TR EMERITUS

Click to enlarge I am trying to understand this report. It is about what seems like a harmless taxi ride that went down south real fast. Janelle arranged for a tada ride on her handphone. She was with her 9-year-old daughter. They wanted to go to her sister’s place, with gifts of cushions and bedding. Her sister just moved in. The first gesture was amicable enough. The tada driver came out to offer assistance to help Janelle with the cushions and beddings. She declined because it was not heavy. From there, things turned unexpectedly ugly. “He started shouting at me, saying that I gave him the wrong address and wrong directions.” It went downhill from there, as Janelle recorded the heated outburst, with no provocation on her part. The next issue with the Tada driver was her daughter. He claimed she was below 1.35m tall. It is thus illegal to have her as a passenger without a booster seat or child restraint. Janelle explained that her daughter is 1.37m tall. Above the height that required a booster seat. Along the way, he continued to shout at her. These words cut deep. “You are Indian, you are stupid…You are Indian(n). I’m a Chinese… You are the very worst kind…” She felt he meant that Indians are the worst kind of customers. Janelle then replied back. “I am Singapore Eurasian, not Indian.” At some point, he came down from the car, and was exhibiting threatening behaviour, demanding that she unload her things in the boot. All this while, she and her daughter kept recording, as evidence for their safety. As an aside, one thing I discovered about open recording is that it has different effect on different people. It either causes the assailant to check himself/herself, as they become more self-conscious. No one wants their dirty linens to be aired in public. It is a face thingy. Or, it aggravates and heats up the confrontation. It is perceived as a self-righteous act, and in retaliation, the perpetrator would up the ratchet and let it all out. Who doesn’t want their 7 minutes of fame, right? Going back, Janelle contacted Tada, and has this to say: “Where I was tanner skin, or Indian, or otherwise, it’s unacceptable what he said - it was totally uncalled for, that he pulled out the race card.” Lesson? Can we all get along? Mm…it’s more complicated than that. It is a tribal thing, rather primitive in the way we judge people. A tribalistic mindset usually go for the lowest hanging fruit (like race, language and/or religion) to fire up that ire. It is largely about how different you are from me. But, make no mistake, family feuds can be really ugly too. I once dealt with a case where the mother (deceased) had eleven children, the youngest is above 60. And they fought over their mother’s 3-room HDB flat for more than 4 years. They are all well to do. It’s not about the money. Go figure, right? Alas, you can be a stranger or someone all too familiar, and sparks can fly at a triggering event. They often accumulate though, the little sparks that agitate. And when the perfect storm converges, the past suddenly becomes your fiery advocate. What went unnoticed in the past becomes a flint for the fire of hate and prejudice. Justice becomes vigilante-like, if not tribalistic, as we fan it up for maximum grudge effect. At the risk of oversimplifying it, the science of hate is the study of how much we can’t let go. There is a Chinese saying, “ná de qǐ fàng de xià.” (What you pick up, you put down). Over the years or decades, we pick up a lot of things when engaging in different relationships. At times, the closest ones can be the most inflammatory, like a marriage that is beyond salvage. You name it, slants, insults, mockery, dismissals, alienation, and being looked down at. We pick them up, compartmentalise them, until the faultlines are breached. Some of them fester within, and it takes a triggering event, however innocuous, to open up that Pandora’s box. The incident that Janelle had with the tada driver may be set off by a lone lighted match thrown into a pool of kerosene of past animosity. Anger that boils over does not need to be directed at the person who directly caused it. There are collateral damage too. Unresolved issues add up. Our past is the warehouse, where we secretly store all our grudges. And our ego, that fragile sense of self battled by the harsh realities of life, is the key that unlocks them. So, it is not so much a case of our differences collide, and our similarities coalesce. But it seems more likely that how different you are from me does give one more reasons to reach out for the lowest hanging fruit, centered on skin colour and belief system to well up hatred against. How I deal with that is to always check myself. I read about the struggles of people, regardless of race, language or religion, and seek to understand them. I am alive to the reality that there are toxic people out there. But I refuse to see them as they are. Their actions can be befuddling, frustrating, but I always give them the benefit of a doubt. I try consciously not to see them as a pamphlet, one page, one-sided, and judge it there and then. I see them as a book, with stories to tell, that is, a narrative of broken humanity, earnestly finding acceptance and hope. Admittedly, there are some cases beyond me. We should just walk away or report to higher authorities because they threaten our safety. But as a whole, I believe that if we should pause before reacting, even when we are caught unaware, and seek to understand the person behind the provocation. The lapses of time is your most effective cooling agent. Recall this scripture, a gentle response turns away wrath, but a harsh one stirs up anger. Often, there is a story left unsaid, and the target of their ire goes much deeper than what is manifested. And the more we take the time to understand, even at that heat of the moment, the more we are able to let it go.   Michael Han * The author was a Director at Han & Lu  Law Chambers and blogs on Facebook.      Read More →

This newscutting has been on my desktop for a long time. Wonder if we have reached the Swiss standard of living today. We are still waiting for our Swiss standard of living. But our leaders are enjoying living better than the Swiss.   Teo Soh Lung      Read More →

Under the Westminster system, which we inherited from the British, powers are split among the Executive, the Legislative (Parliament) and the Judiciary. In addition to the above-mentioned institutions the office of the Elected President is also bestowed with certain powers, however limited they may be. These arrangements are put in place to bring into effect the need for checks and balances. Singaporeans, however, have recently missed the opportunity to elect a head of state who is independent of the governing party. But we must not take Mr. Tharman's election as an endorsement of the current ruling party for the obvious reason that Mr. Tharman has all along been more popular than the PAP itself. In fact he is even more popular than the Prime Minister himself. The proof of this is in the consistently higher percentage of votes garnered by the Jurong GRC anchored by Mr. Tharman compared to what the PM helmed Ang Mo Kio GRC has been getting. In the last GE for example, Jurong GRC was won by the PAP with 74.6% of the valid votes compared to Ang Mo Kio GRC which garnered only 71.9% The consistently overwhelming number of seats won by the PAP in every election since independence has given the party near absolute control of power over two of the above-mentioned three institutions. And since the appointments of members of the judiciary are largely also recommended by the Prime Minister, the power controlled by the governing party is immense indeed. The election of an ex Senior minister closely linked to the ruling party and the formulation of policies have made matters worse. Singaporeans can expect little or no change to policies that Singaporeans are not happy with and have been complaining about. These include the high cost of living, spiralling cost of rentals and of residential and commercial properties, especially HDB flats. As expected fees are now being raised by various state controlled entities, with more in the pipeline. The additional 1% increase in GST is coming soon. Singaporeans are now left with one only more opportunity to bring about change in the way the country is being administered. Yes, I am referring to the GE wherein the lop-sided numbers in parliament can be made more favourable to the opposition, for checks and balances. This matters a lot as far as accountability in concerned. However we must not be too ambitious. Denying the PAP a two thirds majority, which we have been wanting to achieve all along, will be a good start for reform. Let's do it Singapore! It's long overdue.     Mohamed Jufrie Bin Mahmood       * The writer blogs on Facebook.      Read More →