One may choke to death, overpowered by others till one is unable to breathe. But, though fatal, that is not a “severe injury”.
That is one of the things you learn from the Ministry of Home Affairs’ statement on the death of Dinesh Raman – a statement “deplored” by civil society members yesterday. (See full statement.)
Dinesh Raman, 21, died in prison three years ago when after, attacking an officer, he had to be restrained by eight officers.
The autopsy report said the cause of his death was “consistent with positional asphyxia”. In other words, he was put (forced?) into a position where he was unable to breathe.
The Straits Times reported he was left in an isolation cell with his head to one side and his chest down in the prone position, restricting the respiratory movements of his chest and abdomen. The autopsy report noted he had suffered bruises and abrasions. But it added, “There was no evidence of head injury, compressive neck injury, skeletal fracture or dislocation.”
So Dinesh’s family and their lawyer, M Ravi, were making a false allegation claiming, “Dinesh sustained severe injuries from which he passed away,” said the ministry.
The ministry also denied their allegation that “the prison officers abused their positions of authority and assaulted Dinesh”. “Dinesh Raman was restrained as a result of his unprovoked attack on a prison officer,” the ministry said.
The prisoner died not because of abuse but because of negligence, according to the court.
“The court found DSP Lim guilty of negligence not amounting to culpable homicide… for failing to adequately supervise the restraint operation,” the ministry acknowledged.
DSP Lim was fined $10,000.
The government offered compensation to Dinesh’s family. However, the family has informally asked for “substantial windfall amounts that are completely disproportionate”, the ministry said. It pointed out that Dinesh was a secret society member who did not complete his O levels and never had a stable job.
By rehashing his criminal record, the ministry statement was indulging in character assassination, objected civil society members.
This is not the first ministry statement on Dinesh. The Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) has also issued a statement on the case.
But questions remain.
Why was DSP Lim found guilty nearly three years after the death of Dinesh?
The incident took place on September 27, 2010, but DSP Lim was found guilty and fined $10,000 on July 19, 2013. So when did the prosecution begin?
The question arises because Dinesh’s family wants the coroner’s inquiry reopened.
The Attorney General’s Chambers clarified on July 25 why the coroner’s inquiry was discontinued.
“Under the Coroners Act, the coroner is required to hold an inquiry into any death that occurs while in official custody – for instance, where an inmate dies in prison,” it said..
However, section 39 of the Coroners Act provides that if anyone is charged for the death under the penal code, then the coroner has to wait for the conclusion of the criminal proceedings.
That is why the coroner’s inquiry into the Dinesh Raman case was discontinued – “because the cause of death was established in the criminal proceedings,” said the ministry. Dinesh’s family did not object when the inquiry was discontinued, it added.
However, the family filed an affidavit with the High Court last month seeking a mandatory order for the coroner to reopen the inquiry. Dinesh’s mother, Madam Selvi Narayanasamy, claimed the case would have been “completely different” if Lim had not pleaded guilty because then “full evidence would have had to be called”.
In response, the ministry has accused the family of spreading “falsehoods” and claimed they want a “windfall”, “disproportionate” to their loss. The ministry claimed it had been “generous”, basing compensation on what Dinesh might have earned had he gone to ITE and held a steady job instead of being what he was — a secret society member without a steady job and not even O levels.
Far from sounding “generous’, though, the statement showed a lack of sympathy, speaking ill of the dead. The civil society members called the government statement “reprehensible”. Strong words, but the ministry did itself no favours by trumpeting its “generosity” to the family of a youth who died – however inadvertently – in custody.
“The MHA has reduced this case into a transaction by saying that Dinesh’s family is seeking a financial windfall,” said the civil society members in a statement “We want justice to be served and we are appalled by the apparent lack of compassion shown by the authorities.”
“The action of the ministry in publishing its press release is deeply wrong,” the statement said. “It has done so in a way that is clearly intended to destroy Mr Dinesh’s posthumous reputation. We have no doubt that by doing so it has added to the deep grief of the family, already suffering the profound pain of their only son’s loss. It is entirely unseemly for the Ministry of Home Affairs to have done so.
“As fellow citizens, we demand that the Minister for Home Affairs apologize to the family.”
The statement was signed by Vincent Wijeysingha, Constance Singam, Jolovan Wham, Andrew Loh, Martyn See, Russell Heng, Paul Ananth Tambyah and Ravi Philemon among others.
How much is too much compensation for a dead prisoner?
Our faulty Singapore Conversation
By Vernon Chan
News Analysis
The publication of the Our SG Conversation Survey on 25 August 2013 has elicited varied responses. While there are some who have taken it at face value, some political commentators have questioned the validity of the OSC survey. For them, there seems to be a disjoint in what is being discussed and agreed on as opposed to the ground sentiments. This is a manifestation of an erosion of public confidence in survey instruments.
How would we know if the results of the year-long focus group-oriented OSC are indeed representative of what the average Singaporean feels and think; whether its hot topics are in line with what the average Singaporean sees as important? In other words, were the OSC dialogue participants representative of our population? Only by conducting a separate survey can the IPS provide the important “second layer of authentication” to the OSC dialogues.
The OSC survey should be viewed as a snapshot of our country’s mood at a point in time – in this case, the period between December 2012 and January 2013. It would not measure changes in the national mood, if any, caused by any significant event or events after that period.
The question that beckons is, was the survey representative of Singaporeans?
The IPS says that a random sample of 4,000 people will have a 95% probability, give or take 1.5%, of being representative of the population. While the sample was stratified for age, gender, and ethnicity, it may not be representative of the Singapore population in all other measures, such as income distribution or education level.
Also, what’s not stated in the results is the non-response rate of the survey. The implications are two-fold: an indication of the survey’s accuracy and quality, as well as an indication of the public’s degree of buy-in to the OSC brand.
The other thing that is not stated is the number of people who failed to complete each question. By discarding “Don’t know” and other non-responses in the presentation of graphical data, the OSC poll omits information that is critical in its extrapolations to the wider population.
While I have no problems with how the survey was conducted, I take issue with the sloppy phrasing of several questions. The survey is peppered with vague, ambiguous, and even contentious phrases like “forward-looking government”, “holistic education”, and “gay lifestyles”.
IPS researcher Leong Chan Hoong said that “the survey did not elaborate on the contentious term” and that respondents were allowed to interpret key phrases “using a lens they are normally used to.” This is contrary to the principles of sound survey design where neutral, straightforward language is used whenever possible, or explicit explanations provided otherwise.
Like many policy preference surveys which strive to highlight a ‘trade-off’ between policy choices, the OSC often comes close to committing the basic mistake of survey methodology: asking double barrelled questions. While one policy preference need not be linked to another policy preference it’s bundled with, the respondent is forced to either accept both or reject both.
By resorting to double-barrelled questions, a survey simplifies complex policy debates with multiple solutions and dimensions, traps respondents into believing there is a zero-sum game between policy preferences, and silences creative or radical solutions – as in Figure 13, “Comparing preferences to limits to individual freedom of expression and censorship”.
The second graph is far more egregious in its social engineering: “Censor media content; protect public interest” vs “Do not censor media content at all”. Did the IPS just tell 4,000 respondents that all censorship is to protect the public interest?
In another example (Figure 11), despite the title of the graph, the double barrelled question asked was: “Globally competitive academic standards despite more stress” vs “More holistic, less competitive education system”. In this case, the double barrel consists of bundling “globally competitive academic system” and “stress” on one hand and “holistic education system” and “less competitive system” on the other hand.
It’s a question that places at least 4 items into false oppositions with each other!
The angst in Singapore is how Singapore education is intensely competitive for its students, not how globally competitive it is. Worded as such, the question changes the goalposts of the Singapore education debate by tying the high stress system to its alleged global competitiveness.
Like many policy preference surveys, the OSC survey is an exercise that measures intrinsic preferences instead of asking people if given today’s situation, which direction they feel policy should move towards.
There are some commentators who applaud how the OSC dialogue sessions are fostering a new spirit of active, open consultation. Yet the OSC survey, whether through design or sheer carelessness, ends up renewing the old spirit of guided, mediated consultation. It is my opinion this will do little to build trust in survey instruments or overturn perceptions that they do not reflect the real mood in Singapore.
Vernon Chan, a freelance writer and researcher, is a sociology graduate from NUS.
The Chiams, Tan Jee Say and mooncakes
By Kumaran Pillai
Former presidential candidate Tan Jee Say has been invited to eat mooncakes with the Chiams. But “it is no ordinary mooncake,” said one SPP member, “it is a political mooncake that is going to define politics in Singapore.”
Tan in a phone interview this morning has confirmed that he will be attending the function at the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Chiam but would not say anything more about his membership.
But party members had more to offer: One SPP member said that he had seen Tan at the SPP office on a few occasions. Tan will be joining the party in a leadership capacity and may be contesting in the general elections in 2016, he added.
The other prominent politician on the guest list is Dr Ang Yong Guan, who contested on the SDP ticket in GE 2011.
It turns out that the Chiams have been actively recruiting members into their party. Former RP Treasurer Kumar Appavoo joined the SPP late last year.
Prominent statistician and political activist Leong Sze Hian is also an active volunteer with the SPP since GE 2011. There are other new members who are going to be introduced at the party event tomorrow.
SPP has also reinvented itself after the electoral setback in GE 2011 and an unsuccessful coup led by political newcomer Benjamin Pwee at the party conference in 2012.
Pwee has since taken over the Democratic Progressive Party and is the secretary general of the party. Several ex-SPP members who contested in Bishan-Toa Payoh have joined him there. He plans to stand from Bishan-Toa Payoh in the next general election.
Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Lina Chiam has also been speaking up more actively than her peers in parliament. She has championed several issues and not afraid to ask the hard questions. She has also been conducting her weekly walkabouts in Potong Pasir and Bishan-Toa Payoh.
I have personally met the Chiams on a few occasions and I must say that they are a determined lot: Mr. Chiam is still very jovial and charming despite his poor health and Mrs. Chiam, his faithful companion who stood by him against all odds, wants to preserve his legacy.
Lee and Lee: The job has changed
By PN BALJI
Editor, The Independent Singapore
The city-state of Singapore appears to have run squarely into a mid-life crisis nine years after Lee Hsien Loong became prime minister, and two years after an embarrassing general election outing by his ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and 18 months after a humiliating by-election defeat. The question observers in some circles have begun to ask is this: Just exactly where is Singapore’s leader?
In a country where leadership has traditionally been decisive, clear and in your face, the government under Lee in recent years has been uncharacteristically muddling through a mini-crisis of confidence. There have been complaints from Singaporeans about the seemingly unchecked entry of foreign workers into the country, the growing rich-poor divide, the high cost of public housing, an overworked public transit system that has been plagued by delays and breakdowns, and scandals involving top civil servants.
Even the one thing that Singapore has had bragging rights over in the past – its high annual economic growth rate – is now fading as the country becomes a mature economy and settles into more modest growth rates. The mood of the nation is turning sour, with the population “wanting to have the cake and eat it, too”, as Eugene Tan, an assistant law professor at the Singapore Management University (SMU), said.
Former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong recently described the malaise as that of a nation reaching a mid-life crisis and hitting an inflexion point. Singapore is beginning to look like a listless and rudderless boat in an ocean of uncertainty.
For the first time…
But then came Sunday, August 18. Prime Minister Lee addressed the nation for the 10th time on the occasion of the country’s most important speech of the year, that marking independence day.
This time, the prime minister came out fighting, with a speech that even observers such as Singaporean academic Cherian George referred to as “probably Lee Hsien Loong’s best National Day Rally speech.”
The nation saw Lee for the first time imprinting his own style on the annual address, saying that the country was at a turning point and the government was making strategic shifts to position Singapore for the next chapter in its future.
For the first time in a long while, Singaporeans saw a prime minister showing empathy for the masses, referring to the need for appropriate social policies and betraying a slight left-of-centre shift in political ideology. It looked as though the government was going back to its socialist roots during the early days leading to independence.
There were references in the speech to grants for young citizens to buy public housing, measures to ease the anxiety of parents about getting their children into schools of their choice and, most important, a decisive move to bring every Singaporean under a comprehensive medical insurance scheme.
Don’t worry, Lee said emphatically, we will take care of you. In a measure of how sweeping Lee’s speech is being perceived, opposition politician Gerald Giam said, “The speech was a recognition that major reforms, and not just incremental tweaks to policies and philosophies, are necessary.”
To be sure, not everyone was convinced that the shift by Lee was genuine. Donald Low, associate dean of executive education and research at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the government is not on a reformist path. “I would argue that the changes reflect a government that continues to believe in the currency and relevance of its long-established script – but also one which is prepared to deliver its lines and perform its role differently,” he said in a commentary.
Former prime minister Goh said his successor is having a tougher time than his predecessors. Lee is still trying to find his feet governing a country buffeted by an unsettled population and a mature economy.
SMU’s Tan added, ” It’s hard to, and probably not fair, to compare…(but) a case can be made that Lee Hsien Loong has a tougher job because success is now harder to come by and society a lot more complex and diverse.
He has to look after material concerns and post-material aspirations unlike his two predecessors, who very much had to worry about material concerns.
So, to garner the people’s strong support for government policies is a lot tougher today since more Singaporeans than ever before know only of a First World Singapore. The Third Word to First World grand narrative is losing traction with Singaporeans born after independence.”
The three PMs
There is another unseen and unspoken issue. After nine years as prime minister, it is difficult to pin down Lee’s defining attributes and distinctive style, his persona.
Singapore’s founder and first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, took a nation, through crude and brutal domestic politics, to a level that nobody had ever dreamed possible. His successor, Goh, after a fitful early start, went on to stamp his mark as a consensus-building leader and rode a wave of strong economic growth.
But Lee Hsien Loong? He has served for nine years simply as someone who is known yet unknown.
Could it be that he came into office ever conscious of being his father’s son? He was always going to be compared to his father. That was inevitable. But it was unfortunate, because his father’s substance and style are now out of fashion.
George W. Bush, in his memoir, Decision Points, pointedly said, “the truth is that I never had to search for a role model – I was the son of George Bush (Sr.).”
There is a parallel here in Singapore. Lee Hsien Loong’s role model was inevitably seen to be that of his father. As the first-born son of his father (as George Bush Jr. was of Bush Sr.), Lee had an unspoken duty to follow in his father’s footsteps.
When decisive actions have been needed during his tenure as prime minister, he must have asked himself: Will I be seen as my father’s son? And will today’s generation accept that?
The Internet
Then, there is the Internet. Lee and his team have still not come to understand and embrace this wild, wild world of opinions. A nation constrained by a government that has traditionally communicated that it always knows what is best for the people has finally found its public voice.
And what would you expect of a public still in the first flush of a new-found freedom? They will grab the megaphone to make their voices heard, sometimes without a thought about the veracity and validity of their views.
They will test the waters to see how far they can go.
Perhaps this is the karma of Lee Hsien Loong’s government.
Quotations from the prime minister in a recent book co-authored by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt show how far behind the curve the government is in coming to grips with politics in the digital world.
“The danger we face in future is that it will be far easier to be against something than for it,” Lee is quoted as saying.
By all accounts, the prime minister is highly respected for his intelligence. Those who have worked with him say that his ability to zero in on a problem, identify the underlying issues and come up with solutions is unquestionable.
But in today’s Singapore, more than that is needed. What is needed is someone who is prepared to cast aside past policies that are causing different people different problems, roll up his sleeves and move a nation.
As SMU’s Tan said: “There is a growing desire for more consultation before policy is made, for a less dominant PAP government in many facets of Singapore life, for more political pluralism and checks and balances.
Then, there is the challenge of Singaporeans wanting an effective and efficient government, while desiring a less assertive and less domineering government.
It’s a case of Singaporeans wanting to have their cake and eat it, too.
In short, PM Lee’s challenge is the need to remain popular in a more competitive political setting while eschewing populist policies that may generate short-term gains but imperil the long-term future of Singapore and Singaporeans.
The Cabinet
Lee also suffers from a cabinet that pales in comparison to the distinguished officials who populated the cabinets of the two previous prime ministers. Where today, for example, are the Goh Keng Swees, S. Rajaratnams, Lim Kim Sans, S. Dhanabalans, Tony Tans, Ong Teng Cheongs of previous generations?
Tan said: “Unlike his predecessors, who led Singapore with a group accustomed to the school of hard knocks, the lack of a political baptism among the 3G and 4G leadership means that PM Lee’s cabinet does not have the full complement of moral authority.
The long years of political dominance (1959 to date), including political hegemony between 1968 and 1981, have also meant that the PAP machinery is not as robust a fighting machine as it was in the 1960s to 1980s.
In short, the cruelest of cards has been dealt Singapore’s current prime minister. He has just another three years to reshuffle those cards before he faces his biggest electoral test. That test is not just for him, but for a country that is seen by many in Asia as a model for prosperity and harmony. It remains to be seen how he plays those cards. But his August 18 National Day speech suggests he may have a card or two up his sleeve.
Minding the gap
By Chanel Morgan
Prospects for the lowest income earners in Singapore look to be getting even tougher. Without an official poverty line, and being the third richest country in the world, shouldn’t we strive to be a more charitable nation?
Our country is home to the highest percentage of millionaires. According to an MOF report in 2012, the top 1% of taxable income earners in Singapore are taxed an average of $0.7 million per year.
The rich are getting richer, with the number of income earners within the top 1%, rising from 29,524 in 2009, to 32,285 in 2012.
Since the IRAS only requires declarations on taxable income, non-taxable income – such as capital gains – need not be reported.
CPF statistics in 2011 illustrated that over 259,000 earn less than $1,000 a month, with 458,000 Singaporeans earning less than $1,500 a month. Even if a portion of these individuals include part-time workers or national service men, the evidence is enough to suggest that the number of Singaporeans struggling to make ends meet reaches well into the thousands.
It is globally known that addressing income inequality is the first step in reducing ‘poverty’ – both are intrinsically linked. Even though there are distributional policies on the government’s agenda to curb the poverty depth and severity, the hard truth is that in essence, the refusal to adopt a welfare oriented system is good for growth, but not so good for poverty.
Relative poverty dilemma
Consider the one-room apartments subsidized by the government – at times, these apartments house an entire family in a space of 30 square metres. The public housing statistics of 2008 revealed that one third of these families living in one-room flats do not earn any income; and despite the numerous religious, civil and non-profit organizations presently in the works, some of these low-income families are simply not eligible for assistance.
The most vulnerable in the poverty equation however, are those who are most often left out of sight. It is the children of lower-income families who are at high risk of suffering from the adverse impacts of poverty. As cited by the University of Queensland, Australia, “children experiencing family poverty at any developmental stage in their early life course have reduced levels of cognitive development”.
The only way to ensure every youth is entitled to a decent upbringing is to target Singapore’s problem of high inequality before it gets worse.
Finding a way out
One solution to minimize the income gap is for Singapore’s wealthiest individuals to espouse a philanthropic campaign similar to ‘The Giving Pledge’; a campaign organized and launched in 2010 by the world’s richest men, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.
It all started when the world’s no. 82 Russian billionaire, Vladimir Potanin, advised Gates on his ability to persuade the world’s richest to donate, noting that Gates should “try and move this initiative from American soil”, making this “a real international initiative.’ Since 2010, the number of pledges has now grown to 114 signatories.
The Buffett-Gates initiative is based on billionaires making a moral pledge to donate their fortunes to charity within their lifetime or after death.
Recent signatories include New York based real estate magnate Stephen Ross, hedge fund manager Paul E Singer and the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire Sara Blakely; their charitable commitments can be seen at www.thegivingpledge.org, together with commitments made by other billionaires worldwide.
If Singapore were to launch a similar campaign which required the extremely wealthy to make contributions to a fund that specifically helped the poor, we would have to avoid creating a philanthropic culture led primarily through government patronage. Ultimately, people should be driven to give of their own will, to their desired charities and should be doing so from the heart, just like the Buffett-Gates initiative.
The Russian exemplar
Perhaps Singapore’s rich should take a lesson or two from Potanin, who decided to act on the fact that “The gap between the poor and the rich is so huge”. He understood his actions would not guarantee a radical change in attitudes, but that it would unquestionably encourage others to do the same.
Determined to get away from the reputation of being profligate spenders who bought yachts every few days, Potanin led the way for his fellow countrymen to give to charity. He was the first Russian billionaire to sign up for the Giving Pledge, promising half his wealth – worth US$12.3 billion, as of 8 August – to philanthropic causes.
Going through data gathered from Russia’s 15 wealthiest billionaires, and from annual reports published by their companies and charitable organizations, Bloomberg News recently confirmed that interest in philanthropy among Russia’s richest is increasing.
Between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2012, 15 Russian billionaires who offered documentation to Bloomberg donated a grand total of US$1.64 billion to charitable projects.
The total worth of Russia’s 15 richest men –they’re all men – was a whopping US$155 billion as of 8 Aug, which is roughly 8% of Russia’s economy; this meant that the 15 philanthropists who provided the data had given away roughly 1% of their aggregated fortunes during the three-year period.
All it could take is just one of Singapore’s wealthiest moguls to set the benchmark of moral precept, influencing others to get on the bandwagon. After all, many would agree that the path to happiness is to lead by good example. If we can promote a similar initiative of true philanthropy in Singapore, there’s no saying what Singapore cannot do.
Chanel Morgan is pursuing her Mass Communications Degree from Murdoch University.
The saving of souls
By Augustine Low
“If I spend $1 million and we win 138,000 souls, that means every soul is worth less than $1,000. To me, that is a good buy.”
Indonesian businessman Wahju Hanafi could not have put it more explicitly when testifying at the ongoing trial of City Harvest Church leaders. He was justifying his $1 million-a-year donation to the church for its Crossover Project – the church’s way of evangelising through pop music.
Likening church donation to a “good buy” shows the extent of the culture to commodify everything.
But in truth, commercialisation of spirituality has its roots many years ago, in places as diverse as India and the United States, where empires have been built to cater to people’s dire need for soul searching.
The call to heal, to find bliss, to see truth and light – often in the form of a pop sub-culture – has resonated with masses across the continents.
When I was in California last November, curiosity drove me to visit Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, which boasts the world’s largest reflective glass building. At its peak several years ago, the mega church was dubbed the Hollywood church, with its movie star guest speakers and weekly ‘live’ TV shows.
But the church went bankrupt in 2010.
For every such story gone awry, there are dozens of success stories, whether of organised faith or alternative belief systems, where the following can be mind boggling.
The question that people have attempted to ask, but where the answer is often elusive, is: What is the price of finding God?
In the view of Mr Wahju Hanafi in the City Harvest Church trial, if it’s less than $1,000 per soul, it’s a “good buy”.
Despite all that has happened in this world, religion continues to possess power and moral authority. And rightly so, one could argue.
Religion’s positive force, like so much else in the world, flows from thought.
The challenge then is to avoid commercialised religion turning into modern business, into becoming pop sub-culture.
Which in turn suggests that the challenge for the state against the leaders of City Harvest Church in the ongoing trial is indeed a very delicate one which requires a deft balancing act.
For the general public, it makes for compelling following.
Augustine Low is a communications strategist.
Singapore's extraordinary household
Taken out of the school system and homeschooled, the Yap boys show what can be achieved with the active involvement of their extraordinary parents.
Thinking out of the box is the new normal in their home. Except that they can’t afford to think in clichés. Mathew Yap and his wife, Pew Ying, have chosen the road less travelled in education. They have taken all three sons out of school and homeschooled them for some time.
“Disappointed? No RI!” exclaims Mr. Yap, a Rafflesian from 1971-76, who doesn’t sound unhappy at all that his sons have not attended his alma mater. “It was a rather enriching journey, somewhat of an adventure, makes me a better husband and father I think, ” he adds, musing on their homeschooling experiences.
The boys
Today, eldest son Jeremy is 22 and has graduated with a diploma in new media studies from Republic Polytechnic. He is now doing national service. Their second son, Joseph, 20, has worked for six months as a pre-school teacher and will enter national service in November. He got his diploma in early childhood education from Ngee Ann Polytechnic last April. The youngest son Alyon, 16, also wants to go to a polytechnic after his O levels.
Jeremy, by the way, has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of hidden autism. Alyon’s autistic behaviours are a bit more obvious.
Jeremy was offered exemption from national service by Mindef, but he chose to serve nevertheless. “It’s an honour to do national service,” he says.
Those were exactly the words his father used on the day they made the decision after a specially-convened medical board review at the Defence Ministry’s CMPB (central manpower base) earlier this year. Mr. Yap explains he told his son he could opt out of national service, but it would be an honour to serve the nation.
Talking to the Yaps and their homeschooled sons, you see how often they are on the same page.
When Joseph says he wants to do communications and media studies next and is asked why, the swift reply is: “I want to be like my Dad.” “The fruit doesn’t fall from the tree,” quips Mrs. Yap.
The parents
Mr. Yap, 55, a former Straits Times journalist in the late 1980s who subsequently worked for Standard Chartered Bank and British Petroleum before setting up his own training consultancy, now also has publication covering Malaysia with focus on Iskandar, the ambitious development project in Johor.
He can be seen in photos with Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, Mr. Goh Chok Tong, Mr. SR Nathan on one wall of the living room in his East Coast condominium.
Mrs. Yap Pew Ying, 52, is a Raffles Girls School alumna who once taught in the gifted education programme in her alma mater but resigned as a teacher after she had her second son. She has not stopped teaching altogether. She continues to be a relief teacher.
An English teacher, she might seem better qualified than most to homeschool her sons. “But, it was a leap of faith into uncharted territory,” she says. “Those days autism, homeschooling were not words in the public consciousness in Singapore.”
The discovery
To begin with, she did not even know their eldest son had autism. “He had a gift for mimicking people,” she recalls. “He could mimic their speech without even knowing the meaning of the words.” He also loved to read. But he could hardly cope with the pressure as the time drew near to sit for the PSLE. Sometimes he would have to stay up till midnight finishing his maths and Chinese lessons. Naturally, he sought relief. “Sometimes he would hide in the toilet for an hour to read a book,” remembers Mrs. Yap.
There were also problems in school. Sometimes he would be bullied by the other boys and, pushed to the extreme, he would burst out. Finally, at 15, Health Ministry’s psychiatrists confirmed he had Autism-Asperger syndrome.
The school system more than a decade ago did not seem geared for students like Jeremy. Mrs. Yap had no illusions about how he would fare, given that he was particularly weak in Chinese. She could not blame the child. Her husband, a Straits-born Chinese Baba, and she herself, from Malaysia, did not even study Mandarin in their school years in the 1960s and 70s. But, for Jeremy, it was clear if his Chinese did not improve, that would drag down his grades and affect his future.
The solution
And so, Mr. and Mrs. Yap had no choice, but to figure a way out. Being a teacher helped a bit in the thinking: Their son did not have to study Chinese to get into a polytechnic, she realized. All he needed were five O levels. But he had to study Chinese in secondary school. So she took him out of school and homeschooled him herself.
“I also don’t want to go to school,” said the second son Joseph. He was perfectly fine, but did not understand why only his brother should be allowed to stay at home. He also wanted to be taught by his mother. “So I ended up teaching both of them, and had to bear in mind that they were two years apart,” she says.
Jeremy and Joseph needed five O levels but, to be safe, she made them take seven subjects, including Bible studies and – her own specialty – English literature. And she did not only teach them herself. They also enrolled in MDIS College, which prepares students for the O levels.
In hindsight, the Yaps seem to have made the right choices, but at the time they went through a lot of soul-searching, a lot of angst. Mr. Yap gestures in the air as he recalls sleepless nights, wrestling with heavy, academic and medical books on autism and Asperger’s syndrome. “It was not easy reading,” he says. But he wanted to understand the conditions of his sons so he could help them.
“We were inspired by our friends,” says Mrs Yap, talking about a couple. Trained teachers, they are “NIE (National Institute of Education) gold medalists”, she adds. And yet they decided to homeschool their own children.
Not every teacher can take care of children with special needs, says Mrs. Yap. She laughs as she recalls times when she was asked by Jeremy’s and Alyon’s teachers if they would be continuing in school. They meant well, agree Mr. and Mrs. Yap. The teachers had their sons’ best interests at heart. They needed special care.
But even teachers trained to teach children with special needs can’t handle all of them equally well, says Mrs. Yap. Some are good with children suffering from sensory dysfunction like Alyon’s odd autistic behavioral tendencies and obsession about cleanliness, others are better at teaching other children with hyperactive behaviours.
The Yaps have moved house in quest for a better education. They moved out of their landed house in Kembangan to an apartment in Siglap just because it was only a five-minute walk to Alyon’s Opera Estates Primary School.
Now the family lives in another condo in Katong. “By homeschooling him, I’m giving him time to mature,” says Mrs. Yap about her youngest son Alyon who is being homeschooled now again after two years in MacPherson Secondary School. Their plan is to let him do a preparatory course for O levels next year or 2015, and later enrol him in a polytechnic.
Faith and scouts
Alyon’s favourite subjects include geography and biology. “We are looking at a few private schools for his O levels preparation,” says Mr Yap. Alyon looks younger than his years and has a tendency to carry on talking about something he liked even when his parents tell him to stop.
He is able to remember “long strings of numbers”, says his mother, adding he also loves trains and cricket. He will get to see both when he goes to England where, with his sharp memory, he will probably get to know the London Underground like the back of his hand. He has already got wind of a London Underground maven who will bring him up to speed. And, yes, he will watch cricket. His parents are taking him to England this month as a treat, having taken the elder sons to Turkey last year.
Mr. Yap, who with his whole family worships at the Bethesda Community Church, laughs when asked if their faith led them to homeschool their sons. “Some may suspect we are Christian fundamentalists because we homeschooled our sons, but no that’s not why we did it,” he says. “More like by Divine- Mystery-Design than by luxury of normal choices.”
No wonder the former president was taken aback. When did you last meet a scout troop of boys and girls who did not go to school?
Yes, the Yaps are unusual. Mr. Yap, a former NorthEast CDC councilor, does not buy even the standard take on happiness. Happiness cannot be defined by material success, he says, it varies from person to person.
Mrs. Yap, of course, agrees with him. The English teacher, who regrets the young generation is “ill-read”, made a habit of reading together with her family, sharing books and ideas with them. When a family reads together, all the members stay on the same page.
The wrong road to relevance
By Robin Low
Social media is becoming a mature communication platform everywhere. In the early days, marketers have used social media as another medium to broadcast their messages. People joined social media because it is new, many thought it might be a fad and asked the question “Why do we do social media?” Years later, after 1.5 billion active users use Facebook daily, the question now is “How can I do better?”
Brands are using multiple platforms to engage their stakeholders. Hashtags are being commonly used across platforms. There are great interests in mobile devices and location based apps. These social technology updates today change our behaviors in many things we do. But social media is more than just Facebook, Twitter and using Hashtags, it is being an influencer.
In the age of the search engines, content is king. But in the age of social media, context is king. Amplification of signal is crucial to filter out the noise. The top-down information structure is long overdue and context is the catalyst that shifts focus on relevance. Our networks expand and contract. The pressure of connection is not significant as people today look for meaningful connections, relevant information and deliberate value. In the center of every experience are individuals interacting in the network — people driven information network.
With advancements in communications and technology, organizations may risk losing their relevance if they do not evolve and keep up. Traditional media cannot keep up with the speeds of social media. The era of command and control is over, large organizations and governments do not hold all the information, and in fact, information we get is increasingly social. Large organizations with top down bureaucracies find it hard to keep up with the dynamic challenges, and most often, when they fail to control the medium, they fall back in what they know — censorship.
In Vietnam, there is a contentious legislation that effectively prohibits Vietnamese bloggers and users of social-networking sites from discussing current affairs and sharing online stories. Unfortunately these decrees are becoming more common as countries lay down draconian laws about how their citizens are to interact with the Internet. China too has laws that put bloggers and others who share news to jail if they consider it to be rumours.
In Singapore, the government intends to moderate the online social space. The ministers used the term “noise” to describe the activity on social media, and there is a heavy tone on caution and danger whenever they deal with online discussions. The Online Citizen, an online news portal was gazetted as a political association for covering an alternate views in the General Elections. There were also sedition charges against political cartoonist Leslie Chew; the list goes on.
After losing popularity in the general elections and the by-election, the government started Singapore Conversation, a national conversation initiative planned at getting feedback and understand ground sentiment. However, many people are sceptical about the initiative’s effectiveness to understand the average Singaporeans.
Conversations happen on the Internet with or without the government’s approval. Setting up an official channel to listen to the public is not a good idea to solicit engagement as people engage on their own terms. Forcing communications into approved mediums and moderating views will often result in many people not participating at all. When the other mediums are ignored, many who share their views but are not heard become more apathetic or they begin to complain whenever they get a chance to do so.
With a goal to understand Singaporeans’ priorities, values and preferences, it hard to succeed when a selected group is allowed to participate, as information gathered is likely to be skewed. There will also be a waste of resources when the solutions implemented get a backlash from the public which causes the initiative to end prematurely after much planning and money spent.
The future of organizations is defined through shared experiences. The concept of engagement is simple, but the design of the public experience is complex in reality. Meaningful designs with intend, personalization and incentives to increase value of sharing all form the essence of the shared experiences. The emergence of new media creates new opportunities for engagement. At the heart and soul of the organization, a culture must take shape for it to lure affinity. Engagement in the human network requires a new outlook, a new approach, new model for conveying leadership and empathy. The organization needs to support thriving communities around them and have the infrastructure for the rest of the organization to support this. If the government can understand this, then they can be on their road to relevance.
Robin Low is a young Singaporean living in Boston. He is the founder of a nanotechnology company in the US.
Why Sundram should not move to Negri
By Tony Mariadass
The stakes are high for Singapore’s V. Sundramoorthy, who is tipped to take charge of Negri Sembilan in the Premier League next season.
The 47-year-old is no stranger to the Malaysian league, having first played for Singapore and then for Kedah (89-90), Pahang (91-92) and Kelantan (94).
So, he will be familiar with the demands and pressures of being a player in the M-League, but as a coach? He must know he will be in the hot seat.
Still, what is puzzling is why Sundramoorthy is moving to Negri Sembilan. The team finished at the bottom of the Super League this season with just one win and seven draws out of 22 matches.
The Deer, as the team are popularly known, were not a weak side this season. Indeed, they had eight new faces, including two imports – Argentinian striker Emanuel De Porras and Cameroon defender William Paul Modibo.
But Portuguese coach Divaldo Alves failed to raise their game and was replaced by assistant Ridzuan Abu Shah midway through the season.
Surprisingly, Negri Sembilan, which qualified for the ongoing Malaysia Cup through a play-off with Sabah in which they won 4-0, are riding high in the competition with two wins, a loss and a draw in four out of six group matches. They won and drew against defending champion Kelantan, beat Terengganu and narrowly lost to Pahang (5-3).
Over the years, Negri Sembilan’s performance has been anything but consistent. A fair number of their coaches have also been replaced. In fact, over the last 20 years, they have had nine coaches, including M. Karathu (94-98), Irfan Bakti Abdu Salim (98-99), Mohd Zaki Sheikh Ahmad (2000-02), K. Devan (03-06), Hatem Souissi (06-07), Wan Jamak Wan Hassan (07-11) and Mohd Azraai Khor Abdullah (11-12).
Now for a bit of history. Negri Sembilan tasted their first Malaysia Cup victory in 1948, ending a 61-year drought, and triumphed again in 2001. They won the Premier League in 1991, the Super League in 2006, the Charity Shield in 2012 and the FA Cup in 2003 and 2013.
Negri Sembilan also finished runners-up in the FA Cup in 1995; the Malaysia Cup in 2000, 2006 and 2010; the Charity Shield in 2004 and 2010, the Premier League in 2005 and the Super League in 2008.
So, the Deer have not exactly been deprived of glory all these years. Sundramoorthy will not have to create any “firsts” for the team.
It is learnt that he has agreed to a two-year contract and double-your-money deal to head the team next season. Though no figure has been disclosed, it could be anything from RM40,000 to RM50,000 a month.
The question is, can Sundramoorthy take the heat of the job?
Besides having to deliver the goods – at least a title in the new season-, he has to take the team back to top level – Super League – and qualify for the Malaysia Cup competition.
This is where all the hidden pressure will come into play: Will he have a free hand in the selection of players? Will he be able to go about his job without any interference from top officials of the state football association? And his biggest battle – can he trust his players?
Over the years, the Deer have been linked to match-fixing or suspected of it. Even the state’s youth team – the President Cup squad – recently faced such accusations. In fact, the coach was charged and jailed, and, along with several of the players, has been banned for life. A prominent bookie from Singapore was also found to be living in the state capital Seremban.
Negri Sembilan FA president Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan, who is also the chief minister of the state, himself has come out to say that he suspects his team of match-fixing this season.
The Negri Sembilan fans will be another major headache for Sundramoorthy for they are very demanding and vocal about it.
No, it is not going to be a bed of roses for Sundramoorthy in Negri Sembilan. All indications are there are more thorns than roses awaiting him.
What seem to be in his favour are the lucrative deal, of course, and the not very long distance between Singapore and Seremban – about three and a half hours by road. He could make regular trips back home.
Otherwise, it is going to be a pressure cooker atmosphere for Sundramoorthy from day one. He will not know which side has its knives drawn out for him.
At the height of his career as a footballer, Sundramoorthy was known as the ‘The Dazzler’ and ‘King Cobra’, but can he waltz his way around the Deer or strike before he is struck? Only time will tell.
Tony Mariadass is a Malaysian sports journalist
No singing and swinging in the rain
By Bernard Pereira
This picture of students of Fairfield Methodist Scondary clinging to a fence to avoid rising flood waters around their school during heavy rain is truly an image of contrast to the Singapore that we used to live in during the “Roaring Fifties and Sixties”.
It was the time when we were still an underdeveloped town, a part of Malaya and also the British Empire.
Roads were rickety, with a lot of cracks and potholes, to say the least. And flooding was a nightmare. But it could be a heaven, too, depending on how you interpeted it.
Believe it or not, whenever it rained cats and dogs, we would be ecstatically jumping for joy, rubbing our hands with glee. More so if we were outdoors, playing football or rounders. Or even if heading home after school.
By golly, it would be the best excuse for getting soaking wet – never mind the chills, or the coughs and colds. That came later. We would actually be relishing the rain!
And if it was me and my schoolmates out there, being caught in the downpour – instead of those Fairfield Methodist group – I bet you we wouldn’t have been clinging to the fence. No sirree!
We would have been swimming…. or splashing and frolicking like crazy out there in the rain or floodwater.
Of course, not if there was lightning. Or when we saw a ditch full of rushing water. For we knew or had seen enough horrors to know our limits.
Bernard Pereira is a former journalist.