"Talk to rich people nicely, you are a poor girl."

 

“Talk to rich people nicely, you are a poor girl.”

That, and other insults, cost Koh Lee Yen, 50, and Chee Kam Fah, 49, $3000 a piece each. 

On 21 September last year, they were caught smoking outside Lucky Plaza shopping mall in Orchard Road. Ms Asyikah Suri Kamsari was on duty that day and authorised under National Environment Agency “to carry out enforcement action against public health offenders.” And Koh and Chee were then smoking outside designated places. 

In court yesterday, they were fined for verbal abuses hurled at Ms Asyikah, which was prolonged and calculated to “insult and degrade.” 

She was merely doing her job, said state prosecuting officer Nasri Haron. 

It reports, ““Chee also used vulgar word, while Koh additionally scolded the officer in Mandarin and Cantonese. Chee then waved a S$1,000 note at the victim, as Koh said: “You should just shut up and take the money.”” 

All that was captured on Ms Asyikah’s body-worn camera. And I perceive it as something more than just a bribe of $1000. It was a grossly demeaning gesture, equivalent to telling the victim that in her poverty, she ought to be desperate for whatever crumbs that fall from the rich’s banquet table. She should just take the money and be grateful. 

To me, it went beyond a bribe, to a stinging stigma that those less well off have to bear often from those who are rich with an attitude. 

And that’s not all...

While Ms Asyikah was recording their details, they demeaned her with these words, “your salary how much, one thousand only one month I think” and “crazy girl, better go back and hug your pillow and cry, your salary not enough for me to buy a pillow...”

Lesson? Just one.

I guess at times, we all need to hug our pillow and cry, for poverty can sadly push us into a corner of despair. And in a society of high inequality, where the cost of living is one of the highest, trying to make ends meet can be very difficult for a lot of people, especially during the pandemic. Like climate change, those living in the lower rung of society will be hit the hardest when the tide of poverty rushes in and flood those living in shallow lands. 

But, what makes living together unnecessarily unbearable is how some rich people ostentatiously rub that in their faces. Honestly, like it or not, we live in a society that Chee and Koh had described relatively accurately, “talk to rich people nicely, you are a poor girl.” 

Unfortunately, we are far from a classless society. And we often judge a book by its cover, especially when it is a glittering one. Preferential treatment is often subtle and unspoken, and willingly offered. 

It also reports that Koh and Chee “are shareholders and directors of jewellery retailer Gold Star Resources. They also hold shares in other companies, and Chee is a director in various firms.”

So, yes, they are reportedly richer in material wealth than many people, and I would give them a gold star for entrepreneurship. Give credit where credit is due right? 

And I suspect paying that $3000 each is like water off a duck’s back for them. It’s merely a slap on their wrists. Alas, at times, punishing the rich with monetary sanction is like throwing a fish you caught back into water. They just swimmingly return back to their natural hubristic habitat. 

In their defence, Koh and Chee said that they were stressed at the time. And they “were (also) upset that Ms Asyikah let two men go despite catching them for a similar act of smoking outside a designated area.” 

To that, the judge said, “it was a different matter from using insulting words on the officer.” And “being stressed was not an excuse for the women to verbally abuse the victim.” 

Be that as it may, the actions and words of Koh and Chee is a microcosm of how inequality can stir the hornet’s nest and brew a social storm in our society. Revolutions are fought on such matters of inequality brought to the extreme by want of thought and action. And the insensitivity adds up, resulting in a collective social reaction to denounce and overthrow. 

Let me end on a quote by Adam Smith for your thought. 

“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

Sometimes, we unwittingly conspire with the rich to oppress the poor because we sacrifice virtues of enduring character, courage and strength in blind servitude to fame, power and wealth. That is the beginning of our descent to moral corruption; most times, unknowingly.

 

Monster.

“Monster”. 

That’s what high court judge Chan Seng Onn called a 27-year-old jobless man who forced his wife into prostitution, serving 138 men, so as to pay for his son’s diapers (among other expenses), forced his 6-year-old daughter to perform oral sex on him, and sexually abused his niece in a hotel just before she took her PSLE exams. 

And his own mother reported him to the police in Aug 2016 for sexually assaulting his daughter.

He got 25.5 years and maximum 24 stokes of the cane, but what he did to his own wife, daughter and niece would scar them for a long time. 

The prosecution described the case as “the first of its kind” and here is how unprecedented the case turns out to be. A brief history will suffice.

The man was violent to his wife. He beat her even before marriage in 2012. The beating started in 2009 and “increased in severity and frequency, and persisted while she was pregnant. From June 2015, he assualted her at least once a week.”

She was so terrorised by him that she did not dare to report the violence to her family members. He threatened to kill her if she did. 

Between 2010 and 2015, she was working as a receptionist and office assistant, and gave all her earning of $1,800 to him. 

When she stopped working, and asked him to get a job, he rejected it. He then forced her to be a prostitute. He told her to charge $80 to $100 for one hour and $120 for two.

And to advertise her services, he taught her to use online monikers like “Single Mum” and “to respond to interested customers with details such as her bust size.”

She was expected to make up for any shortfall in the quota she was unable to meet the day before. 

And “on one occasion, he insisted that she provide sexual services to a customer who turned out to be her classmate. When she failed to persuade her classmate to take part in a threesome, he punched her and hit her with a dumb-bell. Desperate to appease him, she tried to look for more customers online.”

At one time, just after having sex with his wife, he called out to his six-year-old daughter and forced her to perform oral sex on him. At that time, he already suspected that he had a sexually transmitted disease. 

As for his 13-year-old niece, it started when he was angry with his wife for falling short of the quota for the day. She tried to explain to him that she fell asleep due to fatigue. He then assualted her and forced her to bring her niece to him. At that time, she was studying for her PSLE. 

After he threatened her, she complied and waited outside her niece’s school. She then brought her to him. At that time, the family were putting up at balestier hotel after his mother chased him out. 

After she brought her niece into the hotel room, she asked her to shower. She then handed the room key to her husband and he undressed himself. When his niece came out of the shower, he hugged her and removed her T-shirt and bra, groped and kissed her.

“He also placed a pillow over her face to muffle her screams but panicked when she stopped struggling. He then ended the assault and notified his wife.”

Despite the assault, she returned to school and the principal made arrangement for her to take her PSLE. 

One final point...what does the psychiatric evaluation say about the man then? Is he labouring under some sort of mental illness so crippling that he cannot control his actions and perverted desires?

No, he was not. He had unrelated anti-social personality traits and the report noted that “he was somewhat boastful of his sexual exploits.”

Lesson? I hesitate to offer any. 

You can never put into words the trauma the women in his life has suffered under his hands. As a husband, a father, an uncle and a son, he had not only failed in his duties horrifically, he had become the predatory monster in their lives. 

The judge said: “The sordid sexual depravity of his transgressions is unprecedented and involves him sexually exploiting the three most vulnerable women in his life - whom he had every responsibility to protect.”

I do not have much of a lesson here because I used to think that every man has a redeeming quality, even those on death row. And I am not talking about people suffering under some form of diminished responsibility due to their compromised mental state. 

But recently, I had to confront my greatest fear about humanity, and that is, a handful of us will go into their grave unchanged, and that is not because they are sick in the mind. 

It is because they are, to borrow the words of the psychiatric report, “somewhat boastful of (their) sexual exploits.” Here is what I mean. 

Socrates once said that an unexamined life is not worth living as you will never see the need to repent if you are not even aware that what you have said or done is wrong. 

That’s a life unexamined, and whether it is worth living depends on the people (or loved ones) who have to suffer under your so called blissful unawareness. 

The above case makes you think about this Socrates’ statement about some people. The remarks in the report about him being boastful about his sexual exploits makes you think about whether he is aware of his monstrous ways. In other words, it makes you think whether he was at all repentant or remorseful. 

I always feel that what is truly redeeming about a man or woman is his or her willingness to take that road to redemption. It is a huge step for us. A step whereby you confront yourself, your wrongs, the hurts you have committed, and you make amends thereafter. 

The question I struggle here is this, what if a man does not even know that he is wrong, not to mention that he is a monster? 

What if he thinks he has done no wrong that requires him to say sorry? 

Sadly, I believe there are a handful like that in this world, and they will never learn even when they are confronted by their own mortality.

The great perversion and the greater overcoming.

He got 34 years and a maximum of 24 strokes. But I can't say that criminal justice was not done in his case. It most definitely was, and redemption for him took a backseat that day when he was sentenced. 

In all my writings, I am always biased towards redeeming a man. 

I believe every man deserves a chance, if not multiple chances. And if it takes a village to raise a kid, then it takes a lifetime for some to find redemption.

But this morning, this bias was sorely challenged by a man's most incomprehensible crime. And the prosecution calls it "one of the most heinous cases which we have ever seen."

If I had judged him, and therefore stood to be judged myself, then so be it. 

You have to see the abuse from the eye of the child. 

She was only seven when she had to put with his regular sexual abuses. He was her mother's lover. She called him "shu shu".

She told her mother about the molest, but she reprimanded her and refused to intervene. 

She therefore realised it was futile because the only one who could protect her, not only did nothing, but disbelieved her. 

After he got married to another woman (who bore him a son), he even invited the girl and her mother to live with his new family. 

From that point, the girl's mother became his mistress.

All this time, he was jobless and relied on the two women in his life to support him. His wife had to work and his mistress gave him $350 a month for household expenses. 

After they moved in, his molest turned into rape. He also forced her to perform oral sex on him. It reports that he did it in broad daylight while others were at home. 

Alas, the girl became "so conditioned to his abuse that she automatically took off her clothes when he summoned her. She was then only below ten years old."

And because he frequently assaulted his wife and her mother when he was drunk and even hit the girl when she tried to protect her mother, the girl feared angering him. He even went berserk when she befriended her male classmates. 

But that was not even the half of it. 

The girl only learned that what her shu shu did was wrong when she was Primary 5 and attended sex education classes. 

At 13, she mustered the courage to seek help, but not from her own mother. 

She instead went to the man's wife and she referred her to a social worker. 

A police report was lodged in June 2016. By that time, the man's wife had already divorced him and moved out with her son. 

That's not the end of it. 

When the man, 47, heard that he was a wanted man, the girl's mother gave him $800, and he spent four days evading arrest before surrendering himself to the police. 

When he was arrested, and charged for statutory rape, his first response was to accuse the girl. He said she seduced and flirted with him. 

DPP Khoo said that the man had "wrecked the girl's life and caused a rift between her and her mother." 

Now, it reports that the girl, 15, is living with with her maternal grandmother. 

Expectedly, she confessed that she felt very insecure about herself and "worries about being judged by others." 

She said to the prosecution that "she misses her mother."

Lesson...? 

While it is not possible to contact the girl, as her privacy should always be guarded and protected, I would like to tell her that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. 

I want to tell her that no one judges her. No one with a conscience should ever judge her. 

I wish so much for her to face the world with restored confidence to know that there are people out there who love her truly, treasure her deeply and wish only to see her recover, to become stronger. 

The society still cares - nevertheless.

Amidst the cruelty and pain, there are people around who stand for justice, sacrifice for others and protect with love.

I also want to tell her that she is a brave soul; much braver than I am. She is a hero in my eyes. 

I would love to tell her that she is always pure and innocent and her struggles and overcoming are inspiring. 

Her courage, her innocence, her love for her mother (after what she had gone through), her strength to move on are simply empowering.

As a father myself, I want her to know that her life is precious, full of potential and her future awaits to fill it with her dreams, hope and joy. 

Every father wishes his daughter would eventually marry to the love of her life, to a protective, reliable and trustworthy husband. And I wish the same for her - no less. 

More importantly, I wish she will grow up to find trust and hope again and start her family with children of her own to enjoy, guide and protect. 

Most of all, I pray she would eventually find peace and closure in this tumultuous world she is living in. 

In every corner and bend, life will still be challenging, sometimes trying, and at times, soul-wrenching. 

But, I pray that she will be surrounded by love, hope and faith and will move forward to grow in resilience - never giving up and never giving in. 

And I also pray that her past would never hold her back from living in the present with courage and strength, and from living her future with hope and love. Cheerz.

Can our society help defenseless children?

Can our society help defenseless children who are abused or see abuse at home?

For most cases, silence is golden, and even necessary as a survival tactic since reporting such abuse would mean betraying one's loved one whose livelihood, even emotional security, the young victims are dependent on.

If you have heard of the Stockholm syndrome, where the kidnapped develops a sympathetic (mostly uneven) relationship with the kidnappers, then abuse by loved ones (or witnessing such abuse of loved ones) is akin to such (perverse) relationship where the innocent and abused are beholden to the violent and short fused.

Today's article is entitled "Trauma of seeing abuse at home" and I have personally seen it at home in my long forgotten youth. I recall that the secret to a happy life is to have a positive spirit and a good dose of amnesia. And not every aspect of our past - for some of us that is - is worth a brisk strolling down memory lane. Better let dead dogs lie I say.

But here's my point, and it is in this article which reads, "Parents may not think that their children are affected, but children who are exposed to violence tend to have more depressive symptoms and score higher on the post-traumatic stress disorder scale."

The legacy of abuse and violence is often passed down. The fear of the innocent child in a home where the shadow of abuse blows searingly hot and unpredictably cold usually leave him or her in a constant state of hyper-vigilant and fear. It reports that "apart from depression, some of them develop problematic behaviors like aggression. They may learn to see violence as a solution to problems and grow up to perpetuate violence on their own children."

Lesson? For me, I left my past behind. But there are many young children who are being imprisoned by both their loved ones and their own conscience. While the former needs no elaboration, the latter (imprisoned conscience) is the greater restraint that accounts for many children who would rather just let things slide or develop an alter ego to deal with what they do not understand, or take on a personality of rage as they grow up to defend themselves from ever being vulnerable and hurt again.

A few years ago, I was at the family court and what I saw broke my heart. I saw a mother struggling with her (what seemed like an) autistic child. The small frame mum grabbed the oversized boy, lay him face down on her thighs, and rained punches on his back. When she saw me, she stopped and held back her tears.

This is the curse of poverty and the article reports that "...another study of 1,750 resolved abuse cases showed that children from larger families, as well as those who had unemployed mothers or a low household income, were more likely to be abused again, even though the problem had seemingly been rectified."

Many times, good intention aside, our society falls short and here is what I mean. I read that in many African villages, mothers and daughters would rush to the hospitals to seek medical treatments for wounds inflicted domestically, some were even bleeding from their private parts, but they would never confess to what had happened. Silence is safety to them.

All they wanted was to be treated in the most cursory way possible and they (with young daughters in tow) would then return to the place where the cause of their silent suffering insidiously resides. Of course, Singapore is a law-abiding and law-enforcing country and we can expect less of such fearful behavior here.

But my point is about the vicious poverty cycle, and when money is the issue, the issue will often become the silent victims. Some abuses are even unintentional as the abusers are caught up in his or her own mindless rage and numbing sense of hopelessness. "And when there is a child with medical needs, abuse tended to recur more often in large households with several children, rather than smaller ones," as reported.

Some "defective" children are sadly seen as more of a burden to the family than a blessing.

On a positive note, it is reported that "there are children who have experienced violence but don't turn out negative. They had supportive figures in their lives who were able to set healthy role models."

I guess we must take personal responsibility and break this vicious cycle of violence. As parents, the head of our household, we hold the key and it is time for healing of both our past and for our future (and our children's future). Alas, for some of us, the struggle is indeed formidable. Cheerz