In my small hometown in Malaysia, there was a family in the neighbourhood that was considered too rich and too influential to be offended in any way. They owned a transport company with a fleet of buses which were used by virtually all the inhabitants in the town, as the buses offered not only services within the town, but outside it, connecting it with several small towns around. Additionally, the family owned a number of smaller companies, including some cinemas, which together with the parent company employed a large number of the town’s inhabitants.
They were a large household comprising three generations living in three two-storeyed shophouses linked together in a row. All three elicited the kind of obsequious behaviour one sees frequently among those very low down on the social ladder, evident in their postures of deference and tight, ingratiating smiles. There was a woman, a housewife with a brood of small children, who went all out to please the matriarch in the family by setting herself up as the spy in the neighbourhood, relaying all manner of gossip and trivia to her, and making sure she was the first to know about the town’s latest scandal. The grandchildren were spoilt brats who enjoyed bullying the neighbourhood children, cuffing their heads, wresting away whatever they were holding to throw into the drain with much laughter, pushing the terrified victims to the ground. But they always got away with their bullying because they belonged to a family that was simply too powerful to confront, defy or complain about.
Too-ism. Today this pathology has reached new heights. There are political leaders, nations, business organisations and religions that can get away with the greatest felonies because of too-ism. The likes of Lehman Brothers, Barings and Enron are too big to be allowed to fail, because their collapse could wreak havoc in the financial markets, cause wide scale unemployment, erode trust forever. So governments should bail them out.
The US has become too powerful, with its military build-up, advanced technology, surveillance technology, huge economy, and threat of economic sanctions, for other countries not to think twice before acting uncooperatively. Displease a giant in the world arena? Think twice, three times.
China, revelling in its new prominence on the world stage as the undisputed rival of the US, bristling with too much economic power, too much territorial ambition as well as too many historical grudges that it clearly wants to settle, has become too powerful not to have business or diplomatic relations with.
North Korea, a dictatorship where all kinds of crimes against humanity are committed against its own people, that comes up with nuclear threats in one temper tantrum after another if its wishes are not gratified, is just too unpredictable, simply too nasty to confront. What if the consequences of confrontation destabilise the whole of East Asia, or even the world?
Fundamentalist religions that are ever ready to impose death threats upon writers who dare make unflattering allusions to them, ready to send their suicide missions to bomb, destroy and kill even innocent civilians, are too dangerous to provoke. Suppose provocation sets off a wave of terrorist bombings?
The Vatican, representing a two-thousand-year-old religion that claims millions of adherents all over the world, that receives visiting presidents, prime ministers and royalty hurrying to pay their respects, that has publicly admitted its cover-up, over decades, of paedophile priests, is too entrenched in tradition, too revered for too long, to be publicly shunned for its excesses.
Too big. Too rich. Too powerful. Too long revered by tradition. Too unpredictable. Too nasty.
Too-ism is a scourge today because it can hold the whole world to ransom. So should it just be tolerated? There are, fortunately, some brave voices which remind others of the single most important tenet of international relations, that is, justice should always prevail and that nobody but nobody is above the law. No nation is above international law. The day that the fear underlying too-ism dominates everything else, will be the saddest day for world order and peace. For ultimately, the price to be paid for worshipping power is far greater than the price for challenging it.
Many years ago, then Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew made clear to the people of Singapore that his PAP government would be committed to the fundamental leadership principles of discipline, hard work, efficiency, responsibility and incorruptibility. He said, more or less in these words: ‘If we fail to do what we promise, you can boot us out, and we will have deserved it.’ He meant every word of what he said. It was a reflection of his unshakeable commitment to his job, as well as of his immense pride in it.
It was also a reflection of a sincere and robust respect of the people’s rights. In other words, Lee Kuan Yew was saying too-ism should never influence Singaporeans, that is, no political leadership can have been too long in its rule, too entrenched in its style, too powerful in its influence on the people’s lives, too fearsome in its readiness to punish its opponents, or even too successful in the past, for the people to say: ‘Therefore we must keep quiet. Therefore we must submit.’
On the occasion of every birthday of Singapore, this marvellous compact between the government and the people should be remembered and celebrated.