Kindle Notes & Highlights
We all need to listen to different perspectives and voices, respect views different from our own and understand problems from multiple angles, in order to reach a wise national consensus on the way forward.
Singaporeans must hear directly from them, not through the filters of the media nor the distanced analyses of political scientists and commentators.
Three clear-minded people saw the same basic information in quite different ways.
In an information age, problems of perception become more acute and I shall highlight three factors: (1) sources of information become numerous and diverse; (2) information flow volume and velocity greatly increased; and (3) technology to capture information is decentralised.
For countries poor in natural resources, human development, especially of the young and talented, is key.
I realised then that people can be very different from their political personas. Some people who look very good in the papers may not be as attractive in person. And the people who are nice to be around are not necessarily the ones whom the press writes nicely about.
In making speeches, you share your thoughts and principles, your views on where Singapore could be going and what the challenges are. But practical things, like making Singapore more wheelchair-accessible…you need to talk, yes, but you need to do as well.
you just express views without doing anything practical, the layperson on the street will say these people are all just talking and doing nothing.
It was like an omakase. You know, when you go to a Japanese restaurant and you just sit down and keep quiet and see what the chef serves you. You don’t know what you’re in for. And you just hope that in the end, you’ll be able to go “oh, that was quite pleasant” — which it was.
My experience illustrates one of the prime advantages of the NMP scheme, viz, the opportunity for a non-partisan Member to present an alternative perspective and even influence the making of law within the area of his or her professional competence.
that if you don’t pay people market rate, you’re just not going to get good people. To ask people to not only sacrifice their own financial well-being but their families’ as well was a recipe for mediocrity.
Before I went in, I had preconceived ideas about how things would work or should work which had to be modified in the light of practice.
A second generation of Singaporean and PAP leadership were then taking charge, moving towards a more consultative polity and a gentler, kinder society.
But NMPs have been, in my estimate, one of the contributing features in moving Singapore forward from the old days of PAP monopoly — this is not only in the seats of Parliament but in substantive deliberation and the character of public discourse.
In Parliament, I advocated strongly on the need for Singapore to develop a credible civil society as part of our maturation process and asked that the government allow space for this. After I spoke, then-Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew rose to reply, although he was unscheduled. He told the House that he had listened to my arguments but disagreed with me to an extent; one difference was that he believed civil society had severe limits in offering leadership. After listening to SM Lee, I then asked the floor to make a rejoinder, which the Speaker allowed, and with respect, reiterated the need to
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In that sense, I never tried to be too “in their face” in case they tried to squash things — I wanted them to come round to the idea that civil society wasn’t radically opposed to the government, but could help grow and augment how we function.
feisty “loving critics”, a term coined by Professor Tommy Koh in October 2019 when he said “Singapore will languish if its lovers are uncritical and its critics are unloving”.
I witnessed a Singapore filled with poverty, pockets of swamps, gangsters, poor sanitation, problematic supply of water and electricity, transportation, health issues, few schools and industries, British camps, hawkers earning a living legally and illegally, and few farmers.
When it comes to loving our country, I truly believe one must be idealistic to dream about the best version of Singapore that we want. But I also realised as an NMP that idealism without actual power did not get me far except to merely debate on issues, dream about doing more good for Singapore and put on Hansard my idealistic suggestions for the powers that be to think about and hopefully translate these ideas into action.
We need good and effective debaters who can inspire the nation with ideas and love.
You know, when you’re idealistic, your pragmatic ways and standards go up too.
You must be idealistic and work towards raising the level of the pragmatic ways of doing things so that you reach a higher standard, so to speak.
You might have friends in the proposition and the opposition, but if you mean well and it’s the idea that you’re interested in, I think it makes you a happier person.
You can read about them and theorise about them, but when you have to do it and you’re facing the real problems, I think you mature even more.
The roles of MPs could be reviewed too in building harmony and cohesion as consumption of information, digitised workflows and lifestyles are already showing divergent and diverse pathways.
You find many in the community, whom you didn’t know, were actually impacted by even a small bit of change based on what was discussed in Parliament. And I think, therefore, getting engaged with the community is going to become crucial.
