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What I Want For My Birthday: You’ll Be Shocked (Hopefully)

This Guardian video is just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands have died, hundreds more have been and remain in slavery, and thousands and thousands more are being persecuted, marginalised and unwanted by the countries the Rohingya straddle – Bangladesh, Myanmar – and because this crisis is growing as they put themselves to sea, the rest of ASEAN.

There’s an option on Facebook for not revealing how old you are or when your birthday is. But I love the attention, and so I leave it on.

For my birthday, I wish for all my friends to do something in your capacity to help the most unwanted people on the planet – the Rohingya. Watch the video below:

This Guardian video is just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands have died, hundreds more have been and remain in slavery, and thousands and thousands more are being persecuted, marginalised and unwanted by the countries the Rohingya straddle – Bangladesh, Myanmar – and because this crisis is growing as they put themselves to sea, the rest of ASEAN.

We need to do more as a leader within ASEAN, and not simply say, ‘we have no space for refugees, let’s donate money’, and then forget about this epic tragedy amidst the throes of our simisaialsoSG50.

So, if you’re thinking of getting me a present, do these things instead:

1. Share and spread the word – let people know about the Rohingya;

2. Donate to organisations helping the Rohingyas, either in the refugee camps in Malaysia or in Myanmar itself. In Singapore, Islamic-Relief is helping with food and housing for the Rohingya within Myanmar;

3. Make a list in the comments here on which other organization are helping, and suggest other ways we can help.

Updates:

Fixed the link to the Islamic Relief donation page

Links Contributed:

Boaz’s Fundraiser to Raise Awareness
Arakan Rohingya National Organisation
HumanSecurity.Org page for Rohingya

I Have Old Stuff From My Dad’s Office Too: Part 1

The picture above is of former Minister of Culture Mr Jek Yuen Thong giving a speech at the opening of the Oriental Development Corporation Limited (Marble And Plastic Factories) in 1972. My father is seated at the extreme left in the photo.

28 October 1972: Check out the hand-painted banner

Since PM Lee Hsien Loong is slowly going through his family’s treasure trove of historical artefacts, I thought I might join in with mine.

The picture above is of former Minister of Culture Mr Jek Yeun Thong giving a speech at the opening of the Oriental Development Corporation Limited (Marble And Plastic Factories) in 1972. My father is seated at the extreme left in the photo.

I was really excited as a three year old when my father told me he was helping to set up a marble factory, and was very, very disappointed to learn that it actually made ornamental marble slabs and vases and not the kind of marbles one could bring to marble battles with the other kids in the neighbourhood, with the other kids protesting, “Wah lao, liddat he sure win one lah, his father open marble factory one leh!”

Merely A Near Namesake

I remember him telling me how in 1965 when he watched the televised announcement of Separation, that he was sure “we were finished”, and how he had expected to have to knuckle down and prepare for hard times.

Mr & Mrs Lee Kuan Yew in 1969

I’ve just realised how much my father was affected and impressed by Lee Kuan Yew.

I remember him telling me how in 1965 when he watched the televised announcement of Separation, that he was sure “we were finished”, and how he had expected to have to knuckle down and prepare for hard times.

Things turned out very differently, and by 1969 it looked and felt like we were put on the road to economic prosperity. And so when I was born that year, he decided that I should be named in honour of the Prime Minister, but with a slight enough difference that I wouldn’t be forever ridiculed in school.

And so my Chinese name is just a couple of strokes off Lee Kuan Yew’s (whose hanyu pinyin name was Li Guangyao, and mine is Li Shiyao), but close enough to retain some of the same meaning.

My father didn’t stop there. Because the Prime Minister’s sons attended primary school at Catholic High, he decided that my brother and I would both have the same quality Chinese education as the PM’s boys. It didn’t quite work out, of course, as we both went to ACS after dragging the CL1 standard of that vaunted SAP school to abysmal lows.

A Comrade of The Workers

"On behalf of the Labour Movement, farewell comrade, farewell" – S.R. Nathan #RememberingLKY

A photo posted by Benjamin "Mr Miyagi" Lee (@miyagisan) on

Lee Kuan Yew began his political career representing trade unions while as a young lawyer with the firm Laycock & Ong. Mr Lee started winning over the rank and file who saw someone who was able to fight for their rights, whether it was for higher wages or a change in the design of the postal workers’ uniforms that would make them look less like ‘circus attendants’. I’ve mentioned previously how my father met a thuggish ‘elder Mr Lee’ in that incarnation as a union lawyer here.

While the marriage between political parties and trade unions was not unique to Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew set in motion an evolution in labour relations that has not been emulated in any other jurisdiction. With workers’ basic rights secured over the years, a pragmatic instead of adversarial approach to the labour movement began in earnest.

The world saw a stable economic environment attractive enough for direct investment even if some naysayers saw the emasculation of labour unions. Illegal strikes were stamped out decisively.

In 1980, The Singapore Airlines Pilot’s Association (SIAPA) bore the brunt of a particularly combative Prime Minister who was never going to stand for any industrial action that would have damaged the country’s — and therefore the rank and file’s — fortunes. SIAPA was disbanded and the expatriate pilots who instigated the action were convicted.

For me, that puts paid to any notion that employers favour expats to the detriment of locals. The video clip of Lee Kuan Yew recounting his confrontation of SIAPA is one of my favourite.

But that was not when the politics-labour marriage diverged from the western model, where rank and file was and still is used to foment dissent against government. Lee had realised this right from the start – and in a speech to the employees of the Singapore Traction Company in 1959, he said, “A new phase has opened in the history of Singapore and with it comes a new phase in the trade union movement in which trade union leaders of stature must response to the needs not only of their own union members but of the community and people as a whole”.

And in a 1962 NTUC rally, he established that, “The task of the trade union movement is not just to get more wages and better conditions of service, however important this may be to recruitment and membership. Unless the movement also accepts it wider responsibilities to increase productivity and efficiency, no solid progress is possible.”

The trade unions here, under the NTUC is a completely different animal from the model that purely fights the employer for workers’ rights. It may be one that keeps getting brickbats about being ‘toothless’ from disgruntled workers because of the lack of confrontation, but it is a model that has seen unparalleled progress for this small island nation state we call home.

But importantly, in our context, it is one cog in the wheel that includes the government, the employer and the worker. It is a wheel that needs constant oiling and tweaking to keep in motion, and one which was put in motion by that giant of a union advocate.

Vale, Lee Kuan Yew

Today we begin to bid farewell to a giant of history. Tributes will flow and flood, and many among us will think about how much of us is due to him.

Lee Kuan Yew

Today we begin to bid farewell to a giant of history. Tributes will flow and flood, and many of us will think about how much of us is due to him.

I think his wish would have been that we keep looking forward with what we have been given, and forge ahead with what we have been made capable of. Good job, and goodbye Mr Lee Kuan Yew. And now, Onward Singapore, Majulah Singapura.