::Homework Crapbox::
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Originally posted by UltimaOnline:
Teens jailed for "senseless" torture of girl
They held 14-year-old captive in flat for 17 days, beat her, scalded her and forced her to perform indecent acts
By Karen Wong
THREE 17-year-olds who tortured a 14-year-old girl repeatedly over 17 days in a flat in Ang Mo Kio were sentenced yesterday to jail terms of between two and seven years.
The boys will also be caned.
Sentencing them, District Judge Seng Kwang Boon described the case as one of the worst he had come across.
The "violent and serious nature of the case" and its "gruesome facts" called for a jail term and caning, where necessary, he said.
He sentenced Neo Soo Kai, a cook, to seven years' jail and 14 strokes of the cane.
Melvin Yeo Yew Beng, who is unemployed, will spend six years behind bars and be caned 16 strokes.
The judge sentenced Neo's girlfriend, an Institute of Technical Education student, to two years' jail.
She cannot be named because two of her three sisters accused of being involved in the assault are juveniles. Naming her would identify them.
The sisters are 12, 15 and 18 years old. The case against another youth, Yeo Kim Han, 17, is also pending.
The victim, who was held in a two-room flat from Dec 15 to Jan 2, was in hospital for 34 days after her ordeal and is badly scarred.
Neo, his girlfriend and Yeo admitted their guilt last Saturday.
All of them had assaulted her, taking turns to kick, punch and slap her. They also forced their victim to strip naked and perform indecent acts.
Neo hit her on the back with a metal chair, causing her to fall on her face. One of her front teeth came loose and he yanked it out.
When they told her to take off her clothes and perform indecent acts, Neo threatened to beat her if she did not obey, and Yeo also threatened to hit her.
Afraid of being hit again, she stripped and did as they commanded while they all watched.
On another occasion, Neo tied her to a chair in the kitchen and scalded her with boiling water.
Yeo beat her with a wooden stick and an iron rod and also scalded her.
He is also guilty of robbing a 21-year-old youth of his wallet in March 1997, at Ang Mo Kio Central.
The girl could not escape as they kept the grille gates locked, with Yeo and Neo taking turns to guard the key.
When she telephoned home, she did not dare tell her family what she was going through for fear of further abuse.
On New Year's Eve, the three of them tied the girl to the sofa and taped up her mouth shut, so she could not escape while they were out celebrating.
The judge said to them: "You have tortured this young defenceless girl for 17 long days. You have inflicted extreme pain on her and humiliated her. You have disfigured her body and her face.
"Your assaults were senseless.''
He added: "Just because you are young, does not mean that you can go around committing serious offences and hope to get off lightly.''
The three showed little emotion as the judge passed sentence.
Sad. They must compensate the girl with 50% of their salary for the rest of their life.
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With growing interest in MMA and Nicole Chua on the front page of the Straits Times as "Singapore's female MMA fighter", people should be aware of the unbridled brutality of the sport.
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Japan's Megumi Fujii defeats Australian Serin Murray via a figure four toe hold, snapping (breaking) Serin Murray's foot.
Before the fight, Serin Murray was quoted as saying "I am so happy to be able to fight in Japan, the country of Budo. Fujii has a pretty face but in the fight, I will strike that face without any mercy. Fujii is a grappler and I have respect towards her achievement. But I've studied Fujii's tactics. I have been a long practitioner of karate so I've acquired a offensive skill that can finish everything in 'One Shot.' I am going for a KO."
As it turned out, Megumi Fujii was victorious in less than a minute into the first round, snapping (breaking) Serin Murray's foot before she had a chance to tap out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJjZa5CXoWM
Megumi Fujii is currently ranked as the world #1 female MMA fighter, winning almost every fight in her career (usually by breaking her female opponent's arms or legs).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megumi_Fujii -
http://bbs.tiexue.net/post_5688829_1.html
Are the slaughter of animals at slaughterhouses any less cruel (compared to this Vietnamese ritual)? This probably varies from slaughterhouse to slaughterhouse.
Vonderplanitz advocates eating raw meat as essential to good health, and Hilarion has said that it is potentially possible (though this is not carried out in the world today because of corporate greed and lack of economic viability) to raise and slaughter animals in a humane, respectful, ethical manner, in order to minimize the animal cruelty aspect of eating meat.
For now, the majority of animal slaughterhouses on the planet, are probably no less cruel than this Vietnamese ritual. The people carrying out the ritual have deluded themselves into thinking the pig is incapable of emotions (such as fear, terror and suffering) and does not have a soul, which is incorrect. Imagine the outcry if the ritual was carried out on a human today (and indeed, such was outrageously all too commonly carried routinely in the dark past of humanity across many cultures, on hundreds of thousands of men and women tortured and killed this way. Just google "medieval torture" for a glimpse of humanity's dark past).
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Quite a list of photos. Most are ho-hum or silly stuff. But a few are of breathtakingly beautiful houses and properties.
http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/this_urban_jungle/929284/cool_things_you_dont_need_but_would_love_to_have.html -
[China vs Hong Kong] - Cantonese song "Locust World" (with English subtitles)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueNr7mfFZu8&feature=player_embedded -
[Humour] - Expectations versus Realities
http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/this_urban_jungle/931900/expectation_versus_reality.html -
Excerpt of an interview with Dr Toh Chin Chye, published in ‘Leaders of Singapore’ by Melanie Chew, 1996.
August 9, 1965
I remember that morning very clearly. In the morning, I wrote a letter to Tengku. He promptly replied in the afternoon.
I stayed behind (in Kuala Lumpur) and Lee came back to announce to the public in Singapore that Singapore had become independent. I stayed behind to clear up the mess. The Malaysian Parliament was meeting the next day. Lee Kuan Yew told me to go to the Parliament. Can you imagine the uproar? I had no chance to face the members of the Malaysian Solidarity Convention to break the news. Their support for Singapore came to nothing.
When Lee Kuan Yew got back to Singapore, he invited the members of the Convention to attend his press conference. He was crying. I don’t understand him at all. On one hand, he worked so hard for merger. Having gotten the cupful, he shattered it. And then cried over it.
He held two successive press conferences, and in which both he cried. On the third morning I went to work, and saw the press boys again. I asked Lee Wei Ching, his press secretary, “Why are they hanging around here?” Another press conference! I told Lee Wei Ching, “You ought to tell the Prime Minister to go to Changi and take a rest. Call the press conference off! Another crying bout, and the people of Singapore will think the government is on its knees. So he went to Changi, staying at the government bungalow for six weeks.
One smart reporter noted this by going through Hansard. There was a big time gap in Hansard between our last parliamentary meeting and the next meeting. More than five months. One would have thought with such a big event, Parliament should be immediately summoned and the announcement made to Parliament. The opposition came at me. Why is there no Parliament sitting? So I had to hold the fort.
I was not appointed to act for him while he was away. When he went off to Changi, Parliament did not meet. So Singapore had a Parliament in suspended animation. Keng Swee and Lim Kim San saw me and asked me what was the constitutional position. Has he recovered? What if he does not recover? So what happens? I said I thought he was getting better, although I could not see him and telephone calls were not put through.
Q: So after the separation, you did not have Parliamentary meetings until December?
Parliament last met on June 16th, 1965 when Singapore was still in Malaysia, and recommenced only on December 8th, 1965 after we had left Malaysia.
Q: But the appearance of government was normal. The government was still carrying on. It seemed like business as usual.
Your point is taken. In a crisis there will be public spirited figures who will rise to the occasion, for better or worse.
Only the constitutional position was unclear, because according to the constitution it was the Yang di Pertuan Negara who appoints the Prime Minister, who in turn appoints the Cabinet. The constitutional position was not clear about an absent or an incapacitated Prime Minister, and Goh Keng Swee and Lim Kim San were both anxious.
Q: Mr Lee at that time was in a very emotional state?
Yes, he was. I knew he was. And was very worried for him. That is why I told Lee Wei Ching to call the press conference off.
Q: Was he in a very emotional state because he felt he had made a blunder?
You have to interview him on that. I cannot answer for him.
Q: Could his provocative speeches have been part of a deliberate strategy?
I do not know why he did that. But he was influenced by Alex Josey, who came from the Middle East where he had been a reporter. Josey fed him ideas about the Muslims. The “Mad Mullahs.” The “Ultras.” Lee used the term, “Mad Mullahs.” This was Alex Josey’s phrase. Alex Josey was his close friend, golfing friend and biographer.
Alex used to play golf with me. He was an operator. He used to pick me up as early as five a.m., because I had no one to play golf with at that time. He was an operator, feeding me stories of his experiences with the Arabs. I had suspicions about him. Now he’s dead.
Q: Lee Kuan Yew asked the Tengku to write to you to explain that it was Tengku’s decision to separate.
Yes, I think that was the purpose. To tell me that it was a decision made by the Tengku.
Q: Was it because he was afraid?
So the blame would be on the Tengku’s shoulder. Not on our shoulders. The Tengku was far sighted. However desirable it was to continue as one country, we could not do so. He wrote, “We cannot avoid a bloodshed if we remain.”
Tengku had been in charge of multi racial Malaya since 1957. He knew, better than any of us, what was possible and impossible. The 1969 riots in Kuala Lumpur proved him right.”
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February 4th, 2012
On 30 Aug 1983, the Minister of Defence and Second Minister for Health, Goh Chok Tong, proposed to move the Motion in parliament that the House approved in principle the Medisave Scheme which would enable Singaporeans to set aside their own savings to meet future hospitalisation expenses. Dr Toh Chin Chye totally disagreed with the approach of Medisave and abstained from the voting in the resolution:
Dr Toh Chin Chye (Rochore): Mr Speaker, Sir, I will not go over ground which has been so admirably covered by the Member for Ayer Rajah. I share with him on the desire to have to push or reinforce preventive medicine. But I also would like to remind the Member for Ayer Rajah that we are human beings made of flesh, and flesh has its weaknesses.The Member for Ayer Rajah is a professional. Therefore, I would not argue with him over those professional points that he has raised. Instead, I will cover the financial aspects of Medisave. I feel that Medisave is being treated in isolation. Medisave is, as I pointed out in the Budget debate, a part of the Government budget and our budgets have been in surplus every year. It is misleading of the Minister for Health to go around the country and create the impression that we are encountering problems like the United States which face running deficits because of expenditure on social security programmes and defence. In fact, the only social security programme we have in Singapore is health. It is wrong to forget that even now patients make direct payments for medical treatment and hospitalization. It is wrong to create the impression that we are distributing health care for free. Payments made by patients constituted 24% of the recurrent expenditure of the Ministry of Health in 1981.
I know it is politically unpleasant to announce periodically increases in hospital charges. It was my job at that time and I can recollect the castigation that I received in the newspapers each time I raised the rates. But this is unavoidable. Costs are bound to go up with each year if for no other reason than because of annual increases in wages. And this applies not just to the Ministry of Health but equally to all other Government bodies and departments.
The Ministry of Health cannot avoid revising medical and hospital rates. The CPF account is a convenient means to collect hospital charges. For that, the Minister for Health has to be congratulated. I know there are bad debts incurred by the hospitals. These bad debts will now disappear. But for that matter if hospital cost will have to be paid from savings, why not allow patients to pay the cost of hospitalization from their savings accounts in the POSB? And there are over two million accounts.
The provision of health care facilities must be accepted as a social responsibility. It is not that an individual who has the misfortune to be inflicted with some particular disease is solely responsible for searching the facilities to cure his illness. This is a social responsibility which is accepted by governments all over the world. This is part and parcel of the organization of individuals into societies. It is a measure of the degree of civilization.
The problem which we are faced with is the cost of financing. Who is to pay? I believe it is wrong to say that the Government is paying for the cost of medical care. The costs of government are borne by taxpayers, us, either through direct taxation, like income tax, or indirect taxation. So the problem really is reduced to finding an equitable distribution of revenue in the Consolidated Fund to meet different objectives and purposes of the Government.
Medisave calls for direct payments by patients to the cost of running ‘C’ class beds. The recurrent expenditure of the entire Ministry of Health, i.e. the cost of administration, the cost of outpatient departments, the cost of all first, second and third class wards in all hospitals, was $257 million in 1981. Let us assume that the operating cost of ‘C’ class beds is 70% of the total expenditure, which is a generous assumption. This means that ‘C’ class wards cost $180 million. The revenue received by the Ministry of Health in that year, 1981, was $62 million, leaving a deficit of $118 million which was met out of the Consolidated Fund. However, Payroll Tax collected was $106 million in 1981, a sum sufficient to meet the deficit for operating ‘C’ class wards.
Let me take the House to 1982. The Ministry of Health expenditure was $321 million. And again assuming that ‘C’ class wards cost 60%, the sum would be $192 million. Payroll Tax collection alone was $161 million, leaving a deficit of $31 million which was more than covered from revenue collected by the Ministry.
What we are faced with, therefore, is the problem of apportioning of responsibility and cost. The propaganda put out by the two Ministers for Health is that medicine is a commodity that is consumed. I think it is a very dangerous assumption to believe that persons love to fall ill, that they go around shopping for sicknesses in the supermarkets, or that they like to spend their weekend in a hospital as if the hospital is a hotel. Or that the food served in the hospital is a la carte or buffet. That is perverse propaganda. And, therefore, Medisave is now being treated as a consumption tax. This makes it difficult for one to support the arguments that have been put forward for Medisave. I do not know why the Member for Ayer Rajah was sold over so easily that he has already expressed his support without first listening to the rest of us.
What percentage of the cost of running ‘C’ class wards can be equitably borne by direct taxation such as Payroll Tax? What percentage of payments is made directly by patients? The proposal behind Medisave is that patients will now make their payments not directly to the hospitals but through their CPF accounts. It is like the check-off system that we have in the trade unions. Now we are being checked-off out of the CPF account. The snag of this scheme is that employers would be asked to contribute to Medisave in spite of the fact that they already have their own private health scheme for their employees. And, in effect, this would mean increasing their Payroll Tax by 3%, even though this contribution does not directly go to the Consolidated Fund but into the employee’s CPF account.
I am concerned that in presenting Medisave, the Minister has given no consideration to fundamental points. First, in what direction can the Ministry of Health reduce costs? The Member for Ayer Rajah has very eloquently explained that demand is not generated by patients, and I believe him, particularly patients in ‘C’ class wards. It’s the doctors who create demand as he has explained. Can the Minister, a political appointee, control his doctors?
Point No. 2. What is the projection of future revenue that will be collected by the Ministry of Health? In other words, in what direction is he anticipating the rate of increase in the cost of running the Ministry and therefore the increase in charges that he must pronounce periodically, next year or the following year?
Point No. 3. Can shortfalls be made up from the Consolidated Fund without calling for further contributions to the CPF which is now at 46%?
Point No. 4. Can part of, the interest earned on CPF accounts be credited to the cost of hospitalization? In 1982, the interest credited to members’ accounts was $846 million which is $187 million more than in 1981. The more CPF you pay the more interest you earn. And if, of course, a part of this CPF money is invested overseas where interest is higher than the 6.5% we earn, perhaps that additional interest will help to pay the cost of hospitalization. But contributors earn only 6.5%.
No firm can afford to have two parallel medical welfare schemes. The trade unions want Medisave and of course they want the existing scheme under the general collective agreement they have made with the employers. The Minister for Health, since he is not the Minister for Labour, has of course ignored all this. The buck is passed on to the employers. Believe me, I have not turned capitalist. I am not speaking on behalf of employers. There are big employers. There are small employers. There are small businesses who hire two persons, maybe even three persons. They have to contribute to all the taxes imposed by the Minister for Finance, including CPF, the Skills Development Fund and Payroll Tax. And these small businesses which pay Skills Development Fund do not see anything coming out of the Skills Development Fund. A barber shop applies for a Skills Development Fund. How can he develop the skills of his barbers? It is the small businesses that are subsidizing the big businesses.
So also is this Scheme. It is a taxation, and it is a recessive tax for the simple reason that those who are at the lower income level, because their CPF contributions are lower, will have to pay the full amount, whereas those with higher incomes do not pay the full percentage of their income towards the CPF because there is a ceiling. It is recessive. I feel that all this is a very short-sighted myopic view. As payroll costs rise, so also prices must increase. And this will have an escalating effect on the cost of living and demand for more wages, and more contribution to CPF. I know for sure there was one businessman who preferred to leave Italy to start a restaurant in Saudi Arabia, for the simple reason that he just could not afford to pay the social security cost imposed on him by the government.
I asked the Minister for Finance earlier this afternoon to find out what revenue Government companies and statutory bodies were contributing to his Consolidated Fund. The Minister was a bit quick in the reply. I was not sure of the figures I jotted down but, if my additions were correct, their contribution was more than the recurrent expenditure of the Ministry of Health. So why have more contributions to the CPF?
Has the Minister for Health, who was in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, who was in cahoots with the Minister for Finance, taken the trouble to investigate how he is going to get the money to run his Ministry? The first responsibility of the Minister for Health is to ensure the availability of health care services. That is his first responsibility, that he must go round and nag at the Minister for Finance for the money. But he is taking on the job of the Minister for Finance. I totally disagree with the approach of Medisave. However, as a former Minister for Health, I share with these two Ministers for Health their concern for preserving the existing standard of health care; preserving – I am not saying improving, the emphasis is “preserving”.
I happened to visit a patient in a Class A Ward in Kandang Kerbau Hospital, paying full charges. The patient asked for a receptacle so that she could throw out her vomitus. She was given a half-cut discarded plastic bottle which was so small that the vomitus spilled all over the bedsheet; and that was a discarded plastic bottle, in a first class ward. What are we doing with the revenue collected? It will be profitable if the two Ministers were to take time off and inspect the wards. But I question, and I do not agree with the Minister for Health just now when he extrapolated or tried to extrapolate European and American cost of health care into the Singapore situation. I do not agree with him. I have read all the literature. Behind the statistics that he produced just now, there are many pressures, vested interests, interest of pharmaceutical departments, manufacturers of hospital equipment, which have pushed up health care costs in the West completely out of proportion to the rate of inflation. And I worry still that we will soon have an Audit department in the Ministry of Health that may well do nothing but spend its time trying to do an audit on the costs in our own hospitals. I would suggest to the Minister for Health that it will be profitable for him and his staff to study all these underlying causes in the West so that we avoid them in Singapore.
The Blue Paper that has been presented to us this afternoon is out of date. It is said in the Blue Paper down there that contribution to the CPF is 45%. It is 46% now. If it is so out of date so soon, I am alarmed whether in five years’ time the 50% rate of contribution to CPF would not also be out of date. Together with contributions to payroll tax, skills development fund, any additional payments to the CPF, particularly from small businesses and partnerships, the increases in payroll tax cost will be a real deterrence. The Blue Paper is not binding on the Minister for Labour, or even a future Minister for Health or a future Minister for Labour. The Minister for Labour is responsible for the Central Provident Fund, not the Minister for Health. The resolution that he has set out before the House does not spell out limits. It is a blank cheque. As far as the Minister is concerned, he gets his 6%.
My confidence, Mr Speaker, in resolutions has not been strengthened, particularly when a resolution moved by the Minister for Education in 1979 in this Chamber has not been honoured. I shall abstain from the voting in the resolution.
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* Dr Toh Chin Chye was the Minister for Health from 1975 to 1981 until he stepped down from the Cabinet in 1981 to make way for younger ministers, as part of the political renewal process. He remained as a backbencher MP till 1988 when he retired from politics completely while LKY continued to remain in politics up till even today.
* In 1983, Howe Yoon Chong was the Minister for Health and Goh Chok Tong, the 2nd Minister for Health.
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Bloody Robbery (2 vs 2) on 2 Feb 2012 (reportedly in Malaysia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lsjEpReY-B8
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2 ITE guys fight over a girl :
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"FireCloudEvilGod" from Kung Fu Hustle (movie) makes an appearance in Romance of the Three Kingdoms :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3DQl44fwVQ&feature=player_embedded
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Incident at KFC (Malaysia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NDfHB3UbdQ&feature=player_embedded -
http://www.divaasia.com/article/15860
Tue, Feb 07, 2012
Former mistress: 'I have money but no love'
by Maureen Koh
A long-drawn affair with a married tycoon left this ex-model with a fat bank account and investments in properties, but also an empty heart and a scar on her face
She is the other woman. No regrets, she said in an interview with The New Paper on Sunday in 2006.
Well, none until she was unceremoniously dumped in 2010 after spending half her youth being a married man's mistress.
Regret showed through her make-up during the hour-long interview with Ms Melissa Phua. She sums up the life she led since she was 24: "I am cash rich, but the money can't buy me love."
And there is a permanent scar left on the 40-year-old stunner, who looks barely 30. Just as she now desperately wants to hide her tainted life, her long hair covers a 5cm-long scar on the right cheek.
Without betraying any emotion, Ms Phua recalls: "The stupid wife came to our love nest, went ballistic and started smashing stuff. In the midst of trying to beat me up, she clawed my face."
The love nest was a posh condominium apartment in District 9 which the man owned.
After that attack, Ms Phua used it as an excuse to "threaten" the man, who is 29 years older, into calling it quits.
Says the former model: "I saw it as a chance to escape. He had grown tired of me and the frequent sex had slowed down from five times a week to only once in a fortnight."
Two years on, Ms Phua now lives in a terrace house she owns in District 10.
She has investments in two other private properties.
She zips around town in a Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet. When the high roller is not at the local casinos, she's at home watching Korean dramas.
Her ex-lover, whom she met in December 1996 when she was modelling for a lingerie company at his company's function, "provided well" during their time together, she adds.
He used to sit on the board of directors of a multi-national company, but she is unsure of what he is doing now.
Ms Phua's "last-drawn monthly allowance" was $10,000 - that was on top of the platinum credit card "with no limit" she was given and a luxury sports car.
And when she felt like travelling, she could just go wherever she fancied - on first class - and stay at the best hotels in the world.
A significant change in her lifestyle now is that she no longer splurges on the latest designer brands.
That, she claims, was merely a move to stash money away following her mother's advice on her death bed.
Says Ms Phua: "My mother was very upset when she found out that I was kept, but she gradually accepted it.
"The best advice she gave me was just before she died (in 2001) to make plans for my future in case he dumps me."
According to the "relationship agreement" drawn up in 1997, - Ms Phua still keeps a copy - she will lose everything, except the car and whatever cash savings she has, if he suspects her of being unfaithful.
She adds: "That's why I'd charge to my credit (card) things that my friends wanted and give them a 10 per cent discount in return for cash payment."
Ms Phua also invested in gold jewellery and kept it away from him.
She confesses that she has kept a string of other lovers, but would call it off whenever she felt that her ex-lover was getting suspicious.
Since her new life began, Ms Phua has gone through three other relationships, but none lasted beyond 10 months.
She explains: "Somehow, there's still a stigma. I could easily try to keep (the affair) a secret, but I prefer to lay my cards on the table."
Unfortunately, the truth hurts.
Ms Phua says: "Two of them broke up with me shortly after I revealed the truth. It didn't matter that this was history even before we met."
The third boyfriend "struggled for several weeks before coming to terms with it".
Until she dropped another bombshell: she can never have a baby.
A clause in her arrangement with her ex-lover stated that she cannot get pregnant. This prompted Ms Phua to go for a ligation procedure after she moved into their love nest, three months after they met.
She says: "It hurts me whenever I see my friends with their children, when they talk about their kids with such pride."
Like a self-prophecy, Ms Phua repeats her words from her first interview in 2006: "I will be a lonely woman.
"Because by then (now), it'd also be too late for me to find someone who'd love me."
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Originally posted by Darkness_hacker99:
I am a self mugger..
Next week I am into my math revision phrase liao.. Gonna ask alot of question..
O.o Poly got maths.jialat. -
19 July 2007
That was when I was in Year 1
Time flies..... -
i cried in class just now.
I really want to slap the boy now.
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Jiani, that boy boy bully you again ar?
very notti boy leh him
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i really wish to give him 99 slaps.
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I promise Darkness_hacker99 that I will not advertise in this forum anymore. In future, I will take some time to read the Homework Forum Guideline before making any post.
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[Facebook] - Dad teaches teenage daughter a lesson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HGxY_F9waAU -
[China] - "Worshipping Cats" symbols hidden in $100 bills
http://djcadchina.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/worshiping-cats-hidden-in-design-of-chinese-100-rmb-bill/ -
Originally written by Alfian Saat March 2002
I had recently written to the artscommunity e-group saying that I was willing to hold creative writing workshops, but only for "indigenous Singaporeans". Somebody asked the obvious, and this is my reply.
The Racist's Apology----------------
I walked out of the house this morning and feared I had become a racist.
I passed by a newsstand and a magazine tells me about 50% of the world's most beautiful people are from the West, 10% from Singapore, 35% from Hong Kong and Taiwan and 5% from India and Malaysia. A JC Decaux billboard says that a lot of people read their ads and they have faces to prove it: Chinese people of various ages and occupations and genders. There are some which show non-Chinese people but they don't have the dignity of individual names, and they are put under the heading 'The Changing Face of Singapore'. This can mean that perhaps the media is using more non-Chinese people in their ads (which I don't see) or that Singapore's demographic makeup is being altered by the arrival of other races (which I am not aware of, historically). I take a bus and TV Mobile is screening a Taiwanese variety programme. A Singaporean beauty contestant wears a cheongsam as her national costume and asks for an interpreter to translate her replies from Mandarin. The Speak Mandarin campaign informs me of what assets are missing from my life.
Tanya Chua's music video comes on and I unconsciously tally the number of Malay people that appear; I have been doing this for some time now, when I was in JC there was a 'My Singapore' music video which showed images of corporate-looking Chinese women walking through the CBD and Malay women in factory uniforms walking through a bus interchange. Tanya Chua's 'Where I Belong' shows three instances of Malay people populating the landcsape: a husband and wife riding a scooter; a father and son on a bicycle, the son carrying a box one presumes is filled with curry puffs or goreng pisang, and a group of Malay youths playing soccer in a housing estate ghetto so run down, it looks like an opposition ward being denied of upgrading, or one of those satellite towns built when Jurong swamps were still being filled.
But perhaps this is an improvement over other images: the satay man, the songbird owner, the mee rebus Makcik, the Malay bride and groom getting married in gold-embroidered finery (and situated on a dais, we Malays like to call them 'royalty for a day', playing the illusion of being king and queen in a country where the royal bloodline has been evicted from their home and told that the ruins of their palace will be converted into a museum). I think about what Sang Nila Utama really did when he threw his crown into the sea to calm the raging storm; whether the gales spoke to his inner ear: 'if you want to live on the island you must surrender all memory of having once been a prince'. At the Sentosa Merlion there are signs that say that Sang Nila himself saw the Merlion rising from the waters, a fact that the Sejarah Melayu, the Malay Annals, failed to mention. Evidently there is someone called 'Sang Nila' somewhere in the executive committee of the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board.
At the foot of the Raffles statue in Boat Quay there is an inscription that says the man's genius transformed a 'sleepy fishing village' into the modern metropolis it is today, this at the foot of a man who recorded in his journals how he saw the tombs of the Malay kings, and inscriptions on a fortress wall, when he first landed: evidence of an empire, of civilisation. In an interview a doyenne of Singapore theatre laments that all Singaporeans are 'cultural orphans', including the Malays, because they migrated from Malaysia and Indonesia, and that makes them immigrants too, no matter that one can take a sampan from Johor to Singapore.
I walk through a park in Tampines and see Chinese boys playing basketball at the court and Malay boys playing soccer on the field; I am comforted that my complete uselessness at ball games has prevented me from taking either side, has by default made me a conscientious objector to such disturbing polarities. In the army a sergeant major never called be by my name; I was called 'Melayu', which I suppose was better than 'Ah-Neh', used to address the Indians in the platoon. I remember a fellow Malay platoon mate who told me to give it my all when I was fasting, this was to prevent anyone from saying that we could use religion as an excuse for our weakness. He was eventually posted to the infantry (not logistics or engineers, much less the Navy or Airforce) and I used to imagine him burning up his pre-fasting morning meal to be the first to charge up the hill, yelling the pain of hunger and the pain of being different. The Malay staff sergeant in Officer Cadet School gave me a lot of shit just to overcompensate, to show everyone that he was not into any form of racial favouritism. I became a victim of the sidelong glances he made as he watched me doing my pushups, those eyes constantly seeking approval from the eyes of the majority.
I see a schoolgirl from a madrasah wearing a tudung on the MRT and she is filling in the pictures in her colouring book. There are many choices among her colour pencils which she can use for skin, but she will use orange, and colour lightly, not brown or black. I have seen her schoolmates before, eyeing branded scoolbags at pasar malams, wearing branded sports shoes, like every other kid. I want to go up to her and hug her, and tell her how her tudung is not just a symbol of modesty, but a symbol of inscrutability. That layer of cloth makes her suspicious to others, it can be used to smuggle in a grenade or an agenda, so she will never get a frontline desk job, she will be expected to hang around with other tudung-wearing women in the university. I think about the fathers who sent their daughters to schools in tudung and reflect on how the media has framed them as shit-stirrers rather than citizens who practised their right to civil disobedience, the same way Gandhi fasted, or Rosa Parks refused to sit at her negroes-only seat on the segregated bus. If I can tell the girl one thing, it is 'integration is not assimilation', or 'tolerance is a failure in understanding' even though it is something she will take time to understand.
I think also of the men who filmed different locations in Singapore with the heinous intent of planting bombs. Did they not consider the various innocent Singaporean lives that could have been claimed by what they were about to do? And I wonder if they had already chosen another country to live in; a country in which they do not have to face a creeping sense of alienation, of redundancy. And I am not talking about an Islamic country, not Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else, but an afterlife paradise, where everyone is equal in the eyes of God, where wearing a sarong or having a beard does not immediately make you a proto-terrorist. Or perhaps a country that exists in their minds, nurtured by a growing sense of insularity and isolation, where they walk the streets and everyone else is just a ghost, in whose dead eyes they cannot find any light of empathy or understanding.
Once someone told me: 'But the government is bending over backwards to accommodate you Malays.' I smiled and wanted to ask him if it wasn't the other way round, that the Malays are made to bend forward to be fucked senseless. Another time a journalist asked if the statistical evidence of 'progress' shows that Malays are being given the same opportunities as everyone else. I told her that statistics don't do shit for me, as someone who has to live day by day as a Malay person in this country. I told her one Malay Air Force pilot poster boy, and a few bar charts and graphs, don't make me feel more at home. The only thing they do is to convince non-Malays that the country they live in is truly multiracial, that there are no tensions beneath the veneer of newsprint and newscasts and the rosy speeches of Malay MP's.
I have always believed in multi-racialism. I can say with utmost confidence that I have more friends who are non-Malay than those who are. And I mean real friends, who I confide in, who I've shared many things with, who I do love dearly. And yet, of late, I have the feeling that a lot of the things I'm saying, a lot of this talk about alienation and marginalisation, only feeds subconsciously into their sense of how fortunate they are to be born into the status quo. I have written a poem before where I say, 'But more than that we prayed for ourselves,/treading the rosary of our blessings,/for what is pity without thanks for/the opportunity for such pity?' And sometimes I feel as if the more my voice is raised on the fast-eclipsing fate of the minority, the more it feeds into the majority's smugness and arrogance about their assured place in the sun. And this only makes me feel more powerless than if I had kept silent.
So I say now, forgive me if you think my desire to work with my own people marks me out as a racist. Forgive me if you think that my preferences are actually prejudices. Forgive me for retreating into something one can so easily call 'cultural chauvinism'. And I will forgive you for thinking that this person writing this isn't the Alfian that you know, that he has always been moderate and liberal, and I will forgive you if you look at me differently the next time I meet you. For some time already I have felt that as a Malay writer writing in English I have had to carry the burden of articulating so many unvoiced concerns. And the responsibilities associated with this are frightening. I just think it is time I pass on whatever skills I have to other Malay people, so we may tell our stories to those who want to hear them, even though they are stories of loss and loneliness and accidents of birth.---------------------
Home > Our Columnists > Column
Aug 10, 2008
I wish...
Feeling like the least favourite child
Three writers share their hopes for Singapore this National Day
Nur Dianah SuhaimiAs a Malay, I've always been told that I have to work twice as hard to prove my worth
When I was younger, I always thought of myself as the quintessential Singaporean.Of my four late grandparents, two were Malay, one was Chinese and one was Indian. This, I concluded, makes me a mix of all the main races in the country. But I later realised that it was not what goes into my blood that matters, but what my identity card says under 'Race'.
Because my paternal grandfather was of Bugis origin, my IC says I'm Malay. I speak the language at home, learnt it in school, eat the food and practise the culture. And because of my being Malay, I've always felt like a lesser Singaporean than those from other racial groups.
I grew up clueless about the concept of national service because my father was never enlisted.
He is Singaporean all right, born and bred here like the rest of the boys born in 1955. He is not handicapped in any way. He did well in school and participated in sports.
Unlike the rest, however, he entered university immediately after his A levels. He often told me that his schoolmates said he was 'lucky' because he was not called up for national service.
'What lucky?' he would tell them. 'Would you feel lucky if your country doesn't trust you?'
So I learnt about the rigours of national service from my male cousins. They would describe in vivid detail their training regimes, the terrible food they were served and the torture inflicted upon them - most of which, I would later realise, were exaggerations.
But one thing these stories had in common was that they all revolved around the Police Academy in Thomson. As I got older, it puzzled me why my Chinese friends constantly referred to NS as 'army'. In my family and among my Malay friends, being enlisted in the army was like hitting the jackpot. The majority served in the police force because, as is known, the Government was not comfortable with Malay Muslims serving in the army. But there are more of them now.
Throughout my life, my father has always told me that as a Malay, I need to work twice as hard to prove my worth. He said people have the misconception that all Malays are inherently lazy.
I was later to get the exact same advice from a Malay minister in office who is a family friend.
When I started work, I realised that the advice rang true, especially because I wear my religion on my head. My professionalism suddenly became an issue. One question I was asked at a job interview was whether I would be willing to enter a nightclub to chase a story. I answered: 'If it's part of the job, why not? And you can rest assured I won't be tempted to have fun.'
When I attend media events, before I can introduce myself, people assume I write for the Malay daily Berita Harian. A male Malay colleague in The Straits Times has the same problem, too.
This makes me wonder if people also assume that all Chinese reporters are from Lianhe Zaobao and Indian reporters from Tamil Murasu.
People also question if I can do stories which require stake-outs in the sleazy lanes of Geylang. They say because of my tudung I will stick out like a sore thumb. So I changed into a baseball cap and a men's sports jacket - all borrowed from my husband - when I covered Geylang.
I do not want to be seen as different from the rest just because I dress differently. I want the same opportunities and the same job challenges.
Beneath the tudung, I, too, have hair and a functioning brain. And if anything, I feel that my tudung has actually helped me secure some difficult interviews.
Newsmakers - of all races - tend to trust me more because I look guai (Hokkien for well-behaved) and thus, they feel, less likely to write critical stuff about them.
Recently, I had a conversation with several colleagues about this essay. I told them I never thought of myself as being particularly patriotic. One Chinese colleague thought this was unfair. 'But you got to enjoy free education,' she said.
Sure, for the entire 365 days I spent in Primary 1 in 1989. But my parents paid for my school and university fees for the next 15 years I was studying.
It seems that many Singaporeans do not know that Malays have stopped getting free education since 1990. If I remember clearly, the news made front-page news at that time.
We went on to talk about the Singapore Government's belief that Malays here would never point a missile at their fellow Muslim neighbours in a war.
I said if not for family ties, I would have no qualms about leaving the country. Someone then remarked that this is why Malays like myself are not trusted. But I answered that this lack of patriotism on my part comes from not being trusted, and for being treated like a potential traitor.
It is not just the NS issue. It is the frustration of explaining to non-Malays that I don't get special privileges from the Government. It is having to deal with those who question my professionalism because of my religion. It is having people assume, day after day, that you are lowly educated, lazy and poor. It is like being the least favourite child in a family. This child will try to win his parents' love only for so long. After a while, he will just be engulfed by disappointment and bitterness.
I also believe that it is this 'least favourite child' mentality which makes most Malays defensive and protective of their own kind.
Why do you think Malay families spent hundreds of dollars voting for two Malay boys in the Singapore Idol singing contest? And do you know that Malays who voted for other competitors were frowned upon by the community?
The same happens to me at work. When I write stories which put Malays in a bad light, I am labelled a traitor. A Malay reader once wrote to me to say: 'I thought a Malay journalist would have more empathy for these unfortunate people than a non-Malay journalist.'
But such is the case when you are a Malay Singaporean. Your life is not just about you, as much as you want it to be. You are made to feel responsible for the rest of the pack and your actions affect them as well. If you trip, the entire community falls with you. But if you triumph, it is considered everyone's success.
When 12-year-old Natasha Nabila hit the headlines last year for her record PSLE aggregate of 294, I was among the thousands of Malays here who celebrated the news. I sent instant messages to my friends on Gmail and chatted excitedly with my Malay colleagues at work.
Suddenly a 12-year-old has become the symbol of hope for the community and a message to the rest that Malays can do it too - and not just in singing competitions.
And just like that, the 'least favourite child' in me feels a lot happier.
Each year, come Aug 9, my father, who never had the opportunity to do national service, dutifully hangs two flags at home - one on the front gate and the other by the side gate.
I wonder if putting up two flags is his way of making himself feel like a better-loved child of Singapore.
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[Singapore] - "We have lost faith in the system..."
http://publichouse.sg/categories/topstory/item/471-losing-faith-because-of-polices-incompetence
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