Friday, December 23, 2005
Related link for the previous blog post
In case you are not from Singapore, I need to provide a little context for the previous blog post. National Kidney Foundation is one of the largest, if not the largest charity organisation in Singapore (by the amount of donations collected per year). Recentl investigations show that there were many wrongdoings by the ex-CEO TT Durai and it is summarised in this report and detailed in NKF's website
Durai and Qin Hui
I wrote to the Straits Time Forum today with the following letter. Regardless of whether they are going to publish it, I am publishing it here:
In Chinese history, there was a man Qin Hui who was responsible for the execution of the national hero General Yue Fei. From the About.com article on Yue Fei, Qin Hui is someone "who wielded real power at court", and he managed to convince the then emperor to execute Yue Fei by imposing a "mo xu you" (fabricated charge) crime on the general.
Only after the next emperor succeeded the throne did the truth of Yue Fei's execution come to light. By then, the only way to punish Qin Hui was to (1) build a statue of him and his wife (still in a temple in Huang Zhou today) for people to spit on; and (2) write the story into the Chinese history books so that generations to come will know of the deeds.
TT Durai's deeds has uncannily mirrored that of Qin Hui. Wielding his power with the old NKF board, he made up many ways to pay himself excessively, and eventually brought Singapore's national pride, the NKF to become the national shame. Now the new board has succeeded the old board, and the wrongdoings come to light, there is no immediate way anyone can punish TT Durai.
We probably cannot erect a statue of TT Durai for public spitting, but we can include the wrongdoings into the Moral Education and Singapore History syllabus so that every generation of students will learn about the wrong deeds. This approach will achieve both the effect of educating our future generations, and also to punish TT Durai, without having to wait for the authorities to figure out whether any criminal charges can be brought against him.
In Chinese history, there was a man Qin Hui who was responsible for the execution of the national hero General Yue Fei. From the About.com article on Yue Fei, Qin Hui is someone "who wielded real power at court", and he managed to convince the then emperor to execute Yue Fei by imposing a "mo xu you" (fabricated charge) crime on the general.
Only after the next emperor succeeded the throne did the truth of Yue Fei's execution come to light. By then, the only way to punish Qin Hui was to (1) build a statue of him and his wife (still in a temple in Huang Zhou today) for people to spit on; and (2) write the story into the Chinese history books so that generations to come will know of the deeds.
TT Durai's deeds has uncannily mirrored that of Qin Hui. Wielding his power with the old NKF board, he made up many ways to pay himself excessively, and eventually brought Singapore's national pride, the NKF to become the national shame. Now the new board has succeeded the old board, and the wrongdoings come to light, there is no immediate way anyone can punish TT Durai.
We probably cannot erect a statue of TT Durai for public spitting, but we can include the wrongdoings into the Moral Education and Singapore History syllabus so that every generation of students will learn about the wrong deeds. This approach will achieve both the effect of educating our future generations, and also to punish TT Durai, without having to wait for the authorities to figure out whether any criminal charges can be brought against him.
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