Last week, on 23 March 2012, I celebrated my 70th birthday, with a party generously thrown for me by ex-students whom I had taught nearly 40 years ago!

It was an evening of fun and hilarity, celebrated with family, relatives, friends, ex-students, ex-colleagues, fans and well-wishers.

What made the occasion special and meaningful for me was that it was used to benefit certain charities that I had been supporting. Instead of the customary birthday gifts, guests were requested to make donations to these charities. My publisher Marshall Cavendish, on their part, brought out attractive, commemorative box-sets of my books (which can be purchased from their office at Times Centre).

Turning 70 was for me both exhilarating and alarming, for I suddenly realised that: 1. I had attained the biblically revered milestone of Three Score and Ten 2. I had left the delectable-sounding league of Sexagenarians to enter that of the rather grim-sounding Septuagenarians 3. I had gained membership of the Super, de Luxe Class of Senior Citizens in Singapore, who enjoy the full benefits of the Confucian edict of respect for the old in society 4. I had also gained membership of the club of the ‘Graying Population’ with its full quota of gout, arthritis, a porridge-only diet, dentures, walking sticks, etc.

However, on balance, I will say, in the language of the young, that being 70 can still be hunky dory. For it gives me the confidence to look back on my life and actually have a good laugh at the many, varied and rather colourful roles I have played—as a teacher, a writer of fiction, a political critic, a feminist, a swinging single on luxury cruise ships. In the process of laughing at myself, I am tempted to take a good-natured dig at the lighter side of our Singapore culture, such as out ‘kiasuism’, our 5Cs, our Singlish.

So it was in this cheerful frame of mind that I belted out the following rather rambunctious birthday song at my party (sung to the tune of an old favourite that nobody above the age of sixty should pretend not to know):

A woman’s a creature who’s sweet, just and wise,
So men, for your mistakes, you must ‘pologise,
But what if she’s wrong and is thus blameable?
Oh, c’mon, you fellas, that’s not possible!

A man is a creature who’s full of ego,
So bent on his bragging he’ll never let go,
He’ll boast of that tool of his manly success,
And adds on the inches it doesn’t possess.

A feminist is someone in womanly prime,
Says Yes to her man, but she wins all the time,
So men always come before women, I see,
But, mind you, that’s only—in the dictionary!

A playboy is someone with charm, dash and style,
Seduces the women with wit and with guile,
So pleased with his skills that he’ll never give up,
So don’t take him for that low-class ‘hum-sub’!

A teacher is someone you simply adore
Despite all that homework she gave you galore,
Despite all that scolding you bravely withstood,
Because, as she said, it’s all for your good.

A writer is someone who dares to express
The lusts and the longings of passion’s excess,
The secrets, the drama of passion’s sweet strife,
She makes up in fiction what she lacks in real life.

A critic is someone who’s reckless and free
To needle and poke at the powers that be,
She even takes on the Supreme PAP,
Oh surely that’s foolish, and so ‘mm-chai-see’!

A single when she is past youth and beauty
Can’t wed or have babies, a national duty,
The government won’t match-make to fulfil her wish,
So she goes on those cruises, to catch that big fish.

Merlion’s a symbol of dear Singapore,
An icon of beauty, and oh! so much more,
It shows that we do have a culture so nice,
So don’t only think of that famed chicken rice.

A Condo, a gold Card, that prestigious Car,
Or is it our King Cash that’s mightier by far,
Is there a sixth C that will suit you just fine?
Well, dream on, you fellas, of that sweet Concubine.

O Singlish is our own dear lingua franca,
Despite its poor grammar and use of the ‘lah’,
Now here is a sample of its charm and flair:
‘Wah, Cat Lim, the Gahmen, she humtum, don’t care!’

A ‘kiasu’ is someone who’s so full of fear
Of losing that bus seat, that precious free beer,
This label he’ll carry through life, and what’s more,
He’s also, poor fellow, a ‘kiasi’, ‘kiabor’!

A sex life is good, so the experts all say,
It takes you to Heaven and back all the way,
It gives you that radiance, the zest and the zing,
And makes you feel richer than old Li Ka-Shing.

A cheongsam’s a costume with cunning appeal,
It just seems so modest, but seeks to reveal,
Just think of those side slits that tease and torment
That long-lasting species, called ‘Dirty Old Men’.

A birthday is awkward at age seventy,
With wrinkles and bad knees and aches a-plenty,
No more all that flirting, those pinches and winks,
They call you ‘Dear Auntie’, and oh! how that stinks!’

The commemorative box set

It must be the pre-General Election fever that’s suddenly stimulated my already over-active imagination to come up with this little tale. I do hope it will afford some comic relief from the pre-GE angst that seems to be increasing by the day!

The Party is in a panic. A week before the General Elections, all the signs point to overwhelming support for the Opposition, and a shocking loss of seats for the Party in Parliament.

‘What shall we do?’ asks Minister-in-Chief. ‘We’ve never seen this sort of thing before.’

‘I have an idea,’ says Assistant Minister Number One.

‘We’ll instill fear in the people. Fear is the strongest emotion. It always works.’

‘How do you propose to do that?’ asks Assistant Minister Number Two.

‘Here’s how. Announce that the Party has foiled a terrorist plot to destroy the society completely. Not by bombs, but by something more deadly. Biological weapons. If the Party had not caught the plotters in time, every man, woman and child would be dead, or blinded, crippled and rendered sterile for life. Make the announcement just a day before voting day, and watch the people rush to cast gratitude votes for the Party!’

The meeting turns to see the reaction of Minister Advisor Supremo who is sitting at the far end of the table. He is shaking his head, in obvious contempt of the proposal.

‘With due respect to Number One, fear is NOT the most powerful emotion,’ says Number Two. ‘You know what is? Greed. Why don’t we do this. Announce tomorrow that if the Party wins, everyone’s pocket will bulge with cash. From our vast reserves. Watch the people’s eyes gleam with the dollar sign, listen to the clicking calculators inside their heads as they decide on how much to spend on upgrading their apartments or taking the family on a vacation in Europe!’

Minister Advisor Supremo coughs to draw attention to the look of disdain on his face that says, ‘How idiotic can you all get!’

‘Fear. Greed. There’s a third emotion that is far more powerful than either of these two.’ Everyone turns to look at Assistant Minister Number Three who says very slowly, ‘Sympathy. That’s what it is.’

‘Sympathy?’ echoes Number One, frowning. ‘ What do you mean?’

‘Sympathy? Have you gone all soft or what?’ says Number Two with a look of disgust.

‘Let’s talk seriously, we don’t have time to lose,’ says Minister-in-Chief wearily.

‘Never under-rate this emotion in a crowd,’ explains Number Three patiently. ‘When people are swayed by it, they are like putty in your hands. They will give every single vote to the Party!’

‘And, pray, how do you propose to whip up this marvellous sympathy for the Party among the thousands of people who are getting ready to vote for the Opposition?’

‘Easy,’ says Number Three, enjoying the attention he’s getting. ‘An assassination. Or rather, an assassination attempt. On no less than Minister-in-Chief.’

‘What?’

‘A single shot from someone in the crowd, as Chief is doing his campaign walkabout. Screams. Pandemonium. The assassin is caught as he tries to get away. Chief is on the ground bleeding profusely. Mrs Chief is kneeling beside his body, sobbing. The moment is captured by the TV cameras and flashed all over the world. The people are in deep shock. They keep asking, ‘How can this happen? How seriously hurt is Chief? Will he die?’ The least they can do is vote for his party.’

‘Our best marksman—do you think he is expert enough to do the job, that is, wound Chief only slightly, say, in the arm or thigh? Suppose he misses his mark?’

‘Maybe Chief can wear a bulletproof vest—it won’t show under his shirt.’

‘What do you say, Chief?’

‘Well, I’m ready to go along if it’s for the good of the Party. But are you sure this sympathy thing will work?’

‘It’s been tried before in some countries, and apparently works quite well,’ says Number Three, gratified that his idea is catching on. ‘We can count on the women. The tears will be streaming down their faces, and they will make their men cast sympathy votes too.’

Now everyone turns to look at Minister Advisor Supremo who suddenly stands up. By now the look of scorn and rage on his face is fearful to behold. He glares at every face turned anxiously towards him, and says, ‘Can’t I make you understand after all these years of advising you? Isn’t it obvious that the best thing to do is to send in the army?’

On 2 Sept 2009, I was one of the guests at a dinner to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. During the dialogue session, I asked Minister Mentor a question about a certain possible, though not probable, political scenario that had intrigued me for years. Suppose a freak election took place; what would the PAP do? Would MM send in the army? By way of softening the rather controversial nature of the question, I made sure there was a friendly, humorous preamble. So I addressed MM thus: ‘Some years ago I was giving a talk to some British businessmen, giving my usual spiel about Singapore politics, civic liberties,etc. During the question and answer session,one of the businessmen raised his hand and said, ‘ I’ve a question, or rather a suggestion. Why don’t you give us your Lee Kuan Yew, and we give you in exchange our Tony Blair, with Cherie Blair thrown in?’ I replied, ‘Mr Lee won’t like your noisy, messy, rambunctious democracy.’ He said, ‘No matter’, and went on to remark that if there were but five Lee Kuan Yews scattered throughout Africa, the continent wouldn’t be in such a direful state today. After this light-hearted sharing, I have a question: Sir, in the event of a serious threat of a freak election, would you do the unthinkable, that is, send in the army?’

Reproduced below is the report in The Straits Times the following day on both my question (minus the preamble) and MM’s answer, exemplifying, once again, the hard-headed, no-nonsense PAP pragmatism, and the inimitable trenchancy of style that we have come to associate with Lee Kuan Yew:

AT YESTERDAY’S dialogue, writer Catherine Lim posed MM Lee this question: ‘Sir, in the event of a serious threat of a freak election, would you do the unthinkable, that is, send in the army?’ This is an edited extract from Mr Lee’s reply:

‘You look at our record and the moves we’ve made. Let me put it simply like this. First, we maintain a system which gives any opposition the opportunity to displace us peacefully. We allow the system: we’ve not interfered with the civil service, the judiciary, parliamentary procedures, the police and so on.

If you can win an election, so be it. If at some point we are not able to find a team which can equal an opposition team, on that day we deserve to be out. If we become corrupt, inefficient, can’t deliver, we’re out.

What if we have a freak election, as we may well have? Many voters say openly: ‘In my family, three of us voted for you but two voted against, just to let you know that we want an opposition voice.’ In that situation, you may have a freak result. That worries me.

So we’ve set in place a President with blocking powers. Any opposition that comes in will find that he cannot touch the reserves, otherwise you can promise the sky and spend the money. And all our hard-earned savings will go in five years.

Second, you cannot change the top officials without the President’s consent. Any raiding of the funds must be approved by the President who has a council of presidential advisers to advise him yes or no.

Now, why should we do all these if we expect to overturn an election?

We expect that if we are voted out, to stay out, and hope that within one term, that new government, incompetent and unable to deliver, will be out. And there’s enough core competencies and the funds to enable a fresh PAP government to revive the system.

I spent 15 years thinking about these safeguards and finally persuaded my younger colleagues that we needed these because they can’t guarantee that each time they will produce a better team than the opposition just because you’ve done so in the past.

I don’t see any problem in the next election, and probably the election after that. But if we don’t get a good team in the election after that and the opposition does get a good team together, we’re at risk.

One of the first lessons I learnt in politicswas from Harold Laski. He said if you don’t have a system that allows fundamental change by consent, you will have a revolution by violence. If we block all possibilities, we must expect violence. In that violence, eventually the army won’t shoot because you are in the wrong. That’s what happens in Africa, the army goes in and holds up the president and often shoots him.

If we had not these thoughts at the back of our minds, why do we do these things? Just to bluff the people? Doesn’t make sense. An army commander, air force or police, has to be approved by a committee and the President must agree. Why? Because we will appoint the commanders? No, because a stupid government will do the wrong things and when we return, we may find the whole machinery has collapsed, as often is the case. Simple.

When some friends complimented me on my website, I just had to make a clean breast of it: somebody did it for me.

Last year, after it was clear that the media no longer wanted to publish my political commentaries—or only very selectively—I decided to go online and create my own website for them. But being abysmally ignorant of all new forms of technology, I sought the help of a friend who put me in touch with Junjie, a graduate from NTU who is now conducting photography courses in Singapore. From that moment, it was all go! Once he understood my needs and preferences, Junjie set about conceptualising, designing and then setting up the website and has since worked to continually update and improve it. In the process, he was even prepared to conspire with the camera to accommodate my many vanities, using only those pictures that cleverly disguised my age!

I fear that with such helpful technological virtuosos like Junjie around, I will continue to be a ‘techno-bodoh’ among digeratis.

Below is a unpublished letter to the Straits Times forum shared with me by a reader

Emotional responses to the ‘little people’ term unnecessary

by Lin Junjie

I read with amazement some of the responses to Dr Catherine Lim’s letter on the Mas Selamat affair published on Wednesday.

Mr Ooi Boon Hock wrote in to your newspaper on Friday accusing Dr Lim of being “very patronising in describing the officers” and “really out of sync”.

Some have even asked Dr Lim on her website for her definition of ‘little people’.

It should have been clear that she had in no way meant to disparage the officers punished in using the term. I believe Dr Lim would also have classified herself as ‘little people’ when compared with top politicians here.

In any case, it should be noted that the Straits Times editorial published on April 24 wrote: “If it is determined there was only one weak link, at junior escort level, then the people should stop carping about why it is usually small fish that get fried.”

The issue at hand–that the buck had stopped at the wrong place–should not be lost in the flurry of emotional responses just because some people have chosen to misread Dr Lim’s letter.