Condo Parking Saga Part I.

No point beating a dead horse. This issue has been flogged by thousands by now. 

The online community had a field day with this scenario being played out over and over again, captured on the eternal cam, that is, a wealthy Indian executive living in a prestigious condo hurling vulgarities at an elderly security guard just trying to enforce the parking rules.

And now, JP Morgan’s country head Edmund Lee is calling for employees to uphold a “culture of respect”. This is the public statement he issued to the press from his executive office: -

“Our people, services and commitment to integrity have made JP Morgan one of the most respected financial institutions in the world. We all have a shared responsibility for preserving and building on this strong reputation.”

He added: “All of us...are expected to demonstrate the highest standards, including respect and dignity for others...inside and outside of workplace.”

I kept thinking of this message, and I find that it is just perfect, as Trump would have put it. Maybe that’s the issue, it is perfect. 

It sounds like what is natural for a corporation of such repute to put out and it is a message that no one can poke holes into. It is politically correct. It is safe. It is for the public digestion. It puts the company in a good light, redeeming what it can redeem after one of its employees, a high flying one, had orally bullied an elderly man on Deevapali weekend. 

Edmund asks for a culture of respect, but I think we have sadly entered into a culture of expect with the mobile aid of survelliance cam, everywhere and anytime. 

And instead of the era of being natural, being ourselves, enjoying the privacy to be “me” and experiencing genuine change in our own time, we are expected at all times to be unnatural, acting and behaving as if we are on 24-hour survelliance all the time. Because, mind you, whatever you say, do and write in private can be made public to be judged by the online vigilantes. That is the culture of expect - expected to behave mechanically. 

Alas, our sense of morality is now based on rewards and punishment. Do good and if captured on mobile cam, you will be rewarded, even nominated for an award, even if that act was more instinctual than deliberate, momentary than habitual. 

And at the other end, do bad and it also gets captured for posterity. Google your name and you are forever carved into society’s archive as a SOB for acting in that abusive, uncouthed manner, even if that is not you, and there is more to you than that, much more. 

So, we go from one extreme to the other. We immortalised one good deed and remember for life one bad deed, even when one sparrow does not a summer make or one swearing does not a villain break (a villain takes more than that to crack, he might even do philanthropy to cover his track). 

Then, there is the other side of the justice league - the online vigilantes. This is a faceless, most times, knee-jerk-triggered community. My wife calls them the screenshot generation, that is, they freeze frame an action or exchange in cyberspace and then peck it to death like vultures, carcass and all. 

This community knows not one another, but the strength of their unity towards a common cause is bewildering. They are also driven by a shared hatred against any social iniquity that bothers on the incomprehensible, even the inhumane. Their online kicks (or raison d’état) work the same way as a survelliance society of constant monitoring, that is, it is also based on rewards and punishments. 

The reward is a sense of belonging when you join the majority to condemn almost mindlessly and relentlessly, selecting choice words that are, at most times, even more abusive than the abuses the target of their ire had used on others. Sadly, this community is blindsided by the adage that two wrongs do not a right make. 

And the punishment is when you try to reason with them. When you join in and offer another side of the picture or perspective, somehow, the mob goes wild, treating you like the enemy of the state, labelling you as sleeping with the enemy. In some cases, your entire family lineage gets roped in and collectively condemned for apparently no good reason or just for kicks. 

Sometimes, I wonder about their underlying motivation considering how disproportionate the reactions of personal condenmnation can become. Is it a pent-up psychological spillover over race, religion, nationality, or status disparity? 

So let me end by saying that, yes, we want or desire to have a culture of respect, mutual respect and honor, but let’s not pretend that we mean it when we are driven not by internal changes that are lasting, but external display of virtue that are fleeting. For even vices pay homage to virtues, and more so when we think we are being watched.

Condo Parking Saga Part II.

It’s a fairy-tale-like ending to the condo saga. Ramesh, whose unruly behaviour last Friday was captured on video, had “apologised many times” to security guard “Uncle Steven” as he was known by Ramesh. 

They even had an hour-long conversation to sort things out and settle the matter once and for all. Despite the police reports each lodged by Ramesh and Uncle Steven, and the police are investigating, this building of bridges between Ramesh and Uncle Steven will go a long way to show the remorse of Ramesh and the magnanimity of Uncle Steven. 

Just a little background. Ramesh is technically not a FT. According to MHA, he is married to a Singaporean who was born here. He thus obtained his citizenship on the sponsorship of his wife under the Family Ties Scheme. It seems he has made up his mind about his nationality, a decision which he had arrived at because of family. 

I guess MHA deigned such info as relevant and urgent enough to make it public because they do not want any misinformation or misconception concerning FT to get out of hand. 

Curiously, I suspect there is a different level of contempt and ire reserved against FT as compared to FW (Foreign Worker). 

Maybe it is the arrogance and condescension shown that differentiate them, and the general perception is that you would expect a wealthy FT to show more contemptible behaviour than the min-wage FW due to the income gap. Somehow, materialism and individualism tend to give one an intolerant sense of entitlement and haughtiness. 

However, I earnestly believe this is universal regardless of whether you are a FT, FW or a local (or a newly minted local). 

I am sure as Singaporeans, we have been at the receiving end of such differentiated treatment by another Singaporean arising out of the inflammatory fault-lines of the income and social divide. 

Ultimately, the common denominator in all that is one’s attitude towards money, both the lack and abundance of it. 

The love of money, or the obsession of it, regardless of whether you have a lot or little, often turns others into a means to our ends, rather than an end in itself. The rich exploits due to their sense of superiority and the poor abuses due to their sense of insecurity. 

Such monetary obsession reduces human relationships into a transaction. And even family ties are devalued by a serfdom mindset where loved ones are taken for granted, cruelly manipulated, and emotionally abused by the rich as well as the poor. 

In a recent NUS Whisper chat, an undergraduate witnessed how his/her cleaner/father was treated by strangers. This is a typical scenario of how insidious the social divide can become. 

The writer wrote: “While buying the noodles, the father took another customer’s chilli by mistake. When the customer return to claim it, she made sarcastic remarks at the older man while eyeing him. The father apologised, explained the situation, and offered her the chilli, but the customer was not satisfied. She allegedly replied in Chinese, “I don’t want it cause you’ve touched it. So dirty.””

He added: “(My dad) is used to (such treatment) and it suddenly hit me that this is what he does all on a day to day basis. He apologises and lets people walk over him. He is invisible. I always knew my dad worked hard and is always at the mercy of others but seeing it with my own two eyes was an entirely different experience.”

It reports that “the writer was so distraught that he or she started crying during the meal.“

Alas, for those who have much, it is the arrogance and self-conceit that dehumanise them. That is sadly displayed in the above treatment of one’s father who is a cleaner. 

Yet, mind you, for those who are struggling with little, it is the discontent and envy that rot their soul. At both extremes, we confront the worst of humanity. 

And I believe this is played out in the Ramesh-vs-the-online-vigilante public feud. Ramesh lost his head for that moment and made socially divisive remarks that he has deeply regretted. He has apologised and we should move on...right? 

Well, it doesn’t seem that way. And up till today, there are still thousands out there who have signed, and I believe, are signing the petition calling for Ramesh to be fired and deported. 

Alas, I would like to say that the “ugly Singaporeans” are not because we are Singaporeans. It is because we are ugly inside regardless of whether we are rich, poor, FT or FW. 

In other words, at times like this, we are just ugly, regardless of race, language, religion or class.