# Manchester

Birthplace of Winterson. It drizzled throughout my two days there, all wet and all grey. As I turned around to take in the main street that was remaining behind, I thought it looked just like the picture on J.M. Coetzee's novel, Youth, except that the picture was of Nelson's Column in London, and here I was, in Manchester. Must be the English air.

__

Good news from the conference; the paper will be revised into two separate book publications, one of which I would be editor.

Good news from the thesis; it is shaping up very well, like never before, and I can now imagine a thesis at the end. That is not to say this is going to be easy, or that I will overcome my chronic whiling away of my time doing everything but the thesis.

Good news from me; well, I'm still on my supposed holiday. :)

Merry Christmas to one and all ~

Two letters and a long wank

Reading the Straits Times can be fun when you don’t take it too seriously. In fact, it’s a useful guide for teenagers to learn how their EL Paper One complaint letters should (or should not) be written, or for GP students to practice their logical reasoning skills (the exercises aren’t difficult). But read it too seriously and think it’s some moral guardian or gospel of truth and you risk turning into a mirror image of that newspaper i.e. obedient, craven, mediocre and infantile. 

Maybe these images have indeed been proliferating for a while, and the tiny island has turned into one huge reading room of serious Straits Times readers. 

But what exactly is so ghastly about it all? Try picking out any ST forum letter and unpick it, go through it with a red pen or something, e.g. and the two letters deserve to FAIL: 

ST Forum | Dec 11, 2008

Here are 3 worthy names

I REFER to Mr Tan Ee Kuan's response last Saturday ('We don't need new national 'narrative'') to Professor Kishore Mahbubani's article, 'Get to know Singapore's stars' (Dec 3).

Without wishing to get involved in the debate between the two [But why??? Or, why this… gambit?], I would disagree with Mr Tan's dismissive [Unnecessary value charge.] assertion that 'no Singaporean has approached the acclamation and international stature' of former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan.

In the mid-1980s, Professor Tommy Koh's name was making the diplomatic rounds as possible UN chief, but he refused to put himself forward when it became known that Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali was going to seek re-election. In fact, Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali specifically requested Prof Koh not to contest. [Mr Annan’s exalted stature was achieved after he completed his helm at the UN. Prof Koh might be a deserving candidate and might even have been an outstanding UN chief, but the fact that he has not been one invalidates the comparison. And to assert that eminence is earned just because Prof Koh’s name proffered but was told not to run seems to me duplicitous.]

A decade later, when Mr Annan was stepping down, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong's name was put forward. Despite appeals from many quarters, SM Goh decided not to enter the fray. [Invalid comparison, for reasons stated above. Further, each time the UN needs a new chief, numerous names are put forward, and many rejected. SM Goh might just as well have been rejected, no one would know.]

Singaporeans have made their country proud in their capacities at the UN. Ambassador Koh piloted two significant pieces of international legislation: the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1994), and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992). Currently, Dr Noeleen Heyzer, Undersecretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, is making a name for herself and Singapore. [The invalid comparison continues. No one doubts that there are/have been capable Singaporeans at the UN – the fair basis of comparison is to hold up a Singaporean UN chief against other UN chiefs. But the UN chief comparison is only a gambit. The point is whether Prof Koh’s or SM Goh’s or other ‘capable Singaporeans’’ fine achievements are/have been deemed to be of ‘international distinction and acclaim’. Thus, Mr Tan’s initial argument remains unrefuted. It’s also worth reiterating the point Mr Tan was making – that it is no big deal that Singapore has yet a Nobel Laureate or UN chief or such like; if there are deserving names, they shall be duly recognized. But it is another thing to recommend large-scale PR campaigns to embellish that fact.] 

K. Kesavapany 


Director 


Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

Or, 

ST Forum | Dec 11, 2008

Mumbai carnage: We must not allow harmony to be shattered by terror

I REFER to Monday's letter by Central Singapore District mayor Zainudin Nordin, 'Mumbai carnage: We must not allow harmony to be shattered by terror', and the report, 'Past terrorist attacks in Singapore'.

Mr Zainudin's comment that 'there will always be those who try to undermine our harmony, with persuasive arguments, purportedly based on religious teachings', and the recollection of past terrorist incidents invoked in me a sense of both security and foreboding. [Why the kneejerk response, unquestioning acceptance of an official’s remark, and the undertone of a guru invoking gloom and impending danger? It's unbecoming of a mature and thinking citizen, especially one from a first-world country like Singapore. The ‘sense of both security and foreboding’ is also a state of mind that is inherently contradictory – one negates the other.]

Security because in the past four decades since 1965, our tiny red dot has evolved from Third World to First despite the terrorist incidents mentioned [Enacts straw man argument and arrives at a logical fallacy – 1. How does a ‘tiny red dot going from third world to first’ provide ‘security’ (it doesn’t)? 2. Terrorist incidents and economic prosperity can go together, as Ireland, Great Britain, South Korea, and Israel have demonstrated. The repeat broadcast of national slogans and fantasmatical rhetoric are also redundant; I find it amazing that Singaporeans 1. never tire of repeating them, and 2 don’t realize the extent of their brainwashing.]

Security because the government machinery is continually fine-tuned to ensure progress, prosperity and stability. [This statement expresses utter naivete and is severely lacking in irony. Governments can create effective policies and favourable conditions for prosperity; they are unable to ‘ensure’ prosperity. Governments, however, especially with their ‘machinery’, can ensure progress and stability by keeping a sophisticated secret police, bankrupting opposition members, engineering an unthinking and docile population, turning the Straits Times into a PAP newsletter, and occasionally waving the Internal Security Act in the afternoon breeze.] For instance, the introduction of Total Defence in 1984, to get Singaporeans to take personal responsibility for, and be involved in, the defence of the motherland, [There’s a difference between 'motherland' and 'fatherland'. The former commonly refers to communist or more socialist-oriented countries, and the latter is reserved for those fascist nations that Hitler and Mussolini fantasized about. Singapore happens to be a country that would’ve made Hitler rather proud.] was a wise decision. [1. Why is this a wise decision? 2. How is this a wise decision? For all the fantasies about Total Defence since 1984, it has thus far remained, like notions of 'racial harmony', 'majulah Singapura', 'regardless of race, language, or religion', empty rhetoric and mere fantasy. We’re no more ‘totally defended’ than any other country that has yet to be tested in a real war. Consequently, we’re no more ‘totally’ defended other than that we keep telling ourselves that we are and we must, but without actually knowing why and what it means.] It was put to the test during the Sars outbreak, and we did well. [Total Defence was hardly activated during the Sars period, any more than putting our borders and hospitals on high alert, adopting repressive measures akin to imprisonment, downplaying the gaffe of calling unfortunate victims ‘superinfectors’, and finally imprinting the entire episode onto the national consciousness via the mass media, national education, and national day celebrations, as yet another one of Singapore’s glorious triumphs against The Insurmountable No-One-Has-Done-It But-Us-Odds. With the able leadership of our A-team of PAP cadres, of course. If anything, the economic downturn and empty shops during the Sars period highlight the failure of Total Defence, one of its objectives was to ensure economic activity continues amidst conflict. If all these are 'Total Defence', then anything can be 'Total Defence'. Very postmodern.]

The recent move to pool the resources of the five community development councils and five self-help groups under a new organisation called OnePeople.sg, under the chairmanship of Mr Zainudin, is a move in the right direction. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said: 'OnePeople.sg will reflect the ongoing mission to bring Singaporeans together as one people, regardless of race, language or religion.' [How and why is this a right move??? What has Mr Zainudin as chairman got to do with the argument? Why the uncritical acceptance of PM Lee’s statement just because he says so? How in the world does a 'reflection' of an objective contribute to that objective?!? May I recommend that to truly forge a nation that’s ‘regardless of race, language or religion’, Singaporeans have to go beyond bland sloganeering and actually begin to understand one another’s cultures, beliefs, and religion. The first step is to actually talk about these issues openly and freely. The next step is to stop using racial and religious harmony as an excuse for imposing control and censorship. The more one looks at it, the more Singapore's racial and religious policies serve precisely to stultify, to separate and to segregate.]

Why a sense of unease then? [Is there one in the first place? If there is, whose is it?]

Time and again, we read about political or racial upheavals in neighbouring countries and worry about when such incidents will erupt on our doorstep. [Of course you need to be reminded that all these democracy and liberty things are not good for you. Just don’t ask why it’s always Thailand and the Philippines and not other First World nations like France, Britain, the US, Canada etc and etc that can protest and prosper. Thus, constant harping about such neighbouring plights in your daily newspapers will ensure precisely that such incidents will not erupt on our doorstep!]

Another concern is the presence of selfish or fanatical Singaporeans who will not hesitate to pursue their personal agenda at the expense of racial and religious harmony. [Why is this a separate concern - it's exactly the same concern as your earlier concerns! This unnecessary and constant fear-mongering will only create the very same concerns that prompted your letter!]

What can we do to ensure that our hard-earned peace and harmony are not shattered by undesirable elements? [Why do you assume that Singapore's ‘peace and harmony’ is hard-earned? What exactly have Singaporeans done? But I can recommend some things that Singaporeans can do: 1. Cease support for Bush’s dodgy ‘war on terror’, nevermind that Singapore’d be left out of lucrative oil contracts in the Middle East, Singapore will also be left out of being one of Al-Qaeda's prime targets. 2. Lobby the US against exacerbating tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is the contemporary root of ‘Islamic terrorism’. While we're at it, try not to shoot our mouths off criticizing our neighbours ever so often that'd only further encourage ‘undesirable elements’.]

Every Singaporean must play his part by being ever vigilant and learning what Total Defence is all about. We must never be lulled into complacency. The Mas Selamat Kastari incident is a case in point [Logical fallacies – 1. Total Defence and vigilance are not the only things that Singaporeans must or can do, especially if Singaporeans don’t know what they mean or entail, and especially if none of the underlying problems would be resolved. 2. Refer to recommendations above. 3. Singaporeans are hardly complacent – they’re perpetually reminded that they’re not good enough, not bright enough, not employable enough, not grateful enough, and that it’s always all their fault. This is inevitably accompanied by constant rebukes and hectoring by the A-team ministers, and followed up by increasing the CPF withdrawal age limit, decreasing Union support, increasing the number of foreign talents, increasing courtesy/language campaigns, increasing GST, conservancy and utilities and transport rates, all at the same time… 4. It wasn’t complacent Singaporeans that led to Mr Mas Selamat’s escape – no one really knows who’s to blame, or what exact crime he committed – but Singaporeans do know he escaped from a detention centre. 'But how???' is in the minds of every Singaporean, who incidentally, spent weeks combing through the sprawling island for the missing man].

The media can provide more coverage on Total Defence and open up more opportunities for discussion. We must not forget that our state of well-being and harmony did not come by chance, but through years of able leadership, and the hard work and resilience of Singaporeans from all walks of life. [Any more coverage and discussion and Total Defence will become Total Indoctrination.]

Mr W. G.

[Mr W.G.'s letter can be summed up into two contradictions and one irrelevance - 

1. If harmony truly exists in Singapore, no act of terrorism will be able to destroy it. The word 'truly' being operative. In fact, it might even serve to rally a people and unite the country (This is of course not a wish for terrorismt incidents to take place in Singapore, or to happen to Singaporeans). 

2. If the Singaporean government is as capable as Mr W.G. makes it out to be, all of his concerns would have automatically been made redundant, along with the list of poor reasoning, logical fallacies, dodgy examples, half-baked ideas, and gratuitous reiteration of propaganda. The point I am making is that no government is perfect, incorruptible, or infallible - the more a government tells you it is, the more disbelieving you must be. 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' (Who guards the guardians?) is the question; and only true citizens have the answer.

3. Finally, Mumbai's terrorist attack is a result of the longstanding political and military tensions between India and Pakistan. It has nothing to do with fostering or destroying racial and religious harmony in Singapore.]

___

Cherian George pointed out in a recent essay that this state of affairs will persist because it is profitable; because essentially, media bosses (headed by former ministers and civil servants) and editors and journalists (seconded from our spy agencies) are more interested in profits and salaries than in news freedom. Or freedom for that matter – since corporations desire the monopoly of markets just as power craves for the control of society. That is why Singapore is such a happy family… it’s such sunny news everyday. 

But if the media abdicates (or is compelled to) its fiduciary duty of being the fourth estate, and becomes merely a propaganda platform for the government, the majority of the citizens, being either indoctrinated or inured to such an extent, naturally become, or choose to become, an inarticulate and unthinking mass. It is this point that I fault Cherian on two counts, one academic and one intellectual. First, profits and advocacy are not mutually exclusive - there are numerous examples of independent media that are profit-seeking and profitable and that fulfill their public duty. That none of them is found in Singapore is indicative of the real problem - i.e. the assertive web of legislation and the complicity of mercenary newspeople that lead to this current abysmal situation. Second, his conclusion is intellectually untenable. Pecuniary interests should never be a justification for authoritarian control, much less when the object in question is a medium of and for public conscience (and consciousness), much less for the ghastly picture of Singaporean society that has been wrought. Cherian’s logical extension would be to critique this state of affairs; it may be unfair to ask this of him, for to do so would be to risk becoming a mendicant professor, subsequently invoking the triumph of the will. But this is in itself an acknowledgment of the government’s totalitarian impulse, which, again, returns one to an intellectual/moral objection to it. 

dreams

For the past two or three weeks I've been having a lot of dreams in my sleep. S attributes it to the quietness of this village town. And quite right too, for the house is situated off the main road, and there's hardly any traffic or noise. It's also been a time of solitude. Days would pass without my knowing, without my stepping out of the house, and without my seeing another human being. Every morning after breakfast I'd read or write through the day. And soon it'd be time for dinner, which would be a quiet but nice enough do, a steak or a roast meat and potatoes, sometimes pasta, and usually with a bottle of wine, and coffee and chocolates afterwards. Then I'd sink into the couch to watch a DVD, and then I'd go to bed. When I finally switch off the lights after a bit of bedside reading, it's complete silence, complete darkness, and soon I'd be deep in sleep.

There's something about this present that keeps taking me back to a particular time when I was still in Singapore. During that period, my day would begin at 5 in the morning, and after a thorough day of teaching, I would, once or twice a week, arrive at S's house just in time to do dinner, the day's sweat and grime and satisfaction still sticking onto my shirt. Dinner'd be exactly the same stuff, a steak or a roast meat and potatoes, sometimes pasta, and usually with a bottle of wine too, and coffee and chocolates afterwards. Except there wouldn't be time for a DVD, for I'd be quite drunk and utterly exhausted by then, and many times I fell asleep on S's couch while the coffee was being made. Then, I'd wake up just in time to catch the last bus back, and get some sleep for the next day of school.

Those were happy times, one of my happiest, though it contained one of my saddest too, and that's why it was such a shuddering experience a few evenings ago when I put on a certain Vivaldi, one I kept playing during those times, and every hour came rushing back. And it's this past two weeks' combination of hermitude and deja vu that I began to miss teaching, and to wonder if I would've been happier staying on to teach and making it my lifelong vocation, instead of packing all up and leaving. And it's probably all these peacefulness and solitude and reminiscing - very conducive to tender emotional states - that brought the dreams. They came with all the weird scenes that dreams come with, but in those scenes would turn up my family, my best friends, teaching, and students, each taking a turn, like a revolving tableau vivant.

___

# Lincolnshire

Walking on these cobblestones, I would sometimes stop for a while and imagine what this town was like when the Romans came in AD45 and laid the first stones of the castle and the cathedral. A thousand years later, this town apparently became one of the wealthiest in England. And another nine hundred years later - that is, last night, I had a medieval glimpse of its bustle whilst on a stroll through the annual christmas market, with unusually cheery townsfolk in traditional costume peddling their traditional crafts, wares, and foods. And the old cathedral was all lit up, entirely golden and magnificent. 

One of my favourite writers had written about this 'great church brooding over the town', he who had lived not far away; paragraphs and paragraphs of brilliant images, luminous prose, words lighting fires. . . 

*

Away from time, always outside of time! Between east and west, between dawn and sunset, the church lay like a seed in silence, dark before germination, silenced after death. Containing birth and death, potential with all the noise and transition of life, the cathedral remained hushed, a great, involved seed, whereof the flower would be radiant life inconceivable, but whose beginning and whose end were the circle of silence. Spanned round with the rainbow, the jewelled gloom folded music upon silence, light upon darkness, fecundity upon death, as a seed folds leaf upon leaf and silence upon the root and the flower, hushing up the secret of all between its parts, the death out of which it fell, the life into which it has dropped, the immortality it involves, and the death it will embrace again.

Here in the church, "before" and "after" were folded together, all was contained in oneness. Brangwen came to his consummation. Out of the doors of the womb he had come, putting aside the wings of the womb, and proceeding into the light. Through daylight and day-after-day he had come, knowledge after knowledge, and experience after experience, remembering the darkness of the womb, having prescience of the darkness after death. Then between-while he had pushed open the doors of the cathedral, and entered the twilight of both darkness, the hush of the two-fold silence where dawn was sunset, and the beginning and the end were one.

Here the stone leapt up from the plain of earth, leapt up in a manifold, clustered desire each time, up, away from the horizontal earth, through twilight and dusk and the whole range of desire, through the swerving, the declination, ah, to the ecstasy, the touch, to the meeting and the consummation, the meeting, the clasp, the close embrace, the neutrality, the perfect, swooning consummation, the timeless ecstasy. There his soul remained, at the apex of the arch, clinched in the timeless ecstasy, consummated.

And there was no time nor life nor death, but only this, this timeless consummation, where the thrust from earth met the thrust from earth and the arch was locked on the keystone of ecstasy. This was all, this was everything. Till he came to himself in the world below. Then again he gathered himself together, in transit, every jet of him strained and leaped, leaped clear into the darkness above, to the fecundity and the unique mystery, to the touch, the clasp, the consummation, the climax of eternity, the apex of the arch.

-- D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow

This side of paradise

November. Sunday. Salzburg. I enter the final year of my twenties. Evening, and I find myself wandering alone into a cathedral, where shortly, a Mass commences, and Mozart’s Requiem exults from above in full choral glory. 

___

That day became an image that intermittently appeared in my mind, usually during my quiet moments. A few nights ago, out of no particular boredom I took out my notebook and scribbled down the dates, Nov. 1999 – Nov. 2009. My twenties. 

What was I like when I was twenty, what hopes had I held on to then, I wondered. How did those years disappear, one by one, from one into another, and into yet another, and the images came like trailers of a film. 

I divided the pages into years, and in rough chronological order scribbled down some of my lesser milestones and more significant days. When I finished I was rather struck. Some events and names stood out more than the others, like stars in the night sky, where if you concentrate long and hard enough, the stars will begin to take shape. Some people interpret their starsigns this way. 

How would I have foreseen those random acts and casual decisions leading me to that particular corner, to befriending this initial stranger, and then turning me into this unrecognisable person? The transformations have been variegated, intellectual, aesthetic, literary, political, unimaginable. Erase a phrase or a word from those pages, as if they hadn’t occurred – took two years to forget B (2000), or, Operation, entirely weak and voiceless (2002), or, off to Melbourne (2003), or, read Winterson (2005), or, X. (2006) – and a piece would be missing, and I wouldn’t be complete, I wouldn’t be me even, standing on this ground.

How would I ever be able to make sense of all this, other than to hold onto this firmament of a decade in helpless awe and amazement? 

___

I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

This place does make one wistful

For most of us, we inhabit our lives without knowing how it'd turn out and where it'd lead. Some are brief but fiery and lived; some are born part precious metal, part pirate. Then at some unexpected gaps along our time we fall, and we fall in love, we fall out of it, yet, and we fall back in, we hurt ourselves, we climb back up, wipe away our tears, and we carry on our way, till we meet another whom we could again love with our all, and all that spaces within. All we ask and hope, is just to be loved in return. Sometimes, though, we can’t climb back up, no matter how we try; it was a different fall; and we can’t carry on like before. It seemed so simple then - you loved one like no other, and you thought you would see another day. You thought the two of you could be happy. But if it were all so simple how would fairytales have lived on?

# england

As i sat on the train rumbling out of Nottingham, a calm, reassuring comfort gradually surrounded me. It was much later, long after i'd gotten off the train, that I realised it was the comfort of language, of actually knowing what the strangers around me are talking about, of being able to let their their crisp and clipped sibilances and consonants, slip in under my own consciousness and my own thoughts, comforting like the familiar pillow you lie on after a long hard day to ward of exhaustion and the solitary night.

___

It snowed late last night, or in the early hours when I was still asleep. When I opened the curtains this morning, the ground was wet from the frost that had begun to melt, little droplets trickling from the corner of the window. I can only imagine, from the remnants of white, a little here and a little there, how beautiful it would have been had I woken up in the night and peered out into the street, snow falling gently and quietly out of nowhere. Just like how you could fall gently and quietly out of nowhere, only to leave me the morning after imagining what might have been. And before long, you too would melt away, and I can only hope snow would come again.

 

winterson's desire

of winterson's many enchanting voices, schoolgirl earnestness, young woman's melancholia, a full bloom exuberance, or wry jadedness, this is probably the first time i'm hearing her speak in a cold yet dark voice, as if she were standing above her own dead body lain in a coffin, pronouncing her own death, delivering her own eulogy. it is a hypnotic piece of writing, one that can only be written out of recent wounds.

___

Jeanette Winterson | Desire

Why is the measure of love loss?

In between those two words – love, loss, and standing on either side of them, is how all this happened in the first place: Another word: Desire.

While I can’t have you, I long for you. I am the kind of person who would miss a train or a plane to meet you for coffee. I’d take a taxi across town to see you for ten minutes. I’d wait outside all night if I thought you would open the door in the morning. If you call me and say ‘Will you…’ my answer is ‘yes’, before your sentence is out. I spin worlds where we could be together. I dream you. For me, imagination and desire are very close.

Desire is always a kind of invention. By which I mean that the two of us are re-invented by this powerful emotion. Well, sometimes it is the two of us, sometimes it might just be me, and then I am your stalker, your psychopath, the one whose fantasy is out of control.

Desiring someone who has no desire for you is a clue to the nature of this all-consuming feeling; it has much more to do with me than it has to do with you. You are the object of my desire. I am the subject. I am the I.

When we are the object of each other’s desire it is easy to see nothing negative in this glorious state. We become icons of romance, we fulfil all the slush-fantasies. This is how it is meant to be. You walked into the room… Our eyes met… from the first moment… and so on.

It is safe to say that overwhelming desire for another person involves a good deal of projection. I don’t believe in love at first sight, for reasons that will become clear later, but I do believe in desire at first sight. Sometimes it as simple as sexual desire, and perhaps men are more straightforward there, but usually desire is complex; a constellation of wants and needs, hopes and dreams, a whole universe of uninhabited stars looking for life.

And nothing feels more like life than desire. Everyone knows it; the surge in the blood, cocaine-highs without the white powder. Desire is shamanistic, trance-like, ecstatic. When people say, as they often do, ‘I’d love to fall in love again – that first month, six months, year’…, they are not talking about love at all – it’s desire they mean.

And who can blame us? Desiring you allows me to feel intensely, makes my body alert as a fox. Desire for you allows me to live outside normal time, conjures me into a conversation with my soul when I never thought I had one, tricks me into behaving better than I ever did, like someone else, someone good.

Desire for you fills my mind and thus becomes a space-clearing exercise. In this jumbled packed, bloated, noisy world, you become my point of meditation. I think of you and little else, and so I realise how absurd and wasteful are most of the things that I do. Body, mind, effort, are concentrated in your image. The fragmented state of ordinary life at last becomes coherent. No longer scattered through time and space, I am collected in one place, and that place is you.

Simple. Perfect.

Until it goes wrong.

The truth is that unless desire is transformed into love, desire fails us; it fails to do what it once did; the highs, the thrills. Our transports of delight disappear. We stop walking on air. We find ourselves back on the commuter train and on our own two feet. Language gives it away; we talk about coming back down to earth. 

For many this a huge disappointment. When desire is gone, so is love, and so is the relationship. I doubt though, that love is so easy to shift. Loving shies away from leaving, and can cope with the slow understanding that the beloved is not Superman or Miss World.

We live in an Upgrade culture. I think this has infected relationships. Why keep last year’s model when the new one will be sleeker and more fun? People, like stuff, are throw-aways in our society; we don’t do job security and we don’t offer security in relationships. We mouth platitudes about time to move on, as though we are doing something new-age and wise, when all we really want is to get rid of the girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife.

I don’t want a return to the 1950’s when couples stayed together whatever the hell, but whoever said that relationships are easy?

Advertising always promises that the new model will be easier to use. And of course when you ‘upgrade’ to the next relationship, it is easier – for a while.

If you are pretty or personable, handsome or rich, serial relationships offer all the desire and none of the commitment. As sexual desire calms, and as the early fantasies dissolve, we begin to see the other person in real life, and not as our goddess or rescuer. We turn critical. We have doubts. We begin to see ourselves, too, and as most of us spend our entire lives hiding from any confrontation with the self, this sudden sighting is unpleasant, and we blame the other person for our panicky wish to bolt.

It is less painful to change your partner than it is to confront yourself, but one of the many strange things about love is that it asks that we do confront ourselves, while giving us the strength of character to make that difficult task possible. If desire is a magic potion, with instant effect, (see Tristan and Isolde), then love is a miracle whose effects become apparent only in time. Love is the long-haul. Desire is now.

An Upgrade culture, a Now Culture, and a Celebrity culture, where the endless partner-swapping of the rich and famous is staple fare, doesn’t give much heft to the long-haul. We are the new Don Giovannis, whose seductions need to be faster and more frequent, and we hide these crimes of the heart under the sexy headline of Desire.

Don Giovanni – with his celebrated one thousand and three women, is of course dragged off to Hell for his sins. Desire has never been a favourite of religion. Buddhism teaches non-attachment, Christianity sees desire as the road to the sins of the flesh and as a distraction from God.Islam has its women cover themselves in public lest any man should be inflamed, and jeopardise his soul. In Jewish tradition, desire ruins King David and Samson, just as surely as modern-day Delilah’s are still shearing their men into submission. Yet it would be misleading to forget the love poem in the Bible that is the Song of Solomon; a poem as romantic as any written since, that gives desire a legitimate place in the palace of love.

And quite right too. Desire is wonderful. Magic potions are sometimes exactly what is needed. You can love me and leave me if you like, and anybody under thirty should do quite a lot of loving and leaving. I don’t mean that desire belongs to youth – certainly it does not – but there are good reasons to fall in love often when you are growing up, even if only to discover that it wasn’t love at all.

The problems start when desire is no longer about discovery, but just a cheap way of avoiding love.

It is a mistake to see desire as an end in itself. Lust is an end in itself, and if that is all you want, then fine. Desire is trickier, because I suspect that it’s real role is towards love, not an excuse in the other direction.

There is a science-based argument that understands desire as a move towards love, but a love that is necessary for a stable society. Love is a way of making people stay together, desire is a way of making people love each other, goes the argument. This theory reads our highest emotional value as species protection. Unsurprisingly, I detest this reading, and much prefer what poets have to say. When Dante talks about the love that moves the sun and the lesser stars, I believe him. He didn’t know as much as we do about the arrangement of the heavens, but he knew about the complexity of the heart.

My feeling is that love led by desire, desire deepening into love, is much more than selfish gene social stability and survival of the species. Loving someone is the closest we can get to knowing what it is like to be another person. Love blasts through our habitual sclerotic selfishness, the narrow ‘me first’ that gradually closes us down, the dead-end of the loveless life.

There are different kinds of love, and not all of them are prefaced by desire, yet desire keeps its potent place in our affections. Its releasing force has no regard for convention of any kind, and crosses gender, age, class, religion, commonsense and good manners.

This is bracing and necessary. It is addictive. Like all powerful substances, desire needs careful handling, which by its nature is almost impossible to do.

Almost, but not quite. Jung, drawing on alchemy, talked about desire as the white bird, which should always be followed when it appears, but not always brought down to earth. Simply, we cannot always act on our desire, nor should we, but repressing it tells us nothing. Following the white bird is a courageous way of acknowledging that something explosive is happening. Perhaps that will blow up our entire world, or perhaps it will detonate a secret chamber in the heart. For certain, things will change.

I don’t suppose that the white bird of desire is nearly as attractive to most of us as the white powder substitute with natural highs. Desire as a drug is racier than desire as a messenger. Yet most things in life have a prosaic meaning and a poetic meaning, and there are times when only poetry will answer.

For myself, when I have trusted my desire, whether or not I have acted on it, life has become much more difficult, but strangely illuminated. When I have not trusted my desire, out of cowardice or commonsense, slowly I have gone into shadow. I cannot explain this, but I find it to be true.

Desire deserves respect. It is worth the chaos. But it is not love, and only love is worth everything.

# Berlin

We sat, one Saturday morning in a spot along one of the many streets of Berlin lined with al fresco cafes, eating from a table filled with plates of bread, jam, sausage, and coffee, watching a small part of the world stroll insouciantly by, and L held, lightly and briefly, onto this scene with the tip of her cheekbones, and said, in her inimitably endearing Spanish-accented English, "This, is Berlin," she nodded to herself, looking thoroughly pleased with it all, "You must come back." 

*

I certainly will. Berlin is an amazing city of exiles and free spirits, and it is a city I would return to live.

# Dresden

The overcast sky of Dresden reminds me of photographs depicting the Allied devastation of this place in 1945. Some beautiful centuries-old buildings are still intact, so is the castle, and Augustus the Strong is everwhere, refurbished, repainted, reminded, commemorated. Visited the two famous collections of Dresden, the royal treasures, and the Bellotto paintings of Venice and this city. And F has been a wonderful host, guiding me through his city, it's amazing how much local knowledge he possesses. I've also have had to be on my best behaviour; first the dinner with F and his family, then with F and his girlfriend's family, both of whom made me feel generously welcome.

＃Prague II

In this old city that looks a postcard comes alive, a whole day of rain can be a joyous occasion too.

＃Prague

It was in Vienna that I learnt something about citizenship and the more primordial sense of belonging. Where do you come from, is a question I encounter a lot. Sometimes, I say Singapore, and sometimes I say Australia, depending on the mood, depending on which first comes to mind. Sometimes I would include both, which would invite more questions as to how that is so. But all these responses seem to be incomplete, and hence unsatisfactory. I think it is because I have not figured out where I belong. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to find out, some other times, you never get to know. A, who is from Mexico, insists that I will always come from Singapore wherever else I may choose to live. W, an Argentinian and fellow itinerant, disagrees. Home is where the heart is, he says.
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The old town square of Prague is like a vast museum, one that lets in the wintry chill, the overstretching sky, and the pigeons. It is filled with tourists, but strangely, they scantly want to congregate in the middle, preferring to mingle and admire from along the edges, where rows of cafes and restaurants form a border. Suddenly a group of Italian tourists started to clap and cheer: a groom was striding out of the Church of Our Lady of Tyn with his bride latched on his arm, and they were walking across the square, past the monument of Jan Hus, past St Niklaus cathedral, towards the Old Town Hall with that famous gothic golden astrological clock, leaving a trail of turned heads and smiling onlookers. She is the only figure in the entire landscape elegantly draped in the colour of snow.
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The medieval Charles Bridge over the Vltava river must be one of the most beautiful bridges in this world, if not the most romantic, not only because of the beauty in itself, the path guided by ornately decorated streetlamps and saints, but also for the view that you have just left behind, that still lingers in your mind, as well as for what is ahead, that is waiting unhurriedly behind the morning mist.

＃ Vienna II

It is hard not to be touristy here, as if when one is here, one is forced to be a tourist. You go in from one museum to another, to an art gallery, and to another museum. You think you want to see the Klimt masterpieces, only to find yourself queueing up for a rare Van Gogh exhibition at the Albertina that had just been brought in. And the museums are grand masterpieces of reliefs, friezes, painting, and scupture in themselves. I am fascinated by the self-portraits of Van Gogh, they seem to so vividly embody his turbulent personality, and you think it is only a piece of canvas with a few daubs of coloured oil! Then there are the cakes, the pastries, the coffee ... the coffee and the pastries ... if they could be described as having a bouquet like wine, and layered notes like perfume, that would be what Viennese pastries and coffee are - gradual blooms of chocolate, cream, hazelnut, vanilla, and then unexpectedly, that final, subtle burst of raspberry from hidden seams. By then, that indescribable and utterly unforgettable taste would have lodged always in the vase of your palate, just like a certain crystalline voice that I love. And on my last night here, in yet another capricious moment, I cut across the sprawling gardens and bought tickets to the Viennese symphony. It was, especially being in Vienna, difficult to resist a majestic number by Schumann, and, one of my all-time favourites, the Beethoven Pastorale.

＃Vienna

I'm rather overwhelmed by Vienna. There is nothing that I'd read or seen about it that had prepared me for all these opulence and grandeur that appear at every turn that I take. It's completely and gloriously unreal, this dream-like city carved out of white stone, marble, and gold. Vienna is unlike many other cities, whose essence can be captured in a snapshot from afar. Here, there is no one single defining monument to symbolise the city - they are plated across the land, with gargoyles, saints, and angels encrusted unto and among the countless roman pillars and rose-garlanded windows. One has to walk beside them to be able to admire these guardians of beauty, that twirl together Vienna into the epitome of an emporer's vision of his city as a single, shimmery piece of art. There's absolutely no reason for it to be this splenderously beautiful - and yet it is, and it's right here before my eyes.

＃Salzburg

The train has just pulled out of the station. not long after, villages after villages that barnacle the countryside slant into view. Occasionally you see an old house, or a cathedral, or a castle perched on a not too distant hill, and you wonder who lives there, or you wonder what it´s like to live there.

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Salzburg reminds me of a certain violin concerto. It´s first view is a resplendent spray of fountain, showering and refracting the myriad of coloured pieces of light. Then your footsteps lighten and gather pace as you take in the immediate view: Mirabell palace and its rose garden, the winged horse the colour of archaic jade. And when you come to the bridge that´d take you across the river, the old city opens before your eyes a childhood fairytale. Then the hour strikes, a bell chimes, then chimes again, and is joined by a nearby bell, and another, and yet one more, until the whole city becomes a prayer song of bells.

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I met a few of your countrymen. One had the kind of hair that you like to keep, and another had wild amazing hair flecked with gold. They also had your eyes, sad and faraway, like a petal adrift somewhere. Is that what being from lost island does to you, burdening you with its loss wherever you might go?

＃１ Ｓｅｏｕｌ ｉｎ ｔｒａｎｓｉｔ

Ｈｅｌｌｏ　ｆｒｏｍ　Ｓｅｏｕｌ．　Ｇｏｏｄ　ｔｈｉｎｇ　ｔｈａｔ　ｉ＇ｄｂｅｅｎ　ｌｉｖｉｎｇ　ｏｕｔ　ｏｆ　ｍｙ　ｓｕｉｔｃａｓｅ　ｗｈｅｎ　ｉ　ｐａｃｋｅｄ　ｕｐ　ｔｗｏ　ｗｅｅｋｓ　ａｇｏ　ｔｏ　ａ　ｆｒｉｅｎｄ＇ｓ　ｐｌａｃｅ．　ｉｗａｓ　ｗｏｒｋｉｎｇ　ｉｎ　ｕｎｉ　ｕｐ　ｔｏ　ｔｈｅ　ｌａｓｔ　ｍｉｎｕｔｅ，　ｈａｄ　ａ　ｆａｒｅｗｅｌｌ　ｔｅａ　ｏｆ　ｓｏｒｔｓ，　ａｎｄ　ｔｈｅｎ　ｉ　ｈａｄ　ｔｏ　ｒｕｎ　ｓｏｍｅ　ｅｒｒａｎｄｓ，　ｒｕｎ　ｈｏｍｅ，　ａｎｄ　ｔｏ　ｔｈｅ　ａｉｒｐｏｒｔ．　ｉｔ　ｗａｓ　ａ　ｍａｄ　ｒｕｎ．　ｉ　ｓｑｕｅｅｚｅｄ　ｉｎ　ｔｉｍｅ　ｔｏ　ｗｒｉｔｅ　ａｎｄ　ｍａｉｌ　ｓｏｍｅ　ｌｅｔｔｅｒｓ　ａｎｄ　ｃａｌｌ　ｈｏｍｅ，　ａｎｄ　ｗａｓ　ａｂｏｕｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｌａｓｔ　ｔｏ　ｂｏａｒｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｐｌａｎｅ．　ｔｈｅ　ｆｌｉｇｈｔ　ｗａｓ　ｈａｌｆ－ｆｕｌｌ，ａｎｄ　ｉ　ｈａｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｅｎｔｉｒｅ　ａｉｓｌｅ　ｔｏ　ｍｙｓｅlf.

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Ｗｈｙ　ｄｏ　ｉ　ｆｅｅｌ　ｌｉｋｅ　ｉ＇ｄ　ｌｅｆｔ　ｓｙｄｎｅｙ　ｐｅｒｍａｎｅｎｔｌｙ？　Ｉｔ＇ｓ　ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ　ｔｈｅ　ｓａｍｅ　ｆｅｅｌｉｎｇ　ｉ　ｈａｄ　ｗｈｅｎ　ｉ　ｌｅｆｔ　ｓｉｎｇａｐｏｒｅ　ｉｎ　ｆｅｂｒｕａｒｙ．　ｉｔ＇ｓ　ｏｎｌｙ　ｂｅｅｎ　ｅｉｇｈｔ　ｍｏｎｔｈｓ，　ｙｅｔ　ｉｔ＇ｓ　ａｓ　ｔｈｏｕｇｈ　ｉ＇ｄｂｅｅｎ　ｔｈｅｒｅ　ｆｏｒ　ｅｖｅｒ．　Ｎｏｗ　ｉ＇ｍ　ｔｏ　ｂｅ　ａｗａｙ　ｕｐ　ｎｏｒｔｈ　ｆｏｒ　ａ　ｇｏｏｄ　ｆｏｕｒ　ｍｏｎｔｈｓ；　ｔｈａｔ＇ｓ　ｈａｌｆ　ｍｙ　ｔｉｍｅ　ｄｏｗｎ　ｕｎｄｅｒ．　ｔｈａｔ　ｍａｋｅｓ　ｉｔ　ｈａｌｆ　ａｎ　ｅｔｅｒｎｉｔｙ？　ｅｖｅｒｙｔｉｍｅ　ｉ　ｌｅａｖｅ　ａ　ｐｌａｃｅ，　ｉ　ｌｅａｖｅ　ａ　ｓｌｉｖｅｒ　ｏｆ　ｍｙ　ｌｉｆｅ　ｂｅｈｉｎｄ，　ｔｈｅｙ　ｂｅｃｏｍｅ　ａ　ｐｒｅｖｉｏｕｓ　ｌｉｆｅ，　ｇｒａｄｕａｌｌｙ　ｒｅｐｌａｃｅｄ　ｂｙ　ｃｏｍｉｎｇ　ｙｅａｒｓ，　ｐｒｅｖｉｏｕｓ　ｙｅａｒｓ　ｂｅｃｏｍｅ　ａ　ｄｒｅａｍ，　ｏｒ　ａ　ｄｉｓｔａｎｔ　ｍｅｍｏｒｙ，　ｅｖｅｎｔｕａｌｌｙ　ｂｅｃｏｍｉｎｇ　ｆｉｇｍｅｎｔｓ　ｏｆ　ｍｙ　ｉｍａｇｉｎａｔｉｏｎ，　ａｂｒａｄｅｄ　ａｎｄ　ｂｒｏｃａｄｅｄ　ｂｙ　ｔｈｅ　ｖｉｖｉｄ　ｐｒｅｓｅｎｔ　ａｎｄ　ａ　ｌｏｎｇｉｎｇ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｐａｓｔ，　ｔｈｅ　ｐｒｅｖｉｏｕｓ　ｂｅｃｏｍｅｓ　ｐｒｅｃｉｏｕｓ．

＿＿＿

Ｉｎ　ｍｙ　ｈａｓｔｅ　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｉ　ｆｏｒｇｏｔ　ｔｏ　ｐａｃｋ　ｉｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｃａｂｌｅ　ｆｏｒ　ｍｙ　ｃａｍｅｒａ　ｓｏ　ｔｈａｔ　ｉ　ｃａｎ　ｕｐｌｏａｄ　ｐｉｃｔｕｒｅｓ　ａｌｏｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　ｗａｙ．　Ｓｏ　ｉ　ｇｕｅｓｓ　ｐｈｏｔｏｓ　ｗｉｌｌ　ｏｎｌｙ　ｂｅ　ｕｐ　ｗｈｅｎ　ｉ＇ｍ　ｂａｃｋ　ｉｎ　ｍａｒｃｈ．　ｍｅａｎｔｉｍｅ　Ｉ＇ｌｌｗｒｉｔｅ　ｙｏｕ　ｐｏｓｔｃａｒｄｓ：

Dear C,

How does one describe the smell of airplanes? if i say i dislike the smell, it's probably because the sterile air and bland meals remind me of our reluctant parting just a few minutes ago by the sliding door. If i strangely like it, is it because of the persistent thought of our eventual reunion? And what if you have gone and are never coming back? Why do airports and airplanes, such transient tools of transit and transport, evoke such heightened emotions? To remind us that without the necessary, the sterile, the farewells, one would be hard put to dream, to live, to love? On the plane i read Czeslaw Milosz, and he posed this question that i'd been asking myself the past two years: has enough time passed and distance come, so that i could articulate, through some detachment and some coldness, a truer pain? Can pain be rendered real when it has ceased to exist? Big philosophical questions and I'm running out of space. Goodbye for now, I send my love, and a fragment from Milosz - It could just as well not exist - and so man constructs poetry out of the remnants found in ruins. One day I'll promise you a poem.

tutes

last friday was the twelfth and final tutorial sessions, and with that they handed in their final essays, and i've been spending the weekend a bit marking, just so i could finish it here and don't have to bring those stacks up with me to europe. 

i was also surprised they turned up to class; given there was nothing left to discuss, other than a general where-do-you-see-the-international-system-heading wrap-up, and these kids would probably have another 4-5 essays due that day but yet done. sometimes i do sympathise with them, they spend half their youth trying to get into uni, then spend the entire time in uni wondering if it's all been worth it, while trying to juggle part-time jobs and living on their own (many aussie kids are very independent in that they move out and work to pay for their own living expenses). that's on top of the required school work of attending lectures, tutorials, doing their readings, writing essays, preparing for exams, all in a short span of 12 weeks, and how much can any student learn in such constrained situations is not hard to see. through the weeks i've come to get used to cynical responses and expressions, and the overall deteriorating academic standards as a consequence of an increasingly corporatised and monetised and utilitarian curriculum and education will have wider adverse effects on a society. if only what sells is important then it's no wonder libraries are burning all around us. the time that is necessary to read, reflect, and write cannot be bought - but like books, it can be borrowed, and returned, recharged, for the better. the last twelve weeks have also been yet another reminder that teaching is not just another job; that teachers (and tutors) play a critical role; that impressionable young lives and their futures are at stake. 

journeys

i recently came across a blog that was kept by a singaporean guy, who started it initially to chronicle his decision to apply for australian PR and leave singapore. time passed as he blogged, and as he put it, the decision became a journey. and we readers came to learn about his life and struggles and fears, a classic hardworking 'heartlander' boy trying to eke out a living in singapore, and in the process coming round to see singapore for what it really is, and who then made the decision to leave. many times, while reading his entries, i admired how lucidly he'd penned the very thoughts that i've been trying to articulate.

his blog didn't end when he finally attained his PR and came down under. it formed the second part of the story, about australian life seen through the eyes of a new migrant, the endless job hunt, the settling for a part-time job delivering pizza, the living hand to mouth from day to day, all the time wondering if he had made the right decision to leave his old life, his family, his girlfriend. but what was there to miss, when all the things he had loved when he was a child had been torn down, he had wondered. 

but his blog did come to an end, when he passed away, a little less than a year after migrating to australia. one morning his housemates found him dead. there was not a little outpouring of grief and words of RIP in the singapore blogosphere, for he had by then garnered a following of loyal readers who had come feel for his struggles and to love the guy who had blithely shared his tribulations.

even though that all happened a few years ago, i cant help but also feel sad about it all (it's weird to feel sad for a dead person), having been touched by his writing and come to love his style - light-footed, breezy, candid, yet sincere; and that revealed glimpses of a big heart and kind soul behind the prose. it's also yet another reminder about how life is more than being unpredictably fragile - life is also what you make of it, while you still have it. carpe diem, remember? he may be dead now, but even though i don't know him, i think few can say he hadn't lived, and lived out his dreams.  

:: http://singaporeserf.blogspot.com/2005/12/posts-index.html ::

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i was also reminded of my own mortality (yet again) last week, when i purchased my travel insurance online and was going through the terms and benefits. for AUD$248, covering an entire four-month trip to europe, i am insured from $50 to $1 million for various things from a wallet to a few limbs. i think someone will receive $5000 if i should die, but really, i find it vulgar to put a dollar to a life. it's worse to clamour for a dead man's money. tsk.

frankly, i'm not concerned about death; if i'm gone, i'm gone. no need for elaborate funerals or grand send-offs, or speculation about whether i'm in heaven or purgatory or hell. hold a non-religious wake, come see me one more time, and try to remember me once in a while. i suppose some of you guys wouldnt be able to hold back your tears nonetheless, and i wouldn't hold it against you. but please, cry me a rivulet, then start living a better life, preferably one that's filled with good literature and music (faye wong and winterson wouldnt be bad places to start). i dont suppose i have a lot of worldly possession to require a will. most of my mementoes from years back have been packed into a box before i came to sydney, and they're at an aunt's house. i'll probably give them to sing, or rose, or the two dear women in my life could share the stuff like old letters and photographs and scraps of journal entries (quite like how they've been sharing me all these years har har har). most of my books are at jp's, and i've told him before, if i don't come claim them, they're all his. here in sydney, most of my possessions (other than books, which jp can come collect, and finally take the australian holiday that i've been pestering him to) are perishables like clothes and laptop and ipod, things that can all go into a winter fire, and i suppose, along with my dead self. maybe if it's not too much of a hassle, i'd like to have my ashes drifting in the sea off pasir ris beach. ah, that beloved childhood playground of mine, those wonderful carefree times. it'd be nice to go back home for a while.

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but until then, i suppose i do have to carry on living. it's my last two weeks here in sydney before i leave. semester is coming to a close, and i've been really busy marking the essays, and the exam scripts would be in soon. next week my stuff would be packed into boxes and stored in a friend's garage. doing all these makes me feel like i've been here forever and am never coming back again. i do want to move to melbourne next year; but i'll miss terribly the friends that i've made here. i had a mild epiphany a few days ago, that i'm not as solitary a person as i all along thought. i think i do yearn for company, but only from that regular and rare few, who can stand my silence, my nonsense, all that restlessness, all the while staving off that mega-boredom of going out with someone whose mind is always somewhere else. 

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if you cant reach me in sydney, i am here somewhere in europe...

29 oct - 3 nov : salzburg (for the conference)

3 - 6 nov : vienna

7 - 10 nov : prague (meeting up with f)

11 - 14 nov : dresden (visiting f's hometown)

14 - 15 nov : berlin 

16 nov - 22 dec : lincolnshire and hopping around the uk (maybe dublin)

23 dec - 3 jan : oslo (visiting samna)

3 jan - 29 feb : lincolnshire and more hopping around the uk (and maybe paris)

and then i'll come back to sydney, then maybe rent a car, stuff in all my boxes, and drive over to melbourne, and resume my aussie life in the new year on a new page in a beloved place. 

sometimes i think i'm happiest being a nomad, and sometimes i do wonder when it all would end.

master's narratives

i met up with an acquaintance last week, who had come down from singapore on a work trip. conversations about singapore more of less becomes inevitable, and at times our discussions became debates became heated debates. but j (his name) was somewhat different from my past altercations; while we disagreed on virtually every point and aspect he was able to make me think (and rethink) some of my positions. more importantly, he provided me with an insight into the psyche of how and why singapore works for some.

(the following is a disorganised ramble off the cuff and not a dissertation.)

but for most singaporeans, singapore isnt that rosy and often they swing between despair and resignation (both of which are untenable positions because no matter one's predicament, one has a choice to counteract), the singapore government has provided for everyone a masternarrative for which to justify its doings and existence. i concede that these masternarratives to begin with have a prima facie logic to them - singapore is small and have no resources so citizens have got to work hard and be thankful for such excellent leadership (to name but just one, but one that is overarching) - but are also contingent on playing up the survival instinct and siege mentality (both of which provide the government with more bargaining powers over citizens). but the nub is these masternarratives appear logical and plausible only up to a point - drive any further (supposing it is within the person's will and/or intellect) and the intellectual foundations will start to crumble, and puzzles begin to form. for example, we bemoan our lack of resources - but it is a lack or a bountiful depending on what you include - people are natural resources, so is our deep harbour and strategic location. the natural resource theory also assumes that countries with natural resources will industrialise (japan and malaysia are two contrasting examples to refute this argument). but this is a story for another day: singapore's masternarratives deconstructed. beyond that point, of fuzzy logic and intellectual abstraction, most singaporeans will either be unable to justify government actions or the workings of the singaporean machinery, or refuse to engage in discussion further citing lethargy or distraction or resorting to tantrum behaviour (we have established that singaporeans are infantile and kept so for politico-economic reasons). however one reads those masternarratives - to justify the unjust, unjustified, and the injustices, the parallel/implied reasoning is always the indispensability of the PAP government that is also the best and the brightest that country can offer (i.e. utter bollocks). might i add that no matter what plagues singapore, it is always singaporeans' fault, never the government's. on this point, i cant resist sharing worthington's observation that singapore's elections are events for singaporeans to be held accountable to the PAP rather than the other way round.

if singaporeans compare singapore's tax rates with other supposed high-tax countries in detail, they'd realise that the difference is not at all big. and high taxes in other countries are often paraded as how singapore is not like them. it is true they have higher taxes, though the amount taxed is progressive (ie. not high across the board), that are used to provide for social safety net. comprehensive welfare systems, contrary to what the PAP has been saying, are not crumbling in the west, and the supposed 'crutch' mentality is statistically proven to be a low percentage, and the overall societal benefits far outweighs the supposed disadvantages, for one, building a more caring society (which is what the government has been trying not to do). lax productivity levels as a result of welfare provisions is also a myth - despite high taxes, people do work, and they strive to excel in their occupations (salary is a major, but not the only motivation to work). singaporeans on the other hand, despite minimal welfare, are also among the least productive (total factor productivity output) of the OECD countries. what the singapore system does is to minimise social provision, and ensure that despite low productivity, constant work will occupy the singaporean worker so that economic rent can be continuously be extracted out of him. as the average singaporean worker doesnt earn a lot, there is simply no point in instituting high taxes - instead, singaporeans are taxed on consumption. so any how goes, the winner - i.e. the PAP - takes (after) all. (tax rates for the rich, who already have higher spending power, pay a net tax rate of about 30% less than his average singaporean counterpart on per capita terms). this explains singaporean's mentality that anything deemed un-economic is not worth it - penny-wise, pound foolish, among other aphorisms - which blinds them to the reality that not only are singaporeans actually paying as high a tax as other first world countries, they are denied social security (the money is used for overseas spending sprees in the tens of billions), and instead of a house with a garden and backyard (generally speaking), they have to settle for an HDB flat. before anyone reminds me that because singapore is small and therefore HDB flats are an inevitability, may i proffer that high rises can still be built without them being necessarily built by HDB nor do they have to be 99-year leasehold, and nor do they have to be of the type, look, and size that they currently are (but they are because such facilitate PAP control and profiteering).

but the truth is, singapore works. it's a highly efficient country driving a prosperous economy, low unemployment, high income, high-tech, the people are well-provided for, and live in harmony. but truth is relative - singapore is a different kind of singapore depending on who (e.g. age/social class/gender/sexuality/education level/residential property/physical (dis)abilities) you speak to. roughly speaking, 60% of the population stay on because they cannot leave, and are constantly striving to better their lot, if not crawl out of their rut. the other 20-30%, having succeeded materially, stand to gain from the system, and sees little reason to leave. the ability to flaunt their condos and cars at the less well-off are additional incentives to remain (social feel good factor).

the truth is also only half the story. singapore is a corporation pretending to be a country, run like a corporation, its leaders remunerated accordingly, and its citizens behave accordingly (spend and scoot). thus not every singaporean gets to, and can get to, enjoy the supposed fruits of the country - generally, only people of a certain social class/income level can. while this might be said of any other country, the difference is that those that singapore are emulating (e.g. the first world western liberal democratic countries) are far more transparent and egalitarian and more genuinely provide for their citizens in terms of housing, welfare, medical, education, employment, overall quality of life; and those that are emulating singapore (e.g. the third world developing/underdeveloped countries) do not pretend they care for (put it very crudely) their citizens.

for all that i've written against singapore, my objections to it are actually very simple: singapore is a thriving state whose main beneficiaries are its self-serving leaders and their GLC/civil service minions - i.e. those who benefit from the singapore government scholarship system. we do not have fair and just systems of government, governance, education, legal, housing, employment, welfare provisions, and, as a consequence have bred a mediocre populace (the elite, by definition, remains among the few) and an uncompassionate/heartless/brutal society. and for all that i rail against singaporeans, i see their national complex and psyche as manifest in their thoughts and behaviour predictable consequences of an authoritarian government and intense indoctrination by the state media.

so the average singaporean essentially possesses a minimal vocabulary and thought process that can, in any given discussion on any topic, be reproduced thus:

you: (start a discussion on any topic about singapore)

sgrean: (launches a recycled spiel first narrated by the masters, i.e. singapore small, vulnerable, therefore must this and that, and look, singapore world class here and there what)

you: but ... (interrogates further)

sgrean: yar, i think it's good/bad... lidatt lor... yar ...

and before anyone raises the fact that the successful got there by their own merits and that singapore is a meritocracy, i'll just briefly state here that meritocracy is a form of elitism that in this case is more insidious because it masquerades as a product of fairness (and of nature). there's little that's fair or natural in our education system - graduate mothers are (still) given priority access to good schools, and most of singapore's elite schools are situated in prime locations of districts 9, 10, 11 that are fenced off by the MOE's requirements that parents need to live within 2 km of the school they want to send their children to (now try to work out the percentage of singaporeans who can actually afford to live in those districts). it is unsurprising that the overwhelming majority of PSC scholarship holders live in private estates. getting a head start in life is the single most important factor in one's chances of succeeding in life, (socialization among like circles come next), even if one's not that intelligent to begin with. early and constant streaming takes care of the second part of meritocracy - everyone is useful, but some are more useful than others (but usefulness as (over)determined by a determined government), and myriad of obstacles are in place to ensure most singaporeans stamped with a category remain in those categories - and by the age of 20, you can talk to any singaporean and after a few questions by way of conversation, you can accurately determine where one's station in singaporean life is, how one got there, and where one might go from there, give and take a few exceptions.

that is not to say the average singaporean thus loses out. yes, and no - it's a difference to a degree - sometimes a large degree. the singapore state discriminates against the average singaporean without necessarily depriving him/her of a decent standard of living (relative to third world countries that is) and without him/her actually realising it - why make life so miserable for them as to render them resentful and economically unproductive, when you can add a few sweeteners here and there so as to be able to extract even more from them not least via long-term economic dependence on the government (i.e. that you earn a wage does not mean you are economically indendent - look at where the bulk of your expenses go)? in employment, wages are set by the NWC that are essentially suppressed so as to entice foreign investments as well as ensure GLCs have access to cheap labour. hence a blue collar worker in australia can earn more (after taxes) than a graduate computer programmer in singapore. while it is true that consumer goods are slightly more expensive than singapore (while cars and housing arent necessarily so), an australian blue collar worker fallen into hard times can cut down on spending, and if he falls ill he does not worry about medical expenses. the singaporean worker fallen onto hard times not only have to cut spending but also worry about (potentially) exorbitant medical expenses. (between high taxes and adequate social security and high taxes and no social security, which one would an idiot choose?) the singaporean worker is not protected by trade unions, and retrenchment benefits are miniscule, and that is if the company pays or can afford to pay such. the law that is meant to serve justice is also often used to serve up injustice. and if you're an average singaporean, you subconsciously steer clear of getting involved in any legal proceedings - not just because they are costly (first hurdle), but also because our laws have been laid out in favour of the rich and powerful (insurmountable hurdle). and if you are an average singaporean, not only are the elite schools out of reach (talking in proportionate terms here) for your children, you have to struggle to cough up money to hire tutors (which the rich can easily do).

other mechanisms kick in either to ensure that the average singaporean remains beholden to the state, or is suppressed by it. these mechanisms are primarily manifest in the HDB, COE, CPF - two of any three locks in a Singaporean for a good few decades. and what do they offer? HDB: 99 year leasehold apartment built at artificially suppressed prices (because the singapore government enacted the Land Acquisition Act that enables it to evict landowners and recompensed minimally; and the construction workers are all imported labour at third world wages) then sold to singaporeans at market rates. COE entitles a car owner to drive the car for 10 years but not before having the car owner cough up 150% of the cost of the vehicle to the treasury, while continually paying ERP, parking, fuel (the bulk of which once again flows into the treasury). At the end of 10 years of car ownership, at least S$80,000 (including fuel and taxes and miscellaneous expenses) would have gone down the drain, the singaporean finds himself needing to continue working hard to recoup the losses/re-spend on another car. the CPF forces the singaporean to part with a part of his salary so that the government can hire superfundmanagers (i.e. professional gamblers) to invest globally earning 8-9% returns, while offering 2-4% interest rates (the remaining are pocketed by the treasury).

there are other mechanisms too - national service moulds a compliant male population ready to take orders, while having to remain 'active' for the next two decades. the fact that singapore's army is unnecessarily large and that primarily functions to support the mega scientific/research industries is scantly addressed. a state media indoctrinates a people, subliminally skewing a people's thoughts (or ability to think, or both). and etc, and etc.

so to cut a long story short, after such rigorous sieving and prodding and moulding, the singapore in reality is one that the average singaporean cannot see. not just because they are constantly fed the hogwash that they live in a world class city, earning world class wages, live in world class flats/houses, have a world class education system, and have world class leaders - but because, as the venerable LKY admonished singaporeans in another context, "singaporeans have no sense of perspective".

when our supposed GDP per capita of S$50,000 (rough estimate) is inclusive of imports and exports (as well as million dollar government leaders, MNC executives, superscale civil service), Singapore's real GDP in equitable terms for the average singaporean is more accurately S$25000-35,000. and this is the reality figure - most singaporeans that we know as average, earn a monthly salary of between $1800-3500 (the percentage of the average working population decreases as the figure increases, or working hours incommensurate with salary earned; and this cuts through a spectrum of professions and education level). contrast that to the *main beneficiaries* (as defined earlier) of the singapore system that earn at least 5, 10, 15, 20 times as much, one does need a hard dose of perspectival lenses to see those stratospheric figures and make a comparison. so while the average heartlander, if lucky, gets through the rigorous sieving in the education and graduate from the local university and lands a stable career, he would have been contented, thankful, and generally done quite well in singapore society. (what happens if he does not? in terms of annual factory output - 30% of each cohort make it into university (including 10% government scholarship holders), 40% into the polytechnics, and 30% vocational schools). on the other hand, the elite class (which is a less porous segment of singapore society than we like to think, and the absolute few who make it into the elite fold does not negate the overall privileges the elite gain; in fact the absolute outsider few that manage to break in are essential to enact the charade of meritocracy) and its offsprings leapfrog the masses, get educated at oxbridge and the ivy leagues, return to serve and perpetuate the PAP system of institutionalised corruption and patronage.

so the next time an average singaporean takes pride in singapore's achievements and start spewing off world class statements (in singlish no less), be a kind soul and remind him that not only are those fruits of labour (kept) out of his reach, they come about precisely from his permanent slave labour.

love JBJ

there are few in singapore who come anywhere near JBJ's achievements; london-educated lawyer, magistrate, and member of parliament, and who because he spoke truth to power, was made to lose all his silk and robes, a lone figure amidst singapore's gleaming modernity peddling books, a lone voice soaring above a diffident office crowd, 'make it right! make it right for singapore!'

there are even fewer who have his guts, who understood every word of majulah singapura, who recited the Pledge not as a pledge of dependence, distraction, emptiness. he dared to live out his convictions in a country that convicted those beliefs, and had to face off not only the powerful, but also the powerless who either viewed him with disdain, or dared not look him in the eye. in a country whose illusive prosperity pays due to self-serving millionaire politicians, a contemptuous and condescending ruling class, a disgraceful and propagandistic mass media, and a grovelling citizenry who has to constantly pit itself against itself for bread crumbs, why is there no place for someone like JBJ?

hence the distinction of rarity goes to singapore, a country that reveres the Father and his coins, and that ostracises the true son and his quest to seek out truth, justice, and liberty. and for whom? it is my long-held belief that when a people has never known grace and kindness, and who have been treated solely as a digit in a factory, this very people will treat every other person as harshly, cruelly, as a digit right down to the decimal point. why should there be no place for someone like JBJ?

JBJ could've very simply lived the high life of singapore, schmoozing as district judges do amongst the legal fraternity and high society. but where high society lapped up the riches and the privilege, he left that place to be amongst the people - ordinary citizens like you and i - who can only dream of attaining what he once upon a time had, who can only hope to be able to bring up such fine sons, and not just because they graduated with distinction from cambridge and became a banker and a senior counsel, and one of singapore's finest literary authors. he could've earned millions, but in a sick society like singapore, we made him pay millions. and for what? for speaking up for us. for daring to do what we do not dare to. for being willing to give up all that most of us would never have, not with all the dreams in the world. and how did we embrace JBJ and that place he painstakingly carved out for singaporeans - despite all the odds - just so we could stand firmer and prouder?

when JBJ died, his record was whiter than white, outshining even those supposed men in white. he had no slush funds or secret bank accounts - how to, when he had nowhere and no wish to hide? he had no illicit love affairs - he stayed true to his wife even in the two decades after her death. what JBJ achieved was to be so innocent as to have the privy council of london confirm and condemn our farcical courts, and expose our deplorable politicians as a bunch of cowardly, vindictive, mercenaries. what he achieved was everything the singapore leaders have over the last forty years cajoled singaporeans to; well, almost everything. where he succeeded was everything singapore's leaders desperately had sought to fabricate for themselves.

JBJ died of heart failure; but when he died, it was not just his heart that had failed him.

it is just my conviction that when things are wrong, and if there is anything i can do to put them right, then i should. i think every citizen should feel like that. it is every citizen's duty.

JBJ