2007

Wishing you that your new year ahead will be better than the one that has passed.

LOVE, PEACE & RECYCLE - NEY REED

The Online Citizen

A pretty long time ago, I received an email from one Andrew Loh to be invited to write for a local Singaporean online magazine. The first instinctive reaction is suspicion. I wondered if this individual belonged to our army of ultra-paranoid intelligence agents? I prayed he simply come forward and just ask whatever he needs to know if he is one since I am naturally very transparent enough to tell him so. Somehow he did not come across as one and instead appeared sincere to get a diversity of opinions for his online magazine. I obliged and submitted my first article on globalization and its impact on Singapore family values.

Then when the online magazine was finally up, I was rather taken aback. It was called The Online Citizen. It did not keep away from discussing politics in Singapore which is a country that notoriously de-citizenizes the political space. I was a little perturbed because the online citizen was encroaching on the de-citizenized political space, potentially putting itself at risk with the authorities who have always shown that they will never respond gently or gentlemanly to such encroachment.

Then again when I sat back to ponder I realize what is happening is only natural. The establishment of The Online Citizen served as an opening to express one's view in alternative media even within an alternative medium and naturally it motivated the locked up citizens to rush in that direction of that opening. Hence I realized I need not be too shocked to see this phenomenon.

A similar example can be found in the arts scene in Singapore. When an opening started showing up with the government loosening up the arts scene since the 90s, some Singaporeans rushed there till today to air their politcial views. As a commentor rightfully pointed out in my earlier article, some Singaporeans take refuge in arts scene for their political expressions.

Within any system that does not work to normalize any energies and instead close and seal up the system to lock up the energies, when an opening, how small it can be, appears, then one can expect to find a gush of that pressured up energies. Liberals will therefore call for an open system, but then again it does not serve as a remedy as the same impact, only in a milder form, will still occur. A more prudent approach will be to normalize those energies.

Another disturbing thing that I noticed about The Online Citizen was that there was some ranting and griping which frankly speaking are fit for the coffee shop and not for public discourse. There again in which Singapore media do we not find such ranting and griping? Its rather a Singaporean thingy. However in the long run, any publication will turn sour and bitter if it has any such form of ranting and griping.

I also noticed that there were some sympathizers of workers party writing for The Online Citizen. There was also an article/quoted articled from a PAP MP. I was again perturbed. I, personally speaking, will not wish to see the presence of politicians in the discussion space of citizens which need to be apartisan in order to preserve the independence of opinions. Politicians everywhere have a tendency to work hard to sway, swing or win opinions, rather than to be light hearted by simply expressing it and leaving the reader with the freedom to do whatever with it according to his/her wishes or fancies. In a pure citizen space, one can confidently read the content without having to second guess what political affinity the author has. Singapore also has a long way to go in developing such a space for expression of independent thought.

We are nowhere near and instead way far behind Malaysia in this where you can find numerous independent thinkers, analysts and intellectuals. I picked up a Malaysian magazine yesterday and was amused to see the magnitude of independent voices some of whom are retired or current politicians who bravely resist partisan politics. It is critical to establish independent space because then only can the imperfections within a system be consistently and accurately understood in a timely fashion by both the government and the people.

When I was in Canada, on a few occasions I was invited to join a few political parties by friends who were already active strategists/planners/party cadres for those parties. Though I, on numerous occasions, were forced to meet up with some of the politicians there, I never on any occasion wished to enter politics. In partisan politics one has to support for the sake of supporting something even he/she is opposed to it and one has to oppose for the sake of opposing something even if he/she support it. That is one of the many shortcomings of democracy which I can never do. On the other hand, I also got to see many more independent individuals who without entering politics were able to contribute to development of society by acting as independent voices of society. They merely served in their capacity as intellectuals, analysts or thinkers within their faculty as academics, scholars, priests, artists etc.

In Singapore where the ruling party is not keen to open up the political space for a full multiparty democratic environment, the alternative is definitely is to create unrestricted space for independent thought. As I keep reiterating in the previous article and in this one, the need to fully identify imperfections of a system, in order to prevent the collapse or decay of the system, makes it a must to implement it.

The Online Citizen beyond these criticisms is indeed a decent publication and has much hope and potential. Since I don’t drive The Online Citizen and in fact I do not even know who are driving it, my wish for it is to give my above recommendations due consideration. Anyway in the old past, we in Singapore had a vibrant print and intellectual cutlure with numerous newspapers that included some apartisan indepedent papers. Today that culture does not exist and therefore any new alternative media has to face the teething struggles of gaining acceptance by everyone from government to public. It will face the challenges of trying to understand and define its sense of expression. So i guess The Online Citizen needs time before we can fully see what it is.

Political: Does criticism = opposition?

The Online Citizen - http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/

Original Article URL: http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/news/articles/article42.asp

Does criticism = opposition?

By Ney Reed

Sunday, 10 December, 2006

criticism (noun) - serious examination and judgment of something; disapproval expressed by pointing out faults or shortcomings.

critic(noun) - anyone who expresses a reasoned judgment of something; a person who offers a value judgement or an interpretation.

critique(noun) - a serious appraisal; a serious review.

opposition(noun) - resistance; the action of opposing something that you disapprove or disagree with;confrontation where the act of hostile groups opposing each other; a body of people united in opposing something; a contestant that you are matched against;

After writing two pieces of articles on my blog a year ago, i realized then that i am no longer living in north america but singapore where it is a common and prevalent phenomenon to see people equating criticism to opposition. Hence i wrote a blog piece subsequently to explain that i am merely criticising and not opposing and that there is a distinct world of a difference between the two which the average singaporean from the politician to the average joe tend to miss. After writing two articles for online citizen, again i had the same vibes and here i am writing again to evaluate if and when criticism amounts to opposition.

Professor Seyyed Naquib Al-Attas, a scholar based in Malaysia, reknowned in the West for his contribution to Islamic Philosophy, once profoundly summarized one of the greatest dilemmas of mankind during a seminar in singapore by saying that "one cannot build an understanding in something in which he has uncertainties... he has to remove those uncertainties and thereafter only will he be able to build an understanding". Indeed that understanding becomes the foundation upon which a value, thought, conclusion,system,organization,policy, intervention or initiative is constructed or implemented or pursued. Therefore when one has uncertainties in something, he/she will not be able to adequately/comprehensively understand it such that whatever he/she embark on using that inconsistent understanding, it is bound to produce less than optimal outcomes.

The definitions of criticism, critic and critique

Today in Singapore each one of us have built our own systems and universes where we have zero tolerance for criticism and instead equate it to opposition. Least do we sincerely ask ourselves whether criticism equates and amounts to opposition and if so, is it in exceptional cases or general cases.

The definitions of criticism, critic and critique above, which can be found in any of your english dictionaries, clearly indicate no resemblance in meaning to the definition of opposition. When one criticise or critique something or be a critic of something, he is in no way oppossing it. When one is opposing something, he/she can either criticise it or not but in most cases, it is the former. You may perhaps deduce criticism from opposition but never the other way round. It will be foolish, ignorant and naive to do that.

Let me illustrate with a few examples. The biggest, loudest and worst criticisms one can expect to hear about English league football clubs are not from their opponents but their own fans. The criticisms from these fans are not in any way criticisms but passionate disapprovals. The fans still splurge mindlessly on these clubs despite their criticisms and they never oppose them.

The worst critics of us in our lives are our parents, wives, husbands, teachers etc. In no way can we reasonably equate their criticisms to opposition. It is the very fact that they take our interests and well-being too seriously that they are charitable with their criticisms. What do we call a teenager who retaliates against his parents because they criticise him? Immature, spoilt, foolish. However that is precisely how we are living our lives here in Singapore happily equating every criticism to opposition.

In these two examples we see how criticisms can arise out of fondness, love, liking and that has no relation to an attitude of opposition or resistance.

Being human

One of the definition given above for criticism is that it is an act of disapproval. When do we disapprove? When we do not agree. Because each one of us have our individual mind, it is practically and realistically impossible to expect any two person to agree on everything or anything. They may or they may not. Hence criticisms in other cases can arise out of the very nature of us humans having born with an individual mind. We also disapprove because we may dislike it. There we see criticisms arising in some instances simply because of our very human nature of being born with emotions. Unless we remove the mind and emotions in us, we cannot stop criticisms. Furthermore disapproval does not equate to opposition. One can disapprove and yet not resist.

There are so many things in our daily lives that we disapprove and we do not resist them.Man, as we all know, is imperfect. But what we fail to realize is that because of this we need to understand that whatever man constructs or does is subject to imperfections. Therefore when one sees an imperfection or what seems to him/her as an imperfection, he/she will only naturally criticise. But doing that does not translate to opposing or resisting it which is something totally different. Furthermore it is only healthy for every man made construct to be subject to criticisms or else you can never reduce its imperfections. As long as its imperfections are not reduced, it will be unstable and likely to fail or self-destruct.

Criticisms are like feedback

Criticisms also do not lead necessarily to opposition. Criticisms are like feedback. When criticisms are accepted within a system, those criticisms will die out subsequently and only a fresh set of criticisms will arise.For instance should criticisms be as a result of assymetric information then information will be consistently exchanged and misunderstandings or inconsistent understandings will be clarrified. In other cases a compromise may be reached or there may be a reversal or a new solution implemented.

Opposition or resistance only arises from criticisms when criticisms are rejected and not tolerated or when criticisms are expected to be rejected and not tolerated. The human mind and emotions primarily propels the will within onself to oppose or resist. Hence the human mind and emotions cannot be held down forcibly by being intolerant to criticisms which really is a mere expression of the human mind and emotions.

As mentioned earlier no man made system can be stable or grow without a constant and continued effort to reduce the inherent and ever present imperfections. However this can only happen through tolerance for criticisms. What can perhaps can additionally be pursued is to educate how to express a criticism with a sense of discipline in the mind, soul and body because the receiving end of the criticism also has a mind and emotions such that his/her sensitivities must not be injured.

Every successful civilization thrived only through its continous strive to reduce its inherent imperfections and every successful society/civilization that fell was due to it being oblivious to its imperfections. The imporant avenue and mechanism to identify and rectify imperfections within a system is definitely through criticisms. The divine tests us with our weakness and never with our strengths and if we shut our eyes to weakness, that is when we really fall and break.

How much bonus/raise does a civil servant need?

The Online Citizen - http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/
Original Article URL: http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/news/articles/article38.asp

How much bonus/raise does a civil servant need?

By Ney Reed

Wednesday, 6 December, 2006

In my latest pilgrimage to my foot reflexologist to nurse my back sore from sitting too long in my less than ergonomically designed civil servant seat, my foot reflexologist passed a sarcastic remark. "2.2 months bonus... lotsa money" he remarked. I am sure almost every private sector employee shares the same cynical sentiments.

I don’t think the question ought to be if 2.2 months of bonus is too high, enough or too low. Likewise there was a recent announcement that civil service pay will be raised. The question is again not if whether it should be raised or not. There are seriously strong grounds for 2.2 months payout and across the board civil service pay raise in near future. People who criticize it perhaps may have strong grounds too.

How much of a raise is sufficient?

The real and meaningful question is to ask is if raising civil service salaries, by whatever proportion, or paying out bonuses, by whatever amount, is sufficient. I was telling my foot reflexologist that even if I were to receive 4 months bonus it will not be sufficient. That is not because I am a spendthrift or have four mistresses but rather my cost of living is escalating at an alarming rate that I do not think I can be satisfied with any realistic amounts of bonus or pay rise. My utility will instead be maximized if only rate of growth of costs in Singapore can be controlled.

I was living in Montreal with my wife for a while during grad school with less than $1200 Canadian dollars a month and we had a very comfortable life, dwelling in a rented middleclass area apartment in prime downtown area, ate good food and shopped marginally. It takes me more effort to earn $1200 Singapore dollars but it takes way less effort to spend it and I cannot imagine my wife and myself living that standard of life in Montreal here in Singapore with S$1200 or the equivalent of CDN$1200.

Do statistics say anything?

Politicians may show me consumer price index or other equally arbitrarily estimated statistics, which can only be factual and hardly be truth or reality. Mahathir had an idiosyncratic but a practical solution to this. He had a campaign called "0% inflation". Technically speaking, you cannot have 0% inflation though politicians will refer to what we economists refer to really low levels of inflation as 0% inflation. Hence during his period, prices did rise so there was no real 0% inflation but pressure by Malaysian government was constantly applied to ensure prices did not rise fast.

There are interesting ways prices rise faster than they should. Some prices have greater impact on aggregate price level of a country. Such prices include that of tea, coffee, cigarettes etc. A mere 10cents increase sends shock waves across the working class population who then start demanding higher prices for their services or labour or goods. Transportation, electricity, gas, petrol costs, indirect taxes also have a similar effect. The responsiveness of other prices to the prices of these is very elastic. Mahathir’s "0% inflation" campaign effectively checked this.

Unfortunately in Singapore the trend is reverse. It is these very prices that are rising fast though as I mentioned statistics may or may not show otherwise. Unless we keep a tight check on these prices, the cost of living will indeed continue to rise fast. It always bewildered me when I learnt Singapore is a more expensive place to live than even New York.

Till the rate of increase in cost of living in Singapore is checked, the rate of increase in income through pay raises/bonuses will always be a never ending futile catch up game.

About the authorNey Reed, aged 29, a Singaporean, economist by training, considers himself a conceptual analyst, had been an active participant in public-interests & social-interests dialogue groups, anti-globalization movements and Palestinian human rights lobby in North America during his five years’ stay there.