Dear MM ...

Taken from The Temasek Review, news of this also appeared in the Straits Times (ST, pg. A12, 23 Jan 2010):

Education Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen was asked a sensitive and difficult question during his dialogue session with NUS Society (NUSS) members.

Mr Dennis Tan, a 49 year old workplace safety and health trainer and NUSS member asked Dr Ng why MM Lee Kuan Yew is not stepping down.

Lee is currently the oldest member in the Singapore cabinet at 86 years of age. He was the first Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990 before stepping down. He subsequently held the positions of Senior Minister and the Minister Mentor presently.

To his credit, Dr Ng gave a diplomatic reply without offending both Singaporeans and his political master:

“The question is, does MM add value to Singapore? I’m not talking about in history, I’m talking about now. That’s the question that should be asked, not whether he should retire or not. Singaporeans must decide. MM spots pitfalls, he tells you what to avoid. He pushed for F1, for the IRs. So you decide. At the end of the day, it’s the vote. If his constituents at Tanjong Pagar feel he’s not adding value, they are free to vote.”

Lee has attracted the ire of many Singaporeans by continuing to stay on in the Singapore government. Though he admited that he “is not doing much work except forecasting”, some still regard him as the “real power” behind the scenes.

He currently draws about an annual salary of $3 million dollars, more than 5 times that of U.S. President Barack Obama. The Singapore government is the only one in the world with a Minister Mentor, two senior ministers and two deputy prime ministers in addition to the Prime Minister himself.

Besides his portfolio in the cabinet, Lee is also the Chairman of Government Investment Corporation (GIC) which manages much of Singapore’s national reserves.

Lee’s son Lee Hsien Loong is currently the Prime Minister of Singapore. His daughter-in-law Ho Ching heads Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s other sovereign wealth fund.

One of his nephrew-in-law Wong Kan Seng is both the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister of Singapore.

The elder Lee has ruled Singapore with an iron fist since first assuming his position in 1959. He spent the later part of his political career traveling around the world to dispense his usual “pearls of wisdom” to other leaders on how to run their countries.

Lee has yet to reveal if he will contest in the next general election due by 2012. The last three elections had been walkovers for him. Perhaps the opposition can consider sending a young team to contest against him in the next election to see if voters still want him to “add value” to Singapore.

If I had the privilege to interview MM, I might be curious to ask the following questions:

Most people your age would have been contented to wind down and spend time away from work.  What are your personal life goals at this point of time?

If personal life goals are entwined with a duty to the nation, how do family and friends feel about this?

How would life be different for you if you stepped down from politics?

Life is unpredictable, what would you want to do for yourself before leaving this world?

Now, what drives my approach of questioning? Basically it's based on my counselling intuition that's informed by Mr. Lee's own writings, articles and recordings from his former political allies, and his public persona.  I could be really off the mark but my hypothesis is that "letting go" might be an issue here.  I'm referring to the theme of loss and grief familiar to counsellors.  Looking at Erikson's life stage development model as a reference, this is usually a stage for retrospection rather than productive social involvement.  

It's not meant to be a prescriptive model but it can be a useful map.  According to the model, the completion of each stage is important or otherwise the challenges of a previous stage can resurface later in life.   It may be argued that external factors left Mr. Lee with no choice but to stay active at work, and therefore "stuck" at an earlier stage.  Consider this, Mr. Lee could have chosen to walk away from it all if he felt he had already accomplished what he wanted in life, after all who could stop him?

Displacement

I've been feeling troubled by the recent news of Singaporeans living in tents pitched at Sembawang Park.  On one end of the public housing spectrum, The Pinnacle@Duxton stands as an epitome of high living standards, on the other end there are make shift camping tents occupied by those labeled as "displaced" by the vary same providers of public housing.  It's as if the term displacement absolves guilt from the actual consequence of having homeless people.

I went down to Sembawang Park to take a look for myself.  Altogether I counted 22 tents of various sizes though it was more difficult to count the actual persons living there and the number of family units.  It is a sizeable problem because almost all the approved tent pitching space has been taken up.  I've been staying in Sembawang for 39 years and this is certainly a sight new to me.  I wonder what it signifies about the societal changes in my life time. 

Dusk has come along with rain clouds and cold winds.  I feel displaced.

Passion

Where or what is the source of my passion?  Some might say it comes from the joy of helping others who are lost, from a sense of fulfillment in contributing to society, or from doing good works that will lead me to heavenly rewards.  Somehow such generalisations don't seem to fit.

As a therapist, I am invited to a privileged position where I can facilitate another to explore different paths in life.  These paths may be small trails that were ventured into but long forgotten.  Or they could be paths currently taken but the scenery overlooked.  They can also be paths round the corner, unseen and therefore brings about anxiety. 

In this privileged position, I am also influenced by the stories of others as we jointly explore such paths.  There is a sense of intimate exchange taking place, intimate in the sense that it is something uniquely personal and therefore sacred.  Out of this exchange, new meanings are constructed.

Making meaning out of others' life also leads to the creation of new meanings in my own life.  And this is where my passion springs forth.

It only takes a spark

I came home with many feelings and thoughts after attending the commemoration event to mark the birthday of the late Mr. J. B. Jeyaretnam (JBJ).  It was a weird feeling being there and later when Mr. Goh Meng Seng mentioned he came from the "lost generation" of those born in the 70's, it became clear why I felt that way.  I was a 39 year old among the crowd of younger people in their 20s and those in their 50s and older.  Mr. Goh is also 39 and he shared of how our generation grew up being chided by parents not to criticize the government.  Any discussion about the government was hush hush and I recall that some of my respect for Mr. Lee Kuan Yew contained an element of fear.

I never had to question about politics in Singapore, so besides fear, there could also be complacency as life flowed on smoothly from schooling to working life.  Overcoming a mid-life career switch had probably set off a series of questions about life; questions about my own philosophy of life, religion, and now history and politics.  Most questions are unsettling because it opens up the possibility for change.

Exploring the alternative and often silent history about Singapore agitated me as I learned of how voices had been suppressed for many years.  As a narrative therapist I believe that the dominant story often does not describe life in its full richness, and that the subordinate stories provide openings for greater meaning making in life.

At the same time, I also feel heartened that Singapore has many heroic figures in its history.  JBJ and many others like Mr. Said Zahari and Dr. Lim Hock Siew are heroic because they stood firm on their beliefs; beliefs which they held onto dearly in the face of lawsuits, bankruptcy, incarceration, and even threat of death.  I am hopeful they will eventually be recognized for their contributions.

At the commemoration I was touched by some personal anecdotes about JBJ, one of which is that he bore no personal hatred against any politician.  It was a stark contrast to the feeling of vindictiveness experienced by ex-political prisoners such as Mr. Said Zahari.

Ms. Sylvia Toh interviewed me on why I was there.  "I'm here to observe, to listen, and to respect someone  who offered an alternative voice."  Overall I feel energized and privileged to have been a witness to the event.

Who are we?

The Straits Times published a special report today, titled "Complications of a complex racial identity", that focused on the change in policy allowing parents in mixed ethnicity marriages to decide which race their newborn child can be registered as, whether following the father's or the mother's.

There are many implications tied to "race" in Singapore, one of which is the Ethnic Integration Policy that is a blunt tool to ensure racial mix in HDB housing estates. This re-definition of race seems to make any policies based on race rather meaningless. Indeed the whole concept of race and ethnicity deserves to be questioned in a world where boundaries between peoples are blurred.

Other factors influenced by race include school fee subsidies where it becomes necessary to determine which organization should be approached. This is already an ongoing issue though the policy change probably makes it more apparent with this special report on it in mainstream media.

Consider such a confusion: who should a Chinese Muslim student approach for help? The CDAC or Mendaki? If the parents contribute to Mendaki on a monthly basis, can the child still approach CDAC? To make it more confusing, suppose the parents also contribute to CDAC, what then? These are issues that baffle people seeking help because the major financial aid organizations (CDAC, Mendaki, SINDA) also categorize their clients by race (for Mendaki, the criteria is "Malay/Muslim").

The issue of equal contribution by Malays to Singapore's national defense continues to be a thorny issue even with the landmark appointment of the first Malay general in July 2009. Hopefully race will become less of an issue in determining who is suitable to stand up for Singapore.

Race can be a double-edged sword that unites groups of people and yet divides a nation. But with the blurring of racial lines, the question that bothers me most is this: what common identity holds Singapore together? And can it withstand other fiery swords that are being raised?