#while the racial majority woman who was all smiles and politeness and compromise was the one who betrayed her

[mybukz]

Work-in-progress: The Singaporean Candidate by Begau Salleh

Image by Joshua Ang at Unsplash

Excerpt from Begau Salleh’s work-in-progress political novel ‘The Singaporean Candidate’.

Aadam has a dream; to be the first Malay Prime Minister of Singapore. Pretty tricky considering Singapore's Chinese racial majority.

There is a way. Singapore’s ruling political party is running a training programme for Singapore’s future leaders. From the trainees, the Father of Singapore himself will pick out and groom the next Prime Minister. All Aadam has to do is prove he is the very best, better even than the esteemed patriarch’s own grandsons.

But Malaysia is in a cold war with Singapore due to a land dispute. Public sentiment is against Aadam because of his ethnicity. Aadam will soon find himself caught in a greater plot, with the future of both nations hanging in the balance.

*

The next morning we were on the front page of the papers, right next to the headline “PM SLAMS MALAYSIA’S UNSCHEDULED WATER RATIONING”. The five Prime Minister candidates even got a special column.

Back in our cramped HDB flat, mak was smiling from ear-to-ear while reading the papers at the dining table. I wasn’t. I was muttering to myself while straightening out my hair in the mirror nearby.

Mak sighed, put down the papers. “Why the sour face?”

I straightened my tie and picked up a curry puff from the table. “They hardly mentioned me, mak. The three Ngs got so much more coverage. Even Benjamin, even Grace got more coverage than me!” I said, my mouth full of curry puff.

Admittedly, I didn’t have the clout of the three grandsons. My family history wasn’t as interesting as Benjamin’s. But how did Grace get more coverage than me when she wasn’t even aiming to be PM!

Mak flipped the papers open. She whistled and gave me a mischievous grin. “You know, this young woman is quite impressive. Not as astounding as my son, but very impressive. I think she’d make a wonderful wife for a tall, dark and handsome young man.”

A tall, dark and handsome young man like me.

I sighed. In high school, Singaporean parents forbid their kids from seeing girls, much less date. As soon as we leave college, parents do a 180 and play matchmaker themselves.

“Benjamin fits that description too, you know?” I replied dryly.

“Then you’d better make sure you strike first,” mak winked.

I rolled my eyes and gave mak a peck on her forehead. “I have to go now. Have a good day at work, mak.”

Mak wished me the best of luck. With today’s simple task, I wouldn’t need it. I took my coat, ruffled the head of my cat and told it “Behave yourself,” as I walked out.

# Appear, meet children, smile for the camera, leave. That was the schedule for the candidates today. Public relations at its finest. All I had to do was give my most genuine-looking smile and say nice things to kids. Everyone here knew how to do that, surely.

While the candidates sat in the hall waiting for the kids, the director gave us a short briefing on what to expect. The parents would be accompanying the kids, along with a lot of support staff trained in handling children. She emphasized that we would not be responsible for taking care of the kids once they arrived. Normally a few kids may get scared and cry, and that wouldn’t be our fault.

See? Easy-peasy.

Honestly, I needed a break after all the drama from the last PR event.

The Prime Minister arrived before the kids did. A slim man with greying hair, he was wearing a light blue dress shirt, tie and grey slacks. We gave him a standing ovation as he arrived, and he went straight to the podium.

“Welcome to the Candidates Leadership Programme. I’m here as a guest at the behest of the organisers. They’re hoping I can inspire all of you and explain the importance of this event.” He smiled. “Well, I’ll try my best. I’m told that a rather important question was conspicuously left out of all your interviews. You may have thought about it, or at least heard it before. Take a guess what that question was.”

A few hands came up.

“How can you serve your country?” ShuXuan guessed, pensive.

“How can you bring prosperity to Singapore?” Chulek said, smiling confidently.

“Why do you want to be Prime Minster, or a minister?” Benjamin suggested.

“Why are you the right man for the job?” I tried.

The PM smiled and put up his hands. “Those are all good questions. Oh dear. Maybe we should thought of those too.”

Everyone laughed.

The PM pointed to another raised hand and nodded.

HuaXuan put down his hand. “What is your vision for Singapore?”

PM Ng paused, frowned slightly. “Yes… that was the question. ‘What is your vision for Singapore?’ Now that I mention it, it sounds like an obvious question to ask, right? Why do you think it wasn’t asked, even though the organisers knew it was important?”

This time, he just waited a moment as if he was going to ask us to offer suggestions again. But he didn’t give us that chance. How unsporting, heh.

“Because we don’t want you to answer that question. Not yet. You’re still young and inexperienced, and your answer is going to sound like it came out of a National Day slogan contest. Right now, that’s all your answer will be; a slogan. We’re hoping that by the end of this training programme, it will be much more than that. And it begins here, by meeting Singapore’s future. We’ve asked each child to tell you what their dreams are. Let the dreams of Singapore’s future generation inform your vision of what Singapore should be.”

I swallowed down hard. Up until that point, I hadn’t been taking today’s event seriously. There may not be any exams or tests, but the PM had convinced me that this public relations exercise was worth my time. I had to make sure I listened to these children carefully.

The director exchanged words with the PM. He turned back to us. “The children are ready. I hope all of you are as well, because here they come!”

Parents and support staff escorted loud, crying, giggling and pouting kids of all ages into the hall. There had to be about a hundred children, compared to our 30 or so candidates. The hall couldn’t accommodate everyone, so a lot of them waited in line outside. To keep them occupied, support staff sang to them, a clown made animal balloons, and some had toys or books.

We had already been broken up into groups around the hall, according to which position we wanted. Each ministry group attended to the same group of children, one child at a time. My guess: the children were assigned to each ministry group based on how relevant their dreams were to that ministry. All the children had papers in their hands to read out what they had prepared beforehand. Most read from it, with a bit of encouragement from their parents.

I sat with the other PM candidates; that’s Benjamin, Chulek, ShuXuan and HuaXuan in case you forgot. We seemed to be getting slightly older children, other than one young Chinese boy. An Indian teenage girl in a wheelchair stood out to me. No doubt she wanted a more disabled-friendly Singapore.

“More jobs”, “Lower cost of living”, “Freedom of speech”… Did the children write these dreams themselves? We smiled knowingly at the embarrassed parents even as we clapped, smiled and cheered for each child and said sugary sweet things to each one. We promised we’d do our best to make ‘their’ dreams come through.

Then the little Chinese boy stomped forward to for his turn. He declared, “When I grow up, I want to be a millionaire. So I can buy a Ferrari. It must be red and very fast. No compromises.”

The five of us oh-ed and couldn’t help but giggle. At least that dream was genuinely his!

“Hey! Aren’t you supposed to say you’ll help me?’ the young boy asked, pouting and stamping his foot.

Sorry, kid. It’s not our job to make you a Crazy Rich Asian. I couldn’t quite think of how to handle him, honestly. He was just too cute! Like us, his embarrassed parents were trying their best to stifle their laugher from behind him.

“Oh, I think it’s a great ambition,” Chulek said, suppressing his chortling, “But I have to tell you, there’s no way it can be easy to be a millionaire. Not only do you have to work very hard, but you have to be better than everyone else. ”

“But you’re supposed to make it happen, right? Mum and dad said so!’ the boy insisted.

“Oh, did they?” Chulek said while eyeing the increasingly embarrassed parents who sheepishly apologised. Chulek nodded to the parents, then said to the child, “You’re not wrong. It’s our duty to create a Singapore that allows every Singaporean to reach their best potential. But you have to work hard to reach that potential too. If getting rich was so easy, then everyone would be a millionaire.”

The child pouted, sullen.

Chulek chuckled. “How about this. We’ll do our job by making sure Singapore continues to prosper. So when you grow up, you’ll get a fair chance at making it rich. Sounds good?”

The parents persuaded the poor boy with big dreams to agree, which he did with a little prodding. Looked like Chulek took this one. The camera was rolling, so I’m sure the public would have enjoyed watching him try to inspire the precious boy.

Next, the teen in the wheelchair. A single pony tail, spectacles, blouse and jeans, she’d look like a typical teenager if she wasn’t physically disabled. She looked a little shy, holding her still-folded paper in her hands. Her parents were smiling, but were shifting from foot to foot, looking around like we were going to swallow them whole.

“Hello dear, thank you for coming,” I said, trying to put them all at ease, “I’m Aadam. What is your name?”

The girl stayed silent until the parents patted her from behind. “Sahil,” she said.

Benjamin cut in before I could continue. “It’s nice to meet you Sahil. I’m Benjamin, and this is ShuXuan, HuaXuan, and Chulek. It’s okay if you don’t remember our names as we’re not anyone important yet.”

He winked and the teenage girl grinned ever so slightly.

Curse you, Benjamin! Using your good looks to charm teenagers!

“Why don’t you tell us what your dream is, Sahil,” ShuXuan said.

Sahil looked at her parents, and they nodded. Sahil said, “I want to be Prime Minister of Singapore.”

For a moment, the five of us were dumbfounded.

Benjamin recovered first. “Yes. …Yes? Yes! Why not. You can overcome anything. You can be the next Prime Minister of Singapore!”

The girl grinned, ecstatic, but the rest glared at Benjamin. Even the parents.

Benjamin glared back defiantly. “What?”

ShuXuan was frowning something fierce. “We have to be responsible for what dreams we pitch to the young. We shouldn’t encourage her to waste her future on a pipe dream like that.”

“We just got a young boy who wanted to be a millionaire. Please handle these children with a bit more finesse,” Chulek said.

Benjamin’s eyes narrowed at the two Ngs who had just spoken, then settled on the last one. “So. Is the last Ng going to tell me off as well? I shouldn’t tell this young woman to dream big?”

HuaXuan kept silent and refused to look at him.

Benjamin said to the girl, “Dear, don’t listen to them. Your disability is not relevant to the role of Prime Minister.”

“The last boy was one matter, but this is going too far. No one is going to accept her as the Prime Minister, and you know it. I’m not going to peddle lies to this girl in order to look good, unlike you,” ShuXuan said tersely.

Those words stung me to the core, but I hadn’t realised why yet.

HuaXuan winced. “Guys, focus. She’s still here.”

The poor girl teared up, clutching her paper in her hands into a crumpled heap. Her parents cringed, aghast. We were handling this terribly.

So the three Ngs started to talk to her gently. Letting her down, but gently. Squashing her unrealistic dreams, but gently.

Benjamin looked away in anger, had nothing to say. Honestly, I wasn’t totally convinced he believed she could be Prime Minister either. Otherwise he’d be using that opportunity to tell her that he believed in her, unlike the three Ngs.

I stayed silent the whole time. I wanted to say something, but everyone’s words rubbed me the wrong way.

“The Prime Minister is the representative of the country to the world. That’s why nobody with a disability has been chosen as a leader,” someone said. I was too livid to know who.

Shouldn’t they want the best person for the job? Nobody disputes that her disability isn’t relevant to the role!

“But there are so many other great and wonderful things you can be. Better than Prime Minister.”

What the hell is better than Prime Minister?

“For example, you could be a doctor who saves people’s lives.” 
“A CEO of a huge company!”

Aren’t you listening? She wants to be Prime Minister!

At the end of it all, I didn’t add a word to the discussion and let the three Ngs say everything. Sahil seemed to have calmed down, anyway. The parents weren’t happy, but they weren’t complaining either. I guess they knew it would come to this, in the end.

All the parents and children gathered around for a group photo before going on their way. We made sure to shake all their hands and apologised for not doing a good job of inspiring their kids.

Our group finished first, so we sat around waiting for the other groups while the kids from our session slowly made their way out. That’s when HuaXuan asked me, “Why are you staring at us like that?”

The rest looked at me curiously, as if they just noticed something.

“I have no idea what sort of face I’m making,” I said, defensive.

“You’re angry,” Benjamin explained, “I’m not sure why. I have reason to be, but what are you mad about?”

I had some idea. “You three… we did that girl wrong.”

ShuXuan raised his hands in surrender. “Alright, wise guy. What would you have said in our place?”

“Maybe we should have just been quiet the whole time like you?” Chulek quipped before I could respond, “At least Benjamin here tried to say something. Even if what he was saying was wrong.”

I tried my best to answer back, but my mouth opened and closed like a fish.

HuaXuan sighed. “You’re right. We could have handled it better. But in the end, the result is the same. Just lead her onto another path. That’s good enough.”

No. That wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t just this girl’s dreams everyone was taking a shit on. It was mine. I’m not sure what came over me. I got out of my chair and ran out, shouting for Sahil to wait. She was nearly out of the hall, surrounded by other parents who looked at her with a mix of pity and disapproval. I didn’t care what they thought. Sahil blinked at me in confusion as I knelt to get closer to her so she could hear what I had to say.

I held her gaze. “Singapore may not be ready for you yet. But one day, it can be. I will work hard to make your dream a reality. If you grow up and find I couldn’t make Singapore ready for you in time, I’m counting on you to continue where I left off.”

It took a moment for my words to sink in. When it did, her frown changed to a subtle smile. She nodded. I didn’t push her to say anything. “So we got a deal? Good. Let’s shake on it.”

We shook hands, and I gave a thumbs up to her before heading back to my seat. The rest were giving me a look I couldn’t quite fathom at the time.

“What?” I asked. I figured they couldn’t hear what I told Sahil from where they were seated anyway.

HuaXuan pointed at my portable mike, still attached to my coat lapel. Turns out they heard every word.

Fine then. “Anyone going to tell me off? For selling a girl unrealistic dreams?” I asked.

No one did. They just looked away. Even Benjamin.

Well, whatever. I wasn’t in the mood anyway.

#

Mak gave me a big hug as soon I stepped back into the house. She must have gotten up as soon as she heard me pulling out the keys.

“What brought this on, mak?”

“My son is the best! Now everyone knows. I’m so proud of you, ‘nak,” mak blurted out, pulled my face down so she could kiss each of my cheeks in turn.

I had no idea what she was going on about and told her as much.

“The way you talked to the wheelchair girl! It was live, on TV,” mak squealed, “Everyone’s sharing it on Facebook too!”

I whipped out my phone and checked. All my friends had tagged me to a video, gave me a thumbs up. The amount of ‘likes’ had already reached 30k, and I just got home from the event. I didn’t even know the event was screened live in the first place.

What exactly did the video show? I pressed play. It started with the introduction of Sahil and continued to the point where I got out to talk to Sahil myself. The cameraman had even moved in and shown a clear view of me talking to Sahil and shaking her hand.

Only after watching the video did I realise how well my actions had reflected on me in the public eye. I had stolen the show without even intending to or realising it.

“If those Ng boys didn’t think you were a threat before, they do now,” Mak said with a huge grin on her face.

I jumped for joy, then froze.  Questions were forming in my head.

How could that have happened?

The cameraman must have followed me as soon as I got up, and even went away from the main group of PM candidates to follow me into the crowd. Why would he do that? One would think he would stay with the three Ngs, and at most record me talking to Sahil from a distance. What I did was completely unrehearsed, so there couldn’t have been standing orders for the cameraman to follow me as I got up to talk to Sahil.

…No, I must have been overthinking it. The director must have been standing close by to us as the PMs candidates were the highlight of the show. She could probably tell something was going to happen when I got up. So she sent the cameraman to follow me. That had to be it.

Or so I thought.

*

Bio: Dr Begau Salleh (pen name) is an autistic writer based in Malaysia.

#malaysian fiction #malaysia #begau salleh #singapore candidate