reflects their lack of talent and competence. Remember, Singapore is a meritocratic society and the highest earners are the most talented people. If we have less talented people governing Singapore, Orchard Road will flood, the trains will stop moving and there will be insufficient foreign talents in Singapore. In other words, Singapore will be destroyed. Maybe the doomsday prophets were right about 2012 after all. Fu was saying what she said out of her deep concern for Singapore. We cannot be ungrateful and continue to malign her. Like Seng Han Thong who turned out to be empathizing with those who could not speak English well, Fu is actually expressing her empathy for people who have financial problems.

Allow Molly to cheer Fu on for the patriotic efforts. Go, Grace! Go!

Over at Seng’s Facebook page, he has a Statement of Apology for what has been seen as a racist remark. It is his apology, not his original remarks, that I take issue with here.

This is his Statement of Apology:

In my interview with blogtv.sg, I made a regrettable mistake in my language, which may be misconstrued as me saying that people speak bad English because of their ethnicity. I sincerely apologise to all Singaporeans, who have been offended by this error.

Singaporeans of all ethnicities and backgrounds speak varying standards of English. My own Chinese-educated background gives me a special empathy for the non-English-speaking sections of our society. We should all be tolerant of people of different standards of linguistic ability.

The point I was trying to make is that this should not prevent people from trying to communicate, especially in times of emergency.

The remark was made in the context of a larger discussion about how we could better and faster improve the current problems we’re facing with our mass rapid transport system. Let us once again focus our minds and our public discussion on this issue.

Below is how I would like to reply, though I have not commented on his Facebook page or sent the message to him through any other means.

Dear Mr. Seng,

With all lost respect, I note that you are neither apologizing for making the assumption (if indeed you did) that Malays and Indians do not speak good English nor for what your words, as you have phrased them, could imply about Malays and Indians. Instead, you are apologizing for what you call a “mistake in … language”. When you reduce the issue to a linguistic error, your apology is actually tantamount to a denial and does not indicate that you are sorry.

I do respect your right to deny that you were being discriminatory if you had indeed been maligned, but I think it reeks of insincerity when you decide to call your denial an apology. (I assume that your educational background had not disadvantaged you when it comes to understanding the meaning of the English word, “apology”.) This, I think, highlights one of the problems that plague the members of your political party. To you, you are never really wrong—you are misquoted, misread and misunderstood, but you are never miscreants. Your apologies will never show that you are wrong for they are meant to show that you are wronged. And, with an air of finality, you will tell people to move on and focus on what you deem to be the important issue.

I sense no sincerity in your so-called apology because, while you claim to be apologizing, you are clearly not doing so. You are simply making a statement that serves to absolve yourself from bearing true responsibility for your words. Furthermore, it is clearly not an apology when you are actually accusing the public of misconstruing your words. If your words had been misconstrued, what do you truly have to apologize for? Perhaps those who have misconstrued your words should apologize instead.

As if to prove that your remarks were not discriminatory in nature, you resort to highlighting your background as a Chinese-educated person. This would have been credible if you had cited Chinese people (or more accurately, Chinese-educated people) as an example of those who do not speak good English. Instead, you specifically highlighted only Malays and Indians in your original speech. If your educational background had made you empathetic towards those who are not proficient in English, you should simply have talked about those who do not speak the language well. The example closest to your heart should also those who are Chinese-educated, and these people tend to be Chinese, not Malay or Indian.

No doubt, your point was that even people with poor English should not allow their level of linguistic proficiency deter them from communicating in English. Nevertheless, your statement sounded discriminatory because you had singled out Malays and Indians.

While you had indeed made several linguistic errors in your speech, they were clearly not the main problem. Your words had suggested that the members of the SMRT staff who were not conversant in English were Malay and Indians. Whether you are racist at heart is secondary here. When you singled out two races, your words suggested that Malays and Indians do not speak English well regardless of whether you really think so, and the fact that you left Chinese people out is clearly not a linguistic error.  Thanks to your position of authority in the country, the implied meanings of your words could spread misunderstandings about Malays and Indians if people actually take them to be true. They could also cause unhappiness amongst Malays and Indians. You should have acknowledged all these points and apologized for them.

Additionally, you mentioned in your original speech that the SMRT PR had cited the examples of Malays and Indians, but you seem to have misconstrued the words. If you were aware of this, you should have apologized for it too. Even if you did not know that you have paraphrased someone erroneously, the fact that you had not bothered to correct what were obviously discriminatory assumptions in your original speech is also something that you could have apologized to the public for.

Your apology could have been straightforward and sincere, but you chose to be evasive and defensive instead. This would have been tolerable if you had not claimed to be apologizing. Unfortunately for you, it is your apology, and not your original remarks, that makes me inclined to judge you negatively because you can at least be given the benefit of doubt regarding your remarks involving Malays and Indians.

Much to my amusement, your party has been repeatedly promising to change since the election in May. This episode has convinced me that change will come—when the people decide to change the dominant party in the next election.

Yours meekly,

Molly

If we wish to take the train, we might have to bring along oxygen tank, or at least a fire extinguisher, for the sake of ventilation. If we decide to take a bus instead, we might, for once, get more than we pay for under the distance-based fare system. Of course, there is always the possibility of taking a cab (since dismal bus and train services are income opportunities for cabbies and those who do nothing but buy cabs and collect rent). The small price to pay lies in the numerous surcharges and the days with 32 peak hours. Admittedly, the last claim is erroneous. The fact is that, these days, taking a cab is an impossibility rather than a possibility because we cannot even get a cab when we need one. The only solution left is to walk. Just make sure that the walkways are not flooded or else we would have to swim instead. Swim while praying hard that we will not bump into a floating corpse. I cannot decide whether Singapore is a comic dystopia or a dystopian comedy.

Once upon a bygone era, we could board the train when it arrived after minutes of waiting. Then the government’s boundless love for foreign talents and the transport operators’ insatiable love for profits conspired to make us wait for two trains, then three or more, before we get so fed up that we willingly perform vertical planking on the doors while waiting for the next train just so that we can board the train. Then we board the train and unwillingly perform the same act facing the opposite direction because we cannot elbow ourselves any further into the train. The societal engineers of Singapore tell us we should be gracious. Be kind and give up your seat—even if there is a 200-human buffer between you and the pregnant woman whose belly is protruding precariously over the borders marked by the closing train doors. We are told we should not complain about overcrowding when public transport companies are already doing their best to meet the demand. The authorities have failed to understand that there can be no graciousness without spaciousness, and no grace without space.

Once upon a bygone era, we could flag down a cab quite easily. Then we began to have to flag for one desperately. Then we had to call to make bookings before we could get one. Then we had to make multiple calls before we could make a booking. Then we could hardly get through the line. More than once, a pre-recorded voice informed me, the moment I got through the line, that there were no cabs available in my area. Comfort Delgro’s computerized booking system now forces you to wait for an SMS to get the cab number when you call to book a cab. The wait for the SMS could range from 3 seconds to 3 days. (No, of course not. After a good number of minutes, you simply get an SMS telling you to try again later.) Comfort Delgro probably the most sophisticated phone booking system in the world and this is simply because there is no way it can handle the number of callers (and it still can’t). Yet, we still have to pay a booking fee. The harder it is to get through the line, the more we pay. They call it peak hour. Corporate incompetence has never been more profitable. The same company which operates buses, trains and cabs can have ridiculously long peak hours for cabs and unrealistically short peak hours for buses and trains. Because the same company can collect peak hour charges for cabs but has to increase bus and train frequencies during peak hours in order to make frequencies look less disgraceful.

In Singapore, when there are not enough cabs to meet the demand, you do not increase the number of cabs. You increase the fares. Force the demand down for a while using high charges, although it will expectedly increase again and that would be the time to increase the fares yet again. The taxi companies are aware of this. They tell cabbies not to worry that fare hikes will cause the number of passengers to be reduced because it will be temporary. In the spirit of fairness, taxi companies do not have the liberty to just increase the cabs as and when they wish to. The government has to allow them to do it, but it may not do so because they roads are also crowded. Squeeze your way out of your tin and you find that you are in an equally packed can of sardine cans. There can be no salvation without space.

We have been assured that trains now come more regularly during peak hours, never mind that we have to wait longer. A hyper-rationalized society like Singapore works this way. Experience does not matter. Neither does reality. Only codes matter. According to the codes, peak-hour trains come at a two-minute interval and the current infrastructure does not allow for higher frequencies. Therefore the service is excellent. Now, after all the disruptions last week, trains now move more slowly and the frequency is lower. A rational and necessary measure. I have not heard anything that assures me that this wonderful measure will be temporary. Is Singapore a comic dystopia?

The problems manifested by the train disruptions are merely the problems that can be seen and isolated. The underlying problem is greater and it has to do with the usual unchanging and unchangeable mindset of practically everyone who matters in decision-making in this country. At every MRT station, the station name is announced, usually only in English. But we can afford to have useless announcements about what to do when you see suspicious articles or inane reminders that we are not allowed to eat or drink in four different languages. Rumor has it that they will add another Mandarin version in Beijing accent and several more in various Indian languages. (They will even fuss about the grammar to experiment with different versions—“in stations or trains,” “in stations or on trains”—and choose the one they happen to think is right. The train services, with all the announcements, like most things in Singapore, do not exist for the people. It is always the other way round. People exist as administrative units to be managed for fat-cat institutions, including the government. Everything is centered on regulating behaviors. I believe the instinctive reaction of those in charge when passengers were trapped in a train last week was to quickly fix the technical problems (and hopefully the matter would not be blown up), and not to take care of those who were trapped or to get them out as soon as possible.

The trapped passengers had a moral obligation to trust the system, trust that whatever is being done is right. A man broke a train window with a fire extinguisher during December 15’s MRT service disruption and SMRT has taken to it with unprecedented kindness, telling the media that it is not going to press charges against him. In other words, it actually has the right press charges against the man. (Of course it has the right, but there is no need to make a statement that emphasizes the right.) If you are trapped in the train and you are a man, you would have to choose between “Save my life and sacrifice my butt” and “Sacrifice my life and save my butt”. For when you are charged with vandalism, you will be caned. (Tip: get a woman to do it instead.) We are now advised to never break windows but instead wait for help and, presumably, for instructions to follow. SMRT will work with schools to “educate” people on how to handle emergencies. Only Singapore can be this obsessive compulsive about getting people to behave in the way The Greats think they should. Is Singapore a dystopian comedy?

Singapore is a place with lots of laughter if you have the right sense of humor and are appropriately distanced. Corpses, floods, price hikes, disruptions: blame the PAP. Corpses, floods, price hikes, disruptions: vote for the PAP. I lack the expertise to tell whether Singaporeans are being screwed over and over again or if they are screwing themselves over and again in a historically unprecedented bout of masochism. The latest statistics suggest that about 60% of Singaporeans are hardcore masochists.

Despite all the problems with SMRT’s train services, CEO Saw Phaik Hwa is not resigning. Those who can sack her are unlikely to do so. She is an excellent CEO. Just look at how much profits the company has made since she became the CEO. That is also the problem with Singapore culture. We have fixed criteria and they must be enforced even when they defy common sense and logic. Students are graded with rubrics. Workers are evaluated with fixed criteria. It does not matter if you are hollow as long as you fit certain dumb criteria of having substance. Criticize the criteria and you have new criteria, but you are never quite free from criteria culture, which is a malignant tumor threatening to kill all truth in this society.

I do not quite care whether Saw Phaik Hwa steps down. It does not matter who is the CEO if the basic task of the CEO is to exponentially increase profits endlessly. Nevertheless, I find her justification for not resigning is irritating and hilarious at the same time: “No good leader will leave the field when the battle is on. I am staying put now to do my work, and put everything right.” The pure comic energy of her justification comes from the uncanny refrain every time some leader in Singapore is asked to resign. Call for any PAP minister to resign and you get the essentially the same justification. I’m refusing to let go of my high-paying position of power because I’m a responsible leader. Since Saw is such a great, responsible leader, allow me to suggest that she should stay on, implement measures to solve all the problems, and resign. Within one year. It is ironic, though, that if she does decide to resign, she might prove to be more deserving of the position than most other people we can find. But this will never happen because self-righteous shamelessness and good leadership are two sides of the Great Singaporean Equation.

We therefore cannot expect any PAP minister to resign either because they are good leaders, though we can certainly turn them into second-generation George Yeos. Not unexpectedly, the direct or indirect messages we are getting from the party voted into power by 60% of Singaporeans are the usual PAP clichés, which can be paraphrased as:

1. It is not the fault of the PAP government or the system they have created. We will look into the(ir) problems and help everyone solve them.
2. You can’t expect things to be perfect. We try to fix the problem and move on.
3. Any solution put forward by the opposition is wrong/whatever we have done is correct.

One learns to appreciate comic refrains after a while. The Prime Minister announced that there would be a public inquiry to investigate the service disruptions. The PAP is not the SMRT. The problems lie with SMRT and the PAP will find out the problems. The PAP will solve help to solve the problems. It is in no way responsible for creating the circumstances that allow the problems to fester in the first place. Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean reminds us that we can never attain perfection: “No matter how careful we are, there will always be instances when things go awry, and we must be prepared for that.” We look forward and move on. After all, looking backwards might reveal some hard truths.

Transport Minister  Lui Tuck Yew feels compelled to tell us once again about the fact (i.e. the PAP’s stand) that nationalizing public transport will not work because the Workers’ Party is asking for it to be nationalized. Yes, the last sentence is ambiguously phrased. Nationalizing public transport will not work because the Workers’ Party thinks it should be done? Or Lui was saying what he did because it was the Workers’ Party that gave the suggestion? The ambiguity is deliberate—it reflects reality. We have been told time and again that we should not have anything else but the PAP in the Parliament because opposition presence or a coalition government will lead to constant bickering and policies will not be implemented. The actual circumstances show that, even with the weakest opposition in the democratic world, the PAP stubbornly sticks to its opinions; and due to the weakness of the opposition, alternative (and better) policies do not even have a chance of being implemented.

In Singapore, the first, and usually only, impulse when a problem that is significant enough is uncovered in Singapore is to make sure that it does not happen again. For the sake of The Greats. There is a rule that The Greats must never lose face. The greater you are, the less your face can be compromised. SMRT is now told that it must make things right. But what if SMRT only operates under a system that the PAP has made wrongly? Even if problems are systemic, we address them as though they are not. We are then pressured never to let manifestations of systemic inadequacies arise again although the same problematic system does not change. The lowest life forms thus get the most stress, and we are generally an unhappy and fearful population. What? SMRT did not inform stranded passengers about the situation? We must never let it happen again and the guy making announcements must be given more instructions, more duties, and be held accountable. The fault cannot possibly be with profit-driven public transport created by the PAP. The biggest problem with Singapore is how The Greats respond to problems. They need to change the way they respond to them. The current philosophy: cover up what you can, justify what you can’t and reductively address what is beyond justification. The system creating the problem is sacred because it is created by the sacred. The required change: criticism is sacred, not power. Leadership is the art of letting go as much as possible. Change is not possible unless the greatest of The Greats, the PAP, does not have a high chance of staying in power perpetually. As long as we do not have a truly democratic culture and remain PAP-dominant, perpetual power is too great a temptation for The Greatest to resist. The Greatest is not going to risk losing it by admitting to mistakes. Counter-intuitively, if it has a good chance of losing power anyway, the stakes are actually lower. No point clinging on so desperately to something that is clearly impermanent.

If only there were fewer masochists.

Singapore is dystopian and comic. But there’s no mirth because it’s too close.