SINGAPORE: The Government has no plans to amend legislation and extend anti-littering laws to private estates such as condominiums, Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources Amy Khor said in Parliament on Monday (Aug 6).

Responding to a question from MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC Liang Eng Hwa, Dr Khor said that doing so would likely elicit a negative reaction, such as the laws being intrusive.

Mr Liang had asked whether the National Environment Agency (NEA) could extend the deployment of surveillance cameras beyond HDB estates to high-rise private estates to carry out enforcement against high-rise littering.

Dr Khor explained that the prohibition against littering under the Environmental Public Health Act applies only to publicly accessible places. Private estates such as Executive Condominiums (ECs) and private strata-titled condominiums are not regarded as such a place in law, as access to these places are restricted. This means, she said, that NEA is in turn unable to carry out enforcement against littering incidents carried out in these estates.

However, she noted that when approached by a condominium’s management committee for assistance in the area of high-rise littering, NEA explores ways to collaborate with them to educate and advise residents against doing so.

She added that many condominiums already have by-laws that prohibit littering within their estates. “If all else fails, the management committee can apply to the courts to enforce these by-laws against errant residents,” she said. “While the process may be challenging, MCSTs can nonetheless turn to these options if all other means at reaching out to the errant resident fails, including even community mediation.”

Ultimately, Dr Khor stressed that home owners in private estates have the autonomy to govern and manage the shared private spaces in a responsible manner.

“For this to happen, residents should come together to encourage and influence acceptable social behaviour in their communities,” she said.  

SINGAPORE: Ragging, a ritual or tradition, that one goes through in order to join or gain acceptance in an in-group, is often meant to be an embarrassing process for the victim, and is common in close-knit groups such as military organisations, sports teams and fraternities around the world.

Some claim that the process of ragging can produce cohesiveness and membership loyalty, and may end with the inclusion and initiation of the victim into the group. Most feel a sense of liking and loyalty thereafter, and so are likely to accept practices.

Ragging experiences are “justified” since members see it as a rite of passage for newcomers. And with the mindset of “I had to do it, so you have to as well” instilled in group members, many support and perpetuate the practice of such rituals despite bans and stringent controls.

Participants may not see ragging as causing harm, especially if participants in a rite of passage had survived it and came out closer than ever.

These practices are, however, dangerous.

Students who have difficulties transitioning into university can end up feeling victimised or even depressed from ragging rituals as part of orientation activities they have little choice but to take part in.

Ragging can also be violent, and in rare cases, might even lead to death.

In 2013, a student of a fraternity in the City University of New York died from head injuries as a result of extreme ragging rituals. He had to carry a weighed-down backpack through a gauntlet of fraternity members across a yard of ice, blindfolded, and was tackled repeatedly, according to news reports.

Last week, five Singapore Civil Defence Force officers were charged over the death of Corporal Kok Yuen Chin, who had drowned during a ragging incident. Corporal Kok’s death has incited discussions about ragging practices and bullying in the workplace, and how future incidences can be prevented.

INTENTIONAL OR HARMLESS PRANK?

While they do share certain key characteristics, ragging and bullying are not the same. Ragging aims to induce liking of the group and results in inclusivity and cohesiveness. Harm is never a goal, but a sometimes unseen by-product. Bullies, on the other hand, carry out their actions with the intention to harm and isolate the victim from the group.

Ragging rituals are often only carried out once on a single victim, while bullying is an ongoing process of harassing.

In most cases, perpetrators of ragging function in an organised team with a practical goal, while workplace bullies work alone or as a clique that has no functional value in terms of workplace contributions.

Workplace bullying and harassment cover a wider scope that includes passive-aggressiveness and threats that include the withholding of promotions, even though both ragging and bullying include verbal and physical abuse and seemingly harmless pranks that can turn ugly.

READ: Focus on preventing bullying, instead of how frequent it occurs, a commentary

Contrary to popular beliefs, workplace bullies do not target their victims out of low self-esteem, nor are their targets necessarily loners of the team.

Most bullies often act out due to their inability to manage and react to stress or problems adequately and handle their experiences in a positive manner. Only a minority possess antisocial tendencies that result in destructive behaviours toward others and the company.

Victims are usually performers or popular members of the team – the perfect target for bullies to channel their stress.

Workplace bullying behaviours are generally difficult to spot, but their effects are extremely visible. If a performer shows a sudden drop in performance or change in attitude, that might be a sign they are being bullied.

Abrupt changes in team behaviours and dynamics must also be watched closely. These are alarming especially when someone new joins the team.

HARMFUL ACTIONS NOT TOLERABLE

While public attention has been focused on stamping out ragging, it is just as important to focus our efforts on identifying and addressing workplace bullying. While certain bullies cannot be deterred in the same way that ragging can, most of them can be changed.

The first step is to go beyond stating that bullying will not be tolerated. Laying out the details of what will not be accepted helps to guide a better understanding of the behaviours that constitute bullying, as certain bullies are unaware that their actions are considered bullying.

Second, never ignore claims and complaints, but investigate them with a clear and transparent process that all employees have been informed of.

Last, members of an organisation can help create a bully-free environment by stepping in or reporting whenever an incident occurs.

While ragging should never be condoned, it shouldn’t mean that we shy away from initiation practices altogether. When done right under adequate management, initiation rituals have been shown to increase team unity and performance. They are still beneficial in militaristic or sports settings given the nature of these groups.

Initiation rituals should always be carried out with an atmosphere of mutual respect, or include certain bonding elements.

Having meals together, or outdoor team-building activities, are some examples that do not infringe on the dignity of participants. Likewise, these practices can also be used to increase workplace bonding and cooperation, which can reduce the likelihood of workplace bullying.

The key takeaway is that any kind of practice that results in harm, both physical and psychological, should be explicitly prohibited.

Joel Yang is a clinical psychologist with Mind what Matters Psychological Consultancy. He regularly treats individuals who have difficulties managing work relationships and environments.  

SINGAPORE: The sun was blazing down on Camp Christine, where schoolgirls were using sticks and twine to make racks for their bags, shoes and for drying their towels.

In one corner of the grounds, one group in pink were laughing, waving to the Boy Scouts at the campsite next door, and chatting about their most recent camping trip to Switzerland.

“We kept getting scolded,” Yvette Cheak said, gesturing at Anna Tham next to her. “We had such a good time.”

“We were the clowns,” Petrina Giam chimed in. “We brought the house down.”

Their laughter echoed through the grounds. Their conversation, filled with a yearning for adventure – their next camping trip is to Melbourne – sounded typical of young women. But, in fact, these lively ladies were approaching their 70s and into their 80s.

They have known each other for more than 50 years, and their friendship has remained the same, even now as proud grandmothers.

They are former Girl Guides who belong to the Trefoil Guild, the adult branch (25 and above) of the Guiding movement. And their bonds remain strong because of what they have cultivated since they first met: Teamwork.

“It’s teamwork in action. It’s not just talking about it,” said Mrs Cheak, 68. “This is really where you see how the girls team up together and then go for it.”

Around them, the schoolgirls are part of an evolving organisation. And this sisterhood of old friends have also moved with the times. More importantly, they are passing on a rich legacy, not least of friendship.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

Mrs Cheak and Mrs Giam, 69, were 16 and 17 years old respectively when they became Ranger Guides after completing their O Levels and leaving their respective Guiding companies in the Singapore Chinese Girls’ School.

That was when they met Mrs Tham, their captain. “She was a very fierce captain,” Mrs Giam recalled, looking at her with a playful smile.

Added Mrs Cheak: “We were always full of respect. There’s no question about it. But at the same time, we were scared because she had this aura – very stern, very disciplined and very clever.”

Mrs Tham also has an air of wisdom that now comes from her 84 years of age. Sitting composedly and wearing blue eye shadow, the captain’s demeanour soon gave way, however, to her mischievous streak.

“I liked to bring them to cemeteries,” she said with a hearty laugh.

It was enough to set Mrs Giam off on an animated retelling of those moments: “As you can imagine, we stumbled over tombstones, and we were like, ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’”

After pitching many tents and starting many campfires together, the bonds they formed melted the ice queen. “And then they bullied me,” Mrs Tham said with a chuckle.

At times, their Girl Guide adventures were much more harrowing than cemetery capers. Recalling one such experience in the late 1960s, when Singapore had many more farms, Mrs Tham said:

Somebody went trekking around the farms, and the farmers came out with a gun.

Their farm explorations were otherwise less dangerous, however, and those memories are a reminder to them of how Guiding has changed, with a smaller range of outdoor opportunities nowadays.

On the other hand, Guiding is now offered as a co-curricular activity (CCA) in more schools – more than 55 per cent of primary and secondary schools – than it was back then.

Mrs Tham remembered that she had joined an open company at the headquarters, meant for girls from different schools. That was in 1949.

“It was a choice we made, not that we were put into the CCA,” she said. “And because it was a choice we made, we really put ourselves into the movement.”

Until today, her fellow Guides are proud of how well she has done throughout the years. “She ran Singapore’s first Land Rangers company,” said Mrs Cheak. “Today, she’s (still) our captain – she’s known to us as captain.”

GUIDES AT WORK AND AT HOME

Although they had joined the Guiding movement for a taste of adventure, it gave them much more eventually, including in their careers. As they became mothers and grandmothers too, the values from their early Guiding days never left them either.

“It helped a lot during my time as principal,” said Mrs Tham, an ex-principal of Methodist Girls’ School, as she recalled the day when a pupil had sustained a deep cut on her leg after falling on a glass panel.

“It was bleeding very badly. And everyone was so panicky. I said, ‘Lie down, calm down.’ So I went there, managed to stop the bleeding, called for the ambulance and then went back (to the office).”

Mrs Cheak, a former regional head of compliance at a French bank who still acts as an adviser to the Association of Banks in Singapore, agreed that Guiding was good preparation for her career.

“Because of my role (in compliance), I have to be very careful, very calm,” she said. And nothing gave her more confidence that she could manage in her job than her Guiding experience.

Juggling everyday life with their roles as Guides, however, was not easy.

Mrs Wah Teng Siew, 82, the chief commissioner of Girl Guides Singapore from 1984 to 1989, recalled her hectic schedule then, having had to travel multiple times for regional conferences.

While she was in office, Singapore also worked to bring in the organisation’s world conference. “I think I ran out of leave,” the former radiographer said wryly – a sentiment shared by the other three Guides, who are also good friends with her.

They were so involved in the Guiding community that their families would miss their presence at home. “My son would complain, ‘Mummy, when you’re not home, we only eat canned food,’” Mrs Cheak said with a chuckle.

Perhaps inevitably, however, their families have also carried on a strong tradition from them.

“My second daughter is a President’s Guide (award winner),” beamed Mrs Tham, whose other daughter was also a Guide while her son was a Scout. “And both granddaughters got the chief commissioner’s award.”

There was no disguising the women’s sense of pride as they talked about their children and grandchildren who followed in their footsteps.

“We left it to them. But then they’d see pictures (of us), and ask, ‘Who’s this? What’s this uniform?’ And this was when I’d tell them a little bit. Then they made their decisions,” said Mrs Cheak.

All three of her sons became Scouts, and two of them were awarded the President’s Scout Award.

SPENDING TIME WITH THE BOYS

Another topic of lively chatter among these ladies – but prompting more gales of laughter and playfully raised eyebrows – was boys, or rather, Boy Scouts.

“We were always with the Scouts who taught us how to make gadgets,” said Mrs Cheak, who then gestured at Mrs Giam. “That’s how she met her boyfriend.”

“Boyfriends,” Mrs Giam interjected.

Banter aside, the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts, in Singapore and elsewhere, have a long shared history.

It started in London in 1909, at the first Boy Scout Rally, which a handful of determined girls gatecrashed to request Robert Baden-Powell – the founder of the Scouts – to have “something for the girls”.

And even now, these four friends collaborate with the senior Scouts.

“When the Scouts have training, they’d invite our Guides to go, like for campfire training,” said Mrs Cheak. “Then the Guides who are free and our trainers who can manage will join them.”

One of the most recent get-togethers was on July 14, when the senior Scouts organised a walk in Kampong Lorong Buangkok, Singapore’s last kampung.

It was pouring, but that did not dampen the seniors’ spirits as they sang that famous nursery rhyme for the rain to go away.

These joint activities span the gamut from camping to purely social meet-ups, said 49-year-old Malcolm Tan, a “lawyer by profession, scout by choice”.

“We arrange to have Chinese New Year gatherings, Christmas gatherings and … from time to time, we have hikes and all that,” said the Scout Guild assistant secretary.

The Singapore Scout Guild was established in 1996, while the Trefoil Guild here was founded in 1973 and has more than 100 members, with the oldest active member now 89 years old.

DEVELOPING GIRLS IN DIFFERENT WAYS

One of the lasting legacies that Trefoil Guild members have left to newer generations of Guides has been Camp Christine, located at Jalan Bahtera and opened in 1988 after “fierce fundraising”, noted Mrs Wah.

With the changing times, however, there are also Guiding initiatives being rolled out that she and her friends would never have had.

Take, for example, the Surf Smart Badge, which equips girls to be vigilant and responsible online citizens who can protect themselves and their rights on the Internet.

The four ladies agree that “everything is Google” now, but see hands-on training as crucial too.

And they may no longer be as active in the Guiding movement as they once were, but this is where they continue to support its activities and help to develop girls in different ways.

They volunteer to be testers, for example, in the President’s Guide Award Camp. “We’re like resources they can call on to help because we’re all retired or semi-retired,” said Mrs Cheak.

“The thing we can do as alumni is try to close that gap in experience – the character building, the values, the community, the communication, the leadership.”

To some of the young Guides, however, because the camp was something for which they had been preparing “for a very long time”, they expected it to be “nerve-wracking” – until they got to know their testers.

“I was quite scared of them at first because they were testing us, but they’re actually very nice, like the one who tested me (Mrs Tham),” said 15-year-old Alexa Yeo.

“She gave me a lot of interesting advice and on things I hadn’t come across in school. She taught me a completely different and new kind of lashing.”

The Raffles Girls’ School student may well be starting a journey like the one her charming testers embarked on all those years ago.

“When I came to secondary school, I didn’t expect to join the Guides either, but over the years, it has become a family to me,” she said.

The primary goals and values the Guiding movement inculcates remain the same, and ultimately, it is supposed to be fun – and a close sisterhood.

“Guiding is supposed to be a game …” said Mrs Tham, “… And we’re still playing the game,” continued Mrs Wah, completing the sentence.

“The passion never dies …” added Mrs Cheak, “… And we want to give back,” went Mrs Giam, without hesitation.

Once a Guide, always a Guide – it is a core value these four are familiar with, and they are holding to it together.

SINGAPORE: “人在江湖，身不由己”. This is a commonly used mandarin expression which states that as one steps out into the world, one cannot expect to live as one wishes to. 

Some may choose, heroically, to pay the price of living by their lofty ideals, but this statement justifies the need to set those ideals aside.

What happens if one’s personal values and beliefs or ideal vision of society differ vastly from what is playing out in society? How can one live with that? How can the gaps be narrowed?

The findings from a survey series called the National Values Assessment conducted by a Singapore business consulting firm, aAdvantage and a British group, the Barrett Values Centre, provide a quick indicator of first, the gap between Singaporeans’ avowed personal values and their perception of society today, and second, the gap between that perception and their ideal model of it. 

The findings are based on the views of 2,000 Singaporeans drawn using quota samples collected in 2012, 2015, and March to May 2018.

POSITIVE PERSONAL VALUES

First, the good news. The surveys indicate that, in defining themselves, Singaporeans consistently place great value on being caring, compassionate, family-oriented, responsible and fair.

In defining their model society, Singaporeans say they espouse ideals of respect, and care for the elderly, the disadvantaged, the future generation and the environment across all three surveys.

Affordable housing, effective healthcare and this year’s additions of educational opportunities and dependable public services, were among the other top ten descriptors of what respondents also want in their ideal society.

Why is this good news? These suggest that issues of social inclusion and support are important to us.

Such concerns were present across the board. Concern for seniors was among the top three values chosen across all age segments including the youngest, aged 15 to 30. Affordable housing was also among the top three values cited by respondents of all housing backgrounds, including those living in private apartments and landed property.

GAP BETWEEN PERSONAL IDEALS AND REALITY

Now, to the bad news – whether there is coherence between personal ideals, Singaporeans’ notions of their model society, and the reality they find themselves in, and why.

The main values, attitudes and behaviours respondents said define their reality over the three surveys were selfish competitiveness (kiasu), the fear of failure (kiasi), self-centredness, materialism and a blaming culture.

None of the top ten values on this list coincided with those that described personal values over the years.  

But who makes up society? Clearly, many of us are compromising on our ideal set of values when we step out of our homes every morning.

GAP BETWEEN IDEAL SOCIETY AND REALITY

There was at least some resemblance between the top ten values and needs cited to describe current society with that of the ideal society – care for the elderly, effective healthcare and educational opportunities. 

But the survey indicates that many of these needs are under-served today. How do we know?

The survey compares the number of mentions made to the values respondents chose in describing current society and ideal society. The largest difference in the 2015 and 2018 surveys were in the areas of affordable housing, care for the elderly, the disadvantaged and the environment, as well as in the manifestation of virtues like compassion, respect and integrity.

What are the choices we must make and the cost we must bear to transform society into one that mirrors our declared personal values and ideals more closely? Let us explore how we can grapple with that in a few of those areas.

CHOICES AND COST TO CLOSING THE GAPS

First, on affordable housing, in recent years, the Government has introduced cooling measures to tame the demand for property and raise the supply of new public housing units. 

The rationale is to ensure prices do not outstrip the economic performance of the country and that buyers are not over-leveraged in their property loans in an uncertain financial market. These measures keep housing affordable.

READ: Did the Government intervene too early in Singapore’s private housing market? A commentary

This is done at a cost to sellers of property. Within the “buy low, sell high” dictum where everyone wants to win in the property lottery of land-scarce Singapore, politically, this policy stance is controversial among segments of citizens and certain interest groups.

Hence, the conundrum of governance – the calculus of what is good at the personal level can be different at the societal one. What is fair and inclusive policy for one group seems draconian and stifling for another.

Second, on care for the elderly, we want senior family members to enjoy dignified and supported golden years. However, for most, it is simply too costly to achieve this on an individual household basis. 

On the other hand, we can all manage it better when we pool our resources as individuals, communities and employers by paying taxes, by becoming contributors to national social risk-pooling schemes like Medishield Life and the proposed CareShield Life, or by building and running shared, community facilities in the heart of our neighbourhoods.

Again, individual, private solutions will lead to different outcomes from collective ones. 

Deciding who will carry which burden, who should benefit more are the choices we have to make for a welfare outcome that is superior all round. Reframing issues like these – from transactions to acts of solidarity will help us achieve that.

Third, on nurturing compassion, care and respect, it is difficult to find an antidote to the corrosive selfish competitiveness that arise from widespread systems that appraise workplace performance or academic achievements on a bell curve.

Active citizens wait for highly-regulated public agencies to provide permission and funding for local community projects at the cost of a diminished sense of ownership, authenticity and innovation. The balance between accountability and empowerment between state and people has to be part of the difficult conversation about developing the livelier civic space we want.  

We need to nourish the collective and community far more if we are to live up to our nobler ideals that the survey series suggests are in us.

Narratives like “no one owes you a living”, “don’t be weak or someone will take advantage of you”, “the small guy always gets swallowed up”, and “the good guy never wins” need similarly powerful counterpoints to allow notions of the common good to flourish.

National Day will be a good time to discuss how we can become a society we will always be proud of.

​​​​​​​

Dr Gillian Koh is Deputy Director (Research) at the Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore. The National Values Assessment 2018 survey referred to in the essay was conducted by aAdvantage Consulting Group Pte Ltd (Singapore) and Barrett Values Centre (United Kingdom).