During a recent flight, my neighboring passenger informed me that he had a layover on his way from Singapore to the United States. He told me he was a doctor and researcher who will be speaking at a conference on advances in fighting cancer.
He said he believes that his participation in the fight against cancer was one of the most important parts of his life because it goes beyond making material gains or advancing in one’s employment. I instantly felt that he was man with a noble cause.
I also wished that he would not ask me about the purpose of my trip. I became embarrassed as I searched for an exciting story while my neighbor was searching for a cure for cancer.
And because I come from a country where every youth dreams of leaving it, I asked him if he was thinking of remaining in London or New York where he could continue his battle. He said no, explaining that he was happy in his country, which he said was a decent place to live. He sensed that his country could go on in providing both stability and progress.
I paused at his remark that he has grown increasingly optimistic about the future when he learned that the countries neighboring his own were striving to improve their economies. He spoke about what was taking place in Malaysia and Vietnam, which is letting go of the past and seeking to attract tourists and investment.
He stressed that it is in his small country’s interest to see its neighbors progress and advance because economic improvement lowers the aggression of countries, especially if their people experienced what it is like to reap the benefits of progress and prosperity.
The passenger realized that I would rather play the role of listener in our conversation. He went on to say that will plays a leading role in progress. The future, he added, begins with a decision. He explained that Singapore lacks natural resources and its people were languishing in poverty, suffering from crime and were plagued with racial and ethnic sensitivities.
The real ruler of the country was actually its number one enemy: Corruption, which he described as more dangerous than cancer. Cancer, he explained, kills the individual, while corruption can kill an entire people.
He had to mention Lee Kuan Yew, the real leader of the mission that took Singapore from the land of failure to become a pioneering country. All it took was an honest government that was willing to take decisions and carry them out.
I felt slightly embarrassed. It had been so long since I’d heard such descriptions of my country. “An honest government that was willing to take decisions and carry them out.” I hoped that the pilot would ask us to fasten our seatbelts so that my Singaporean neighbor would not ask why Lebanon doesn’t resemble Singapore and why has it sailed in the opposite direction.
My neighbor told me that the public in his country is never lenient with corruption and never overlooks failure. This gives the citizens a sense that the fate of their children is in good hands that can properly employ capabilities, especially in improving education that has produced modern generations, encouraged innovation and adapted to the current age.
He noted that good education, advanced healthcare, the availability of opportunities and a financial hub and becoming involved in technological advancement are all factors that allow the Singaporeans to dream of better days. Keeping hope alive is necessary to carry on the path of progress.
Singapore was mired in poverty, crime and swamps. In a handful of decades, it transformed into an inspiring success story. Innovative will managed to defeat racial and ethnic differences by offering economic progress and improving the lives of the people. The government did not ask the people to abandon their heritage, but advised them against transforming them into ticking timebombs that their children will have to deal with. It became a country where it is fit to live.
The happy traveler asked me about my country. Thankfully, he was not that informed of the details. I worried that he would ask me how a people could accept to live in a republic without a president. How they would accept to live with a government that is struggling to walk in spite of a thousand crutches. How they can accept to live in a country whose central bank governor continues in his job while he is confronted with internal and foreign accusations of corruption and money-laundering as part of a broad network, including members of the ruling clique, which has caused destruction and is protecting itself.
I became envious. Why is our land so stingy and why does it only produce traps and mines? Why doesn’t it produce someone like Lee Kuan Yew? Why can’t it produce a promising leader who can enjoy credibility beyond the boundaries of his sect? Why have words such as “will”, “integrity”, and “rule of law” disappeared from our land? Why have our days have been turned into swamps, normalizing humiliation and pushing youths to immigrate, with some desperate enough to try to leave on “death boats”?
It is a stingy land that has not produced one man who can make a difference, and an idea that could save a country. It is dreary land that is struggling in a region of broken maps that are languishing in poverty, intolerance, bombs and drones. It’s as if history only had this terrible downhill slide to offer us. It’s as if we are prisoners of this cancerous slide and suicide. The blood of the future glistens on the fangs of the corrupt and the failures.
I wished my Singaporean friend success at his conference. The happy traveler will return to his stable country. He doesn’t feel the need to buy a passport or rent out a substitute home country. He doesn’t feel guilty for having a child. His island has hope, laws, police, courts, competing ideas and progress.
I admire the fact that he chose to dedicate part of his life to a noble cause instead of having his memories filled with stories about civil wars and the innovations of repressive rulers who have turned maps into swamps. How hard it is to live in broken maps that are run by guardians of swamps and whose citizens suffer from their cancers. They are born miserable and die humiliated.
