history repeats, first time as tragedy, second time as farce - Marx
those who forget history are condemned to repeat it - Santayana

Media Approved Critics

In an open society, anyone criticizing the government is considered to be merely exercising his/her rights as a participant in public affairs it is unnecessary for any critic to get prior approval. So the title of this article might strike you as being very strange, reflecting the unique nature of the city state Singapore.

The first point to remember is the special nature of the public media here, with the mission to report news and shape public opinions in a way that is positive for economic development, i.e., a kind of PR unit of Singapore Inc, and it is for the foreign press and media to generate the wider diversity not provided in the local media.

What amount of government criticism should the local media present? Everyone, the government included, knows that it is necessary to allow criticism so as to allow improvement, but this implies one need to make judgement about whether a particular piece of criticism would cause improvement and is worth reporting, and the person making the criticism has that objective in mind and a certain level of competence as a critic. In other words, to judge that he/she is suitable to be an officially endorsed critic. A critic whose objective is judged to be trying to help an opposition party or foreign government, or to arouse attention to himself/herself, or just to stir something up, would not deserve to be reported as if he/she was a fair critic.

In this, a media endorsed government critic has a similar press role to a domain expert, with a reputation for professionalism and competence so that he/she could be trusted to be not speaking to advance particular commercial or political interests. However, whereas domain expertise and professionalism are relatively easy to judge, publicly proclaimed critics are far harder to certify.

The public’s rather obsessive, almost desperate search for the next messiah almost always goes through the same cycle of rise and fall: someone appears full of promise, writes/speaks a few times arousing much excitement and eager anticipation, says/does something that passes an “OB Marker” (see political-singlish on right) leading to some kind of official reaction, and ceases to be carried in the media like before. He/she might be hauled out now and then by reporters or some public minded organization on some particular occasions when an alternative voice is needed, but most of the time he/she is best kept at distance.

Part of this excitement/ anticipation about the latest publicly proclaimed critic is when he/she does say something that looks “insensitive”, at which point speculation goes rife about whether someone will get upset and send forth a reprimand. This speculation has elements of both hope and resignation – hope that the OB marker has been relaxed so that more “sensitive” matters can be discussed, and resignation that sooner or later someone will catch up with the critic’s “insensitivity”.

Catherine Lim, a well known Singapore novelist, also happens to be the best known media endorsed government critic. In 1994 the then Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong suggested the idea of her becoming a politician in a public letter addressed to her, responding to two articles she published in Straits Times. The suggestion might be rhetorical, but it was serious all the same. She did not however take up the suggestion, and apologized to him for any distress her articles might have caused, thus putting a quick end to the episode.

Her occasional returns to the political forum, usually to make some statements about the lack of prospect for real changes, are still eagerly anticipated, the latest being her comments on the 2011 election including a very recent, more optimistic one at an NUS Guild House event.

Getting Catherine Lim to do political commentary was obviously a brainstorm that occurred to someone at Straits Times: She has considerable social and behavioural insight from her material for writing novels, and is sufficiently well known and well off to be able to speak independently. These factors make choosing her a relatively easily defended move – after all, if her comments upset anyone, you can always say, oh well she was a novelist. Catherine Lim’s first 1994 article talked about an “affective divide” between the government and the people, but it was the second one that caused problems: she basically said Goh Chok Tong was not to blame for some of the “harsh” things that were taking place (e.g., suing opposition politicians for defamation was not yet the familiar practice, but a trend towards gloves off struggles was already visible).

She might have thought she was being helpful to Goh, but actually the implication that the Prime Minister was not in full control, was unacceptable to the incumbent, whose letter simply told her to go into politics formally if she wished to “set the political agenda”, leading to her apology and (for a few years) hasty exit from the political forum.

While the reaction among the English newspaper readers were predictable, the few Chinese paper columnists who commented on this turned out to be much more interesting:- as a mere novelist, she should not have “talked down” to the Prime Minister, and her violation of protocol deserved a quick rebuke. Presumably they have the same attitude towards others that might claim to know better than the government and want to give advice. Given that the Chinese paper columns usually provide a more diverse set of views compared with the Straits Times, their failure to address her ideas and their deep concern for her manners seem curiously consensual.

A lesser critic was the Today newspaper columnist/blogger who goes by the pseudonym of Mr Brown. His last Today column was in June 2006, titled “Singaporeans are fed Up with progress” – which actually anticipated some of the election issues of 2011. Following a letter to the editor from a ministry spokesperson, it was announced his column was suspended certain changes in the editorial department also occurred subsequently. The incident actually caused 30 people including a number of foreigners turning out for a 30-minute protest at an MRT station, wearing brown shirts.

For Singapore this was a notable and rare event, but that would not alter the cycle of the media endorsed government critics phenomenon. The system grinds on according to its unique dynamics.

Leadership

“I am their leader, I have to follow them!” – Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin (French revolutionary leader)

The above sentence might strike some as being very strange: arent leaders supposed to “lead”? Actually, people choose a leader with the expectation of getting something from him/her, maybe material benefits arising from a movement’s success, maybe just inspiring ideas and words. Since leaders have to deliver something that the followers want, they “follow” their followers’ wishes.

But leaders have to be more than mere executors of the followers’ collective will, however democratic that might sound. They also have to guide their followers towards a consensus, using their own superiority of character, experience, understanding, analytical abilities, etc, so that the collective will of the group is more than the sum of its parts and consensus formation is more than just taking an average. In other words, leaders need to give people what they want as well as what is good for them, even if they do not want it to do what is popular as well as what is necessary. The former is what democracy is about the latter is what leadership is about.

Knowing “what is good for the people” arises from a person’s innate beliefs. It is not enough to, say, pick up some ideas from textbooks and develop a belief in capitalist free enterprise or Marxist class struggle. These ideas will have to be integrated into the person’s life experience so as to influence his/her judgement in any specific situation, often in a subconscious way, not necessarily through an explicit analytical process. As in the case of generals in quickly evolving battles, leaders often intuitively know the right thing to do even in hurried and confusing conditions.

I would guess the number of people who have such beliefs and values is rather small. Few people are gifted with the strong personality and self confidence, even in adverse circumstances, that is needed for leadership.

Our modern society’s formularistic and pre-digested knowledge acquisition process could only have made things worse, with pupils picking up information that can be regurgitated in examinations but is not well integrated into one’s thinking process.

In a feudal society, leadership was seen to be vested in the aristocratic class the modern equivalent of this is the elite. But who exactly are they? Once an upper high school (called Junior College in Singapore) student Wee Shu Min, daughter of a then member of parliament and senior executive in a government linked company, wrote a blog article telling off someone who complained about the adverse condition he suffered from, calling him a whiner and herself an elite member. A high school student already part of the elite? How? Her subsequent activities might provide some clue as her linkedin.com page shows, she later attended Wharton School, interned in a major management consulting company, now an executive in Lyft.

In short, in high school she already felt confident that, with her family background and educational trajectory, she will join the capitalist money class, today’s aspiring equivalent of feudal aristocracy. What she had not learnt was the sense of noblesse oblige that once permeated the aristocracy, who believed that they held their positions “by the grace of God” and had a spiritual mission to look after their subjects.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew had on multiple occasions enunciated the idea that developing the self-discipline of the citizens has to come before democracy. There is no doubt recent events in various Asian countries have born out what he says. However, LKY’s statement was rather general and therefore easily misconstrued: self-discipline is not the same as simple obedience to authority. In fact, it is more applicable to the people in authority than those under it.

For example, the lack of self-discipline displayed by Marcos and Chen Shuibian families and associates in Philippines and Taiwan not only had negative impact in themselves, they also set bad examples that make it harder to ask the ordinary people to show self-discipline. In other words, self-discipline first has to prevail among the members of the elite, that they should use their power and wealth with restraint, that they should be scrupulous in their methods to acquire power and wealth. Further, only with awareness for the need for self-discipline would they be in a position to establish relevant monitoring and prosecution systems to impose discipline on the whole society.

A society in which the elite think that discipline applied only to others and not themselves soon finds that even the most efficient monitoring system would break down as the people in charge of enforcing discipline lose confidence about whether they can apply the same rules to everyone, and then learn to twist the rules to gain benefit for themselves. In other words, failure of elite members to apply self-discipline soon corrupts the whole society. Looking at the elites of Asian nations today, in particular in the newly capitalistic mainland China, it is difficult to feel optimistic that they will learn this lesson..

Political Singlish

One of the very unique terms of Singapore’s political lexicon is “OB Markers” – OB being short for “Out of Bound”. While the meaning of this is very clear in Singapore, what would a foreign reader make of it? Is this about golf or soccer? Is it related to Outward Bound (an organization to promote youth travel to gain experience and exposure)? A brand of whiteboard pen?

To explain using, again, uniquely Singaporean expressions, OB Markers draw the line where “sensitive” ends and “insensitive” begins in other words, where you get into trouble. You are allowed to talk about “sensitive” issues, as long as you do not become so “insensitive” that you begin to say things you should not say. How do you know when you have strayed across the OB Markers by talking insensitively about sensitive issues? When someone in power gets upset at you of course. But if you mean before that… It is up to your own judgement not to become insensitive when talking about sensitive matters… If you are unable to judge that, you should not be talking about sensitive matters. N

ow foreigners might say “someone gets upset what’s the big deal?” Well, Singapore is a company town, the headquarters of Singapore Inc, and more or less everyone is working for the same employer so people are anxious about being “insensitive” and would like to see all the OB Markers surrounding “sensitive” issues unfortunately, people who determine where the markers are, might prefer not to lay all their sensitivities out for others to see.

“Civic Society” was once another frequently heard expression I even vaguely remember people organizing public seminars to discuss how to promote it. Obviously, a civic society exists in Singapore and consists of many aspects by doing something to improve a particular aspect, say public facilities for disable people, art museums, or antique car restoration, you have in some way made a contribution to “civic society”, but what exactly does “promoting the concept of civic society” mean?

It is first necessary to explain that “civic society” is generally speaking not “sensitive” and does not give rise to the need for “OB Markers”. If people are involved in those aspects that interest them, they cease to be apathetic if they are involved in organizational activities, they get experience in following decision making procedures, consensus building and public rules of conduct. Hence. promoting “civic society” gives people scope to learn to be good citizens without risking the crossing of OB Markers.

Unfortunately this is simplistic. I can cite two incidents to show how fragile “civic society” is. First is the case of National Kidney Foundation. Second is the Singapore Roundtable. The first has by now fallen below the radar of public attention, but in its turbulent days, generated a series of lawsuits, including criminal cases involving its former CEO and Management Board members. The second has disappeared even more completely. The first involved large sums of money from the public its proceeding shows that ultimately the government has to exercise authority to manage public money and apply final judgement. The second assumed that there are meaningful things besides power and money which groups of knowledgeable people can discuss and organize, but they soon found that nobody, themselves included, were interested.

Hegel said that ideas progress through thesis, antithesis and synthesis. You need antithesis to fully understand thesis and to progress through synthesis, whether you are talking about civic society or politics and money – recall that the NKF incident pitted NKF management thesis against a SPH reporter’s antithesis, before Health Ministry intervention led to synthesis. Remember also Marx’s “History repeats, first time as tragedy, second time as farce” and Santayana’s “Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it”.

Returning to OB Markers, Archimedes said “Give me pivot and I shall move the earth” I say “give me OB marker and I shall show where ‘sensitive’ ends and ‘insensitive’ begins”.

Nepotism

The word “nepotism” comes from the Latin word “nepos” for nephew. In the middle ages, “nephews” were often the bastard sons of bishops and popes who were officially required to be celibate so could not publicly acknowledge their own children. These “nephews” would nevertheless hang around their “uncle” and receive various favours, including preferment in church appointments.

In this context it is useful to point out a cultural difference between east and west: the Orientals make connections with each other based on concrete factors, whereas Westerners place more emphasis on shared ideas. Hence the high relevance of family, personal knowledge and past association in Asian systems, compared to the greater prominence of interest group lobbying in the West. Whereas Chinese people consider it right that rich relatives should share their good fortune with poor ones, Americans give to charities and foundations. Confucius may be considered to speak along the Chinese line in °∞To promote talent, promote the talent you know°± and °∞Be a good person then a good family man then govern your state then rule the world°±.

Yet, Confucius was credited by historians as advocating meritocracy rather than nepotism: in his Spring-Autumn world it was the tradition to give government offices to family members, or at least, nobility from one’s own state or neighbouring states. Unfortunately, the noble families’ restrictive inbreeding and indolent lifestyle led to rapid degeneration, so that able/well educated members of lower status families were drafted for service. Confucius was himself a beneficiary of the new practice, and his own political philosophy was based on a close link between government and education, with rulers “setting good examples” for subjects to follow, i.e., good rulers must also be good role models and educators, and the widely known idea of good education as the basis for gaining power, a practice long institutionalized in China’s imperial examination system and still followed in various modern forms today.

In building up modern organizations and corporations, including political parties and government bodies, Asians have certainly taken Confucius’s talent promotion maxim to heart. Li Ka Shing, for example, has carefully laid out plans to divide his business empire between his two sons. While he also established sizable charity operations, he did not put his major assets into these in the way Warren Buffett and Bill Gates handled their fortunes.

Despite long histories of public listing and shareholder participation, many important Asian business corporations remain family companies in essence. Americans do use family connections too. While Buffett and Gates do not plan to hand over their fortunes to their children – among other considerations, this would attract huge inheritance or gift tax obligations, which are avoided if the assets are donated for charity – they do involve family members in their charity operations, and George W Bush obviously benefited from his father’s political status in helping him to attract the attention of voters, journalists, donors and prospective campaign organizers from the start. Americans merely have different experiences about what would work well and look good in their own society. “Connection” is of course not confined to family relationship. Cory Aquino designated as her successor General Fidel Ramos, the Philippines army chief under Marcos, whose support for Mrs Aquino ensured the success of her people power revolution in fact, half way during her reign there were some rumours about her having second thoughts, and she quickly reassured Ramos that she would “take care” of him and made sure others knew about this.

The presidential succession history of South Korea was even more intriguing: the military strongman Roh Tae Woo, who succeeded two other military strongmen Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan, chose Kim Yong Sam, a longstanding opposition leader, as successor, and even handed him a billion-dollar slush fund to use for patronage and electoral success – by then Kim was the familiar “devil we know” that Roh could connect with. Now Park Chung Hee’s daughter has been nominated by the party he founded as its candidate in the next presidential election.

The changes of governments that occurred in South Korea from Roh Tae Woo to Kim Yong Sam and then Kim Dae Jong, in Taiwan from Jiang Jing Guo to Lee Teng Hui then Chen Shui Bian, and in Indonesia from Suharto to Habibi then Wahid/Megawatti, each followed a process that reminds us of Roman imperial succession in the Antonine age: a reigning emperor would adopt an able lieutenant as his heir, who will upon the death of the predecessor be proclaimed by the senate and the praetorian guard, representing the civilian and military power blocs, as Principes, the first citizen of Rome.

By using personal networking to identify work associates, maybe successors, the modernized Confucian system has frequently led to suspicions of nepotism, an emotionally charged word that reeks corruption and immorality in view of its Italian history. To some extent, the great emphasis on paper qualifications and examinations results, which are supposed to have unambiguous correct/incorrect answers rather than reflecting free thinking ability, is frequently a way to counter this, for the system to be seen as open and fair. Academic brand names are particularly important, (a practice now also increasingly adopted in USA and other western countries) and seen as more dependable. MIT and Stanford graduates fill the top positions in governments and corporations all over Asia, and Berkeley is over 40% Asian with many ambitious foreigners from East Asian countries among them. If you want to pass your company to your son, at least make sure he already has an Ivy League degree, so that people do not doubt he has brains and would be more inclined to agree that he is not getting the position purely because of the connection.

In Singapore “nepotism” is a particularly “sensitive” word. On multiple occasions, journalists were taken to court for suggesting that nepotism had been practised at the highest level in Singapore, each time resulting in retraction and payment of significant sums in damages.

Welfare

Singapore’s official social philosophy has always placed emphasis on self reliance, fearing that that welfare provisions might encourage undesirable patterns of behavior, e.g., unemployment benefit might reduce motivation to work child endowment might encourage illegitimate births – as well as fostering a sense of entitlement among the population. The CPF scheme is based on the idea of self reliance. Family is seen as the next resort, e.g., there is a legal provision to require children to support aging parents.

“Self reliance” is of course a fine concept, but does self reliance eliminate the need for social welfare completely? We need to remember that some selves are easier to rely on than others. Some people are born smarter, calmer, healthier, richer, etc, than others, or are simply luckier. We might have a meritocratic system, but this does not mean every benefit one enjoys is due to merit and is well deserved. Just as social welfare has its limitations, so does self reliance.

Market forces might in the most cases operate towards the optimal deployment of resources, but there are also cases beyond its reach, e.g. in a totally free market for health services, a doctor would probably get paid a lot more for wart removal or breast enlargement for wealthy clients, than for saving the life of a poor person, but it would be hard to argue that the former has more merit than the latter. It is usually necessary for governments to step in and fill gaps market forces miss out. Similarly, pornography and prostitution are easy ways for a girl to make money because there is constant demand, but governments usually would place some restrictions on such self reliance and market forces.

It is also generally the case that the rich are more able to benefit from market forces, e.g., they have capital to make use of investment opportunities, better access to education to change with new technology, and financial buffer to cope with recession, sickness and other misfortunes that might ruin someone on the economic margin.

We have had many decades of economic advances, but this has been accompanied by social changes that generate greater demands for social welfare. People live longer and require post-retirement income for more years than before – extending the retirement age a few years provides only a partial solution, and it is far from satisfactory to have frail, less mobile and sickness/accident-prone aged people, less competitive than younger people in the job market, trying to supplement their income with menial part time jobs. Divorces are more widespread, often leaving children under single income or non-working parents struggling to meet their basic needs including expenses for schooling, with the risk of future social dysfunction. Medical services have become very expensive, partly because of the complex facilities modern hospitals and clinics have to maintain, and partly because of high professional income, at least at the upper echelons.

Like “self reliance”, “mutual help” is a fine concept. Both annuity and life insurance are mutual help schemes: in life insurance, the people who pay premium but do not die during the policy period are subsidizing those that die early in annuity, those who pay premium but die soon are subsidizing those that live long. They differ from social welfare only in the nature of the group: instead of being subsidized by other members in the same annuity/insurance scheme, welfare schemes require subsidy by the whole body of a nations’ taxpayers. The tolerance for taxation to support social welfare is culture and ideology dependent, but it is also a pragmatic issue balancing the consequences of higher taxpayer burden against those of welfare deficiency.

Welfare also produces the need for a government machinery that monitors as well as distributes benefits to ensure their reaching the genuinely needy, which can result in elaborate bureaucracy and unpleasant confrontations. The issue goes well beyond the matter of government budget.