Nomads: love them or loathe them?

Some thoughts about political musical chairs

Anthropologists love nomads. I worked with a manager who said she wanted to go live with the Bedouins. Some people do find the idea of a group of people traversing huge expanses of land just to find water and food rather romantic, whether these groups are hunter-gatherers, pastoralists or peripatetic minority groups like Romani or Irish travellers (sometimes known -- derogatively -- as gypsies).

My dear second sister -- and many others who have grown up with Enid Blyton books might identify -- used to say she wanted to be a gypsy. At one point I saved enough money to buy a few Matchbox models. One was a caravan.

Source:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MATCHBOX-SUPERFAST-No-57-TRAILER-CARAVAN-MIB-/371174895523

"Travellers" in the UK do not have a good reputation. The term refers normally to Irish travellers who used to move around from place to place to offer specific services including entertainment, crafts, tin-smithing, knife-sharpening, etc. I think these are the ones featured in Enid Blyton stories for which she was condemned a "bigot".

They have a totally different lifestyle from us sedentists, but who is to say that we are morally or spiritually superior to them? They have their own set of rituals, rules and regulations. They abide by their own code of conduct.

The Mongols, Genghis Khan and all that, they were nomads. They plundered. They conquered. Or the other way around.

Nomads can also be peaceful pastoralists. They move their livestock around, searching for greener pastures literally. Over the years, however, they have worked out a method or cycle of moving around in such a manner that the ground has enough time to heal, for another set of nomads to settle. All very civilized, really.

Those of us who care for the environment will be familiar with how some mega-farms are farming the same bit of earth to death, after which they use man-made fertilizers and pesticides to increase yield which end up poisoning the ground and water.

Compared to these mega-agriculturalists that rape the earth, nomadic pastoralists are angels.

In the context of the Singapore GE2015, what I do not understand is how some forms of nomadism are lauded, while others are decried.

More to the context: complaints that MPs only come around when it is election time (plunder and disappear?). Opposition MP-wannabes work the ground in between GEs. Constituency boundaries change -- some say arbitrarily amidst accusations of gerrymandering, but we won't go into that -- and MP-wannabes who have been "working the ground" (an agricultural metaphor, note) might suddenly find that all the goodwill they have cultivated (more farming imagery) has crossed borders.

Nomadic MP-wannabes or nomadic constituents? Who controls these constituent boundaries and on what basis are they altered? A mystery to all outside government. [Aside: election boundary setting should be made by an independent committee, or at least a cross-party group. Surely.]

What about nomadic PAP candidates? So my old schoolmate has returned to Aljunied and is billed "the prodigal returns". People of Aljunied, time to slaughter the fatted calf. Or is it the sacred cow?

The former "Son of Punggol" is now Step-Son/ Son-in-law/ Second Cousin Once Removed/ some other fictive kin of Ang Mo Kio.

Nomadic?

[I hereby give notice that I am "daughter of Tiong Bahru/Tanglin Halt/Tanjong Pagar". Don't say I don't say.]

Indranee Rajah (whose creative energies I had to rein in -- twice -- when she was head of a publication at an NUS group many years ago) reminded my fellow constituents that PAP MPs know their constituents well. This is a plus point for them. Surely.

So why does PAP re-deploy some of their MPs to other constituencies as if they are playing political musical chairs? As if the relationships built up do not -- suddenly -- matter any more? As if, for the sake of a political victory, constituents can now be abandoned? Who is going to write all those letters for the constituents?

Dr Lily Neo, for example. I saw her clinic at Tanglin Halt being decorated (renovated) when she started her practice. She was especially kind to an old neighbour who was a bit of a hypochondriac. She has also treated me. Where is she going next? 

Nomadic?

I have been away from Singapore for a long time. (Too long, some say.) Still, I recall Singapore leaders admonishing Singaporeans to venture outside Singapore to find work, to start businesses, to tap the Chinese/Indian markets. So we went.

Nomadic?

Whenever I sign up for a major anthropological conference I need to use a software called Nomadit: Nomad IT. When I looked them up, I discovered that "NomadIT is a team of down-to-earth freelance administrators, event organisers and IT specialists who work remotely using internet and email technologies to assist NGOs, educational and voluntary sector organisations to run their organisations and events".

I have no reason to believe that anyone within this group is either wealthy or corrupt, or both. But boy! this software is really useful from setting out calls for panels to calls for papers, to the minutiae of organizing cross-border and sometimes cross-discipline conferences.

You may not be an anthropologist, but it is OK to be love a nomad.

Video time: Cher

In my next post (possibly): Foreign Domestic Workers: The elephant in the room/house.

See also: Housing: the elephant in the room

Even the perfect needs help

[Manifesto watch: Housing the elephant in the room or should it be "Housing: the elephant in the room"?]

When I was in secondary school my elder brother who is six years older bought me a Webster-Merriam dictionary for a birthday. I don't know how long he had to save to get me that. On the flyleaf he wrote, "Word is power. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Such powerful words that I can almost still see his uniquely-angled left-handed writing on that page.

Pondering ESM Goh's recent claim that PAP are able to provide their own checks and balances I wonder why he thinks that he and his fellow MPs and candidates are so super-human that they will not, ever, not a chance in hell for an eternity, succumb to the temptation of corruption.

Corruption is not confined to accepting bribes. Consider King David, a king so pure and so fervent in his love and dedication to Yahweh that David is often described as "a man after God's own heart".

When David acquired absolute regal power he committed adultery with Bathsheba who fell pregnant and he tried to cover it up by instructing Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, to sleep with her. Uriah was so dedicated to David and the battle he was fighting he refused to lie with his wife. Eventually David had Uriah killed. (David had the power, remember?)

I wonder what is it that made ESM Goh think that he and his colleagues are such perfect specimens of humanity. Super-human or robotic? If neither, then it is possibly more strategic to accept that politicians -- both in government and opposition -- are capable of corruption and that we can all do with humbling ourselves to be subject to the checking and correction by others.

Here is a link to a page which tells us about the origin of the phrase "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely". (NB. The second part of this shrewd observation is "Great men are almost always bad men.")

I don't think anyone has been able to disprove this sagely statement by finding any human being who is totally incorruptible.

I cannot, for one moment, think that out of the blue, 89 totally incorruptible saintly politicians will simultaneously be found in Singapore come September the 12th.

Isn't it better to admit, "O Lord, it is hard to be humble"? (Enjoy this video, by the way!)

As a certain Mr Teo said, "What do you think?" Do add your comment.

Housing the elephant in the room

I had a look at the various manifestos with a focus on housing. There were some interesting ideas on how to make HDB flats affordable.

SDA and SDP separately proposed schemes where flats were sold cheap, repaid in under 20 years and can be sold back to HDB. WP proposed a scheme which pegs debt service ratio to the median household income. Generally it was agreed that it is wrong to factor in the cost of land when pricing new HDB flats.

No party has mentioned the elephant in the room. We do not “own” HDB flats. We rent them on a 99-year lease. Eventually the flats are returned to the HDB, with or without a profit. A bit like the biblical Jubilee, when land is returned to its original owner.

Just for the sake of argument: what would happen if we all withdrew our applications to buy a flat from HDB? What if we simply decided to rent instead of buy?

It is difficult to try to resolve an ostensibly “housing” issue when there are two distinct and opposing conditions to the problem.

Group A consists of (poorer, younger) people who just want to have the certainty of a home to start and build a family or to grow old in. Renting leaves one susceptible to rent rises which might become unaffordable. The only way to gain such security seems to be to acquire an un/affordable HDB flat.

Group B is made up of wily individuals who had bought a flat with as little money as possible and hope to sell it at the biggest profit possible after a shortest period of time.

Group A wants to have low prices in order to buy. Group B wants the prices to rise in order to make a profit. How do you please both these groups?

If the government were to legislate such that property prices come down substantially to help Group A, Group B would feel hard done by. By letting market forces drive up prices to benefit Group B, Group A becomes even more disgruntled.

To complicate matters, members of Group A eventually become part of Group B. The composition of the groups are constantly in flux.

How did HDB and "affordable housing" get into such a conundrum?

Let us go back to first principles. Affordable housing meant moving us from the danger of living in slums after the fire at Bukit Ho Swee and to resolve overcrowding. The government's right to compulsory acquisition of land gave us affordable flats without us worrying about rent rises. We can get on with our lives. We lived in a happy equilibrium for a while.

Somewhere between the "Swiss standard of living" and SG50 owning a flat was no more about providing a family home or security of tenure (or tenancy). Somewhere along the line owning an HDB property became an "investment", a stepping stone to owning an increasingly larger and ultimately a private property.

Somewhere along this same line, some people made a lot of money.

The ultimate HDB betrayal was to let people own both an HDB flat AND a private property at the same time. If you can afford a private property then you no longer need an HDB flat. You either need affordable housing, or you don't. These are mutually exclusive positions.  

There is a third, largely forgotten perspective: pioneer Singaporeans were encouraged to buy homes to sink their roots into our new nation. If you lock yourself into a 30-year mortgage, that means you must grow roots, even if you must work till you drop.

Besides, our property is only worth what a buyer is willing to pay. If HDB manages to house 100% of our population, there will be no demand for flats. No buyers means your HDB property will become worthless. Overnight.

Therefore it is important to keep creating a new pool of home-owners to maintain demand.

Thus, we have somehow managed to create an "aristocracy" based on (HDB) home ownership.

What to do? Maybe we should make it illegal for private home owners to also own an HDB flat. The increase in supply of flats will surely reduce the value of these flats thus pleasing those in Group A.

That will go down well with Group B. Not.

Or we need another paradigm shift: Let us only rent (says she who has never owned any real estate). As ultimately we would need to return our flats to HDB. Why bust a gut just to pretend that we own that property?? Have HDB build lovely flats and offer a rental scale that is inversely proportional to the number of children a family has.

Now that will solve both the housing and fertility problem. Don't say I don't say.

My MP should not be a letter-writer either

[28/08/2015: Uploaded my post on 'mudslinging' late last night, oblivious to what was happening in Singapore. Woke up this morning to learn the latest about fellow social scientist. Susah!]

Journalist Chua Mui Hoong was right to point out “Your MP is not the Chief Social Worker. He’s supposed to raise issues and make laws". A Member of Parliament is by definition someone who represents our voice in Parliament.

They and they alone have the privilege of voting within the debating chamber, thus helping to shape laws and policies concerning transport (MRT, taxi fares), the environment (flooding, mosquitoes) and healthcare (Medishield, hospitals), for example, through debating with the government ministers and holding them to account.

Everything else they do is secondary to this task of law-making.

Professional managers can run the town councils. Therapists can listen to your woes. A neighbour can write your letters. Churches, temples, and other voluntary groups are feeding and housing those in need. Social workers can look after dysfunctional families.

Only your honourable Member of Parliament can reflect what you, his constituent, feel within the hallowed walls of the House of Parliament.

I am not an MP but I have run the equivalent of Meet-the-People Sessions (called “surgeries” in Britain) at my advice charity for five years. Clients have told me about her incontinence, his piles and a husband’s impotence, usually within the context of “how do I get more benefits?”. At every session I deal with families facing eviction and individuals owing enormous amounts of debt with debt collectors knocking on their doors.

Contrary to what a minister had said recently, I (and about 25,000 others) do this without being paid. (I was, for a year, employed to ensure minimum service on the London Minimum Wage and then Living Wage.) I am neither wealthy (compared to this minister) nor corrupt (compared to this minister). (Oops! Nearly risked my being sued.)

One of my most memorable clients ranted, “I called those people so many times and they never answer. You people call and they will talk to you.” How is it that civil servants (“those people”), paid by my taxes, are not answering this man’s queries on the phone? Why are they withholding information about himself from him? Why does he need us (“you people”), unpaid volunteers, to phone or write a letter on his behalf just to get a response? Is this acceptable in a First World democracy?

Considering GE2015: Why do we still need MPs to write letters on our behalf?

My late father often had to go to the letter-writer at Ann Siang Hill whenever he needed to send news back to China. Immediately post-1965, many constituents needed their MPs to write letters in English. Fifty years on, most of us can either write our own, or turn to adult children and grandchildren.

Source: http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_603_2005-01-04.html

According to Mr K Mahbubani, the “Singapore population is one of the best educated populations”. If this is so, why do we need MPs to write letters to HDB, for example, for grants to fix a leaky ceiling? Can the highly-paid civil servants at HDB not decide whether an application is legitimate?

Singaporeans have told me that sometimes, like my British client, they do not get a response at all from certain government departments. So they trot down to the MPS. The MP writes. Hey presto! The civil servant replies. Job done.

Why should the interference of an MP -- of whatever party -- make a difference?

I can think of two reasons.

The first is our civil servants are lazy and useless (in which case they should be sacked). Considering how they are often rewarded with bonus payments, this cannot be the case.

The second is, for some reason, there have been inefficiencies designed (yes, deliberately engineered) into the process so that the wheels would only turn when oiled by an MP’s intervention.

Such a system forces a voter to seek the help of an MP. Is this an example of a “patron-client relationship”? The politically “superior” can (be seen to) dispense favour to the “inferior”, making the “inferior” indebted (ie obligated) to the “superior”. Of course the favour will be called in at some point (ie at General Election). This, however, is not the same as corruption or bribery.

I suspect and hope that this practice will be phased out once we have more opposition MPs in office.

MPs should not be doing the work of the civil servants whether at a local (town council) or national level. We do not pay MPs $16,000 (how much?!!) to be a letter-writer. We need a separation -- clear blue water -- between the legislative (Parliament) and the executive (Civil Service).

When you cast your vote, think whether you are choosing an effective letter-writer or a law-maker who would diligently represent your views in Parliament by the way he/she votes on legislative matters.

Mudslinging makes potatoes grow (repost)

[28/08/2015: Uploaded my post on 'mudslinging' late last night, oblivious to what was happening in Singapore. Woke up this morning to learn the latest about fellow social scientist. Susah!]

I am plagiarising myself here. I first posted this on 24th April 2011.

In my view there was too much "mudslinging" at the last GE. I hope that we have matured a bit and will use less of this strategy and argue on points that matter. I would like politicians to inspire me, enthuse me with their vision of where they wish to take us in the next 30 years.

Talking about SG100 is, to me, a bit premature. Five years are too short. Short-termism -- where politicians hand out freebies and promise the electorate even more goodies, and neglecting to fix the systems that need fixing -- in British politics has run everything Britons are proud of (eg National Health Service, pension provision, social care) very nearly into the ground.

I think striving for positive change (eg class size, National Service, CPF) within a generation is much more do-able. Just think, there is now a whole generation of young Singaporeans who were brought up by foreign maids, and they probably expect their own children to be brought up the same way.

==== [from previous post then ...]

The potatoes in my garden are going berserk. [I grow these in potato bags, not in the ground.] Every time I see new leaves I cover them with compost (as per instructions).

If I put compost on it last thing at night, new growth appears the following morning. If I cover it with compost in the morning, the leaves break through again by the end of the day.

New leaves appear despite the compost. Or is it because of the compost?

I’ve been baking my own bread. In the temperate clime here it takes a long time for bread dough to proof (ferment and rise). But when it has risen to the right size, it takes but a few minutes to bake, and then soon we can tuck into delicious warm bread.

When it’s the season for potatoes to grow, nothing would stop it once it finds moist, fertile ground.

Fed with alternative views via the internet and watered by rising dissatisfaction, the political ground in Singapore is fertile for opposition growth.

The ruling party might dig up the dirt and heap it on the opposition. But mudslinging and dirt (as compost is but organic material that has rotted down) only promote even greater growth.

I don’t have to remind you that potatoes grow underground.

As the opposition has been biding its time, proving (pun intended) itself to be worthy (or not, as the case might be), so too like bread, it would not take too long for it to be ready to form a government, or at least that alternative voice so necessary to provide checks and balances.

Wishing you, my beloved Singapore, the wonderful aroma that promises the delight of freshly baked bread. Soon.

===
P.S. I hope I get to vote this time.

SMRT/Gracious Fellow Travellers

Unlike a former classmate who can afford to jet across the world -- First Class -- at the drop of a hat, my visits to Singapore are few and far between.

The upside is I notice the changes. I guess this is a bit like what the anthropologist would call "making the familiar strange".

My husband and I have noticed how people are much better at letting passengers off the trains, for example. We dutifully stand where the marks are, wait till most have disembarked before pushing our way in.

An old Singaporean woman who had become a British citizen went back to visit Singapore some years back. She insisted on her return that "there are no old people in Singapore".

She was staying at an Orchard Road hotel and she said she could not see one person with a walking stick or in a wheelchair. Conclusion: there were no old people in Singapore.

Well, I have had so many people offer up their seats to me on the trains (both in Singapore and Bangkok) that I figure I must look REALLY OLD.

I put it down to my carefully cultivated grey hair. It has never touched hair dye.

It used to be when I see people with grey hair coming up the bus or train I would offer them my seat. These days I have to be careful that people who appear to be older than me (wrinkles, gait, manner of dress, eg) but with hair a uniform jet black (or brown) colour may not actually be old.

Going by hair colour, my friend was right, there are no old people in Singapore.

Do I offer these people who seem old, but who have less grey hair than I do, my seat? What do I do if someone offers me a priority seat?

So I just want to record my thanks to the many foreign workers (they seemed foreign in complexion and manner of dress), young students and National Service men (in uniform) who have offered me their seats on the trains.

My principle is that I will always accept their offer. If I declined their offer they might become less willing to offer the next person their seat, and this next person might really need that seat. The exception is when I only have just one stop to go. In which case I would explain this to the kind person.

As for Indian workers in Singapore I noticed, too, when trudging through Little India one hot afternoon, that not once did I hear someone (foreign or otherwise) in Little India say, "Excuse me, excuse me" (or the Singapore equivalent which sounds something like "kills me") in trying to get past us on the five foot ways. It seemed like everyone fell in behind us (ambling tourists) and waited patiently till we got to a point where they could -- quietly -- pass us.

And it was also reassuring to see how people in wheelchairs (usually propelled by a diminutive foreign-looking person) can travel in buses and trains, and fellow travellers did not grudge them that space and time.

It did give me hope that Singapore (comprising locals and guest workers) is becoming a much more gracious place to live.

GE15: Singlish good, English bad

[Single Mother watch]

============

So, the gauntlet has been thrown down. SG is up for grabs.

Trawling through some of the GE15 posts and videos I cannot help but notice that numerous comments have been made about the (British, clipped, etc) accent of a certain candidate.

In other videos other candidates spoke in perfectly grammatical English, also with a slightly "foreign" accent.

The last time I had anything published in the MSM and my blog about Singlish I was taken to task by Singlish supporters on some FB page. I don't know how far -- if at all -- that debate has moved on. At the recent SG50, I see that Singlish was being celebrated.

Was this a real recognition of Singlish as part of the Singapore identity or an acquiescence on the part of the G (previously known as “gahman”, I assume)?

I do not remember -- ever -- hearing the late great Mr Lee speak Singlish in public. His was a beautiful, carefully enunciated English, precise and crisp. A British accent? Maybe.

That is why I chuckled when ESM Goh said in Mr Lee’s eulogy: “But I believe Mr Lee would say, ‘What to do? This is life.’”

Mr Lee definitely, double-confirm, would not have said, “What to do?” Maybe “What can I do?” or even “What shall I do?” but definitely, definitely not “What to do?”

It was, for me, a ‘facepalm’ moment, feeling very paiseh that in front of all those dignitaries from around the world, my previous PM said, “What to do?”

(BUT, but I will always respect ESM Goh for giving us the vision for the “Swiss standard of living”. Don’t say I don’t say.)

Honestly, I wonder what Mr Lee would have said about the SG50 Singlish parade.

Back to GE2015: I am afraid that those candidates who speak good grammatical English and have acquired a slight accent due to their having lived and worked abroad for many years might now be painted/portrayed as being not Singaporean enough.

Note, too, that speaking with a, say, British/American/Puerto Rican, accent is not the same as speaking good grammatical English which is not the same as speaking Singlish.

You can’t really speak good Singlish without a particular rise and fall in tone. But you can speak grammatically correct English with its precise vocabulary, understood right around the world, and the accent will vary and it does not matter whether your accent is Dutch, Czech or Urdu.

I have not been able to get rid of my Singapore accent despite having lived in Britain for more than two decades, but that is OK. I don’t particularly want to get rid of my Singapore accent.

However there have been many times when I pronounced words or used sentence structures that my English-speaking colleagues/friends/husband/son could not understand. I have been teased many times for the way I do not speak English properly. I’ve had to change my way of speaking English (with specific focus on consonant clusters) so that I can be understood outside Singapore.

My point is: please do not hold it against those election candidates who speak an English which sounds a bit strange to our Singaporean ears.

Good Singlish might make us sound/look like we are "closer" to the people. Cabinet ministers and other politicians have to interact with their counterparts on a global basis.

Referencing the scenes from Animal Farm where the animals were (initially) chanting "Four legs good, two legs bad", please, hah: It is not a case of “Singlish good, English bad” (which is not to say that bad English is good Singlish, you know what I mean).