I am sure all of you heard recently. How a dumber than dumb senior civil servant broadcasted to the whole wide starving country; how he and his entire family splashed out a small fortune on a 5 week gastronomical tour de force in Paris – I am also sure you’ve all kept tabs with the follow up: thereafter publishing his travelogue; he got his boney ass hauled up – brunoised – glace de viande – and ceremoniously flambé recently in Parliament school of iron chef style – it’s cut and dried – open and shut –right?
Actually no – one niggling question remains; that’s to say, I haven’t yet figured out what’s the whole point of castigating Mr Tan to mince meat. Please don’t get me wrong, I know what he did may even suggest he lacked empathy and sensitivity by flaunting his wealth at a time when most Singaporeans and residents are struggling to make ends meet with their regular diet of economy beehon these days.
Only my point isn’t really whether the main protagonist was ‘unnecessarily provocative and unimaginably insensitive’ – that’s clear as day. Rather I am asking what was the underlying reason or raison that underscored his public dressing down?
What did Teo Chee Hean really mean when he asked Ah Tan to “take note of the feedback and learn from this episode?”
Well, I am not really so sure – in fact, I don’t really have a clue - the way I see it; it could range anywhere from; hello if you want to live the life of the rich and famous; then do it quietly and at least have the common decency to pretend you’re not having such a bloody good time – or maybe, its something closer to this: next time when you plastering yourself blind on Dom Perignon try to pretend that you’re chugging down cat urine.
Do you see my point now? Something substantive is missing from the rebuke. Are we really going deep down into the marrow of the whole matter which makes up this crisis; or are we merely skirting the periphery of the issues around the crisis?
There’s a difference. The former is cosmetic. The later is real. Granted. The difference may be subtle; but its nonetheless jugular to what I am trying to forward here: if the imperative is real change; then we need to focus on the content and not simply aping the form.
Because when you work around the edges of this question; it leads us to consider: how might we be creating a better ethos for civil servants if all we are really doing is getting flustered just because Ah Tan was caught with his pants down for being plain insensitive and out of touch with prevailing public sentiments? How might that superficial insistence that he conforms with appearances alone bring about real and meaningful change?
It cannot.
Let me put it another way: lets say Ah Tan’s decided to do the same only this time when he came back; he said nothing about how he spent his time learning how to split peas in famous lecole de cordon blue and even led you to believe he may gone to some god forsaken hole in Africa to teach starving kids how to make tastier mud cakes – would you be less pissed off with him?
So what does it really boil down too?
My point is if we want to castigate Ah Tan, then do it for the right reasons and not only because he failed to ape the form of correctness; which we normally expect from super scale civil servants in these challenging times.
Shouldn’t Ah Tan be reprimanded because what he has demonstrated isn’t really insensitivity thought that may certainly up a small part of the equation culpability – as what he really shows from his disregard is a character flaw that is at odds with the whole idea of what we usually expect from a senior civil servants – a belief that to remain gainfully useful they have to be mature enough to buy into the notion; the whole (interest of society) is always more important than the sum of the individual ambitions, that accountability to people, vision and mission must always take precedence over the selfish idea of having a good time at the expense of tax payers – by disregarding wholesale the good that might be had; if only he had the common sense to plough back part of his fat salary into our fledging local economy? Rather than plumbing to enrich obese Parisians who never once paid him so much as one brass franc?
Shouldn’t we castigate Ah Tan because what we really expect from him is not only to set a good example by aping the useless cardboard form of humility and frugality in such times, but rather for his ineptitude for remaining so terminally bovine as not to even bother with supporting that form with real values for all these years as a public servant? In the way that we regularly demand charities and religious orders to be real people; who are genuinely honest, selfless and devoted to their causes?
Shouldn’t we be getting all worked up because what Ah Tan has really done isn’t really wrong in the strict legal sense; but rather what he demonstrates so aptly is a complete lack of understanding that even beggars the imagination for the whole idea of ‘community politics’ in the context of the civil service – where the whole idea of public service has always been more than just grandstanding and the hype and spin offered by the marketing manifesto; that at its crux, it’s conceivably even an attempt to turn politics on its head, by attempting to work with people to help them achieve their dreams through the unspoken slogan; “we will go through thick and thin together; we will win!” – and that they really mean and believe it. Or the whole thing would just mean nothing.
Or maybe the only lesson to be learnt from this storm in the tea cup is – senior servants are free to do as they please with their money…they can even splurge out and even pay to impersonate Marie Antoinette and Louis XV for the day or for 5 weeks, only when they shout out to the whole world from their make belief balconies – “let them eat cake.” Make sure no one sees you or hears you in Singapore. And above all don’t ever let the side down by telling them all how we regularly spend our fat salaries.
So in summary what may we actually be condoning by default? Are we really addressing the root cause for why we have to change?
What really is the whole point of cooking up a storm in Parliament by castigating Ah Tan? Do we even care to tease out the details and nuances?
Something to think about next time you decide on how Obama & Co is working to change the world for the better.
One thing remains clear; no change is going to come about; if all we are doing here is churning up a storm in the teacup by insisting on correctness of form without addressing the deeper underlying issues of content.
Very strange when you consider the broken record mantra that’s so often rolled out by those who regularly claim to see the world clearer than all of us economy beehon munchers.
Content is king! Only one problem here: where is the fucking beef?
Darkness 2009
(The brotherhood press 2009)
