Words

There has been much debate and proffered opinions about Singapore's single ruling party, the People's Action Party or PAP for short, ever since goodness knows when. I am not even going to attempt to talk about politics here; it's beyond my teeny brain. As with all controversial topics however, people (people as in people, don't ask me who!) always like to write books about these topics because there will always be suckers out there who will pay a good buck to get involved with such things. "Men in White - The Untold Story of Singapore's Ruling Political Party" is, as it succinctly explains in its title, a supposed no-holds-barred report on PAP's history as a ruling party, which means all the political stuff people in politics do to stay in politics. I used the word "supposed" because I haven't read the book, and even if I have read the book, I would have no idea how true it was and how credible its credible sources are, but let's not quibble about the book now because that is not the point of it.

Whatever the book is, there were excerpts of the book in the national newspapers, probably because the authors of the book were senior journalists with the paper. (I know, it gets confusing, all this relational links; book written by members of an organisation which is connected to the people it is writing about. It's all undeniably suspect, but I digress. I must stop this bad habit of digressing.) In this one extract, it recounted an incident whereby the then PM Lee Kuan Yew delivered a public speech in 1988 about his successor Goh Chok Tong, saying that he thought Mr Goh tried too much to please everybody. Lee also described Goh as being too "wooden" before a mass audience and unable to express passionately and vehemently his feelings and opinions before the people as he would as successfully in a face-to-face encounter. There was of course a brouhaha about the openly-made statement, both in 1988 as well as upon retrospect, when Lee admitted that his was a gambit to provoke Goh to action to better himself, to test his successor's reaction to such a situation, as well as it being the responsible and needful thing to do as a Prime Minister for his people. I also say, it helped improved Goh's popularity ratings tremendously, in the composed and contrite manner he responded to the barb, and as well as ensuring the populace be more than extra forgiving towards Goh's apparently lacklustre and modest demeanour in comparison to his outstanding and brilliant predecessor. It was the ultimate coup de theatre me thinks! Lee, in closing that coup de theatre, in a later speech commended him for being "his own man", speaking up and not being a floor mat, and urged everybody to give him their support. He also mentioned that he told Goh, 'Look, you may not be a natural speaker but you've got to start learning, because you can't be a leader when you can't communicate.' And that my dear friends, is what I really wanted to talk about.

I am undeniably a rebel at heart, but I am finding myself more and more the un-rebel the older I get. Don't get me wrong, the desire to just screw the world and get on with it is still there. I still hate phonies and snobs; I can spot plastic smiles and cloying compliments a mile off; I refuse to do any form of grovelling or sucking-up and inflating of any human's egos, great boss or not; I hate people who inflate their words to form nice-sounding speeches which don't say or mean anything at all. Yet, I am starting to think that perhaps I am approaching everything the wrong way round.

Phonies and fakies who make nice, sweet speeches are disgusting, no doubt about that, but why am I allowing them to make me someone who refuses to say "nice, sweet speeches"? This refusal to be associated with such people, I seem to be carrying it a bit too far. Now, because I'm such a stubborn idiot, I'm misrepresenting myself and all that is good inside me, and not allowing people to get near me because my mouth stinks, figuratively of course, and I'm saying everything that is opposite to "nice" and "sweet" just because. And thinking they can by telepathy or some super power, understand how very sincere and generous and warm my non-speaking heart is. What a dumb ass! So what I'm doing is driving nice people away, right into the arms of these phonies and fakies. I think they call this "achieving the wrong ends", or in other words, stupidity.

But it is going to be hard, to learn to speak up and speak tactfully and graciously, when one is not used to it. But I've to start learning. Just like Goh. Well, at least I'm don't have to do a Prime Minister.