Yours Toothfully by Dr Chan Joon Yee

Voice of America:

Burma’s famous opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, spent her 64th birthday Friday at a high-security prison outside Rangoon. The pro-democracy leader has spent 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest by the military junta and is currently awaiting the re-opening of her trial on charges of violating her house arrest. Yet for all the government’s attempts to silence Aung San Suu Kyi, her resilience has become the symbol of the movement to bring democracy to Burma.

She went on to win a landslide victory in elections held by the military regime in 1990. But the military junta, which has run the country since 1962, refused to hand over power and put her under house arrest, where she has spent 13 of the last 19 years.
[unquote]

With all due respect to Daw Suu Kyi, I think she’s quite wrong about ASEAN countries not being able to reap any benefits from Myanmar by trading with the generals. I happen to know folks in Thailand and Singapore whose companies have literally made millions trading with Myanmar. Some even praise the generals as the most trustworthy and undemanding business associates they ever had.

However, Daw Suu Kyi is absolutely right about the moral and ethical issues invoved when one deals with the generals. But since when were morals and ethics prerequisites for business success? Don’t get me wrong. The junta’s dirty tactics have never been honourable. I wish the best for Daw Suu Kyi. I hope the junta releases her. But letting her take over the reins? That might just be what the junta needs to do to destroy her popularity. The people of Myanmar will certainly feel good about a more benevolent leader taking over. But unless she is business-minded and able to control all the unreasonable and sometimes violent dissent going on in the country, the lives of the Burmese people will not be any better with or without the lady.

Not every Aung San agrees with Suu Kyi. Just take a look at her brother Aung San Oo.

He’s a close ally of the junta and an American citizen to boot. Is it possible to believe in freedom and democracy in America while supporting the junta in Myanmar? I’m not sure about that, but Aung San Ooo certainly gives us some food for thought. If the great Bogyoke himself were still around today, whose side would the great general who fought against British imperialism be on? Would he be fighting against the army he founded? Or would he be supporting his daughter from behind? We’ll never know but great heroes don’t always think alike.

It’s a nice video, but it’s also a rather simplistic representation of what’s really going on in Myanmar. Yes, there is plenty of suffering, but poverty in Myanmar has more to do with trade sanctions than with the regime. It’s simply not true that tourists and foreign investments do not benefit the Burmese people. It would be nice to have some freedom and democracy in Myanmar, but at the end of the day, it’s unfair to nail every problem in Myanmar on the generals. The country is vast, diverse and plagued with ethnic tensions. If Daw Suu Kyi ever takes over as head of the Union, she had better have lots of support and cooperation from the generals.

At the Osstem (dental implants) Meeting last Sunday, I felt somewhat uneasy when I went back into the function room after the break only to find my seat taken and friends who were seated next to me before the break scattered all over the place. I had to sit with strangers and only managed to regroup with my pals so I could sit comfortably for the rest of the meeting after the next break.

Imagine how Mr JB Jeyaratnam must have felt, sitting in a room full of powerful people who saw him as a thorn in the flesh when his first broke his way into Parliament in 1981, becoming Singapore’s first opposition MP after independence. I was still in JC back then. In the course of his battle against one-party rule, JBJ found himself in and out of court. The change in the law with regards to the Privy Council opened my then innocent eyes to the realities of Singapore politics. There is no way you can score a goal when the goalposts keep moving in your opponent’s favour.

Few dared to join JBJ in his fight for democracy in Singapore. In fact, several promising rebels have already joined the establishment, making a sharp U-turn from their initial cause. With Mr JBJ laid to rest on 30th September 2008, Singapore has lost a very important figure. Blogs and Facebook groups pay glowing tribute to this unbeatable man. But like the person who weeps buckets of tears at his mother’s funeral, regretting not having spent more time with her when she was alive, why didn’t Mr JBJ have as many supporters when he was alive and working towards his goal? What’s the point of telling us what a great and admirable man he was when nobody bought his books and other publications when he was peddling them outside Centrepoint? Some people even pretended that he was invisible. Those who were curious would look around to see if they are being watched interacting with a marked man.

Why was everyone was afraid of being associated with him even though they were disgusted with the things done to him? Are we living in fear, cowardice, ignorance or apathy? Were they afraid that they may get in the way of the crushing blows that were dealt on Mr JBJ time and again. Disgusted or not, they probably don’t want to risk getting crushed. Sad, but not a big deal. Singapore needs lots of hardworking and obedient people. Good ideas can be imported from overseas.

But if these are the comrades that are called upon to fight shoulder to shoulder with me in times of trouble, I would be quite certain that they won’t even sacrifice an upgrading project for what they believe in. Mr JBJ has been proven to be someone who will sacrifice everything for what he believed in. He doesn’t need to hold a rifle to deserve a bravery award. I think he has done the nation a great but unappreciated service. No successor is in sight. Singapore will never be the same again.

I can’t stand leaders who keep calling suicide bombers cowards. Let’s put them in a room full of these “cowards” and see who is frightened. We can say that these bombers are mad. We can even say that they are evil, but we can’t call them cowards for dying for their deviant beliefs. For all his lofty ideals beyond alamak comprehension, Mr JBJ was a hero in every right.

The people we have recruited to “fight” for us come in the form of Olympic champions/heroes like Li Jiawei. Have you heard that she’s going to wed a Chinese businessman based in Beijing? have you also heard that she is going back to school to get a degree. Wow! Aren’t the students at NTU and NUS going to be happy. But wait a minute. It has been reported that Jiawei is going to enrol in a university in Beijing. I guess she’s probably going to do a course in English so she may communicate better with fellow Singaporeans. Perhaps they also offer courses on Singapore history in Beijing. Keep cheering, Singapore.

It’s grey skies ahead, we’ve been warned. But then, we’ve also been reassured that “There’s no risk and no reason whatsoever to have a run on our banks.” Wow, I wouldn’t even dare to declare zero risk for the simplest extraction. Obviously, you need to be more than honest to be a minister. Both statements made by our Finance Minister are probably true, but the simultaneous warning and reassurance seem to suggest that our (meaning those of us who are not top civil servants) incomes are going to go down and we should have absolute trust in the system which is always working to ensure our security as we celebrate our prudently untouched budget surplus by contributing more to the companies that give us public transport, telephone lines and electricity.

A sub-prime crisis in Singapore is the last thing we Singaporeans need to worry about. A finance company I contacted recently wanted a mountain of documents to show my credit worthiness for taking a lease on a new xray machine. No, I’m not complaining. I’m sure our banks are well-regulated and doing all this for our own good. The thing that is not so well-regulated, are the young and friendly people who keep pestering us to take up some investment scheme with their banks. You see them everywhere. The MRT stations, shopping malls, toilets … and they target almost anyone. You need to join a long queue to manage your bank account. But if you want the bank to invest your money, you can jump to the sweetest and prettiest officer with a money-growing plan that will make your eyes pop out.

Recently, these boys and girls seem to be working extra hard. That’s after many folks who have trusted them have lost their life savings and they need more suckers. Should we round up the youngsters and send them to do charity work at old folks’ homes? But they didn’t do anything wrong, did they? After all, the risks have all been spelled out in the fine print. Remember our Finance Minister didn’t say anything about the money you invest with the banks’ money-growing plans being risk free.