Ministerial Pay Increase - in dialogue
The following enumerated queries were published by P.Chan. Possible responses follow…
Note: The parenthesised are for the benefit of 'foreigners' who have not been afforded the luxury of being reared within this 'uniquely singaporean' scheme of things.
background
"Singapore : How much money does it take to keep a government minister happy? The government says a million dollars is not enough, and on Monday it announced a 60 percent boost in ministers' salaries, to an average of 1.9 million dollars, or $1.26 million, by next year.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will see his pay jump to 3.1 million dollars, five times the $400,000 earned by President George W. Bush.
Defending the system last month against an unusual public yelp of pain, Lee Kuan Yew painted a horrifying picture of a governed by ministers who earn no more than ministers anywhere else.
“Your apartment will be worth a fraction of what it is," he said, "your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries.” ”
Hmmm...methinks that Singapore needs another 'J.B. Jeyaratnam' to logically contend with Lee.
Ministerial Pay Increases - In Dialogue
(and a brief critical appreciation of singaporean culture)1. Not a single PAP MP disagreed to the ridiculous amounts and put up a robust debate on this. (I am sure many did not personally agree)
Ans: Free money you don’t want ah?
2. The entire notion of setting one’s own
pay is morally and ethically wrong.
Ans: We did this in the past and you
still voted for us. Therefore, if you
voted us in again, that means you support this, and thus, what is supported by the majority is morally and ethically correct. It would be undemocratic of you to think otherwise.
3. The formula for deriving ministers’ and civil servants’ pay is inherently flawed.
Ans: You want to come up with a better
formula or get involved in politics, ‘then get into parliament first’. If not, shaddup!
(This was the government’s dictate when a ‘Catherine Lim’ criticised the government in the local rag a few years ago. I always thought that all 'citizens', by definition and default, were 'involved' in politics.)
If you still don’t want to shaddup, then let
us know if you will be standing for elections, got some redrawing of
constituency boundaries to do - sharpening pencils takes a lot of time you know.
(this is what the government does prior to elections...some say this is done to divide and dilute the concentration of supporters of the opposition in any particular constituency on the basis of previous elections results.)
4. The reasons given for the Ministers’ pay increase betrays the ideals for political high office.
Ans: You voted us in, so that means you
support our ideals.
(erstwhile PM, and now ‘minister mentor’, Lee Kuan Yew, said something to that effect when asked if the people supported the maintenance of the Internal Security Department, reputed to be amongst some as, ‘secret police who put a black bag over your head in the middle of the night and take you away for questioning and a beating for speaking against the government’.)
Anyway, only monkeys, and not ideals, can be bought for peanuts. You want quality ministers, you must pay them as well as the private sector.
(which makes one wonder what kind of ideals does it take to be attracted to high salaries.)
5. The entire sequence of events in the last two months have been bad, bad, bad…..Increase in GST in February, increase in ministers’ pay in April. dis-proportionate increase in Public Assistance handouts.
Ans: Bad for you does not mean bad for all…..or us. Don’t mind if we don’t believe that misery needs company.
6. The decision was made probably months ago. The parliament debate was a farce. Apart from the fact that no PAP MP denounced the revision, the revision was presented as a ministerial statement under Standing Order 44, which required no votes. Nothing said by anyone would have mattered.
Ans: That’s why we like being the majority in paliment….oh, btw, say that in public again and we’ll sue you.
(the local politicians of the ruling party are well known for suing opposition members to the point of bankruptcy for having the audacity to attribute other intentions to their officially stated ones. I always thought that insinuation and placing the burden of proof on a government was the only true check on the said government and an effective aid for the maintenance and progression of democracy. Over here in the 'model state' of singapore (what it is a model for and of is another matter), such a burden is placed on the citizen, who, predictably failing to access information held by the government to submit as proof, is sued to the point that s/he has to sell and eat peanuts for a living.)
7. They still went ahead with it.
Ans: That’s the beauty of democracy, you can say what you want, and we can ignore you all we want.
Anyway, as far
as we are concerned, only 33.4% of the electorate, which includes you, are not
happy with our pay increase. Anyone who talk-cock...
(‘talk rubbish’ in this
context. In singapore, the very act
of speaking against the government, any form of authority, or even
engaging in analytical or critical discourse is equated with
‘talking
cock’ or 'causing trouble' by many. The former PM, Lee Kuan Yew, once stated that indians liked to oppose for the sake of opposing - thus implying that they did so not because there was anything valid to oppose but due to some irrationalism on their part - whilst the chinese were 'practical and hardworking'. This was then followed by an official statement stating that singapore must always remain a land with a chinese majority. Thus, the act of 'speaking against authority' has remained demonised along with its irrational sector to this day in the popular imagination. Today, many of my (chinese) friends - and from their accounts of conversations with other chinese - in place of reasoned rebuttal, frequently brush off arguments from Indians on any issue with an, "aiyah, indians always talk cock and like to twist words" - which can also be seen as indians being perceived as such not because of what they say, but because they don't look like or are not British. If the British were to speak similarly, they are perceived as 'intelligent'. Very interesting, sociologically speaking. Personally, I feel very privileged in being able to study this phenomenon in its development.)
...against us is part of the 33.4% because the 66.6% support everything we do because they voted for us. (beautiful logic innit? Something like hair-regrowth companies that claim that where their terrapin doesn’t work on some people, they are part of the 10%.....even if it happens 90% of the time.) It would be undemocratic of us to do what you say as it contradicts the wishes of the majority. You buay song, (a phrase from a chinese dialect that means, not happy', 'disgruntled', 'disaffected', 'disenchanted', 'disillusioned') you go talk to the 66.6% who voted us in.
********** fin **********
Of course PAP MPs (people’s action party – ruling since singapore's ‘independence’…either they get it right all the time, or the people don’t know their right from their left....or their right from their rights.) would never say the above…whilst singaporeans, especially the 33.4%, probably like to think that they do…
But,
What’s left unsaid in words, can, at times, be explicitly implied through action, tone and perspectival stance as illustrated, at times, through other words. Do the actions and pronouncements of the People’s Action Party over the decades bear out the above after a spot of extrapolation? Hmmm......
related articles:
'NO' to Pay Hike, 'YES' to Pay Dive
Comments
As you know in the united States it is possible for government to ignore the will of the people but only for a certain amount of time....unfortunately greed here has led to people far from our shores,who have no say , being shattered and crushed under the weight of choices made here.
Regarding your comment on my feelings about media responses to Chou"s manifesto..I left a comment on my blog...as always you challenge me to think. .
So did the state legislature in Alabama reverse its decision? Interesting to know how similar situations are dealt with in 'different' countries. The problem with the 'opposition' here is that they are too preoccupied in thinking within the singaporean box. I always thought that the more one pays attention to the interests of others, the more one will become adept in handling one's own interests as it affords us different solutions borne of culturally different experiences of a single phenomenon. Sort of practicing empathy on a global or macrocosmic scale. I wrote briefly on this in 'The Value of Empathy'.
Culture and Perspectival Stagnation
When we are dealing with a people who fear the unfamiliar, the novel and that which is not promoted by official sources, then they are left with a single choice.
These are people who practice a culture of practice as opposed to practicing culture - there is more chance of critical thought emerging from the latter as opposed to the former. It is from the vantage of such a global perspective that 'choice' is made. Nobody does anything 'out-of-the-box' in just about arena till it has been established that vibrancy is alright in a specific arena. Then, as they are unpracticed in general critical thinking, all they can do is copy and attempt to innovate, as opposed to 'invent', the works of their betters in other countries.
This is not surprising as chinese culture, borne of two thousand years of continuous and singular cultural, political and intellectual history under an iron-clawed imperial regime, would inevitably socialise its practitioners to embrace a perspectivally static climate as the norm and view themselves as an extension of the will of authority as opposed to authority being an extension of their will.
Culture can be a potent source of getting people used to the way things have always been - especially if the said culture is a product of continuous and relatively unchanging intellectual and political history. Culture cannot exist apart from the political as it would either conflict with it or prepare one to accept it. In this, India and w.Europe, for example, occupy the diametrically opposite end of a critical bipolar scale where culture shares a dialectical relationship with the political as opposed to serving as a coping mechanism enabling one to put up with a particular situation without question.
Freedom of Choice
Briefly,
I'm inclined to think that the freedom of 'choice' is, and will always be, a myth till people control the source of choice - the intellectual environment within which they learn to make choices - whilst armed with objectivity, empathy, general intelligence and imagination. Allowing 'Demand and Supply' to dictate what is produced and for whom, simply prepares the people of tomorrow to think and make decisions from the vantage point of those who make choices today. The profit-based system ensures that choice is led down an extremely narrow path by rewarding the sensational and trivial as this is that which is most appealing to shallow and young minds that are specifically educated and thus rendered generally ignorant. There is more to this of course, but this is a thought-in-progress, and i might attempt to explore this sometime in the near future provided i am assailed by inquisitive queries by intelligent people like yourself.
Thank you for inciting the above thoughts by your observation Mia.
DallasDude,
Hey Dude,
Just a thought, if this is a democracy, then it is the people who are supposed to have the 'gold' if 'gold' does indeed endow one with the power to rule right? If this is not the case, then it wouldn't be a 'democracy' would it.
Hmmm...interesting
Interesting.
I suppose 'long memory' in this area enjoys a positive correlation with feelings of one's political potency. Where the people feel that politics is 'not their business'(as in singapore) or 'better left to politicians'(as in singapore...sheesh!), they will inevitably develop short-term memory(as a coping strategy) as long-term memory, in this respect, will just perpetuate negative feelings about things which one has been trained to believe one can do nothing about.
(Hmm...never thought of this correlation till you made that comment.)
It would be interesting to see if the next party that comes into office in Alabama will lower the pay scale. One strategy they might employ, if this is not what they intend, is to offer other advantages to the people so that they will not make a fuss over the pay increases initiated by their predecessors. In this we will be able to see if the new incumbents are truly perspectivally different from their predecessors. And if they are not, one can be assured that they will take advantage of the people in other, and perhaps, more innovative ways.
I suppose when all is said and done, the truly perspectivally-progressive politician is one who complements the good s/he does with efforts to undo the bad initiated and institutionalised by her predecessor.
I don't know why politicians want to go into politics if it is just to make money. Most of the them were lawyers prior to running and as I seeit, it makes more sense to stick with law if they're aiming for the big bucks. Of course, with that example, because they know the law so well, if they go into politics, they can make it work for them if they go into politics. But why would they need to do that? How come they need so much money? Oh, so corrupt. They just don't want to pay taxes.
Maybe I'm too simple minded to understand these people. I don't know if you've seen hot fuzz but they all seem to be doing things for "the greater good", which doesn't seem to be that good at all.
Whilst Bush may be making a ton and a half in his private capacity, the role of what is supposed to be a 'public-spirited' presidency is kept relatively sacrosanct by his salary scale not being 'pegged' to that of the private sector. Thus, whilst US presidents may be rich, the post of presidency is not allowed to be seen as a road to wealth and power. Additionally, US presidents are only allowed to hold office for two terms as opposed to singapore where they can hold office till as and when they feel like stepping up to the post of 'senior minister', and then, on to 'minister mentor' when the PM after them becomes 'senior minister'.
I suppose its not just 'big bucks' that some politicians want, but power and lifelong tenure which no job or political post on the planet can offer unless 'democracy' has been 'engineered' to ensure it. (ref. 'MM' Lee's statement on the matter).
It is a common phrase here, amongst politicians, and some amongst the general public, that if you pay peanuts, you will only get monkeys. (smart-sounding phrases like this tends to work amongst an ill-educated populace who aren't able to think critically and demand elaboration and logical justification) I suppose, to these people, the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King were 'monkeys'. I wonder how, then, a 'monkey' managed to play an instrumental role in ejecting the British Empire from India, or, momentously advancing the cause of Afro-Americans in the civil rights arena whilst being paid little more than peanuts for their efforts.
The simple-minded (which these days may refer to specifically-professionalised/educated persons who are, as a consequence, generally ignorant and ill-educated) are prone to falling for cults of personality which sees them rallying around and looking in awe and reverence at individuals who are purported to having been the 'cause' for a nation's progress - the British are one of the few exceptions (relatively-speaking) on the planet who focus on ideas as opposed to its purveyor.
What these people forget is that politicians don't really know how to make things work. They just copy others who have gone before them in terms of 'vision', and then employ a slew of sociologists, psychologists, economists, and so on, to stitch together the sinews that make their 'vision' a reality. It doesn't take much to do that, especially when you're not averse to ruling with an iron mallet for self-aggrandizing purposes and inherit a population who are relatively and grossly ill-educated. What truly is an achievement is the attempt and success in 'bringing up' a people to take over the reigns of government and vision themselves (true democracy) - as opposed to keeping them down so that they will always serve as infantrypersons behind the royal palanquin.
You're not 'simple-minded' Nicebeet. You're a 'thoughtful' one. Thank you for your musings on the matter. (wonder why no singaporean has commented on this matter here...perhaps it is because this article requires critical thought on the matter at hand and pertinent overarching principles.)