Putting Tan Kin Lian's racist gaffe under the spotlight

Hello again! I am sure many of my Singaporean readers have been following the story about the gaffe made by former presidential candidate Tan Kin Lian on Facebook when he made the "Mumbai" comment which was deemed to be offensive and racist. Now I think that is a an ill-judged comment made by Tan and if it was an attempt at being funny, then I would advice him to leave comedy to the comedians as he sucks at it. However, I would like I point out something else from his apology and look at it more closely. Allow me to quote from his apology:

"I was actually surprised to see the entire bus full of one nationality. This was the first time that I encountered such a situation. I intended my post to be a humour, but it was taken badly by some quarters. If it was in bad taste, I do not mean any disrespect to that nationality."

Now this is where Tan's English fails him. Allow me to explain why and how he had gone terribly wrong even in that apology. Now firstly, it is clear what had happened: Tan boarded the bus to find that it was full of Indian people. How can he then make any assumptions about the nationality of these Indian people then? Did he verify the passports of every single passenger on that bus? They could be Indian nationals, or maybe they were Singaporeans or Malaysians - maybe they had Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan nationals in there as well. Many Singaporean Indian friends feel extremely offended when Chinese Singaporeans assume that they are foreign and not Singaporean - and quite rightfully so! I refer you to the case study of Singaporean comedian Haresh Tilani where so many stupid, idiotic and racist Chinese Singaporeans made assumptions about his nationality based on the colour of his skin.

The word that Tan should have used was 'ethnicity' - hence the sentence should have read, "I was actually surprised to see the entire buss full of people of one ethnicity." This would explain quite accurately what Tan had witnessed without making any assumptions about the nationality of the Indian passengers on the bus. There is a huge difference between ethnicity and nationality: as a man of mixed-ethnicity, I find this to be a highly sensitive issue as I hate it when people make any kind of assumptions based on the colour of my skin and they often jump to the wrong conclusions. Tan really needs to be more tactful and choose the right term, because if I was an Indian-Singaporean, I would take serious offence at Tan's statement. Surely anyone serious about politics in Singapore would be very careful when talking about anything like that but not Tan. Hence I am more than happy to call Tan a stupid fool. Whether he is genuinely racist or not is another matter, there's no doubt that he is an idiot. But let's move on to his next error.

Is Tan really a racist or was this just a silly mistake?

He wrote: "I intended my post to be a humour." Allow me to cringe so hard I will fall off my chair. Where do I even begin? How about the broken English? I know what he is trying to say: "I intended my post to be a joke." He could also say, "I intended my post to be humourous." He is clearly struggling with the English language here as he doesn't know how the word 'humour' should be used in this context. If you insist on using the word humour as it is, you could also say, "My intention was humour." The word humour is like the word weather, sympathy, confidence, courage or strength. You cannot quantify it - hence you cannot say for example, "I used a strength to lift that heavy box." No, the correct way to express that sentence would be, "I used some/a lot of/a little strength to lift that heavy box." Likewise, with the word confidence, let's try this sentence. "I had a confidence to do it." That would be wrong as you can't count "confidence" as such: one confidence, two confidences, three confdences etc - the correct way of expressing that sentence would be, "I had the/some/enough confidence to do it."

Like the same token, you can't count "humour" - Tan had intended to use humour but not only had it misfired, he had also demonstrated that he doesn't understand English grammar. Why does this matter so much? Am I simply being cruel and elitist by picking on Tan over a minor error in his English? Or does this really an important matter in today's world? Now in a recent post, I talked about an English teacher in Singapore Mr Dan, aka Angmohdan. He is a British expat who makes a very good living in Singapore teaching people how to speak English properly. Now why are people willing to pay good money to someone like Mr Dan to polish up their English? Should it really matter if someone does make the occasional error like, "a humour"? Should we really be splitting hairs over English grammar like this?

Yes, I think it does. You see, when you are a politician, you don't want to give anyone the opportunity to dismiss you as a 'bueh-tak-chek' idiot who can't even handle basic English grammar. You have a public image to protect, your reputation is extremely important as that is what will persuade people to vote for you at the ballot box. Tarnish that reputation with gaffes like that and you are effectively sabotaging your own career. You do not want to rely on the generousity of people to give you the benefit of the doubt or be forgiving because you simply cannot trust people to be nice like that. Tan then attacks"IB dogs" (internet brigade dogs) and "rude people" who have made fun of him - that is just appallingly naive of him. The man is an idiot who doesn't understand how social media works - if you don't want people to make fun of you, then don't make stupid comments that will offend people in the first place. He has already left an internet footprint of embarrassing gaffes over the years and he still has yet to learn his lesson? Oh dear. In case you haven't noticed already, the internet can be a pretty brutal place and there have been plenty of internet wars in Singaporean social media. And do not give people an excuse to make fun of you, such as by posting in broken English or be making comments or bad jokes that could easily be perceived as offensive or racist.

Despite the fact that we all go through many years of formal education, not everyone uses their brains to make a living. Jobs can be divided broadly into two categories: white collar and blue collar. White collar workers are those who use their brains for a living rather than their muscles: examples include teachers, accountants, lawyers, doctors, bankers and politicians. Blue collar workers are those whose jobs depend far more on their muscles rather than their brains: examples include gardeners, janitors, cleaners, waiters and maids. Then there are some which are hard to place: a taxi driver gets to sit down all day and doesn't even stand up, there isn't that much muscle strength involved in his job, but would you consider a taxi driver a white collar worker? Likewise, successful professional footballers need to be extremely fit to perform well in their matches - by that token, it is a blue collar job but the best footballers can earn far more than many lawyers and doctors. But we wouldn't have any hesitation putting politicians into the white collar category: people who use their brains to earn a living - thus we can expect them to be fairly intelligent and articulate.

This maths teacher uses her brains to make a living.

English grammar can confuse even English people and yes, there are English people who speak English very badly. The example I always use is "you was" - this must be one of the most common mistakes made by working class English people. Now it doesn't take a genius to figure out that you really should say "you were" in a sentence like, "you were not here yesterday." But you would be amazed how many English people would make that mistake and say, "you was not here yesterday". I do not bother to correct people when they make a mistake like that, but I can't help but notice and involuntarily, I do pass judgement on them in my head. At the very least, it shows a lack of attention to detail and it does indicate that you come from a social class where people really don't care about education. If someone did say "you was" during a job interview, I would think, "if you can't even be asked to pay attention to your grammar during a job interview, how careless are you going to be handling other matters at work?"

Would I care if my taxi driver spoke to me in broken English? No I don't, as long as he drives me to my destination safely and quickly. Would I care if my waiter spoke to me in broken English? Again, no I don't, as long as he brings me my food quickly enough. Would I care if my lawyer spoke to me in broken English? I would actually, I would be very alarmed. This is because I am paying my lawyer good money for to use his brains to serve me - I would assume that someone who is smart enough to get a law degree from a reputable university would be able to speak English well enough. After all, we are taught the bulk of the basic rules of English grammar in primary school - you would not be able to get through your PSLE English language exam if you didn't understand basic English grammar. No, you don't want people to have that #facepalm moment when they think, "aargh, even my 8 year old nephew/niece/son/daughter can write in better English than you do." Tan's "a humour" gaffe would still fall under the PSLE English syllabus and any primary 6 English teacher would take out his/her red pen angrily and mark out Tan's error with a big cross.

Should we expect our politicians to be well educated?

If you are unable to even handle the basics covered in the PSLE syllabus, should you really be trying to use your brains to make a living rather than your muscles? If you can't even string together a sentence in grammatically correct English, how are you going to win the confidence of voters? You may argue that oh the average man in the street in Singapore probably speaks broken English too - but does your average Singaporean want to vote for a man who is stunningly brilliant or someone who is as incompetent as he is? The bar is set very high for those who wish to enter politics as it is the ultimate popularity contest. Certainly a politician who makes grammatical errors like that is quite unforgivable - it does send out a simple message that he cannot speak English but why? Is English a foreign or second language for him? Did he go to a bad school where the teachers were terrible? Or is he, for want of a better word, just plain stupid? I'm afraid many people would simply assume that he is indeed plain stupid and I'm afraid in the world of PR and marketing, once your image is tarnished, it is very hard to repair. Certainly, this isn't the first gaffe that Tan has made which has made him appear extremely stupid.

Am I being overly cruel? Perhaps. Are there professions who may struggle with basic English or arithmetic but are still good at their area of expertise? Certainly. However, I am looking at the matter entirely from a PR and marketing perspective since that is what my background is. Look at the way major brands like Starbucks, Nike, Coca-Cola, BMW, Apple and Prada control their PR and marketing image. Millions are spent on their marketing campaigns to ensure that the public gets a very good impression of their brand. A major PR gaffe like the notorious Macadamia nuts incident can cause a major brand like Korean Air millions of dollars when their reputation is instantly tarnished, undoing millions of dollars worth of marketing campaigns in an instant. Hence why should PR in politics be any different then?

Let me tell you about one aspect of work that I do in my role as a PR and marketing consultant in the financial services industry. I rewrite and edit marketing materials for financial products: I often receive a draft that is barely readable. It would be a wall of text, with wall to wall incomprehensible technical jargon and yes, the English would be terrible. It would often be a bunch of bullet points thrown together with little heed to grammar, there will be an absence of complete sentences.  My job is to turn that information into a flawless piece of marketing material that is user-friendly and easy to understand, so the first impression that the reader gets is, "wow, this is really a good product to invest in, I should invest in it now", rather than "the person who wrote this clearly doesn't speak English as a first language, I have no idea what the hell he is trying to say." I cannot create these technically complex investment products - but without my work as a PR and marketing guru, nobody would understand these products, let alone want to invest in them.

The people who make such investment products are not stupid - on the contrary, they are extremely intelligent yet they recognize that they cannot do everything themselves. Thus they are more than willing to outsource this particular function to me, because they know how good I am at my job. What I do is hardly unique, around the world, there are thousands, even millions of marketing experts who write speeches for politicians and CEOs to make even the most inarticulate person sound reasonably eloquent, even witty. "Just stick to the script I have given you word for word, memorize what you can and just read the rest you can't memorize. Do not improvise, do not stray from the script and everything will be fine." I remember how I had to do that for a client some years back and when he delivered a joke that was in the script, the audience laughed. He ran back to me later saying, "I told that joke and they laughed, that has never happened before!" Of course, that's what you pay me for - to make you look good, to make you look interesting and even funny. It is really not easy trying to make people laugh: best leave that to the professionals.

PR and marketing is a huge industry and the smart politicians are not afraid to pay good money to get the best PR consultants on their team. Tan Kin Lian should have learnt his lesson that he simply does not have the skills to operate his own social media interactions - everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying, "okay, I am not good at this, I am going to pay someone to do it for me." Plenty of politicians, CEOs and celebrities do outsource their social media interactions to PR experts who ensure that the message communicated is always one that will enhance the client's profile and public image. That's simply a question of common sense, let's take this case study for instance. If you knew that your maths was crap and your son needed help with his PSLE maths exam, what would you do?

A) Sit down with your son anyway and stare at his textbooks, despite having no clue how to solve any of the problems presented before you. But you try anyway and guess what the answers should be, leaving your son more confused than ever and he goes on to flunk PSLE maths. Oops.

B) Spend some money and hire a very good maths tuition teacher for your son so he will do well in his PSLE.

By the same token, if you know that you're not good with English, you're not funny or witty and you keep making gaffes on social media, good grief. Why hasn't Tan Kin Lian employed someone to do this for him yet? I am amazed at the way politicians in Singapore are getting away with so many gaffes and the public can still be so very forgiving, giving them the benefit of the doubt each time. Why is this so? Can this be a sign of Singaporean's blind faith in the PAP? Or are they simply clueless when it comes to confronting a bad politician? Or might it be that practically all Singaporean politicians are just as hopeless as each other, so there's no point in picking on the PAP as the opposition is just as clueless when it comes to PR?

I don't know, but given the way I have used to my politicians in the UK being a lot more eloquent and articulate, I think Singaporean politics would just drive me absolutely crazy. I would find it intolerable. Perhaps my Singaporean readers can help shine some light on the issue for me, especially since I've been in the Europe for so long and our politicians here are usually articulate, eloquent, they dress well, speak eloquently and some of them are even pretty good looking (I kid you not). So, please let me know what you think in the comments section below, many thanks for reading.