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Thursday, Oct 26, 2006 - 00:38 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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In The Haze Of Psyche

Skies have been clearing up of late with timely showers, after some days of very poor visibility - Amazing to think that smoke particles from hundreds of kilometres away can just float over and blanket a significant portion of South-east Asia. I remember taking the whole event in better humour the last time it happened in '97, when I was rather immaturely hoping for new PSI records (the all-time high was 226, by the way), except where it interfered with outdoor activities; Then again, Krakatoa's eruption in 1883 appeared to have affected the entire globe, so we might count ourselves fortunate.

Some of us will not have that opportunity though, such as a certain man, aged 46, who committed suicide by jumping onto the MRT tracks at the Chinese Garden station, a not-so-long walk from my home. His family's poverty was well-documented; He had just $16 in his wallet when he died, and left $10 to his two children and wife to buy chicken rice as his last gift to them.

A heartrending story, to be sure, which has given birth to many responses. The first was of unbridled generosity from fellow Singaporeans, who pitched in together and donated some half a million dollars to his needy kin, nearly a whole peanut! This is no small sum by most measures, and well-meaning journalists have pointed out that the money might easily be misused through ignorance. More than one lottery multi-millionaire became bankrupt not long after his windfall. After the initial blaze of publicity dies down, vultures and con-men may well swoop upon the man's wife, by all accounts a simple woman.

However, this is a happy problem to be able to suffer. More worrying is the possibility of spawning copycat suicides from desperate people hoping to kill two birds with one stone - a release from their sorrowful life, and a jackpot for their loved ones. Indeed, many of the poor may see no other way to raise even a fifth of that sum. Plugging away at a S$600/month job (roughly what the minimum wage for unskilled labour might be) for fifteen years would result in S$100k; This is of course assuming the worker is not so self-indulgent as to eat, or so picky as to demand a roof over his head.

Some less sympathetic souls have applauded the poor man's smart decision to be innovative in choosing death by MRT rather than the less imaginative death by high-rise falling. Splattering himself from umpteen stories would likely not have earned him even a passing mention in the mainstream media (2002 statistics show almost one a day, and as a regular Straits Times reader I do not seem to recall reports anywhere on that frequency), but delaying thousands of commuters made his case impossible to ignore. While this seems callous, I have to admit that the reasoning is sound. So, Singapore is competitive even in death.

Other netizens have lambasted him with the usual litany against suicidees - dying is easy, while having the courage to live is hard. But we also praise those who choose honour over death, like the ancient Chinese prince who starved rather than consume grain from his conquered (and thus foreign) kingdom. Perhaps there is one class of honour for the high-born, and another for peasants - but that is another story.

Ironically, a tiny fraction of the S$500k would have prevented the whole sorry episode, and the man's kids would still have their father; Like the charming tale of a man encountering a grounded fish begging for a pail of water and promising to divert a mighty river on his way back, it was too much, too late. However, few would bat an eyelid had the deed not been done, as the man would just have been considered yet another loser whose time was past.

How good it would be, I thought, if one could feed all the needy - surely there are churches and temples which offer free meals, no questions asked? But then there may be an obligation to faith, and transport is not free either. And would it be wise to guarantee everyone free meals? For one, the food industry would be badly hit. For another, there exist some rather unpityable cases, like the 34 year-old guy in today's New Paper who refused to get a job despite his father being a double amputee, even going as far as to ask them for cigarette money and just sitting outside the flat when thrown out; Supposedly a fifth of aid recipients are such freeloaders.

But then, what is a fair wage to expect? Would it be wrong for an unemployed person to reject a job if it paid him say a dollar an hour, should he be berated for not taking the opportunity? Welfare states often encounter the difficulty of persuading those on the dole to work, since the difference between a proper paycheck and a welfare check is often not significant, so that may not be the way to go. Therefore, is it just the sad, Spartan reality that in any society, there will always be those who lag behind, and just as they are beholden to no one else, so too they should not expect any help?

Well, at least one delightful young lady from RJC thinks so, in response to this post by a Mr Derek Wee. A fellow GEP-er and Prime Minister Book Prize awardee, she's also the daughter of a Minister of Parliament, so presumably the pedigree is there. Certainly, the vitriol is strong in this one, from beginning to end. Her father was quick to her rescue, stating that while she was "insensitive", he felt that her blog was "private" and her "privacy had been violated", and anyway "her basic point is reasonable", and finally that "the new media of the Internet is such that if you don't like what she has said, you have the right of rebuttal."

So, a blog, private? Without a password-access mechanism, I would say... no. Now, why didn't this teen use that in his defence? Clearly racism is more serious than slugging the poor, but it might have been worth a try. Maybe he did. The greatest tragedy was that Ms Wee's father was right on one thing: There was nothing inherently wrong with her position. It was just that out of the countless ways she could have expressed herself, she chose one of the worst ones.

I mean, if one is inclined to be rude, they should at least be classy about it (check out the hilarious comment on Ms Wee's English errors by John Riemann Soong here. "...contrasted a noun abstraction with a verb", for one. "...can't even distinguish between the preterite and particple Germanic ablauts of English", for another. IDAMNSCARED). Aspirations to witty repartee (yeah, maybe redundant like French Champagne) would be much appreciated - Look at Sir Winston Churchill. When Lady Astor said,

"Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink."

He replied:

"Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it."

Now, that's elite class.

A nice one, with George Bernard Shaw:

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend... if you have one." - Shaw

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Churchill



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