A lot have been said about the MRT suicide of Mr Tan and the Wee-Wee saga.

I felt especially sad about the part where Mr Tan gave his son his last $10 before jumping to his death at the tracks.

I felt especially sad that once such as Ms Wee, nurtured to be amongst our future leaders, obviously do not have the capacity to even remotely feel the depair and desperation of a class who would be driven to such.

It brings to mind the works of Durkheim on suicide. It’s pretty dry so I append short summaries on only the relevant point:

Basically there are different types of suicides. one of which is anomie, under which there are several sub-classifications. In Mr tan’s case, it would be classified under Durkheim’s definition of suicide of acute economic anomie.

Acute economic anomie: sporadic decreases in the ability of traditional institutions (such as religion, guilds, social systems, government etc.) to regulate and fulfill social needs.

In other words, I feel that our society is slowly and surely degenerating into one which is such that the destitute and helpless do not know who to turn to for help. The only bleak road out is death. You may say that there ARE ways and means to apply for help and subsidies but the procedural road of hell is paved with so many technicalities and difficulties, so many bureaucratic red tape and unrealistic waiting time that the system could only have happened with the design of people who would not have understood. The elite. People like MP Wee. Possibly future leaders like Wee Shu Min.

Meanwhile, the government would have us know that the economy is getting better and rosier. Bring on the hikes.

Two Singapores The working class and the elite with a wealth gap that’s
tearing apart the society.
By Bernard Leong, a Singaporean research scientist. Oct 24, 2006

Recently, two unrelated events happen at the same time. The first was
about a man named Mr. Tan in his forties committing suicide by jumping off onto
the mass rapid transit tracks.
The man in forties was a working class man.
He was jobless and had a family to feed. He left behind nothing now except his
wife and his kids.

The second was about a young and bright student named Wee Shu Min who wrote
an emotive, insensitive and snobbish response to Derek Wee who was lamenting
about the state of affairs in Singapore.

For her remarks, she was criticised by various bloggers (Aaron, Ben, Elia,
Kitana, Wee Kiat and of course, everyone from Sammyboy Forums).

Her background as the daughter of a member of parliament and a student from
the top junior college (RJC) has further ignited the flames. In any case, if
everyone takes a step back, the whole fiasco is just about the misadventures of
a young spoilt brat.

So, why are these two events related? My answer to the question is what I
called the two Singapores.

The first speaks of a land of opportunity and meritocracy where local and
foreign talent can compete in a free market and meritocratic system to move up
the corporate ladder of Singapore Inc; and the second depicts a divide that
splits between an educated and self-proclaimed enlightened oligarchy and the
average day Joe.

In short, it is the divide between the working class and the elite, and the
wealth gap that is tearing apart the society.

In the first Singapore, you are promised that if you are willing to pursue
your dreams and make your dreams come true subject to the social compact, you
will succeed with the blessings of the state.

However, the rule is that your dream is defined by the social contract.

In this contract, you exchange your personal political and social freedom
with security, material wealth and protection from the state.

By the time you have successfully won the scholarship trophies, your future
is secured no matter what you do in the future unless you commit a hideous
crime. Not everyone might succeed using the scholarship route.

Ms Wee belongs to the first Singapore, blessed with a well-endowed
background and talent. That success is fermented into arrogance and a lack of
sensitivity towards the working class.
That comes to the definition of the
second Singapore.

In this Singapore, if you don’t succeed by the age of 18 by slogging
through memorising and mugging in your high school education, you become part of
the working class.

Since you do not make the first cut, you enter into the social engineering
programme, taking the hypes of that era, from IT to life sciences.

Suddenly, you are transformed into a statistic within a Bell curve that
have to find ways to make ends meet, struggle between the high and low economic
cycles due to external circumstances and live with the hope that your children
will live a better life than you.

The constant cycle of retraining and retrenchment will squeeze you dry till
you find that life is not worth living. That poor Mr. Tan is part of that
Singapore which Ms Wee did not empathise.
She did not feel that there is a
need to help that part of the society.

Our society needs to change, not just in how we deal with each other, but
how we can help each other.

Somehow, the win-win culture seems so far away from us, because that is
eroded away by the rat race that begins from the first day of school till you
step into work in society.

There are other social problems, which we need to be made aware of. One
friend of mine, who works in the grassroots, are trying hard to champion ways to
help the old and helpless in their financial management in his constituency.

For those who do not know, we have an aging population with no enough
wealth to last them till their deaths. These old and aged were promised a
peaceful retirement with enough wealth from their central provident fund (CPF).

However, once they retire, they realise that it is not enough to tide them
till death. Inevitably, they have to return to work again.

If the problem of a poor and desperate working class man is not enough to
make society wake up, it might be better if we take a microscope and really
examine parts of the society that are suffering from problems masked off.

Perhaps, we should cultivate our young to understand the social problems,
not by providing them textbooks but real examples through the discourse of
social work.

If there is one other thing that we can ever persuade our efficient and
productive civil service, we need to re-examine our scholarship system, because
the system is easily beaten by people who are endowed with better resources.

I would not even go to the extent by saying that the examinations for these
students are far too easier than those in the past. Meritocracy is a
double-edged sword that can be helpful or be detrimental to our civil service.

In order to maximise the returns from a student’s point of view, there are
times where an individual will exploit the meritocratic system that will
contradict morality, credibility and hard work.

Our brilliant elite students have now reached the level where it is easy to
beat the system with their resources, and there remains no means and ways to
test their moral fibre in contributing back to our society as civil servants.

The solution is not one silver bullet but a whole array of approaches that
stretch from the areas of education to healthcare (and the CPF).

Ultimately, we have learnt that too much of everything is bad. Finding a
middle way between our capitalist and democratic socialist approaches will be
key to repair the rift between the two Singapores.

Quote of the Day:

“Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One America
that does the work, another that reaps the reward. One America that pays the
taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America - middle-class
America - whose needs Washington has long forgotten, another America -
narrow-interest America - whose every wish is Washington’s command. One America
that is struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it wants,
even a Congress and a president.”- John Edwards, Vice-Presidential candidate
2004