kerfuffles, and the need for compromise

i think the problem with civil / civic discourse in Singapore, is that people are not used to the idea of give and take. At least, not the people who shout the loudest. Perhaps this is the problem with civic discourse everywhere -- it's not particularly civil, because the civil people, the ones who are more likely to take time to think about things, are usually the ones who don't speak up. Or rather, they don't speak up fast enough, and by the time they've finished thinking about things, everyone has moved on and is shouting about the next new controversy.
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Here's the thing, though. Singapore is not like other countries. We are so tiny, so densely-populated. In fact, according to the World Bank, we're the 3rd most densely-populated country in the world, after Macau and Monaco. And, actually, if you look at those two places, they're not proper countries, really, strictly speaking. Macau is a Special Administrative Region of China; its citizens hold Chinese passports, and it doesn't have its own military. Monaco is an independent state, yes, but it's only 2 sq km in size (the mind boggles ... ), and according to the CIA World Factbook, it relies on France for military protection. So, if i were to be really nitpicky about it, Singapore is the most densely-populated Proper Country (in the sense that it covers all the bases for the conventional understanding of what it means to be a sovereign state) in the world.
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So, unlike in other, bigger countries like the US, or even the (relatively) smaller countries in Europe, we don't have space for people to be rude and uncivil to each other. In the US, if you're ultra-conservative and believe that all gays go to hell and gun-ownership is your God-given right because it is enshrined in the Constitution, what you do is to go live in a place like Texas, where a significant majority of people thinks the same as you. You can then enjoy life in a place that caters to your preferences and lifestyle, without feeling much conflict with your general social environment, without ever having to wonder if perhaps your beliefs might be less than completely right. If, however, you're ultra-liberal, and think that gay marriage is an unquestionable human right, and that gun-ownership is evil, then what you do is go live somewhere on the coasts, NYC, Boston, San Francisco, where you'll find that your beliefs are not only endorsed by the legal system, but also by general social consensus, and you can happily live your life without ever having those beliefs challenged by someone you actually respect and think worth listening to.
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We can't do that in Singapore. We're too small. We can't start carving up the island into different constituencies so that people can spend all their lives surrounded by other people with similar values and lifestyles to their own. Our physical size necessitates dialogue, understanding, negotiation, compromise. (The alternative, entrenched conflict, is not something any thinking person would want for a society.)
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In all the kerfuffles that have emerged over the last few years, especially the ones involving religion, the most striking thing has been a lack of balance on both sides of the debate. Secular folks who refuse to try to understand how the religious folks feel that the environment here is changing, the societal values which for so long have enabled them to practise their faith with ease and without feeling much conflict with the rest of society, are rapidly evolving towards something that, they feel, threatens their lifestyles and personal values, that makes them out of step with the rest of society. That's a pretty worrying thing if you're not used to being the odd one out. And for a long, long time, societal values here in Singapore have very conveniently coincided / dovetailed with religious values. That's changing, and it's uncomfortable for the religious folks. Secular people need to understand that. It's not as simple as just practising one's faith privately. The environment one lives in affects the ease with which you can choose how you want to live your life. So secular folks need to be less aggressive in the way they fight for their causes. They need to stop using words like 'bigot' to describe their religious counterparts. And sometimes, they need to step back on their demands, be willing to concede some space to other people. That is what negotiation and trade, compromise, diplomacy, life itself, are all about.
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Conversely, the religious folks need to understand that secular folks do not begin with the same baseline assumptions about Life, the Universe and Everything that they do. It's a different worldview, and the conclusions about what "the good life" entails may differ too as a result. And they have every right to think that way. The fact is that there is no incontrovertible evidence for the truth of any religious faith -- at least, not the way things stand now. The beginnings of the major religious are too far back in history for anyone now to investigate their claims without, at some point, having to take a leap of faith (haha). And what faith is, ultimately, is a choice. You choose to believe, or you don't. And we are free to choose. The religious folks really need to think more deeply about their faith, about the roots of their belief; and see that it is not right for them to expect everyone else to share their beliefs (and therefore their convictions on morality, which are founded on their religious beliefs). i've always thought that the Muslims here in Singapore manage that balance extremely well. Living as a minority group in a country where even things like one's dietary preferences are generally out-of-step with those of the majority (Chinese people lurrrrve pork ... ) has got to be really difficult. But we don't see Muslims campaigning for all eateries to be halal-certified. They're OK with some eateries being halal-certifed; and i certainly hope that the rest of society honours that compromise by being ready to compromise in return when they're with their Muslim fellow-citizens. Similarly, i think the other groups here, particularly the Christians who seem, unfortunately, to be the ones always kicking up a fuss, need to reflect on where they draw the line between their right to exercise their religious preferences in terms of life choices, and other people's right to make different choices. They can't go around campaigning for the rest of society to adopt their practices all the time, even if they do believe that such practices will be beneficial for the health of society as a whole. They need to understand and accept that others may not think the same. And if this means that the environment here changes such that their own practices and beliefs seem increasingly quaint and antiquated, then, that is something they will have to live with if they choose to hold on to their beliefs. Faith is a choice, and like all choices, comes with a cost. And real faith will make sure it absorbs the cost, rather than dumps it on others.
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Religion in Singapore has usually been a benign thing. We don't have a history of religious conflict; things like the Crusades or the Inquisition, trampling on other groups in the name of one's faith, are other people's history, not ours. And i hope we keep it that way. In Singapore, religion has so far been a force for good -- all the different religious groups have a track record of doing good for society as a whole: they build schools, hospitals, homes and charity organisations that are open to people of all faiths, or no faith. Here in Singapore, it is not unusual to find churches, mosques, and temples (Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, Sikh) standing right next to each other, sharing common space. Sometimes we even have different religious groups sharing the same building facilities for events or activities. Perhaps this is unheard of elsewhere, but this is the country we live in. It's such a rare and precious thing. It pains me to see the current quarrels, not between religions, but between the secular and the religious -- because such quarrels are premised on the assumption that religion is somehow not benign, that it seeks to harm society in some way. It pains me even more that, among all the religious groups, it is members of my own faith who seem the most ready to condemn others and impose their beliefs and practices on others. This is so different from what the early Christian missionaries did here, which was to contribute to what the rest of society readily acknowledged was the common good. That is what real faith does. It reaches out to help and heal, rather than to hurt and divide.
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We have no space here in Singapore for any one group -- religious or not -- to assert its views at the expense of others. We have to make room for everybody, because this is all the land we've got. Sensitivity, compromise, responsibility -- these things apply to secularists as well as to the religious. The way things are going now, is not the way to go. We are veering off the path that has worked so well in the past, and heading in the direction that other societies have taken, to their detriment. We need to get back to making a path that will work for us. Our very happiness depends on it.
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deadlines

A deadline appeared in my email inbox today -- a much-appreciated, totally needed, completely unanticipated deadline. It's a wonderful writing opportunity, and the fact that it comes with a fairly tight deadline is even better -- i need deadlines, i've discovered, and cannot function without them.
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Deadlines are galvanising, exciting things. At their best, they make your heart beat faster and your mind think clearer; suddenly there is direction, a goal, something to direct your energy and attention towards. Stress can be a good thing. Life with no stress at all, is not very much of a life.
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eco & lee

Literary greats die all the time. Relatively speaking, that is. So i don't usually make note of great literary passings here on this blog. But when two literary greats, one on each side of the Atlantic, both of whom have had their greatest work made into great movies, die on the same day, then i guess yes, that is pretty much worth commemorating.

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i first read Harper Lee back in secondary school -- i think i was 14 at the time. Of course i loved To Kill A Mockingbird. How could you not. There was that narrative voice, with that endearingly tomboyish name, and so endearingly precocious and cute and good-hearted. Then there were the textures of small town life in the American South, so lovingly rendered in such seductively liquid prose. And of course Atticus Finch, whom i proceeded to (of course) have a crush on, because, how could you not with a man like that. Even if he was fictional.

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It's been years since i last even looked at that book. i've always wanted to go back to it, to see if it's still as good as i remember, to see if there's anything i missed the first time i read it (i'm sure i missed lots), to see if i'm still the same person. But i just never really got round to it. Too many books, too little time. Maybe someday.

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Umberto Eco was a slightly later discovery. Oddly, although i can distinctly remember reading and loving The Name of the Rose sometime when i was in university, i cannot remember anything else about the novel except that it involved a detective-monk, and a library, and a twist in the tale that had something to do with (literally) poisonous books. i tried reading Foucault's Pendulum after that, but gave up less than halfway through. i guess it was just not the right time. 

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The other book by Eco that i do remember with great fondness is his satirical essay collection, How To Travel With A Salmon. That one was definitely a game-changer for me when i read it in university -- i think i must have borrowed it from a community library in London. It was that book that introduced me to satire, to snark and cynicism, to the pleasures of intellectual one-up-man-ship. (It was these exact same things that turned me off the book when i went back to it a few years ago. Oddly enough, i just borrowed it again from the library last week, mainly because i remember it as being very funny, and right now, what i want most out of my reading material is to be entertained. It's still funny, but not in a laugh-out-loud way. At some point in my life, i guess, that brand of show-offy, clever humour just stopped appealing to me that much.)

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Both writers have lived long and prospered, in their own individual ways. They died at a ripe old age. i'm assuming theirs were lives well-lived, by whatever measures they chose for themselves. One could do much worse than that.

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driving

A conversation i had once with HM. We must have been in a car, one of us must have been driving. Which probably means that i was probably the driver, because if i remember correctly, HM had sworn off driving at that time -- it was bad for the environment, he said, and also, it was expensive. True on both counts. But then i happen to like driving, and i must have told him so, because we then got into a conversation on what it is that people like about driving.
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Being in control, he said. Or rather, he reported other people as telling him. i guess that if you drive because you like the sense it gives you that you're actually in control of something (the car, presumably, because obviously we can't control traffic conditions, or other drivers ... ), that must mean that you're feeling pretty disempowered and not-in-control in your non-driving real life.
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For me, driving is about physical movement. i just love that sense that i'm going somewhere, that i'm moving and getting closer and closer to a destination -- and the faster i'm moving the better (though i am a very law-abiding chicken-hearted driver and i don't break the speed limit very often). i especially love driving along those long, broad, unusually empty stretches of road up in the northern parts of Singapore -- Yio Chu Kang, Sembawang. It's something about open vistas and wide horizons (this is becoming a theme on this blog, it seems ... ). Someday i must go road-tripping in the UK. i think that might be really nice.
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i wish it would rain down

It's been raining steadily almost the whole day, and the rain is only just starting to let up. It's gorgeous here when it rains, the temperatures soft and gentle, a murmuring in the air. All that heat and dust and the heaviness in the air get washed away; it's as if the world is beginning anew.
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So often, all we need is a fresh start. Some way of erasing the mistakes of the past even as we learn from them, some way of arriving at a tabula rasa, from which to build anew. i suppose, that's the whole point of forgiveness. To give the gift of a clean slate.
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If not for the flooding it would cause, and the fact that i do like sunshine too, i almost wish the rain would never stop. It's always been, and i think always will be, one of my favourite things about this country.
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theory of innovation

One of the things i admire most in writers, musicians, etc, is the spirit of innovation. Continually trying out new things, seeking new frontiers. Refusing to just sit on their laurels and keep doing the same (successful) thing, over and over again. People like U2 (at least, up to and including Pop... i think they've been a bit lost in the woods ever since ... ), Marilynne Robinson (in her fiction -- which is so dazzlingly different each time despite the fact that her last 3 novels have basically been circling round the same story from different character-perspectives; her essays just keep doing the same suffocating thing over and over again), Coetzee (up to and including Disgrace, which is also when he got the Nobel; everything since then has been ... a disgrace ... ). And of course, Beethoven. Dear dear darling deaf old man who was making new things all the way to his last string quartets and piano sonatas, some of which still sound strange, visionary, and challenging, even to modern ears.
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i'm starting to wonder, however, if perhaps this innovation thing isn't quite as heroic is i used to make it out to be. Or, to put it another way, i'm wondering if perhaps it comes more from limitation rather than some sort of will to creative power. i'm wondering if perhaps the people who keep innovating, almost kinda have to do so, because they are also usually the people who give their all in whatever they do, and also, they tend to be the ones with integrity, who insist on making honest work. It all comes together in a package, i think -- it's a certain approach to art / life.
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Which kinda means that once you're done with one project, you've basically exhausted all that you have to say or do in that particular form / medium / set of content / etc. Which means that you can't repeat it, even if you wanted to. Which kinda forces you to seek out new territory, new methods, new ideas. Because the alternative is either to hit a creative dead end (in which case you sell out, dump the artistic integrity, stop looking at art in such an elevated, idealistic way, and just keep repeating the same successful formula over and over again), or to stop creating altogether.
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thoughtlets

This should be a real word: thoughtlets.
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Everything that can be described or measured, exists on a spectrum. From the least to the most. So for accuracy's sake, a description of any thing really ought to be measured against a universal spectrum: where does this particular thing stand on the spectrum between the most ______ in the world and the least ______ in the world?
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Otherwise, we're just condemned to wallow and stumble forever in the swamp of relativity. i am relatively well-to-do compared with, say, a slum-dweller in the Philippines, but compared to the multi-billionaires who travel around on personal jets, well, obviously i won't be hanging out with them by their backyard pools any time soon. So when i give a description of myself and my bank account, obviously the adjective i use depends very much on which section of the spectrum i'm looking at. The most objective description would look at entire spectrum. (Ok, actually and obviously, in this case, the most objective description would be to just give a number. But there are many other cases when there is no quantitative measurement available. That's when we're stuck with having to use words.)
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This applies to so many other things. Words are such a terribly unreliable, inaccurate, deceptive description of reality.
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
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Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
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Amen.
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(Reinhold Niebuhr)
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There are some people -- few and far between -- who just radiate peace. Just step into their presence and you sense a deep serenity, a calm which is neither complacency nor naiveté.  i want to be like that when i grow up.
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dialectic

Note to self: do not write blog-posts after watching movies that leave you cold despite the fact that they will probably win the Oscar. The result is almost inevitably the making of sweeping statements with neither nuance nor genuine insight.
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i think it's the same dynamic that happens whenever people with opposing views talk with each other. There's something about that dynamic that tends towards deeper polarisation rather than compromise. Each party reacts to the other party by simply digging in their heels and refusing to budge. Which is unfortunate, because most of the time, the reality is that neither party really actually holds such extreme views, and, in their heart of hearts, they actually do think that the truth lies somewhere in between. It takes a lot of restraint, i think, and conscious thought, and humility, to try to meet others on that middle ground.
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first principles

Every Sunday, on a grassy field somewhere in Tuas, there's a group of SIA pilots both retired and current who get together to fly radio-controlled model airplanes they've built themselves. Some of these model planes have wingspans of up to 6 feet -- they're not just kids' toys.

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i love this picture somehow, and i can see it in my mind's eye: the open green field, the men in t-shirts and bermudas with remote controls in their hands, looking up into a sky criss-crossed by flying machines they've meticulously put together, piece by piece, in the quiet of their workshops, studies, or studios. For these men, flying these miniatures must be such a wonderfully freeing simulation of what they do for a living -- freeing because they are not accountable for the lives of hundreds when they're playing this game. It's probably the closest they can get to enjoying the love of flight without the worries it brings when done professionally. It's about getting back to first principles.
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Everyone should have a green field somewhere, a place whether literal or metaphorical where they can return to the fundamentals, see things as simply as possible, without all the accretion of stuff that tends to get in the way of clarity and insight. A green field, with wide blue skies and perhaps a tree or two to provide some shelter from the sun.

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freedom

It is an unusually simple house, set on an unusually simple compound. Just a large lawn extending from the front gate to the right of the house and into the backyard, and overlooking the rooftops of the houses in the valley on the other side. i've never really looked at it before even though i have walked past it several times. What caught my attention today was the spaciousness, and that view over the valley, which i could see glimpses of, looking in from outside the gate. It struck me then and there that my heart yearns for such unobstructed vistas, and that they are so rare here in Singapore.
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One thing i'm starting to realise and come to terms with, is how much i'm affected by the physical environment. It's probably a combination of the artist and the geography-geek, i think. The artist's need for beauty, and the geographer's sensitivity to space and the physical landscape.
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In other news. It is a wonderfully freeing feeling, to be able to tell the truth to oneself and accept it as reality. And not as an unpleasant reality, either, to be fought against kicking and screaming. But as a reality that simply is. As my scientist cousin likes to say, It is what it is. Suddenly everything that seemed tense and knotted up before, just seems to resolve into an openness, a freedom from fear and constraint. i don't know how else to put this. Someday, i will be able to write about it well, and i'll put it into something that gets published. This is definitely something i want to be able to say to people, that i think will be helpful for people to know.
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gentleness

Max Richter's Sleep is such a peaceful haven of non-demanding, easy-going, supposedly sleep-inducing music. It's a great concept -- music that is deliberately meant to send its listeners to sleep -- though i haven't actually tested it out myself. It is incredibly gentle.

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It actually takes quite a bit of strength and control to be able to play music gently. i didn't really understand this when i was younger, even though my piano teacher did point it out to me. i think i couldn't quite hear how my own playing sounded. It's only in recent years when i've gone back to playing the soft gentle music i've always enjoyed, even when i didn't know what it required of me, that i've realised just how much finger strength you need to do it well. Needless to say, i don't have this finger strength, and my playing inevitably sounds to me as clumsy as tortoises doing the can-can, a la Saint-Seans. 

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It's the same with many other things. True strength is gentle. Some of the strongest people i've known, have also been the most gentle. There is no insecurity about them, so they have no need to hit out at other people in fear or self-defence or competition.

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Night-time in Singapore is soft and gentle. The temperature is so much cooler, there's almost always a breeze. Life feels more peaceful at night -- amazing what a difference the physical environment can make to one's mental state.
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scruples / saints

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Two
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Scruples
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Since the early eighties more students in my Literature and Ethics class, a freshman seminar, say they would press a button that would kill a nondescript peasant in another land, for which they would receive one million dollars and the guarantee of never being caught. They respond anoymously and must give a reason. Four out of twenty-five would in 1982. Eleven out of twenty-five in 1995. Reasons: Because it would set me up for life. Or, It's just a one-time thing. And once, Because it's a doggie-dog world. Afterward, I point out that the question is designed only to see if they are murderers. By semester's end, I'm pretty sure I know who they are, these murderers, and it all switches to me -- that age-old imperative, to discover what's right and to do it. I've given a murderer an A because of incontrovertible intelligence. Yet I've graded down at least a few because their logic, however sound, was without heart and I didn't like their faces. And I can't say how many times I've given up on some of the decent ones -- their correct, inherited, annoying positions unchanged by drama or dialectic. In the early seventies, no one I knew would press the button. I love that it wasn't high-mindedness back then, merely the obvious, and that so many wished to do good. Experience took years to show us what we could not sustain.
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Saints
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Those who earn their names know what suffering is ... and elect it anyway. They love without ambivalence one shining thing, yet some -- the even more saintly -- are tortured by the manifold richness of the discernible world. I've known one secular saint. I watched him fast so an idea would swell. I didn't want to be him, though once or twice, by design, I've felt that strange sumptuousness born from doing without. For him it must have been an imagined feast, like a wafer on the tongue. For me: just another something for the body to have known before it dies and becomes dust. Saints, like revolutionaries, walk headlong into the cool, dry wind, are always serving a hidden flame, are terrifying because of what they do not need. The saint asks, What will you die for? The revolutionary adds, For what would you kill? Either way, sacrifice is an ugly business, as ugly as history itself. Choose between these terrible things, history often says. We are only commentators until, for us, it comes to that choice.
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(Stephen Dunn)
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two lives

Comparing the lives and career paths of two Singaporean pioneer artists -- G and K -- i think yields some quite illuminating insights. Some similarities between the two -- both were idealists (you had to be, to be an artist in those days, and perhaps even now, though less so), both had to build (from scratch) the cultural infrastructure and institutions that they felt was needed to enable the arts to exist here, both found themselves at odds with the prevailing political, social and cultural climates here in Singapore. G eventually chose self-exile, renouncing his ties with this place and making a new home elsewhere; K endured a few years in prison for his political activism and had his citizenship revoked by the state, before it was reinstated many years later. Both men were given the Cultural Medallion by the Singapore government, within a mere 7 years of each other.
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On the face of it, G had all the advantages that K did not -- he came from a well-to-do family, studied medicine overseas, came back here and practised as a doctor, using the income from his medical practice to support his artistic endeavours. K was not so lucky -- he did not have the privilege of a university education, and the circles he moved in were leftist, not so elite, more concerned with the experiences of the working classes. And of course G worked in the language of the minority elite -- English, while K, though bilingual, wrote in Chinese.
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Yet it is K who managed to leave behind an enduring legacy, who built institutions that last to this day, more than a decade after his death. G, on the other hand, was involved in a great number of projects, none of which was very long-lived, and eventually gave it all up altogether and chose to distance himself from everything entirely by moving overseas with his family.
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i've never met either of them. But i have read G's memoirs, and i have heard the stories that friends in the arts tell about K. i don't wish to over-simplify anything, and goodness knows i understand that sometimes life just takes us down paths that we would never have chosen or wanted for ourselves -- but i do suspect that these men's respective career- and life-paths, were very much shaped by their personalities. Comparing their lives and accomplishments, i think there's something to be said for making careful choices, working consistently and steadily towards one's chosen goals, and also, being open and humble enough to re-evaluate one's choices in the light of changing circumstances. For what it's worth, i think i would have very much liked to get to know K. i can't quite say the same for G.
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Character is fate, indeed.
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