The discussion has degenerated into one of name-calling, finger-pointing and personal attacks.

As such, this thread is now closed for further comments.

It is not easy to moderate a public forum, huh? If you allow the quotes from the scriptures, you risk being called up by the govt, not to mention you arouse emotions and things can get nasty.

If you don’t allow them to quote, you can be accused of restricting free thought,

Tough job, huh?

Please stop quoting from the Quran.

Also to everyone, please also stop quoting from the Bible.

All these will not be allowed here.

Thanks.

DBS have every right to defend its policies as a corporate entity, and Josie have every right to pursue her passion, if both cannot meet halfway, then one party have to decide…either DBS accepts Josie’s breach and create precedence and future problems for themselves in terms of staff’s compliances, or Josie have to resign to take on what she so strongly believed in, and wants to pursue her personal passion more than her career in DBS!

I watch, I see, I think, I decide what I choose. In fact, the people who wrote the bible also did the same. They are thinkers.

But fundamentalists are different. They don’t want to go through the trouble of using their heads. They don’t even think in terms of good and evil. They’re only interested in purity. Purity to what? I don’t know. The good book tells me and I don’t ask too many questions. Never mind that anything written 2000 years ago is outdated and you have to read it carefully.

This obsession with purity, with never ever having to change your mind, with absolute certainty. The way you called me a half breed, you’re just like Hitler.

Before you quibble about whether there is such a thing as Singaporean values, imagine what it means to say that there is no such thing. It would mean that we have existed as a nation for more than 30 years and have no values to speak of. It cannot be that there are no such thing as Singaporean values.

We pick and choose those values at the beginning, mainly they are Malay, Chinese, Indian, British. But even though values are pliable and changable, we always decide which ones are “ours” and which are “theirs”. Which have to do with our forefathers, or even our colonial masters, our shared history and experience.

And which have to do with a strange country far far away and has nothing to do with Singapore’s history. For example, Christian fundamentalists, who were kicked out of Europe like criminals and had to escape to America.

It is equivalent to calling African Americans, ‘black’. In the past the word ‘negro’ was acceptable, but now it is considered a racial (ethnic) slur.

‘Negro’ means ‘black’ in Spanish.

If you equal “Ang Mo” as “Red Monkey” then people who are English educated are called red monkey educated, when you speak Ang mo, you are actually speaking red monkey.

You really make me laugh.

You are right that we don’t live in an ideal world. That is why in my original post, I said that no doubt directors so called meet only 4 times a year, their responsibilities is full time. So naively thinking they are not in charge or should not be in charge on day to day issues that affect the whole bank is not right.

Because of that, they are responsibility for all events that surround the company. Maybe this PR fiasco by DBS is not their direct doing. If it isn’t, I’m more the worried because obviously somewhere down the line, something has gone very wrong with the rank and file such that the bank is now seen as taking sides on the alternatives and create what looks like a major PR disaster and I think it will end up rolling into a recruitment disaster soon.

Don’t tell me I have got to wait for the next director’s meeting to get their views. BTW, there are executive directors’ on the board. I don’t know if you have sat on boards before but one thing I am sure – these board members may only sit together 4 times a year but they certainly speak to each other many times a year – outside their sitting together like phones, sms, golf games, etc etc….

You are letting them off too lightly….

What values?

Do you refer to Chinese values? Indian or Malay ones? Or do you suggest there is a set of “Singaporean Values” Or perhaps you want to suggest that there is such a fanciful notion as “Asian values”?

Quite simply there is no such thing. Koreans do not share values with the Chinese, nor do they likewise share those values with the Japanese or Indonesians.

Values are not fixed, they change as society does, weaker nations have always been conquered by stronger ones and in turn have had their culture and along with their values altered.

Maybe you should seek to see what it is about these foreign values that so attracts?

As for Christian fundamentalists embody a foreign philosophy, I think it would be better to suggest that they embody the belief in an imaginary figure

When you are thinking about racist terms you have to look at historical baggage. Terms like “chink”, “Charlie Chan”, “Fu Manchu” hark back to an era where immigration policies were designed to keep Asians out of Australia / USA / Europe, days of unequal treaties, Opium wars, the League of Nations rejecting Japan’s racial equality clause.

When we remind Caucasians of their past, it’s not an unpleasant experience. It’s not shameful to think about your glorious heyday. And when you think that ang mohs are associated with cleverness, wisdom, superior football skills, it’s a little hard to think of it as an insult.

But the usage of angmoh in this context is not racial. It was meant to drive home the point that Christian fundamentalists embody a philosophy which is essentially foreign in origin and probably does not have anything to do with our values.

I would add that it’s somewhat embarrassing to take umbrage at a relatively harmless term.

Isn’t it interesting that if a Caucasian takes umbrage at the term “Ang Mo” we accuse them of being too sensitive. And yet if we take at offence at any such term uttered by the westerner then tey are not being sensitive enough and are in turn labeled racist?

Ang-Mo does not translate as “English”, it translates as “Red Monkey”, and it is a term of derision and is racist. Just as Farang, Wei-Guk, and Gweilo are used as terms of derision in neighboring countries, Singaporeans use “Ang Mo”.

The term is racist and offensive, but if a “white” was to complain, then they need to “toughen up”…can’t the same be said of the racist terms they used to describe us Chinese.

For Christians, this view is at odds with what has been mentioned within their Bible which surports the ownership and oppression of women, not just discrimination against Gays. I don’t even want to mention that the Bible was used to give cover to slavery as well.

You can even say that Christianity brings in disruptive and unappetising lifestyle changes by converting people not to pay respects to their elders and loved ones using incense. Ji Pai is not ancestor worship. It is pay respect and remember.

Look, Science has made it very clear that homosexuality can be a gentic condition, not a lifestyle choice. Religion should not be allowed to guide civil discourse and behaviour when it is seldom objective or even true in the first place.

There are already Christians who claimed they don’t believe in evolution but in Intelligent Design, although evolution is a key element to learning life science.

That would be true if we live in an ideal world

But the fact is – directors are not a full-time job

A lot of them are on the board for “honourary” reasons…

Tell me honestly, how many non-executive directors have you seen “working”?

Furthermore, directors are not always given full access to the company’s accounts etc (look at how some of the China companies listed here have fared)…

Maybe you like to pose that question to John Lim, who is currently the President of the Independent Directors Association (or something)…

Hi Jacobite

The term “Ang Mo Tabiban” here referred to those English educated Chinese in Singapore, the word ” English” = “Ang Mo” . The Ang Mo here are referred to those fake one (Chinese but English educated), not the real Ang MO like you, so don’t get offended.

In Singapore, some English educated people( especially those highly educated one) think they are more smart and superior than the rest of Singaporean. They look down on chinese who speak chinese. unashame that they are chinese too but can’t speak their own language. They think they are so high class when they are able to communicate in English.

As for fundamentalist Christian, their mind set is almost the same as those highly English educated people here. always think that their religion is superior than others, only their God is real, the rest are all fake one.

So you can imagine : English Educated + fundamentalist Christian
Superior + Superior = Super puperior

These are the people we are referring to and not the real Ang Mo like you. We like the real Ang Mo but was disturbed by the fake Ang mo.

Jacobite try something better other than your anti-Chinese rants.