Senior Senile Mini$ter Goh Chok Tong chided Singaporeans for making a meal out of Singapore’s ‘sporadic’ floods. He suggested that Singaporeans should follow Japan’s example in dealing with nationwide catastrophes. I quote:
How many of you followed the latest tragic events in Japan with the tsunami… and then put into context our floods in Singapore against that kind of disaster. I am not saying we shouldn’t do anything about the flood. But the amount of noise you made with just sporadic flood compared to the Japanese. I saw them on TV. Very stoic looking. You don’t see them crying. This has happened, just get on, that’s the kind of spirit you want to have and you call it nation building.
I don’t recall anyone of us was crying when Orchard Road, parts of Thomson or even Jalan Besar flooded. We were as stoic as we can get, because we don’t even complain when an old man who refused to retire talked about ‘wanting spurs to be stuck into our hide’ and called us ‘daft’. Did the Senile Mini$ter encounter one too many whiners in his rich man’s ward? Or perhaps he read some mindlessly rabid pro-opposition local forums one time too many?
To be exact, some of us wrote to the papers to talk about the old days where Bukit Timah Road was almost always flooded whenever it rains and even talk about how we can improve the situation at Orchard Road. Are we not allowed to talk about what may have caused some of the floods and what conditions may have changed on the ground that needed a review? On one hand the Senile Mini$ter says that opinion from Singaporeans mattered, has opinion only got to come in the channels approved by the Tali-PAP, and only in a manner favorable – preferably extolling its virtues and achievements? Is this the way to encourage the development of a civic society, where the people take part in deciding what is best for their home, their country?
Seriously, if the Senile Mini$ter expects us to behave like the Japanese, then our mini$ter$ should do as Japanese ministers do – resign when they fail, and not find excuses for themselves. For e.g. Seiji Maehara recently resigned for accepting a donation (not a bribe) from a foreign national. That’s not mentioning that several years ago, Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide for unexplained expenses (see screenshot on left) – the first one to do so since the end of World War II.
However, did we see the same coming from our mini$ter$? The matter of the so-called ‘sporadic’ floods aside, who took responsibility for Mas Selamat’s escape? Did anyone took responsibility for the budget overruns of the Youth Olympic Games? What about a $388 million sum given to Singtel that was simply discounted as an ‘honest and unfortunate’ mistake?
When the Tali-PAP gahmen don’t even have the courage to take the rap for minor fiascos such as the Orchard floods, I shudder to imagine what will happen in the future if the nuclear reactor which feasibility this gahmen is studying right now suffers a meltdown!
Personally speaking, I will be proud of our mini$ter$ if they would die with honor rather than to live with their failure. Caesars will be able to provide a variety of nicely crafted blades for them to slit their little yellow bellies – samurai style. In fact, I would be most happy to see them use the Padang for such a public display of personal atonement. I will certainly turn up to cheer the courageous mini$ter on. That’s not forgetting the Singapore government gahmen should revise mini$terial pay downwards to match that of the Japanese too.
Let us consider what would happen had the Japanese gahmen been like ours. It would be telling the people that ‘no amount of engineering’ will deal with the natural calamities that beset their nation when skyscrapers in Tokyo not only swayed, but collapsed. It would probably conduct an investigation for the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and a report will obfuscate the problem and some manager at the plant they wouldn’t otherwise have heard of will take the rap for the failure. On top of which, its Prime Minster will only address the nation days after the disaster, just like what happened after Mas Selamat has escaped.
Mr Goh, it’s probably high time for the residents of Marine Parade to decide for you it’s time to go. Maybe you can join your daughter…