THE TEMASEK REVIEW

OPINION

Singapore has been besieged by a series of “freak” events of late, the latest being the flooding of Bukit Timah last Thursday which according to Minister of Environment Mr Yaacob Ibrahim which is “freak” event occurring once every 50 years, not withstanding the fact another similar “freak” event had happened in 2006.

Again, the mass food poisoning outbreak at the Geylang Serai temporary market which took the lives of two Singaporeans and affected hundreds more was a “freak” event which cannot be prevented.

The Management Committee of the market which was linked to a grassroots organization was never taken to task. Neither were the NEA officers who forgot to give out the latest food hygiene labels to the stallholders.

After all, it was a “freak” event which nobody from the government should be blamed for except the hapless Indian Rojak stallholder and Singaporeans for their poor public hygiene practices though Indian Rojak is eaten using fork and spoon and not bare hands.

If floods are “freak” events, then naturally deaths in the army should be considered as such. A “freak” death happened in the navy lately when a 21-year old Lance Corporal was found trapped unconscious between a hydraulic sliding door and the door frame of the ship RSS Persistence.

Being a “freak” event, Singaporeans will never know the truth of what really happened from MINDEF.

Other recent “freak” events in Singapore:

It was the “freak” design of the infusion pumps which confused the two KKH pharmacists who delivered chemotherapy drugs into two patients over a few hours instead of days.

It was a “freak” global crisis which caused Temask Holdings and GIC to lose billion of dollars of investments overseas though some “freak” Sovereign Wealth Funds like China Investment Corp and Abu Dhabi Investment Fund did make a killing from it.

It was a “freak” event that Singaporeans now find themselves being swarmed by foreigners of every shade and color and prices of HDB flats sky-rocketed to a record high.

It was a “freak” investment which caused thousands of minibond holders who “walked in with their eyes open” to lose their hard-earned savings overnight.

And how can we forget that “freak” terrorist Mas Selamat Kasteri who made a “freak” escape from Whitney Detention Centre during a toilet break and evaded the entire Home Team for 4 days before swimming across the Johor Straits using an improvised flotation device?

However, it was not a “freak” capture when the Malaysian Special Branch managed to nab him sleeping in a remote kampung in Johor.

The Straits Times proclaimed that it was the Singapore Internal Security Department which provided the “crucial” intelligence leading to his arrest though it was not quite acknowledged by the Malaysian Home Affairs Minister.

Going by the logic and reasoning of the state media, Singapore’s leaders are incapable of making even there slightest mistake and therefore there is no need for them to take any responsibility so long the events are “freak”.

Being “freak” by nature, these events cannot be planned, foreseen or prevented by mere mortals, even if they belong to a “higher” caste.

Life will be a breeze for political leaders anywhere in the world when every single screw-up can be attributed to a “freak” event which cannot be predicted or prevented.

What other “freak” events can Singapore expect next? A “freak” election next year which will see a few PAP ministers being removed from their “freak” positions?

This is the only “freak” event which will never happen because the army will be called in immediately to pre-empt it unless the “freak” who said so is already buried seven feet below the earth.

Now it will be the freakiest event in the world if the “freak” can rise up from his grave as he promised he would if he felt something is not right in the way Singapore is run.

Actually, Singapore is already a “freak” among the developed countries. How can a supposedly electoral democracy be ruled by the same party with 98 per cent of the seats in parliament continuously for 50 years?

To have one “freak” election is acceptable, but to have 11 “freak” elections one after another without arousing the suspicions of anybody in the world is really a feat no democracy in the world can achieve.

Mr Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan should have made a trip to Singapore to see how to pull off this “freak” stunt to save himself the agony of being nagged by U.S. and EU for rigging the presidential election.

In freakish Singapore run by the highest paid ministers in the world, any screw-up intentionally or otherwise is automatically classified as a “freak” event.

For a tiny island 700sqm2 in size, isn’t it freakish that its Prime Minister is paid more than 5 times the President of the United States of America who ruled a country a million times bigger?

To live with such frequent “freak” events in freakish Singapore, Singaporeans have to be the most “freakish” people in the world – to be contented with their status as second-class citizens in their very own country.

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