By Thusitha de Silva
The Singapore government’s economic focus is likely to remain on continuing to grow the gross domestic product.
When Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi recently said that Singapore should learn from the more relaxed way of life in her country, it affirmed what many in the city-state were thinking. While optimistic about the future, the majority of Singaporeans want a slower-paced life, for which they are willing to compromise on economic growth.
This is one of the findings of a survey of 4,000 citizens conducted in January as part of the Our Singapore Conversation exercise.
That Singaporeans now generally want a slower place of life is not particularly surprising. Things have been hectic in recent years. While Singapore’s economic development since the 1960s has been remarkable, things really started to accelerate from early in the new millennium. Between 2002 and 2012, Singapore’s population expanded from 4.18 million to 5.31 million, according to government data. Over the same period, the gross domestic product (GDP) more than doubled from S$162.3 billion to S$345.6 billion. That is some pace of growth but it has come at a price, including a high cost of living, lofty property prices and a wide income gap.
Three basic areas of Singapore’s economy, namely healthcare, education and transport, are all facing the strain of this phenomenal run. This, in turn, puts strain on many Singaporeans who are struggling to get by.
New challenges
Going forward, Singapore faces new long-term challenges as the global economic environment changes. In the past, the city-state could perhaps rely on at least one of the world’s biggest economies, the US, Europe and China, to take up some slack, but now all three are working out their own problems.
A sustainable recovery doesn’t appear to be on the cards for any of them in the medium term, though in China’s case, it’s more about a downgrade in growth expectations. As such, Singapore will likely have to look closer to home to enhance its growth prospects in coming years.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong alluded to some of these growth drivers within the city-state in his National Day Rally Speech in August. This includes plans to shift one of the world’s busiest ports to Tuas, freeing up land for property development in the Keppel area. More property development means more GDP.
Another obvious source of growth opportunities for Singapore is South-east Asia. Singapore has actively sought to improve ties with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), and bilateral relationships with the likes of Malaysia and Indonesia have been ok, even with a few hiccups along the way. Further, despite Ms Suu Kyi’s gentle reservations about the path that Singapore has taken, Myanmar remains a strong economic ally.
In a speech at the opening of the inaugural Network Asean Forum in Singapore in August, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam articulated something of a rallying cry to the region in his concluding remarks. “We are at a good starting point. We are also in the right part of the world where there are significant growth opportunities not just domestically but also to be achieved through greater regional integration. While our external environment has gotten tougher, it is a useful reminder that our domestic and regional fundamentals have to be enhanced if we wish to offset negative spill-over effects, and in fact improve our growth performance,” he said.
The Network Asean forum got business leaders from the region to brainstorm solutions to some issues that are holding back the creation of an integrated Asean Economic Community (AEC). The roadblocks are understandable considering different countries in the region are at different stages of their economic development.
Also, not all countries are likely as focused on growing GDP as Singapore is, even though their respective governments may harbour such views. So, it’s only natural that there have been delays.
In the meantime, lessons have also been learnt from the mess that is the Eurozone, where countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal are on different economic gears compared to the likes of Germany and France.
Mr Shanmugaratnam’s comments at the forum were directed at business leaders from the region, and he would likely not have heard any dissenting voices. Business leaders tend to have gone to the same schools and all are trained to think in a similar way. But how is the Singapore government going to cope with the growing view that people’s lives should not be compromised by GDP growth?
Singaporeans are not blind to the negative effects of the unbridled growth in the last decade that is evident in Singapore. Things are getting a bit more edgy in the city-state and because of the internet, people have a place now to vent their frustrations. The internet also enables them to closely scrutinise every policy that the government comes up with, much to the latter’s chagrin.
What Robert F Kennedy said
This trend of growing awareness is only likely to gain traction and the next general election in Singapore, which has to be held by 2016, could become a sort of a referendum about whether Singaporeans think that the government is navigating a sustainable path for the country. Will its focus on GDP be too much to bear by then? Perhaps we should remind ourselves of what then US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy said about the gross national product (the market value of all the products and services produced in one year by labour and property supplied by residents of a country) at the University of Kansas in March, 1968.
“The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”
Mr Kennedy was assassinated three months later, and never became US President. We’ll never know if his thoughts on the economy would have been put into practice. Things could have been different if it did, because the US was the global thought leader in those days. Still, the likes of Ms Suu Kyi may have been inspired by Mr Kennedy’s words.
However, there are few other global leaders these days who would publicly say the same–the corporates behind the scenes will have none of that type of nonsense. Nonetheless, one gets the feeling that Mr Kennedy’s words are likely to resonate even more today as the gap between the rich and the poor widens across the world, including in Singapore.
Thusitha de Silva has been working in financial media for the last 20 years.
Which way GDP?
The wind beneath my wings
By Ravi Shankar
In a nice way, the shoe was on the other foot.
As journalists, we are the ones asking the questions, seeking the answers, looking for that exclusive photo or interview.
So when some of the media spotlight, albeit briefly, turned on me for winning this year’s China Friendship Award — the highest prize for foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to China’s economic and social progress — I felt some initial discomfiture.
But that soon disappeared when I realized that this was my own little Oscar moment.
How do you feel about the award, was the first question in an online interview even before I had received it.
The right noises: Thrilled, of course. An honour and a privilege to be counted as one among many greats. But I didn’t wail in joy; nor did I thank everyone from my kindergarten teacher to my golf coach. (Cleverly, of course, I acknowledged my bosses in full sincerity.)
Of course, I was thrilled. But the simple truth is this award was for no eureka moment or for apples falling on the head.
The story wasn’t me. It was China Daily. And the recognition of the global operations spawned by a newspaper from humble — though pathbreaking — times in 1981.
A little historical perspective: Very few newspapers around the world are feted at their birth like China Daily was. Almost every major global news agency and newspaper (in many languages) reported on its birth like they would today about a panda birth in Edinburgh Zoo (and yes, there was a panda story on the front page of the first edition even though it was about a lack of procreation).
In those days, China Daily was China for the typical foreigner who did not speak the language. It was their only window into an unfathomable and unfamiliar world emerging from isolation.
Of course, as China opened up, there were many more avenues of information but China Daily continues to lead the pack. It no longer was a newspaper for foreigners in China who could not read Chinese.
We took it to the rest of the world. In just the past few years, we have launched dedicated editions in the US, Europe, ASEAN and the wider Asia-Pacific, as well as Africa. And our multimedia platforms are your first “hits” on search engines.
The response has been more than gratifying because there is such a thirst for China knowledge around the world. Readers are not interested in coverage only through a narrow prism of set agendas.
They want to know the Real China. The China Story. And the Chinese Dream. People I meet in Europe, the US or Asia want to know how in the Kingdom of Bicycles the car is the King of the Road. They want to know about those incredibly fast trains. They want to know about migrant workers and how they will fit into the new urbanization plans. They want to know about social trends and social media. They want to know of marriages and divorces; and, indeed, if concubines have made a comeback!
This is exactly what we are trying to answer.
To come back to why (I think) I won the award: Yes, I have been closely involved in conceptualizing, coordinating and executing many of the major projects we have undertaken in the past decade. They include the continual expansion and revamps of the paper; special editions like The Olympian for the 2008 Beijing Games; for the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China; and the launch of several overseas editions.
Longevity helps. I am the longest-serving expat on the paper and so have a “historical perspective”. The good thing is that there are many who are thinking long-term and they bring a wide array of talent.
In the euphoria of the moment, I give myself a pat on the back. But the truth is I’ve been carried on the back of a great China Daily team, increasingly being made of expats like me.
Here I feel it is incumbent on me to mention Zhu Ling, our publisher and editor-in-chief. During our first encounter in China Daily Hong Kong Edition more than 11 years ago, I got a thinly disguised verbal lashing for not correcting “Chinglish” on my first night at work. I didn’t know what Chinglish was, having just come from Singapore’s “Singlish” which I was comfortable with. He has been more than kind since. I greatly appreciate the opportunities he has given me, and I hope I have learned.
Ravi Shankar is executive editor of China Daily’s overseas editions. A journalist from India, he formerly worked for The New Paper.
Employers blamed in migrant workers' housing report
A Transient Workers Count Two research team interviewed 163 injured Indian and Bangladeshi workers who come to their food programme and talked about their accommodation conditions.
Under the law, employers are meant to provide accommodation for their injured workers even when they are staying in Singapore on Special Passes while their compensation claims are being considered, but in fact, many workers do not benefit from this provision.
Of the 163 workers interviewed, only one was staying in company-provided accommodation – and his employer did not know that he was there. Only 28 per cent of the workers had been offered accommodation by their employers (sometimes, by MOM). In many cases, these workers fled from company-provided accommodation because they feared being forcibly sent home so that their employer could avoid paying compensation.
The study shows that there is a gap between the stated protection for workers under the law as it exists and the workers’ ability to make use of this measure to see themselves through a period of waiting for case settlement when they are not able to work legally and do not have an income.
Read the full report.
How good are Singapore-Malaysia ties?
Q and A: Dr Ooi Kee Beng, the deputy director of the Institute of South-east Asian Studies, talks to P N Balji about why Malaysia-Singapore relations is on a high, how attitudes on both sides have changed and whether the abang-adek relationship is still a simmering factor.
Q. Malaysia-Singapore relations are at a high. Why so? What can upset this cordiality?
A. One should perhaps start by asking why relations between the two should not be cordial. There are several answers to that, but what should be borne in mind at the same time is that the need each has of the other in various ways is too strong for mutual enmity to be a permanent feature of their relationship.
While one is a city-state that is also a tiny island, the other is a conglomerate of 13 states, nine of which perceive themselves as sultanates. Of the remaining four, Sabah and Sarawak were regions at par with the Federation of Malaya when they came together along with Singapore to form Malaysia in 1963; while Penang and Malacca both have a long unique history of their own. Singapore was created by the British to be the centre of power, and so, in 1963, its people had reason to see the city as the metropolis for the British Nusantara. It had to play a central role in the building of Malaysia, which in practical terms meant that a common market was necessary. Once that failed, Singapore’s economic and cultural future within the federation did not look bright.
While the non-Malay population in West Malaysia envisaged a simple and smooth transition from colonialism to multicultural nationalism, the Malay community at large continued to have a strong sense of apartness from the global economy that the colonialists represented. Their political consciousness was still sultanate-based, and their ethnic identity was religion-based, which did not relate easily to the metropolitan, secular, multicultural political economy of a modern state. This difference in group consciousness spelled out different routes and different speeds in developmental strategies. In that sense, although one may talk about how the two countries had a joint history, the differences have been more compelling and relevant than the similarities have been.
As long as the differences were denied, relations between the two tended to be antagonistic. The supposed deep similarities raised a lot of false hopes and a lot of unreasonable expectations.
Over time, the differences have become more and more obvious—a process that was very much delayed by the fact that the antagonism between early leaders was prolonged by their extended time in power.
With new leaders, and with the growing importance of the complex regional context in which national politics and economics exist, there is a greater tolerance of the differences between the two countries, and a greater realisation of how much synergic advantage can be gained from working together.
Q, How does the Malaysian establishment view Singapore these days?
A. A complex of anger, incomprehension, irritation and envy does remain in how Singapore is viewed by its neighbor up north. But there is now a clearer acceptance that there is nothing much Malaysia can do to Singapore without hurting herself. The obvious advantage of having a wealthy and dynamic island at one’s doorstep is now being accepted. What Singapore does not have, Malaysia can offer her, be this lack of land; investment opportunities at medium cost; unskilled, semi-skilled or skilled labour; or landed properties.
Q. Do you think the abang-adek relationship, as seen by Malaysia, is not a factor anymore?
A. This is not much of a factor today. Such an attitude is rare among young Malay leaders, and would in fact be very unbecoming if found in new leaders.
Q. Has Singapore become more careful, more nuanced, in its relationship with Malaysia?
A. Yes, it has. Malaysian politics is often street politics in the sense that statements are made spontaneously for whatever immediate effect it might have. Reacting quickly to such statements forces things to a head, with no side wishing to back down for matters of pride—personal and national.
Singapore is less reactive on that front nowadays.
Q. The relationship soured when Dr Mahathir and Lee Kuan Yew were the prime ministers. What was their problem?
A. They both reflected the viewpoints stated in my answer to the first question. What is sometimes forgotten is that Mahathir fought with every one of Malaysia’s PMs and DPMs excepting Tun Abdul Razak, who died early. So, for him to be antagonistic towards a small neighbor like Singapore, whose leader had dared imagine becoming a major leader in Malaysia, should not be considered strange.
Dr Ooi Kee Beng is a Swedish citizen who was born and raised in Penang. He is also editor of the Penang Monthly published by the Penang Institute.
Serve the people, serve the government
All hands on deck! Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday clearly spelt out the role of the public service in keeping the people happy with the government.
The government is also shopping for an integrated system to detect, monitor and tackle public grievances and complaints.
New rules were announced yesterday to keep the public service free from corruption.
From today, all public officers will need to declare within seven days whenever they visit the local casinos more than four times a month or buy an annual pass.
Officers who have to deal with the casinos won’t be allowed to visit them at all except on business.
The actions follow recent scandals involving public servants, the plunge in the ruling party vote in the May 2011 general election and the two consecutive by-election defeats .
PM Lee said it was important that people trust the government and the public service. Only then can government policies succeed – if the people trust the government to understand their needs.
One way the public service can strengthen this trust is to act together as one and maintain the highest standards of integrity.
The Prime Minister was speaking at a seminar of public service leaders.
The public service must work as an integrated whole and keep up the changing aspirations of the people, he said. People would be frustrated if they had to deal with multiple agencies and conflicting policies.
The government must be customer-oriented, he added. Keeping the customer satisfied is a mammoth task. In the second quarter of this year, the government received 1.6 million phone calls, emails and letters – that’s one in every five seconds.
But service has its rewards. Public servants will continue to be paid according to their quality and the value of their contributions, said PM Lee, adding this had kept the system clean.
New technology will be used to handle complaints and feedback from the public more efficiently.
The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore has called a tender for an “Integrated Case Management System”. This will provide a digital platform to resolve “complex issues” involving multiple agencies. It follows earlier efforts to solve the problem of complaints being bounced from one agency to another.
The government is harnessing new rules and new technology to improve the standards and the image of the public service. That will be a win-win for the people and the government alike if the public servants play along.
PM's speech, Ngiam's interview
Maybe the TODAY paper did not realise it. The day it published the PM’s speech on how the civil service should be a more responsive organisation, it used an interview former top civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow gave to the Singapore Medical Association where he spoke about how unresponsive the Ministry of Finance has been to his suggestions/comments.
Suggestion: That the $60 billion set aside for improving productivity be used instead to pay for the salaries of new graduates that employers hire and train for the first year. This is aimed at employers who don’t want to hire these young people “because they say while the graduates may have the theories, they may have not be able to do the job,”
“I have not received a response (from the Ministry of Finance) yet,” says Ngiam.
Comment: His favourite topic, he says, is F1. “We are paying the Englishmen to stage the F1 night race. Why should we use taxpayers’ money to pay for the races. I have asked this question publicly, but the Ministry of Finance has never addressed it.”
If a man who was once permanent secretary faces this kind of treatment, what chance do lesser souls have?
New arts chief Kathy who?
By Tan Bah Bah
There is a new arts head honcho in town. Kathy Lai Sou Tien has taken the place of Benson Puah as the National Arts Council Chief Executive Officer. Kathy who? That would be the natural reaction of the arts community.
If you Google “Kathy Lai”, you would learn that she was IE Singapore Assistant CEO. And if you search further – on Google anyway – for public pronouncements she has made on any subject recently, you would come across just this speech made at a conference held in Sentosa in 2012. Subject: Developing Singapore as a Coal Trading Hub in Asia. That is as unartistic a topic as you can get.
From pitching for trade investment to overseeing the continuing development of the arts of a global city is an interesting change of pace. In the press conference to announce her appointment, Lai said her first order of action was to get to know the arts scene better and that she was also keen to build up patronage of artists in Singapore: “I don’t think I can champion a community that I don’t know. So the first thing is to connect with the community.”
That is going to be her biggest challenge – winning over the support of the community, as their most passionate and involved advocate. Can she, as an outsider, deliver?
Many people may not remember. Benson Puah was also not part of the practising arts industry when he was asked to head The Esplanade.
He said in an interview: “I was 41 when I joined The Esplanade in 2002 and my appointment was a surprise to everyone. It surprised me, too, when I was asked by the government to do the job. I have worked in several different industries, mainly to start up companies or to re-engineer them. So I guess I built for myself a reputation as a builder of organisations and a developer of people.”
Because of his successful stint at the Durians, he grew so much within the community that his subsequent appointment as NAC CEO in 2009 was readily accepted. It was not as if he had been a well-known playwright, sculptor, musician, dancer, writer or art gallery owner. But he was not an integral part of the community.
Puah also came in with a fresh mind.
His successes have been acknowledged by the overseeing Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth which cited its debt to the ex-CEO: “He has played a significant role in facilitating the development of the arts in Singapore”. Among other things, he “championed closer engagement with the arts community, personally hosting a series of dialogues and consultations in relation to major policy reviews”.
Kathy Lai and Chan Heng Chee, as the NAC Chairman, seem like an excellent partnership to orientate our arts industry to be more international in their outlook, to be less parochial in their artistic instinct.
Chan was ambassador to the United States from 1996 to this year. Lai should also be familiar with the arts scene in Washington DC when she was with IE Singapore. The US is one of our biggest investors and trading partners and a major cultural influence too.
Both have experienced the high standards of arts and the community’s passion for the arts in major American cities such as New York, Washington and Boston. They must have much to take away from the exposure from a personal point of view.
But Chan has quickly reassured the arts community that Lai “will bring in good energy to build on what has been done by Benson”. Meaning, it is business as usual.
Let’s hope so.
We already have in place the theatres, museums, venues and organisational ability to host quality shows and exhibits. We have a growing ecosystem. Attendance of arts and cultural events has grown from 971,600 in 2003 to 2.14 million in 2011. The total number of arts companies – various fields including dance, theatres, music and museums – has jumped from 302 in 2003 to 856 in 2011.
Do not let this momentum lose its way as we seek to globalise ourselves even in the arts.
Keep the focus on nurturing our homegrown talents and a burgeoning local interest in local arts. The more Ivan Hengs, Anthony Chens, Dick Lees, Royston Tans, Stephanie Suns, Mavis Hees and Siow Lee Chins we have, the better.
They are part of our core, our artistic identity. They celebrate the Singaporean’s uniqueness in the world, even as the world is becoming our cultural oyster. The urge to carve out Singapore’s place in the global art scene is irrepressible and has only just begun.
The new NAC CEO will quickly realise much has to do with providing creative leadership and giving everyone the right support and space to grow. May the Force be with Kathy Lai.
Tan Bah Bah is a retired journalist. He was a senior leader/columnist with The Straits Times and managing editor of a local magazine company.
Tragedy in Pakistan, dream home in Sentosa
By Abhijit Nag
Her father was shot dead by his own bodyguard. Her brother was abducted by armed gumen. Sara Taseer, daughter of the former governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Salmaan Taseer, however, feels happy and secure in her idyllic hideaway on a tiny island shaded by rainforests, visited by tourists and home to millionaires.
It is the only corner of Singapore where foreigners are allowed to buy land, albeit on 99-year leases. That is how she and her husband are now happy owners of a piece of the island, enough to build a dream home. After life in three cities in three continents, they have made their home in Sentosa Cove – and have every intention of staying on.
It’s a comeback for her. A Singapore returnee, the 43-year-old willowy, elegant banker-turned-jeweller was a student at the United World College here as a teenager. She went to the London School of Economics for further studies and then back to Pakistan to help her father run his businesses. In 1997, she married Pakistani financier Salman Shoaib, 46, a Brown University graduate. They lived in London, Hong Kong and New York, where she founded her own jewellery line, Sara Taseer Fine Jewellery. A trained economist who had been with Citibank in London and Rothschild in Hong Kong, she gave up banking when she became pregnant.
The couple, who also own property in New York and Pakistan, chose to raise their three children in Singapore because this is one place in Asia where English is widely spoken.
The land was still undeveloped when they bought the plot – just over 8,000 square feet – for $8 million in 2007. They commissioned local architects K2Ld to build their home when they moved in to Singapore three years later. The whimsical, slant-roofed three-storey house with a gleaming glass-and-wood façade and a swimming pool cost $4.3 million to build.
Tragedy struck during construction. Ms Taseer’s father was assassinated by his bodyguard in Islamabad in January 2011 because he opposed Pakistan’s blasphemy law.
A few months later, in August 2011, her brother, Shahbaz Taseer, was abducted by armed gunmen who surrounded his car and whisked him away in Lahore. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Last month, his wife, Maheen Taseer, a psychologist, wrote in Newsweek Pakistan a poignant account of her life since his abduction two years ago.
Her half-brother, Aatish Taseer, who alternates between Delhi and London, also did not hide his bitterness. The son of the Indian journalist Tavleen Singh, he wrote about his estrangement from his father in his book, Stranger to History (2009), and – after his father’s death – about religious intolerance in Pakistan.
I often wonder if the youth of #Pakistan will ever know the safe and peaceful Pakistan I grew up in.
— Sara Taseer (@sarataseer) September 30, 2013
Ms Taseer, too, worries about Pakistan. “I wonder if the youth of Pakistan will ever know the safe and peaceful Pakistan I grew up in,” she wrote on her Tweeter account recently.
But she can relax by her poolside at the back of her house in Sentosa Cove. Only a hedge separates it from a lush green golf course. “We feel extra safe here, so there was no need to build a house that keeps everyone out,” she told the Wall Street Journal.
“When you wake up in the morning, it’s like heaven,” she added in a rhapsody about the gorgeous view from the master bedroom on the second storey.
A portrait of John Lennon looks over the open-plan living room with a Greek marble floor. “There are few people whose faces you can live with, but Lennon is gentle and his song Imagine reminds me of why we are in Singapore, for the peace and quiet,” she said.
Feeling safe and secure, the family wanted to bring “the outdoors in” to their airy, ultramodern home. So there’s a passageway with a walk-in closet leading from the master bedroom to an indoor garden. It boasts a single tree, hoisted to the second storey by a crane. A parrot sometimes perches on the tree and squawks away.
The couple’s 10-year-old son has his room on the ground floor while they and their daughters occupy three of the four bedrooms on the second storey, leaving one aside as an extra sitting room. One floor up is a study with a slanted ceiling and a family sitting room with a stand-alone bar facing an outdoor deck with a ping-pong table. Further improvements are planned.
“One way to put roots down is to build your own house, which we never did elsewhere,” Mr Shoaib told the Journal. “But we moved to Singapore to settle down and we fully intend to grow old here.”
What's your agenda, lawyer Ravi?
Q and A with M Ravi: The lawyer who takes on cases that others shy away from tells P N Balji why he does it, how he runs his law business, what laws he wants changed
Q. Tell us about your journey. Your parents, your life as a school boy, your university life….
A. I was born in Singapore and brought up in the Jalan Kayu kampung, which was a multi-ethnic village near Seletar. I am the sixth of seven children; both my parents were construction workers. My mom was an extremely loving and compassionate person who influenced me immensely. She was the guiding light in my life. I applied myself in school and eventually I graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a degree in political science and sociology. I continued my studies at the University of Cardiff in the UK. I became an advocate and solicitor and was admitted to the Singapore Bar in 1997.
My entire life story is documented in my memoir, Kampong Boy, which is available at major bookstores.
Q. You have handled many high-profile cases, many of which others don’t want to touch. Why do you fight those cases?
A. There is an unhealthy perception that lawyers in Singapore are afraid to take up human rights causes. However, our oath at the Bar requires us to be fearless in the pursuit of justice. Such a pursuit becomes even more important when we have weak institutional checks on the state, like Parliament, and the role of the courts becomes even more critical as custodians of citizens’ rights.
As lawyers, we must be prepared to take up causes, regardless of whether they are unpopular with some members of the public – like the issue of Section 377A of the Penal Code – or whether they are unpopular with the government – such as the by-elections case.
These principles are informative when our firm decides what cases to take. We are often engaged, fundamentally, with helping someone get access to their fundamental rights and freedoms, to be treated with basic human dignity. When one engages in a constitutional challenge, it invariably critically affects all citizens, and hence our firm is compelled to act if the matter is in the public interest.
Q. There is a view that you take on these cases just to get publicity. How would you respond to that?
A. We are forthcoming with the press. The public absolutely has a right to know when their fellow citizens’ rights are trampled, when their liberty and their lives are being taken away by the state. Often, the government proceeds with policies and procedures – such as upholding the criminalisation of male homosexuality, or imposing judicial caning or the death penalty – on the basis that it is “the will of the public”. Really? How did that consultation take place?
In truth, I believe most citizens are unaware that our government sentences thousands of persons to caning every year or the brutality of that punishment (For a video of judicial caning, you can visit M Ravi Human Rights Network on Facebook). Further, I think most citizens do not know much about the lives of persons on death row for drug trafficking – the grinding poverty that many of them have come from, the family members who will die inside. I think very few people would consent to the use of the death penalty if they know these facts.
I am opposed to the death penalty, hence, there is a need to publicise the cause through activism locally and internationally. Activism and publicity at the end of the day are useless if no one cares about the client, the person for whom you are fighting for. But if these stories are told and if the public has the opportunity to participate in the dialogue on the principles and lives at stake, then there can be major changes in the way that law is reviewed and implemented.
The free press – in Singapore this would be foreign press, local online media and independent blogs – is really essential to democracy and has an inherent duty to the people. That said, for the personal publicity I’ve got, I could do without most of it. I don’t need to go into the personal information or some of the unfortunate characterisations made about me in the government- controlled media in Singapore. Publicity is a two-edged sword.
However, I will not be shy when there is an injustice that needs to be made known. I worry that in Singapore we over-value shyness as some kind of virtue. A more modest lawyer who is never in the papers is a more respectable man in our quiet culture. But what if he is not? What if he could have stuck his neck out and spoiled his quiet reputation to stand up for someone else? Some causes are far more important than our public standing or our privacy.
Q. Many of your clients are unlikely to afford the fees. Do you take on such cases for free?
A. In cases of life and liberty, yes, but we are limited by our resources. If we are working at full capacity and a new pro bono case would diminish our ability to serve our existing clients (a number of whom are pro bono), we will have to refer that person elsewhere.
Recently, we have been very fortunate to have the generous support of law professors and legal practitioners, legal interns and volunteer researchers who have given their time to support our pro bono work in Constitutional Law. This has been an immense help in these cases.
Q. What case gives you the most satisfaction and which the least?
A. Obviously, Yong Vui Kong is very close to my heart. It is heartening to know that he and others are alive today as their executions have been delayed for three years as a result of the series of constitutional challenges brought on behalf of Yong Vui Kong. Now they stand to benefit under the changes to the Mandatory Death Penalty.
Madam Vellama’s D/O Muthu’s constitutional challenge for the right to by-elections in Singapore was hugely satisfying to participate in. We were so happy when the court agreed that the Prime Minister does not have unfettered discretion whether to call a by-election! This was so historic and the outcome was the result of so many Singaporeans – professors, lawyers, librarians, interns and volunteer researchers, online journalists and bloggers – coming together and demanding with Madam Vellama that our rights be recognized.
Q. It was a surprise that cleaner Madam Vellama sought you to test the PM’s powers on holding by-elections. Did she seek you or did you seek her?
A. I decline to answer this question.
Q. You seem to want to test the boundaries, especially in cases that involve politics and the Constitution. You cut too close to the bone of the establishment. Aren’t you afraid to take on the big guns?
A. This was something I had to face when I had to cross-examine Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong in court in 2008. The Singapore Democratic Party approached me when no lawyers would represent them. It is an experience I won’t forget easily!
I think it is too late to be afraid! Anyway, if I acted on fear I would not be helpful to myself or anyone else. This part is spiritual, like walking across hot coals. One may know that it will be dangerous or painful to proceed, but there is simply no choice. So I just let my belief in the work carry me through and I find that, in this way, the universe will provide the people and the help that are needed if the cause is just.
Q. Will you go into politics?
A. I am asked this question from time to time; however, this is not something that is on my mind right now as there is so much work to be done in my present capacity as a human rights lawyer. In addition to my work in Singapore, I am working with a team to launch human rights clinics in Asean as well as working with international NGOs to improve access to justice in Asia.
I believe we all have responsibilities as citizens. You don’t have to become a politician to play your part in a democracy. Even if the opposition was in power, I would continue to take on challenges in the interest of our constitutional rights and our rights as individuals.
Q. What aspects of the Singapore law would you want changed?
A. Obviously, I want the death penalty to be abolished. I want an end to judicial caning. I want to see Section 377A of the Penal Code overturned.
I believe we need major changes in the treatment of the accused. The accused has a right to remain silent – the law must not undermine that. The accused has a right to an attorney and should not be questioned without his attorney present, full stop. The police need to respect this. It is especially disheartening when the accused has a major mental disability, and we find him remanded for days, subjected to marathon sessions of interrogation and he is completely distressed. What can be accomplished by this?
All statements taken from accused persons should be video-recorded. We have cameras at every street corner, but where they could actually protect our civil rights, we have none? Nonsense.
We must dramatically reform the offence of sub-judice contempt of court. Reporting on issues before the court is the function of a free press everywhere, especially in a public interest litigation. Why are we in the dark ages on this? I add to this the offence of “scandalizing the judiciary”. The threat of such offences has a chilling effect on appropriate public scrutiny of the judicial process.
I would like to see the implementation of a jury system in criminal cases, as Japan has recently implemented. One should be tried before a jury of his peers. Knowing how we excel in efficiency in Singapore, I know we can come up with an efficient mechanism to make this possible. Perhaps it could be a model for other countries to follow. I also believe that the state should provide a public defender to accused persons in criminal matters who cannot afford counsel, as is the case in Taiwan and the US.
I would like to see the establishment of a third tier of appeal in criminal cases in our justice system. Currently, we have the High Court and the Court of Appeal. Previously, our highest court of appeal was the Privy Council in London. It should have been replaced in our system with a Superior Court with a panel of five judges. When it was not replaced, it reduced our access to justice.
I would like to see the Elections Department to be made independent of the Prime Minister’s Office. I would like to see the Coroner’s Act amended to require that full reports are completed in any case of wrongful death. I would like to see some changes to the Industrial Relations Act to enable workers with greater recourse when their unions have failed to represent them. I would like to see massive changes to protect foreign workers in Singapore. I would like to see less restriction on freedom of assembly and free press… I guess there is enough to keep me busy for a long time!
Q. How is your health?
A. I decline to answer this question.
Google and The Straits Times
By Abhijit Nag
In a way Google has become more like The Straits Times.
When did you last see a Google bomb embarrassing a top leader? Remember when you typed “miserable failure” in the search box, George Bush showed up on the results page? That was back in 2007. There have been other Google bombs since but nothing that made such a buzz.
I recall an Australian was handed over to the police at Changi airport after trouble on a Tiger Airways flight in January but was subsequently let off. I first read about the incident not on Google News but on another website. It was reported by The Straits Times after making headlines in Australia.
Google seems to be cleaning up its act, guarding not only against Google bombs but also sanitizing the content. Google’s Blogger, for example, does not show the same content in every country. If India objects to a blog, that won’t be shown there but elsewhere.
Google, which celebrated its 15th birthday on Friday, is no longer what it was. I was underwhelmed when I first saw it. The site looked so bare – just a search box on a white web page.
My Yahoo was my favourite website then, a personal home page with magically updated feeds from my favourite news sources – Yahoo News, BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times. I could read them all for free.
My Yahoo seemed to offer so much more than Google — a white page with just a search box. How mistaken I was. Now we can hardly do without Google.
Google has not only grown and diversified, offering almost every online tool from email to web analytics, but changed fundamentally.
No advertisements were allowed on Google when it was launched. Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote a research paper while at Stanford where they said that “some advertisers attempt to gain people’s attention by taking measures meant to mislead automated search engines”.
In the year 2000, however, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords. The ads were text-based and so less obtrusive than the banner ads on Yahoo and other sites.
“The ultimate search engine,” said Page, “would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want.”
If you want to know about Taj Mahal the American singer, you don’t want search results showing Taj Mahal the famous marble mausoleum in Agra.
Google introduced personalized search in 2005. “By personalizing your results based on your search history, we hope to deliver you the most useful, relevant content for your search,” said Google.
Personalized search can be useful and when I use Google News, instead of the standard Singapore edition, I prefer a personalized version which gives me more content.
The problem is Google has extended personalization beyond search and the Google News site.
Eli Pariser says in his book, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You:
“Most of us assume that when we google a term, we all see the same results… But since December 2009, this is no longer true. Now you get the result that Google’s algorithm suggests is best for you in particular – and someone else may see something entirely different. In other words, there is no standard Google anymore.”
[fvplayer src=”http://youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s”]
Google’s algorithms are secret. That makes it less transparent than, say, The Straits Times. With The Straits Times, you know what you are likely to get. But you can’t predict what you will get when you google. The algorithms are secret to prevent manipulation of the search results, but it means Google works in mysterious ways.
“Is Google making us stupid?” asked the writer Nicholas Carr in a famous article. I don’t think so, but the general knowledge quizzes I used to love when there was no World Wide Web seem less relevant now because you don’t have to remember all that information any more — you can get it on the Net.
I wonder, however, about what the internet is doing to language. Books enriched language, wrote Nicholas Carr in his book, The Shallows, while on the internet you skip and jump. People don’t read but scan online, it is said.
Bloggers are told to write simply for easy reading. Simplicity is fine, but there should also be sensuous writers like John Updike and Lawrence Durrell whose words you have to linger over to appreciate their beauty. Unfortunately, that kind of slow, leisurely reading is not what we do on the internet, where we want information fast and relevant.
“Google updates search engine to answer questions more like a human”, reported The Huffington Post as Google celebrated its 15thbirthday. The new algorithm, called Hummingbird, will try to match the meanings of queries with content on the internet instead of matching keywords as Google originally did, reported Reuters and The New York Times. Google said it made the changes because users are asking increasingly long and complex questions and searching Google more often on mobile phones with voice search.
So Google is responding to us. No wonder the information it provides is getting more personalized, less comprehensive. Are you interested in what I had for lunch?