Same religion, but can get along?

Mar 5, 2011

Commentary

New immigrants add to diversity within religions but present challenges
 
By Yen Feng

IN THE last few years, the impact of immigration has been felt deeply by average Singaporeans: in rising housing prices, and more crowded trains, buses and shopping malls.

But not much attention has been paid to how immigration is changing the social and religious fabric of life here.

This is where the recent census gives a good snapshot, as well as shed light on an emerging trend of greater diversity within religious groups.

Overall, the census shows a Singapore society that remains fairly stable in both its racial and religious composition.

All four main ethnic groups - Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Others - kept within two percentage points from 2000 figures.

The religious composition of residents in Singapore - 'residents' comprising Singapore citizens as well as permanent residents (PRs) - also held relatively steady.

The only group to see a sharp drop were the Buddhists, who fell from 42.5 per cent to 33.3 per cent of the total resident population over the 10-year period. The fall was made up for by a slight rise in other religions, and in the number who said they were non-religious.

Scratch a little deeper and you can trace the way immigration and the influx of people from different nationalities and cultures - and faith practices - is changing Singapore.

Take, for example, Christians. This group formed 14.6 per cent of the total resident proportion in 2000. Last year, it was 18.3 per cent.

But the rise in the number of Christians was sharper among permanent residents here than among citizens. In 2000, 16.9 per cent of permanent residents were Christian. Last year, the figure was 23.4 per cent.

Among citizens, the proportion who were Christians also rose but less sharply: from 14.4 per cent in 2000, to 17.5 per cent last year.

Among citizens, the proportion of Hindus remained stable at 3.4 per cent. Among PRs, however, the proportion of Hindus rose from 9.7 per cent to 14.8 per cent over the last decade. Foreign-born Hindus now make up nearly half of all Hindus here. Ten years ago, it was one in four.

What this means is that there is now greater diversity within particular religious and racial groups, as a result of immigration.

Singaporeans have grown up understanding that Singapore is a multivariate society and that people here must be tolerant of those of different races and religions. But as the census figures show, the influx of new immigrants is adding another layer to the tapestry of multiracial and multireligious Singapore.

It is no longer enough to be tolerant of different religions; it is now also important to be accommodating and tolerant of those with the same religion, but who hail from different lands.

There is thus a need to introduce a new multicultural lens through which to view Singapore, on top of the usual multiracial and multireligious lens.

This requires religious leaders here not only to work hard to foster harmony among those of different faiths, but also to strive to foster harmony among those within the same faith. Differences within religions have become as pertinent as the differences between them.

Already, the talk among religious and community leaders these days is not whether Hindus and Muslims can get along, but whether Hindus from India, and Hindus from Singapore can.

It is about whether Muslims from countries such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt can integrate with Singapore-born Muslims, given the differences in cultural norms such as food, dress and language.

In 2009, the Hindu Endowments Board held a priests' meeting to standardise rituals in all temples across Singapore. There were reports of growing disagreement over how long prayers should be held. New Hindus from different regions in India had different views.

That same year, Mr Alami Musa, the president of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis), urged local Muslims not to take a 'dogmatic, fanatical or intolerant attitude' towards Muslims whose practices and views may differ.

Catholic masses are now said in languages ranging from Bahasa Indonesia and Tagalog to French and Korean.

Faith leaders need to be tactful in fostering dialogue between newcomers and existing religious adherents. They also need to be creative in offering new services to meet the needs of newcomers, but in a way that does not turn them into self-contained ghettos. Most of all, both leaders and members of the flock have to take the initiative to integrate newcomers into their faith groups.

Singapore is not alone in grappling with the dilemmas posed by immigration. Neither is it alone in pondering just what it means to be a multicultural society.

In Europe, the conclusion is negative. The lesson there - from France to Germany to Britain - is that benign neglect is no solution to integration.

In the United States, a country founded by immigrants, Boston Globe columnist James Carroll described a sense of 'status anxiety', as 'a traditionally white, Christian, essentially Protestant culture in the US sees itself as losing hegemony'.

Similar anxieties can be felt among Singaporeans, though many know that immigrants boost the population and the economy.

Singapore cannot afford to make the mistakes of European countries by refusing to acknowledge the need to integrate those of different cultures and nationalities.

This country was founded on the ideal and the practice of multiculturalism. To be Singaporean is not to be bound up with one's ethnicity or faith, but to be accepting of many.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, in his new book Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going, declared openness to others the defining trait of a Singaporean: 'My definition of a Singaporean, which will make us different from any others, is that we accept that whoever joins us is a part of us.'

And that should mean not only welcoming your new neighbour from China, but also accommodating your fellow worshipper from India at the temple or having a meal with the fellow Muslim from Turkey at the mosque.

zengyan@sph.com.sg

Water deal's expiry won't affect prices

Mar 5, 2011

Parliament

By Cai Haoxiang

WATER will not cost more and its supply will not be affected when a 50-year agreement with Malaysia expires in August, the Environment and Water Resources Minister said yesterday.
'The expiry of the 1961 Water Agreement will have no impact on our water supply and water tariffs,' Dr Yaacob Ibrahim told Parliament during the debate on his ministry's budget.
Singapore has developed enough local sources to replace water imported under the 1961 agreement, which allows the drawing of up to 86 million gallons daily from Johor's Skudai and Tebrau rivers.
Singapore's three local sources of water are its reservoirs, desalination and Newater.
By the end of this year, when the Punggol and Serangoon Reservoirs are ready, the city state's water catchment will increase to two-thirds of its total land area. It has also ramped up production of Newater and desalinated water, which together now meet 40 per cent of total demand.
A second water agreement with Malaysia, signed in 1962 and which allows Singapore to draw up to 250 million gallons daily from the Johor River, will expire in 2061. Singapore aims to be self-sufficient in water by then.
In his reply to questions posed by MPs Lim Wee Kiak (Sembawang GRC) and Ho Geok Choo (West Coast GRC), Dr Yaacob gave a sense of how Singapore intends to reach water self-sufficiency.
It will open a second desalination plant in Tuas by 2013, which will add 70 million gallons of water a day to its supply.
It will also build a sixth Newater plant by 2030. Such plants use membrane technology to reclaim water from used water sources.
'By 2060,' Dr Yaacob said, 'we plan to increase our desalination and Newater capacities to be able to meet up to 30 per cent and 50 per cent of our water needs respectively.'
'We will continue to introduce Newater into our reservoirs, especially during dry spells such as the one we experienced in February last year,' he added.
When the first water agreement expires on Aug 31, Singapore will hand over the water treatment plant it now runs in Johor to Malaysia, free of charge and in good working order.
That was agreed to as part of a landmark land swop deal the two countries signed last September.
Dr Yaacob said that having a robust water supply is only half the story.
'We must continue our efforts in water conservation,' he said.
Households have cut down their daily domestic water consumption from 165 litres per capita in 2003 to 154 litres today.
The long-term target is to bring it down further to 147 litres by 2020, and 140 litres by 2030.
Some 70 per cent of public-sector buildings have been certified as water-efficient buildings. In the private sector, 86 premises have submitted plans to achieve water savings of up to 10 per cent.

Response to Hard Truths

Mar 2, 2011
THINK-TANK

Disagreeing with some hard truths

By Tommy Koh

WE MUST thank Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and the seven Straits Times journalists for sharing with us Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going. Taken together with Mr Lee's two-volume memoirs, the three books constitute his intellectual legacy. The Q&A format of Hard Truths and Mr Lee's trenchant and unvarnished views make the book both interesting and easy to read. I also found the endnotes, at the end of each chapter, helpful.
We owe it to Mr Lee to take his views seriously. They are distilled from the experiences and reflections of an extraordinary man and leader. I agree with many of his hard truths. I agree with his assessment of the United States, of the historical importance of Deng Xiaoping and his deep belief in meritocracy and integrity.
However, we also owe him the responsibility to contest his ideas if we disagree with them. It is in this spirit and with great respect that I wish to comment on the following three points.
First, I do not agree with the Minister Mentor's view that Singapore is too small and lacks the critical mass to produce a world champion in manufacturing. His conclusion is that we will always be dependent on multinational corporations. We should accept the truth that, because of our small size, we are destined to play the secondary role of being suppliers and contract manufacturers. I am glad that Mr Michael Dee and Mr Sam Goi have expressed their disagreements with Mr Lee's view in this newspaper.
Is the view supported by the facts? I do not think so. Let us look at the achievements of some small European countries.
Switzerland, with a population of 7.6 million, has 15 companies in the Fortune Global List of 500 Companies. Sweden, with a population of 9.2 million, has five; Finland, population 5.3 million, has one; Denmark, 5.5 million, two; and Belgium, 10.7 million, five.
The point of this survey is to demonstrate that it is possible for small countries to produce world champions. In a globalised world, it is possible for small countries to overcome their limitations by borrowing the land, resources and talent of other countries. Thus Singapore builds industrial parks and new towns in other countries and welcomes foreign talent to work here.
If size were destiny, we would not have produced SIA, NOL, PSA, Changi Airport, Keppel, Sembawang, Temasek, GIC, SingTel, Tiger Beer. The Singapore Story - of which Mr Lee is the chief architect - is the story of how the people of a small country dared to dream and overcame seemingly insurmountable odds.

[If LKY is quoted correctly, his point was that Sg would not be able to produce a world champion manufacturer. Most of those mentioned by Tommy Koh are service industry. Two of them are SWF investment companies. Is ship/rig-building manufacturing? Only Tiger is a manufacturer and while it has some brand recognition world-wide, I would not call it a world champion.]

Second, I wish to comment on Mr Lee's assessment of the state of nation- building in Singapore. His view is that we are not yet a nation and that you cannot create a nation in 45 years. He thinks that it may take us another 100 years before we become a nation. He also thinks that Singapore is not ready for a non-Chinese prime minister.
But according to the results of surveys and polls carried out by the Institute of Policy Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and others, it would appear that Singapore is more of a nation than Mr Lee believes. The overwhelming majority of our citizens regard themselves as Singaporeans first and, only secondarily, as Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, and so forth.
This happy state of affairs is due to the success of our proactive policy of mixing Singaporeans of different races in our schools, housing estates and in national service. It is also due to our policy of meritocracy.

[I wish I could share Tommy Koh's optimism. But there is a rebuttal below from another writer. I will just say nationhood and patriotism needs a rallying call, a "handle" if you will, for the concept of patriotism to be securely grasped. People can fight for freedom, for liberty, for independence, for democracy, for equality, for civil rights, and for many other noble values. I just don't see our boys charging the enemy shouting, "For Meritocracy! For HDB! For Multi-Culturalism! And for Ethnic Integration!"]

Finally, it is due to the evolution of a set of shared values uniting citizens of all races, religions and languages.
Again, it was Mr Lee himself who was the chief architect of these policies - and I wish to assure him that he has succeeded to a greater extent than he gives himself credit for.
I do not agree with his assessment that the surveys by our think-tanks are unreliable because the respondents were merely giving politically correct answers. I also do not agree with his view that Singapore is not ready for a non-Chinese PM. I think I speak for the majority of Singaporeans when I say that we are ready, should one emerge who is the best in his or her cohort, as all our prime ministers thus far have been. We do not regard race as a criterion for high office in Singapore.
Third, I was disappointed with the Minister Mentor's views on race. He revealed that if his daughter had wished to marry a black African, he would have had no qualms telling her: 'You're mad.' He also expressed reservations about inter-racial marriages.
We should not judge a person on the basis of colour, race or religion. There are good men and bad men, good women and bad women, of every colour, race and religion. I know some black Africans who are smart, kind and honourable. If I had a daughter and she had wanted to marry such a man, I would be supportive and would certainly not call her mad.

[Well, if you have a daughter. On this I am more inclined to feel as Tommy Koh does, but I hesitate to extend my attitude to ALL Singaporeans. Perhaps LKY represent an older mindset, a less integrated, less modern Singapore. Or perhaps he is right, that there are deeper, baser instincts that do not easily get rooted out and smoothed over by nobler ideals.]

I know of many happy and long-lasting inter-racial marriages. One of the Minister Mentor's closest comrades, the late S. Rajaratnam, was married to a Hungarian. The marriage was a very happy one and endured till the end of their lives.
The writer is the chairman of the Centre for International Law, NUS. Think-Tank is a weekly column rotated among eight leading figures in Singapore's research and tertiary institutions.

A hub is not a home

by Vinita Ramani

Mar 04, 2011

I read with interest Professor Tommy Koh's response, in The Straits Times on Wednesday, to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going. In his commentary, Prof Koh objected to three areas the Minister Mentor raised in his recently-published book. One was the state of nation-building here.
Prof Koh disagreed with Mr Lee's view that we are not yet a nation, stating instead that its people identify as Singaporeans first and as Chinese, Indian, Malay or Eurasian second. While I admire Prof Koh's spirited rebuttals, I am inclined to agree with the Minister Mentor on this one point.
I am a Singaporean. I moved here in 1991, became a citizen in 1999 and, over the past twenty years, I have interacted with young Singaporeans and immigrants from all walks of life. Our generation - those of us in our 30s - has learnt the textbook lessons of Singapore's success perhaps all too well. But I would hardly say that these lessons have stirred a feeling of nationhood.
Instead, the moral behind these lessons is that pragmatism is the order of the day. Prioritising pragmatism above all else appears to have resulted in the following set of attitudes about life which I have anecdotally observed.
First, that one must do whatever it takes to survive and succeed. If that means Singaporeans should leave Singapore to take up jobs and buy property abroad to carve out a second home, so be it.
Our social and economic mobility has not engendered a sense of loyalty: It has ensured that we will work hard to achieve the Singapore dream. But it has also ensured that if the going gets tough in Singapore, Singaporeans will not necessarily suffer through a crisis. They have been taught to have a back-up plan and to take care of themselves and their families first. Patriotism does not feature in this picture.
Second, I have met Singaporeans who feel disenfranchised because they do not have a stake in Singapore, their country of origin. While it is easy to dismiss these people as armchair critics, Singapore would do well to take heed of their concerns.
A nation cannot be built even if a small segment of society feels deeply disconnected from the country's future and are unsure as to how they can contribute to meet the challenges ahead. Moreover, Internet-based social media these days has enabled such Singaporeans to realise others share their sentiments, creating a strong sense of community among them.
Third, I encounter Singaporeans I would call the progeny of the Singapore success story. They went to the right schools, acquired the right jobs and are financially successful. Yet, their interest in Singapore appears to only extend to changes that affect them individually.
I am often startled to discover that they do not care to understand Singapore's position in the regional context, let alone in the global one. They are wary of immigrants, and frustrated by the competition that foreigners increasingly present in the professional job market, regardless of the fact that such internationalisation is inevitable.
These attitudes go hand in hand with a larger project to turn Singapore into a "hub" for everything from manufacturing and education to the arts and international organisations. Singapore is the ideal place to work and do business - it has great infrastructure, is corruption-free, is efficient and safe, and has clean air to boot. Many are migrating to Singapore for these reasons.
But calling ourselves a hub suggests that we are a port-of-call, a one-stop-shop, a base. Each of these concepts spells transience, not permanence and rootedness. A hub is not a home, and patriotism must be heart-felt. Like Singaporeans, immigrants too have come to feel that to be loyal to Singapore is virtually synonymous with being loyal to one's own needs. But that cannot be the driving ethos of a nation.
Nations are built when its people are invited to participate in the process and are given a stake in the outcomes; not when they are handed a finished product, which they cannot, or dare not, alter.
My recent trips to Sri Lanka and East Timor were revelatory in this regard. Both countries endured over 25 years of civil strife and uncertainty about the future. When I spoke to nation-builders in both countries, I found that the Timorese and Sri Lankans have a deep love for their country. Yet, they are intuitively aware of what is wrong with the current state of affairs, and what needs to be done to include its citizenry in the nation-building process.

[I wonder about the relationship between "deep love" and "wrongness" with the state of affairs. When there are no flaws, do we feel compelled to work to eliminate those flaws? And when there are no deep flaws, are we less compelled. And is this lower compulsion the cause of the less than deep love? ]

I met people who said they would die for their nation and with what they have gone through, I had no doubt they meant it. Coming across patriotism in its purest form is a truly profound experience.
The Minister Mentor is correct to note that a nation cannot be built in 45 years. However, for it to become one in the long run Singapore needs to closely examine its driving ethos and ask itself if, and how, it will give Singaporeans and residents a deeper stake in the country. Without this, we really are venturing into troubled waters.

Vinita Ramani is a writer and co-founder of Access to Justice Asia LLP.

[I find it sad that it is only through the crucible of civil strife that nationhood is forged.]

Are America's Best Days Behind Us?

Fareed Zakaria
Mar 3, 2011

Excerpts

It's not that our democracy doesn't work; it's that it works only too well. American politics is now hyperresponsive to constituents' interests. And all those interests are dedicated to preserving the past rather than investing for the future. There are no lobbying groups for the next generation of industries, only for those companies that are here now with cash to spend. There are no special-interest groups for our children's economic well-being, only for people who get government benefits right now. The whole system is geared to preserve current subsidies, tax breaks and loopholes.

The Perils of Success
Why have our priorities become so mangled? Several decades ago, economist Mancur Olson wrote a book called The Rise and Decline of Nations. He was prompted by what he thought was a strange paradox after World War II. Britain, having won the war, slipped into deep stagnation, while Germany, the loser, grew powerfully year after year. Britain's fall was even more perplexing considering that it was the creator of the Industrial Revolution and was the world's original economic superpower.

Olson concluded that, paradoxically, it was success that hurt Britain, while failure helped Germany. British society grew comfortable, complacent and rigid, and its economic and political arrangements became ever more elaborate and costly, focused on distribution rather than growth. Labor unions, the welfare state, protectionist policies and massive borrowing all shielded Britain from the new international competition. The system became sclerotic, and over time, the economic engine of the world turned creaky and sluggish.

America's success has made it sclerotic. We have sat on top of the world for almost a century, and our repeated economic, political and military victories have made us quite sure that we are destined to be No. 1 forever. We have some advantages. Size matters: when crises come, they do not overwhelm a country as big as the U.S. When the financial crisis hit nations such as Greece and Ireland, it dwarfed them. In the U.S., the problems occurred within the context of a $15 trillion economy and in a country that still has the trust of the world. Over the past three years, in the wake of the financial crisis, U.S. borrowing costs have gone down, not up.


American companies are, of course, highly efficient, but American government is not. By this I don't mean to echo the usual complaints about waste, fraud and abuse. In fact, there is less of those things than Americans think, except in the Pentagon with its $700 billion budget. The problem with the U.S. government is that its allocation of resources is highly inefficient. We spend vast amounts of money on subsidies for housing, agriculture and health, many of which distort the economy and do little for long-term growth. We spend too little on science, technology, innovation and infrastructure, which will produce growth and jobs in the future. For the past few decades, we have been able to be wasteful and get by. But we will not be able to do it much longer. The money is running out, and we will have to marshal funds and target spending far more strategically. This is not a question of too much or too little government, too much or too little spending. We need more government and more spending in some places and less in others.

The tragedy is that Washington knows this. For all the partisan polarization there, most Republicans know that we have to invest in some key areas, and most Democrats know that we have to cut entitlement spending. But we have a political system that has become allergic to compromise and practical solutions. This may be our greatest blind spot. At the very moment that our political system has broken down, one hears only encomiums to it, the Constitution and the perfect Republic that it created. Now, as an immigrant, I love the special and, yes, exceptional nature of American democracy. I believe that the Constitution was one of the wonders of the world — in the 18th century. But today we face the reality of a system that has become creaky. We have an Electoral College that no one understands and a Senate that doesn't work, with rules and traditions that allow a single Senator to obstruct democracy without even explaining why. We have a crazy-quilt patchwork of towns, municipalities and states with overlapping authority, bureaucracies and resulting waste. We have a political system geared toward ceaseless fundraising and pandering to the interests of the present with no ability to plan, invest or build for the future. And if one mentions any of this, why, one is being unpatriotic, because we have the perfect system of government, handed down to us by demigods who walked the earth in the late 18th century and who serve as models for us today and forever.

What is really depressing is the tone of our debate. In place of the thoughtful concern of Jefferson and Adams, we have its opposite in tone and temperament — the shallow triumphalism purveyed by politicians now. The founders loved America, but they also understood that it was a work in progress, an unfinished enterprise that would constantly be in need of change, adjustment and repair. For most of our history, we have become rich while remaining restless. Rather than resting on our laurels, we have feared getting fat and lazy. And that has been our greatest strength. In the past, worrying about decline has helped us avert that very condition. Let's hope it does so today.

Room for fresh ideas on income gap

Keep our economic model, but set up endowment to fund measures to ensure a minimal standard of living

Feb 28, 2011

by Siew Kum Hong

As I thought about last week's Budget statement, a quote by Albert Einstein kept playing in my head. The pre-eminent genius of the 20th Century once said: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
I am of course not suggesting in any way that the Government is mad, but what struck me most about the Budget - which Parliament will debate today - was that it was pretty much more of the same, albeit "upsized" for the anticipated elections: More ad hoc special transfer payments to help the low-income, more tax incentives to increase productivity, more funding for training and research and development, so on and so forth.
Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that Singapore's approach to helping the low-income must "remain centred on opportunities, not entitlements".
Many Singaporeans would agree with this, and they would disagree with the need to change a winning formula when the past policies have worked.
But I would hazard that most of those stuck at the wrong end of the widening income gap would disagree about the past policies having worked. Based on Department of Statistics figures, the Gini coefficient increased from 0.442 in 2000 to 0.472 last year, or from 0.430 to 0.452 if government special transfers are taken into account. So it is understandable for the low-income to question if more of the same would really address the issue.
At a forum at the National University of Singapore (NUS) last Tuesday, economist and NUS assistant professor Chia Ngee Choon noted that the Government's targeted 30-per-cent increase in productivity over the next 10 years would probably be achieved only by the middle and upper class, and asked: "Does this tide of economic growth raise all boats? It may raise only those in the middle income and above." In other words, the opportunities may be there, but they will fall largely to the middle- and high-income.

[Perhaps the problem is that for the tide to raise all boats, the boats must all be seaworthy and able to float. If there are holes in the boat, these must be patched (education, improving employability, job enlargement, job value). Or perhaps the problem is not the boats. You go to war with the army you have not the army you prefer to have. Similarly we should pursue economic growth with the labour force we have or can muster, not the one we prefer to have. So what are our people trained for? What career or jobs do our schools prepare our children for?]

If the strategies used in the past have not successfully addressed one of the most critical socio-economic issues facing Singapore, why then would more and more of the same lead to a different outcome this time?
I am not advocating the wholesale abandonment of our existing economic model. But surely it is time for a fresh think about how to address the widening income gap.

[I think the income gap will continue to widen. Mathematically, there is a floor to income. It is zero. But there is no ceiling to income. Those who can, will want to earn as much as they can. Those who can't, can't. The gap will widen, for as long as we are plugged into the world. For as long as incentives are tied to income, for as long as money is the default method to keep score. How else will people know that they are winning.

Perhaps more important than a GINI coefficient is a "good life" standard of living. If everyone is assured of a getting a good job, securing a steady income, and affordable housing, income inequality does not matter?]

For starters, the way we characterise and think about a stronger social safety net has to change. I am not calling for a Nordic-style cradle-to-grave social welfare system, or for the Government to use generous benefits backed by punitive taxes to equalise incomes across society.
But we have the room and resources for institutionalised social welfare measures to ensure a minimal standard of living reasonably commensurate with our overall developmental status as a society.
Anything beyond that minimal level should not be based on entitlement, but must instead result from the opportunities that the Finance Minister talked about, which we have to work hard to keep open to all. Entitlements and opportunities do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Some will argue that this would represent a dangerous first step down a slippery slope of ever-shriller calls for increased benefits. But this argument implies a willingness to disregard the suffering of our less-fortunate brethren, simply because of a theoretical risk that our Government cannot resist public pressure.

[It is not so much the slippery slope of welfare, but the moral hazard of disincentivising work. If you are assured of welfare, then why struggle? If you will get the minimum cost of living stipend, why bother struggling to work to perform up to standard?]

We can also mitigate any such "slippery slope" risk by funding such measures through a substantially-funded endowment fund, and topping up the fund only when resources are available - much like what is being done with the ElderCare and Comcare funds, as well as the National Research Fund.

[As he mentioned, those funds seem to provide a little of what he is suggesting. In addition, the public assistance allowance to the unemployable.]

The Government had, in its National Report for the United Nations' Universal Periodic Review process submitted recently, affirmed that "Singapore fully subscribes to the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)".
The UDHR provides for everyone to have the rights to social security and an adequate standard of living. But the latest Budget measures fall short of those commitments.
Government surveys have found that a four-person household needs about S$1,700 per month to cover basic costs of living, according to Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Yet statistics show many low-income households in Singapore fall below this threshold, and there were no Budget measures to specifically rectify this.

[What is "many"? It would be helpful to have a figure.

Say 500,000 people are in households with less than $1,700 income. Say they have only $850 (exactly half) on average. And this is for a 4 persons household. So that's about 125,000 households.

To commit to this $1700 figure, the govt would have to give $850 to each of the 125,000 households. That works out to $106.25m. Per month. Or $1.275b per year. That is a lot to provide minimum social welfare. That's more than the budget of most ministries.

So it would not be true to say that Singapore has the "room and resources for institutionalised social welfare".

Of course this all hinges on what is the "many" low income households. 125,000 households is just over 10% (about 13%) of households. Maybe there's only 100,000 (Still about $1b a year). Maybe 50,000 ($0.5b - possibly affordable).

Arguing without figures is like fucking without a condom. Very dangerous.]

Ad hoc transfers like the one-off "Grow and Share" package in this year's Budget fall short of what our commitment to the UDHR requires, depending as they do on the existence of surpluses and the discretion and generosity of the government of the day.
In his New Year message at the start of this year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong identified the widening income gap as a key concern to tackle. The lack of fresh ideas in the Budget statement was therefore disappointing. Hopefully this will change after the Budget debate that starts today.

Siew Kum Hong is a corporate counsel and the vice-president of MARUAH (Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, Singapore), a human rights NGO and gazetted political association.

This Is Just the Start

March 1, 2011

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Future historians will long puzzle over how the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, in protest over the confiscation of his fruit stand, managed to trigger popular uprisings across the Arab/Muslim world. We know the big causes — tyranny, rising food prices, youth unemployment and social media. But since being in Egypt, I’ve been putting together my own back-of-the-envelope guess list of what I’d call the “not-so-obvious forces” that fed this mass revolt. Here it is:

THE OBAMA FACTOR Americans have never fully appreciated what a radical thing we did — in the eyes of the rest of the world — in electing an African-American with the middle name Hussein as president. I’m convinced that listening to Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech — not the words, but the man — were more than a few young Arabs who were saying to themselves: “Hmmm, let’s see. He’s young. I’m young. He’s dark-skinned. I’m dark-skinned. His middle name is Hussein. My name is Hussein. His grandfather is a Muslim. My grandfather is a Muslim. He is president of the United States. And I’m an unemployed young Arab with no vote and no voice in my future.” I’d put that in my mix of forces fueling these revolts.

GOOGLE EARTH While Facebook has gotten all the face time in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, don’t forget Google Earth, which began roiling Bahraini politics in 2006. A big issue in Bahrain, particularly among Shiite men who want to get married and build homes, is the unequal distribution of land. On Nov. 27, 2006, on the eve of parliamentary elections in Bahrain, The Washington Post ran this report from there: “Mahmood, who lives in a house with his parents, four siblings and their children, said he became even more frustrated when he looked up Bahrain on Google Earth and saw vast tracts of empty land, while tens of thousands of mainly poor Shiites were squashed together in small, dense areas. ‘We are 17 people crowded in one small house, like many people in the southern district,’ he said. ‘And you see on Google how many palaces there are and how the al-Khalifas [the Sunni ruling family] have the rest of the country to themselves.’ Bahraini activists have encouraged people to take a look at the country on Google Earth, and they have set up a special user group whose members have access to more than 40 images of royal palaces.”

ISRAEL The Arab TV network Al Jazeera has a big team covering Israel today. Here are some of the stories they have been beaming into the Arab world: Israel’s previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert, had to resign because he was accused of illicitly taking envelopes stuffed with money from a Jewish-American backer. An Israeli court recently convicted Israel’s former president Moshe Katsav on two counts of rape, based on accusations by former employees. And just a few weeks ago, Israel, at the last second, rescinded the appointment of Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant as the army’s new chief of staff after Israeli environmentalists spurred a government investigation that concluded General Galant had seized public land near his home. (You can see his house on Google Maps!) This surely got a few laughs in Egypt where land sales to fat cats and cronies of the regime that have resulted in huge overnight profits have been the talk of Cairo this past year. When you live right next to a country that is bringing to justice its top leaders for corruption and you live in a country where many of the top leaders are corrupt, well, you notice.

THE BEIJING OLYMPICS China and Egypt were both great civilizations subjected to imperialism and were both dirt poor back in the 1950s, with China even poorer than Egypt, Edward Goldberg, who teaches business strategy, wrote in The Globalist. But, today, China has built the world’s second-largest economy, and Egypt is still living on foreign aid. What do you think young Egyptians thought when they watched the dazzling opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics? China’s Olympics were another wake-up call — “in a way that America or the West could never be” — telling young Egyptians that something was very wrong with their country, argued Goldberg.

THE FAYYAD FACTOR Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad introduced a new form of government in the Arab world in the last three years, something I’ve dubbed “Fayyadism.” It said: judge me on my performance, on how I deliver government services and collect the garbage and create jobs — not simply on how I “resist” the West or Israel. Every Arab could relate to this. Chinese had to give up freedom but got economic growth and decent government in return. Arabs had to give up freedom and got the Arab-Israeli conflict and unemployment in return.

Add it all up and what does it say? It says you have a very powerful convergence of forces driving a broad movement for change. It says we’re just at the start of something huge. And it says that if we don’t have a more serious energy policy, the difference between a good day and bad day for America from here on will hinge on how the 86-year-old king of Saudi Arabia manages all this change.

[I like Friedman because he doesn't harp on ideologies like "democracy". He understands that practical real difference, real change, real improvements is what people want. So his examples are all of practical good government in action. Chinese govt providing jobs, growth, and decent government. Fayyad for providing decent government services, and job creation, Israel for fighting corruption and promoting the law.]

Live our dreams, with or without help

Mar 2, 2011

Parliament

Sam Tan tells of a troubled family and old men with determination

By Jeremy Au Yong

IF YOU have a dream, live it.

It was not the sort of message expected during a debate on the country's fiscal policy, but that was what emerged when Mr Sam Tan (Tanjong Pagar GRC) took the floor at Parliament yesterday.

He delivered a stirring speech urging Singaporeans to stop relying on the Government or measures in the Budget when going after what they want. Calls for Singaporeans to be more self-reliant are not new, but Mr Tan's perspective was one of the highlights of yesterday's session.

'If you find a woman you love, you marry her. If you have no money for a large wedding in a posh hotel, do it at a community centre. If you don't have a flat, rent a room,' he said.

'Marriage is not all about money. You don't need to wait for the Finance Minister to dish out incentives to get married.'

He went on: 'If you dream of starting a family, of a baby in your arms, just go for it. Do what is necessary and don't worry about enrichment classes.

'Don't overworry that your child won't be able to score all As in school. One or two overzealous schools may need four As to make their key performance indicators, but your child doesn't need to do anything but (be) the best that he can be. You don't need to wait for the Education Minister. You make your own guidelines about what grades mean to you and your children.'

The message, he said, is a response to those who tend to view the Budget in terms of what is in it for them: Those, for instance, who complain that they cannot get married if the Government does not help them buy a flat, or those who ask why the Budget has no goodies for those living in landed properties.

'My point is that we can each live our dreams, with or without help. If there is help, we get there faster. But if there isn't, we should keep trying anyway.'

Mr Tan, who titled his speech 'We don't need a fat Budget to live our dreams', was inspired, in part, by a video on YouTube. It detailed the exploits of a group of Taiwanese motorcyclists - of average age 81 - on a 13-day trip around the island.

'These old men, shaky on their legs but steady on their machines, shouting with joy in their old age as they revved their motorbikes,' he said, recalling the video of the group called the Dream Rangers. And even though it turned out to be an advertisement for a bank, he said, its message held true.

Mr Tan also told the story of a man here called Hans, whose family sought help from the Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC). Mr Tan was its executive director from 1997 to 2009.

Hans' family is besieged by problems. His mother - a single mother for more than 10 years - has to battle illnesses and a depressive disorder. Hans was a slow starter in school, while his brother is dyslexic. They live in a two-room rental flat.

Yet the family never gave up. The mother has been offered a job and will start work as soon as she recovers. His brother has completed his O levels and is entering a polytechnic. Hans bounced back from a poor PSLE score to get into a junior college. He is applying for scholarships to study life sciences at a local university.

The CDAC and Budget helped, but Mr Tan said the core of their success is in their determination.

'The victorious overcoming of this family cannot be solely attributed to the goodies that the Budget has given them,' was his message.

In a similar vein, Dr Ong Seh Hong (Marine Parade GRC) and Mrs Josephine Teo (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) spoke about looking beyond the Budget goodies.

Dr Ong said he is concerned that Singaporeans have come to expect bonuses in every Budget. He wonders if the country is at the start of a 'long slide down to a culture of demand'. He said: 'During a bad year, one expects a relief and assistance package. This, I understand. During a good year, one also expects goodies and bonuses. This indeed is not a healthy national culture.'

Mrs Teo spoke on the legacy of the Budgets and how throughout the years, they have had consistent themes. Among them: do not overtax; use resources wisely; save for a rainy day; give relief in tough times; invest in skills; build capabilities; and grow the economic pie.

'But the real message for Singaporeans is this: Each Budget on its own does not transform a country. But consistent and tenacious management of our Budget over time help to make Singapore a much better home for all of us,' she said, adding that the labour movement fully supports Budget 2011.

jeremyau@sph.com.sg

[They call themselves the People's Action Party. And because they are Active, Singaporeans have become Passive.

Perhaps they need to see that it is more than just the PAP providing, and the people passively accepting, or waiting.

They have been the People's ACTION Party. Now perhaps it's time to become the PEOPLE'S ACTION Party.]