Now Then Come and Talk Like That

My fellow Singaporeans will have no difficulty recognizing that the title of this article is written in Singlish, our own peculiar brand of English.

I am referring to the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan’s recent remarks about Iraq. As his term of office draws to a close, he seems to have found a certain passion about Iraq. For example, last week, he said the situation in Iraq is “almost civil war”. This week, speaking in an interview with BBC, he said,

“I think, given the level of violence, the level of killing and bitterness and the way that forces are arranged against each other. A few years ago, when we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war. This is much worse.”

In fact he admitted that the situation in Iraq is worse than it was before the war;

“If I were an average Iraqi obviously I would make the same comparison, that they had a dictator (Sadam Hussein) who was brutal but they had their streets, they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying, "Am I going to see my child again?" And the Iraqi government has not been able to bring the violence under control.”

BBC: Why didn't you stand up in the UN Security Council and say in 2003: "This war is illegal without a Security Council resolution"?

Kofi Annan: I think, if you go back to the records, you will discover that before the war I said that for the US and its allies to go to war without Security Council approval would not be in conformity with the Charter.

BBC: Which is a very sort of UN bureaucratic thing, rather than saying "it's illegal" which would have much more impact. And your aides say to me: "This was Kofi Annan, the cautious man, not wanting to confront."

Kofi Annan: It's easy to - what do the Americans call it? - "Saturday morning quarter-backing", or "armchair critic". I mean, it was one of those situations where even before a shot had been fired, you had millions in the street and it didn't make a difference.

I find it quite disgraceful that this man, who held one of the most influential positions in the world only found the courage to speak out against what he obviously felt to be wrong towards the end of this tenure; and after thousands of Iraqis and US soldiers have lost their lives.

Why didn’t he speak out strongly against the US invasion of Iraq at the time when it was clear to the whole world that Bush intended to attack Iraq regardless of whether or not she had any weapons of mass destruction? The French and the Germans did. Why didn’t you at least lend your support to their objections instead of cowering in the face of the bullying tactics of George W. Bush? If you felt powerless stop the man, shouldn’t you at least step down in protest.

And if any of you think that the next UN chief will do better, may I suggest that you not raise your hopes too high. In his own words, Mr Ban Ki-moon sees himself as a "harmoniser, balancer, mediator" ….

In other words, another toothless tiger who won’t stand a chance against the man who is worse than a fierce tiger.

So Many Outreached Hands

In Singapore, practically everyday, everywhere you will encounter an outreached hand asking for your donations. Let’s start with your home. Every week I receive letters from charities like the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Christian Outreach To the Handicapped, Association of Mouth And Foot Painting Artists' just to name a few. Some come to your doorstep, and others, right into your living room via the television. And when you step out of the house, they accost you at MRT stations and kopitiams.

After a while, you develop compassion fatigue and you learn to say 'no'; especially when you worry that the organisation you donate to will turn out to be another NKF. Recently, I received a request to donate to the National University of Singapore. Like many other Singaporeans I refused. I don’t know. Looking at all the beautiful stadiums and concert halls they have, I just don’t think they need my dollar more than the many small, lesser known charities.

But there's one particular outreached hand (maybe I should say fist) that you cannot say no to. I am talking about our government of course. Shortly, they intend to increase the GST or Goods and Services Tax by 2% to 7%. Apparently our government needs the money to fund various programmes to help the aged and the needy. But they are so kind. They promise not to increase fees for government services for one year. Does that mean that yearly increases are a norm? Anyway, after the one year they can always make up for it can’t they?
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Sometimes, I wonder. If we are as well off as everybody seems to believe, how come there are so many poor and needy people in this little country?

This Man is Worse Than a Fierce Tiger

Here's a story I read during Chinese class when I was a kid.

Once when Confucius was passing near the foot of Mount Tai in a chariot, he saw a woman weeping at a grave mound. He sent a disciple to inquire of her, saying; "From the sound of your weeping, it seems that you indeed have many troubles." Then the woman said; "It is true. My father-in-law died in a tiger's jaw; my husband also died there. Now, my son has also died there." Confucius said, "Why do you not leave this place?" The woman said: "Here there is no harsh and oppressive government." Confucius said to his disciples, "Young men, take note of this: a harsh and oppressive government is more ferocious and fearsome than even a tiger.

Well President George W. Bush may not be as fearsome as a tiger, but certainly he is more loathed than the harsh Canadian winter.

In the last presidential election, an American friend of mine told me that if Bush won the election for a second term, he may very well decide to return to Canada where he originally left to escape its harsh winters. Certainly you exaggerate, I said. As it turned out, the day after Bush won the elections, CNN reported that the number of Americans applying to emigrate to Canada rose sharply.

Mid-way through his second term, many Americans must be cursing themselves for putting this war monger in the White House and wishing that they could slay this ‘tiger’, or at least get rid of him Thaksin style. But unfortunately, they could not. And so they did the next best thing - they kicked the Republicans out of congress and booted out his lieutenant, Donald Rumsfeld well.

Just why do Americans dislike this man so much? Well for one thing, he behaves like he has divine powers. Plus he lacks integrity. When all the UN weapons inspectors stated categorically that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, our friend continued to insist on the contrary. Here are some statements he and his lieutenants made.

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. (George W. Bush, September 12, 2002)

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. (George W. Bush, January 28, 2003)

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more. (Colin Powell, February 5, 2003)

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. (George W. Bush, March 18, 2003)

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. (Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002)


He could well be saying to himself, “Let George Bush be true and every man a liar.” Well lies there were aplenty - from the intelligence departments of US and Britain, to justify the invasion of Iraq. Simply stated, there is no doubt that George Bust used WMD as an excuse to attack Iraq.

When the whole world protested against invading Iraq, he ignored them and went ahead saying, “You are either for me or against me” (using God’s words from the bible). In the process, he simply dismissed the opposition of his European allies like France and Germany, and practically, “don’t see the United Nations in the eye”, to borrow a common Chinese expression.

Months after the defeat of the Saddam Hussein’s army, when no “smoking gun” could be found, he changed his tune and said that Saddam supported terror. Suddenly the war to disarm the Iraqis of its weapons of mass destruction metamorphosised into a “war on terror”. Again the experts disagreed. Saddam was no angel. He may be a cruel despot, but he was not behind the terrorists directly. See BBC report: Iraq War Justifications Laid Bare, dated September, 09, 2006. Here’s what the opening lines of the article said:

“The Senate Intelligence Committee has found no evidence of links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

In a report issued on Friday, it also found that was little or no evidence to support a raft of claims made by the US intelligence community concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The 400-page report was three years in the making, and is probably the definitive public account of the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq.“

Well, it could be a case of self-fulfilling prophecy because the latest intelligence report from the Pentagon revealed that terrorist activity has indeed escalated ..…. as a result of the invasion of Iraq.


Because of this ‘worse than a fierce tiger’ leader, America finds itself once again in a Vietnam-type quagmire, as what everybody had predicted. To extricate itself, it needs the support of those whom Bush had slapped in the face earlier. No doubt he will resort to his favourite tactic, when all else fails – arm twisting.

And to think that this man is held in such high esteem by our Singapore leaders; and our undiscerning university students cuddle up to take a photo with him.

Apt Analogy

I just heard the news on radio where a new member of parliament spoke on the foreign talents issue yesterday. Using the analogy of a dragon boat, he said that Singapore was like a dragon boat that needed new, stronger and more skillful rowers to race ahead.

But he must have forgotten that the Singapore boat is a small one. To accommodate more rowers, you just might have to dump some of the old and weak rowers into the sea ..... Unless this gentleman is thinking out of the boat and wants to build a 2-storey dragon boat.

Dumb Dumber Dumbest

1) Dumb

There’s a programme on AXN that goes by the title, World’s Dumbest Criminals Caught on Video, or something close to that. In the Straits Times, I read recently of a dumb criminal right here in Singapore. Only difference is, our guy was a university undergrad with an IQ of a genius.



“It began with a casual meeting between two army buddies, then mushroomed into a sophisticated credit card fraud syndicate that cheated local banks out of $80,000 in just two months.

The two National University of Singapore undergraduates – both star students and one of them an accomplished young entrepreneur with an IQ of 160 – had chanced upon a website that detailed how credit cards could be cloned using stolen data in order to make profits.

Pooling their money, they went online and bought a card reader, which can scan the encoded information in the black magnetic strip on credit cards ……..…

They recruited another army buddy who used the reader to scan information from cards belonging to customers at the bar where he worked ……..

They were busted when the Commercial Affairs Department noticed that all the cards had been used at the pub where (this guy) worked… and arrested him in an ambush.”

I say this guy is dumb because, you certainly do not need an IQ of 160, or even to be a regular fan of CSI Miami to know that the pub would be the first place that the police would look.



2) Dumber

But it’s not only criminals that are dumb. Even police can be dumb as you can see from this next case; although these were not real police, but so-called “Islamic police”.


Christian pair outraged after night raid by Islamic Police.

“Mr. Randall Barnhart, 62, and his wife Carole, 61, left wintry Alaska four years ago to sail around a much warmer South-east Asia, and were considering idyllic Langkawi as a second home.

That was until two weeks ago when Islamic religious officers stormed their rented condominium after midnight.

The officers, who were not accompanied by police, suspected the Christian couple of being Muslims committing khalwat, which is the crime of close proximity between two people who are not married to each other.”

(From another newspaper report)

“Barnhart complained to police and the US embassy over the raid, which saw the officials yelling and pounding on the couple’s door at two in the morning.

Barnhart, who answered the door, said the officials demanded to see his ‘woman’ and insisted on being shown their marriage license and passports.

He said his wife was terrified by the incident and insisted on going back to the United States.”



3) Dumbest

I am not sure about this next guy’s IQ, but he definitely ranks high up in terms of holiness. Here's a report from TODAY dated, October 27, 2006.


SYDNEY - Australia’s most senior Islamic cleric yesterday sparked uproar in Australia after describing scantily-clad women as “uncovered meat’ inviting sexual attacks.

Sheik Taj Aldin Al Hilali, who made the remarks last month in a Ramadan sermon to 500 worshippers, had criticized women who “sway suggestively”, wear make-up and no hijab, or Islamic headscarf.

“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it …. whose fault is it: The cats or the uncovered meat?” he said in his sermon.

“The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”

Eh ……. unless if she happens to be in Malaysia with her legally married husband, and they did not have their marriage certificate with them.”

How Long Will Spring Last

I wonder if Spring will last beyond April next year?

I am referring of course not to the spring season here in Singapore, but the name of our statutory board in charge of standards, productivity, innovation and growth. I ask this question because it was reported last week that Mr Philip Yeo, the high-flying superstar chairman of A-Star is going to take over this stat board that was formerly known as NPB or National Productivity Board, and later renamed Productivity and Standards Board or PSB; and later renamed yet again to SPRING Board. You might recall that some MPs even poked fun at the name in parliament saying they thought it was the name of a karaoke lounge.

As it appears that every time a top civil servant or new minister takes up a new appointment, one of the first things he or she does was to change the name of that organization, I anticipate that there might just be going to be another name change at Bukit Merah Central.

I often suspect there is some kind of institute for public administration and government in this country where they teach these top guns how to think out of the box and fix things even if they ain’t broke. In preparing to take over a new ministry or department, the first of the 10 steps is to change the name, preferably to something catchy like Spring or A-star. For example, the chairmanship of the Feedback Unit was recently taken over by Ms Amy Khor, and the first announcement to come about was a name change to REACH.

I admit that I am rather old-fashioned and resistant to change. So I am quite prepared to accept that people younger and more dynamic than me should like to change things for the sake of progress. But don’t you think that we have too many name changes in this country. Haven’t they heard of Shakepeare’s famous line, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”? I am really hard-pressed to think of a stat board or ministry that has not undergone one or more name changes in recent years. Just the other day, I overheard my colleague telling an overseas associate about the ROC (Registry of Companies). I had to tell him that he was at least 2 generations behind time. ROC has been renamed RCB (Registry of Companies and Businesses) and recently to ACRA (please don’t ask me what it stands for; I only know it is some kind of authority).

Personally, I find that most of these name changes are unnecessary and irritating. And they must cost a bundle to implement; quite apart from the additional stress brought on our already highly stressed and over-worked public sector employees. I have met some of them in the course of my work, and they often complain about having to attend so many training programmes on topics like creativity and innovation, GEMS (not jewelry but customer service), Singapore Quality Class, Innovation Class, Quality Control Circles; which by the way has undergone 2 name changes, first to Quality Circles or QC and later Innovation and Quality Circles or IQC and so on. Anything those consultants come up with, our ministries want to implement.

The type of name change I really dislike are those where the original meaning is lost. I give you a couple of examples.

SAFTI originally stood for Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute. Later they wanted to build a new one next door. However, they want to retain the name SAFTI, so what did they do? They called it; Safti Military Institute. So now the acronym SAFTI has lost its meaning because the new institute certainly isn’t called Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute Military Institute in full. So if some foreign military trainee were to be attached to our new Safti and asked the instructor; “Sir, what does Safti mean?” the poor instructor is going to have a tough time explaining.

Second Example: The training and consultancy arm of PSB was privatized when the new name Spring was adopted. The new organization was called PSB Corporation. Likewise it certainly does not stand for Productivity and Standards Board Corporation does it? Recently, it was acquired by a German company and things got even more confusing; it’s now TUV SUD PSB.

Third example: SAFRA. It used to stand for Singapore Armed Forces Reservists Association. But the powers at Mindef did not like the word reservist because it suggests that our civilian soldiers are not operationally ready; so the term Reservists was change to Operationally Ready NSMen. But they want to retain the ‘brand’ SAFRA. So they renamed it Safra NS Association (or something like that) and the word Safra lost its meaning.

I am sure you can think of several more.

But there is one type of name change I dislike even more. You might recall some years ago, the government was trying to promote the use of Mandarin over Chinese dialects. Overnight some over smart-alec civil servant decided to rename places like Nee Soon to Yishun, Ow Kang to Hougang, Tekka to Zhu Jiao etc. But then they probably received feedback that it was a stupid idea (maybe they did not ‘Reach’ far enough for feedback) and so they stopped the job halfway. And today we have a mixture of Hanyu Pinyin and Dialect names like Ang Mo Kio, Choa Chu Kang, Yio Chu Kang.

But anyway, we should be thankful they did not engage some Hollywood-trained consultant to advise us on how to fix our names that ain’t broke. Otherwise, we could very well end up having our Chinese ancestors’ names being reversed, like what they did to the famous film star Zhang Ziyi. Just imagine being admitted to Tock Seng Tan Hospital!

But the name change that takes the cake is the one that went one full circle and cost us the taxpayers a whopping 240 grand. I think you probably know I am referring to the famous Marina Bay branding exercise. They paid that obscene amount to a consultant to come up with a new name. But the poor guy could not come up with a better name and so they retained the old name.

But don’t give up yet, all you name-change fans. Just send in our A-Star, I mean superstar chairman and who knows, he just might be able to pull something out of the box; sorry I mean outside the box.

Going Beyond Words

Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has a brilliant idea to solve the haze problem. According to a Straits Times report today, he wants South-east Asian countries to set up a fund to help Indonesia curb forest fires blamed for the choking haze in the region. Speaking ahead of a crucial meeting of environment ministers in Pekanbaru today, he said the fund could be used for new equipment and technology.

“We know the source (of the haze) but pointing fingers will not do any good. The important thing is for these countries which are receiving the impact of the haze to agree to collaborate and take positive and effective action to ensure that it does not recur.”

Now I understand what he meant when he said at the 5th Shangri-la Dialogue, in Singapore, on June 4 2006 that "We need to go beyond words."

Doesn’t the minister know that even money donated for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster have not reached them after 2 years. By the time our money reach the right people to purchase the equipment and technology he spoke about, there may not be any more forests left to burn.

I have a better idea. We should collect all the money in cash, and then burn them in front of Indonesia’s Environment Ministry (if they have one) sometime in June next year; just before the annual forest burning ritual begins. Then when they see the smoke of our precious dollars burning, they will be reminded to do something. This is because, “environmental watchers worry that the issue will be forgotten once the latest haze ends, at least until the problem returns with the next dry season.”

Indonesian Chinese Marginalized?

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s recent remarks about the Chinese being marginalized have expectedly drawn loud protests and expressions of indignation from politicians in Indonesia.

These people really have the cheek. Before they dare to demand an explanation from MM Lee, I would suggest that they first give a proper account of the events of 1998. Lest some of you have forgotten, that was the year when many Chinese were killed and Chinese women systematically raped. Instead of summoning our ambassador, perhaps they should summon the BBC or CNN. Just look at some of these reports:


Orchestrated attacks

In what appeared to be a well organised operation, anti-Chinese sentiment was mobilised - many believed by the army - to create chaos in the city.

Hundreds of people were killed, homes and businesses were burned to the ground, ethnic Chinese women were systematically raped and in some cases stripped in public.

Source: BBC News SPECIAL REPORT: The Chinese dilemma, June 1, 1999


Team finds no proof of mass rapes

Women's groups have said at least 168 Chinese women and girls were raped during the May riots.

But a government fact-finding team said it had not found any proof ethnic Chinese women were raped during previous riots, Antara reported Saturday.

Women's Affairs Minister Tutty Alawiah, one of the leaders of the investigation, echoed military chiefs who said earlier this week that they had failed to find evidence of mass rapes.

"The team has been conducting an investigation for one and a half months now but has found no woman who fell victim to gang rape or who claimed to have been raped during the May riots," Antara quoted Alawiah as saying.

Human rights activists say rape victims may be unwilling to seek help because of the stigma associated with the crime and because they may view police as being corrupt.

Source: CNN - Anti-Chinese riots continue in Indonesia - August 29, 1998

"The murderer intended to send us a message that they could really kill," said Karlina Leksono of the Volunteers for Humanity.

"People will now be afraid to tell anyone what happened during the riots. This is terrorising for Indonesia's ethnic Chinese," said Ester Indahyani Jusuf Lubis, leader of Serambi Nusa Bangsa, a group formed to fight racial discrimination.

During the May riots many businesses and homes of the ethnic Chinese minority were targeted by mobs.

The reports of mass rapes outraged Chinese communities around the world and resulted in calls for tough action by the governments of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

BBC News: Indonesian rape counsellor murdered, October 10, 1998.


Rape or no rape … I think you can decide for yourself.

Maybe MM Lee was wrong after all, to say that Chinese in Indonesians are marginalized. Terrorized or brutalized may be a better word.


For further reading:

1) BBC News SPECIAL REPORT Indonesia '98: A year of living dangerously

2) BBC News ASIA-PACIFIC Analysis: South-East Asia's Chinese