Straits Times

Press > Straits Times, December 2, 2000

Protect, not oppress, the minority like Mr T By: Chua Mui Hoong

Many people who read about him in yesterday's issue of The Straits Times no doubt felt sorry for him. Some called this paper to say so.

Diagnosed with the Aids virus a year ago, he lives out his last days in a corner of a disused shopping centre, with no welfare home to go to, no job and no family to turn to.

Mr T, like other minority interest groups, has a claim to the protection of the law, and a claim to the public purse. It is time Singapore faced up to those responsibilities.

It is not just Aids patients I am talking about, but others who are disenfranchised - from the disabled to the unable.

So far, I regret to note, the minority sometimes seems more oppressed than protected by the majority.

We must cater to the majority first, is a refrain oft-heard, whether in education, health care, or social policies.

Take Aids, which is in the public spotlight because of World Aids Day yesterday. The Health Ministry's approach is not to subsidise treatment for HIV beyond the hospital. Aids patients bear the full cost of the drugs.
The ministry's explanation: "Due to the finite amount of subsidies in health care, it is better to channel our subsidies to the majority of patients with illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes."

It is a sound principle as policies go. But, as the clamour for more help for Aids patients shows, the "cater-to-majority-only" approach will increasingly not satisfy citizens.

A new, easier Chinese-language syllabus and examination will be created - for the tiny fraction of 1 per cent, or about 200 students, who fail Chinese each year, including some who excelled in other subjects.

I have tended to interpret that particular move as a realistic government's realistic response to a realpolitik issue, because many among that 200 would have influential and wealthy parents who can both put their case convincingly to the Government and choose to vote with their feet if their children's Chinese-language struggles prove too onerous for the family to bear.

It was a case of the Government heeding those who made the most noise and can put up a good case.

Similarly, exceptions were made for home-schooling advocates when education was made compulsory, so long as they satisfied the Education Ministry that the education material used was up to scratch.

Other concessions to minority concerns include: having lifts in MRT stations; making new primary schools disabled-friendly; and reviewing Medisave limits for infertility treatment.
In the past, the arguments against these went something like this: MRT services are for the able-bodied and the disabled will slow down travel for the majority; disabled students are better served in special schools; Medisave is a long-term saving plan for catastrophic illnesses likely to hit the majority, not treatment for peripheral health problems.

If these arguments now sound incredible or insensitive, or both, it is a measure of how far Singapore society and its decision-makers have come, in a matter of 12 to 18 months or so.
The way I see it, the clamour by minority groups will continue, and with more intense fervour.

That their concerns deserve to be aired in public, and merit due consideration, goes without saying.

Whether, how much, and how these concerns should be accommodated within
the larger national policy is a separate matter, and one for debate.

When it comes to dealings with the ethnic minorities, the framework is clearer: their interests are acknowledged as rights, and institutionalised, while keeping to the national interest.
Beyond race, the state's record of dealing with minority interest groups appears piecemeal and on a case-by-case basis.

Why "no" to subsidised treatment for Aids patients, for example, and "yes" to chemotherapy for patients with rare cancers?

It surely cannot be that changes or concessions are made on the basis of
who shouts loudest, or wields the most influence over politics.

For example, how does one decide why state funds should pay for post-natal care, but not infertility treatments? Surely, not because the infertile minority advocated loudly for it?

Or how does the state decide that well-off married couples earning one dollar short of $8,000 can buy subsidised flats twice, but the $800-a-month single dispatch rider has no right to buy even one?

Surely not on the basis that only the married majority deserve subsidies, for if that were the case, the single dispatch rider may end up like Mr T.

The minority can end up oppressed by the tyranny of the "cater-to-the-majority" argument in such cases.

What is needed is a clear consensus between state and citizen, on just what minority concerns should be accommodated, and what not.
For a start, the cardinal principle must be that the minority has a legitimate place in society. This gives minority groups - whether Aids patients, the disabled, or singles - a claim to the protection of the law and its benefits.

That is easy to agree with, in principle, but I can tell you that it translates to a lot of policy changes in practice.

Sentiments of sympathy would sway many to say: The state must help him. Many kind-hearted citizens will do so out of their own pockets.

But empathy is not enough. Conviction and social action are needed from the concerned citizen. From the state, engagement on even minority concerns is a must.

Beyond that visceral sympathy for Mr T, protecting his interests means changing the law to make it illegal for employers to discriminate against Mr T and other workers with Aids.
It means changing the rules on admittance to welfare homes. It means subsidising Aids patients who pay thousands for treatment drugs.
These are very tough decisions. And expensive ones.

Citizens with conviction need to think through the implications of changes they want and not adopt a "more-is-better" mentality.

But once convinced that changes are necessary, they can, they should, band together and lobby the MP or the minister, as citizens with conviction, and a stake in the country's future.
So in Mr T's case: It's easy to make an exception just for him, and give him shelter or funds, especially when there is public pressure to do so after his case comes out into the media spotlight. But that is a piecemeal approach.
Surely, the better way is to take action to amend the laws, so that they protect other Mr Ts of Singapore, instead of leaving them unprotected when they most need it.