Domestic Helpers

Ever so often I get very angry, embarrass and uncomfortable with the way Singaporeans (including even some of my friends or relatives) treat their domestic helpers.

These past few nights, I've been attending my uncle's wake. Most of my immediate maternal relatives whom I'm closer with would be present. One of their domestic helper has been asked to be around to help. She is very helpful, pleasant, and make herself very useful indeed. Of course, some of my relatives have gotten her to help do some errands for them too. But most of them hardly ever say, "Please" or "Thank you". They just simply call her by her nickname or "shorter" name followed by their specific instruction (to put it mildly) for her.

I just can't understand this?!! These relatives of mine are some of the kindest and dearest people to me. They would bent over backwards for me, and have done so. Yet, whenever they are communicating with the domestic helper, all humane respect and kindness seem to disappear into the thin air! As my daughter would often say, "Aaaarghhh!!".

Domestic helpers are human beings. They've got feelings. They got brains - maybe not as "clever" as we think they should be but they are certainly not stupid. In fact, if given a chance to prove, many may be cleverer than us. I'm sure, if they had a choice, they would rather not work as domestic helpers for us ungrateful arrogant eccentric inconsistent children-of-immigrants. We sometimes forget that we could easily be in the same plight as they are.

In fact, it was not too long ago that some of our parents/aunts/ relatives were working as "amahs" for the many British/European expatriates in Singapore. My late godma certainly was one. I'm quite certain her employer didn't treat her with such disrespect. So why are we like that? Have we become too affluent to appreciate what it means to be poor and helpless - a sad victim of their own country's poor and corrupt mis-management? Many of these people painfully leave family, children, philandering and scum of the earth fathers/husbands to eke out a miserable living that guarantees no salary for the first six months of their employment here despite working 12-16 hour days and no off-days. Thanks to another bunch of scum of the earth agents at home and here. They do not deserve such a shit life any more than we do! Have a heart please.


Fermina, 16 years old, domestic helper in Malaysia

Sure there are the usual black sheep. But they are mostly defenseless "aliens" here. Many of them have no one to turn to. You could chop her up, cook her with curry, even worse, rape her, abuse her, wrongfully confined her, sell her....no one will probably know. How much would it cost us to just treat them like a decent human being? Have a heart please.

But the irony of it all is I think they will one day have the last laugh. I believe our ability to contradict ourselves in how we treat another fellow human being whilst preaching and demanding for our own perceived "basic" and "human" rights will backfire on us some day soon. Our ability to lie to ourselves will continue to numb our ability to check our own weakness and value. We become people who are completely blind to our own inconsistencies. There is one group of observers we are not likely to fool though. Our children. Some of them, hopefully, will grow up to question our actions and behaviour. Unfortunately, many of them will grow to be like us. They will ape the way we treat another human being, and when we grow old, they'll probably treat us the only way the know how - they way we unwittingly "taught" them by our negative example. Mark my words!

Where's God?

Warning!!: Before proceeding, please read my entries on 1st & 2nd January 2005 and Personal Disclaimer.

I was still doing my theological studies then and was living on a shoe-string budget (if any). Hence, I tried to be as thrifty as I could. It was one of those occasion when my parents were staying over at my Yishun apartment (where I used to live) for a while. I was to accompany my mother to the National University Hospital (NUH) for her medical appointment. She had just suffered a stroke which affected her left limbs. She could walk by herself but not very steady. I can't even remember if she had started using a walking stick then.

Taking a taxi would have been the most convenient way to get to the NUH. But to save some money, I decided that we would take a taxi to the nearest MRT station (then it was only available from Yio Chu Kang Station) and use the train. Unfortunately, just as we were about to get out of the taxi, my mum fell and fractured her wrist!

You can't imagine how I felt. I've never forgiven myself. My mum was never angry with me but I was. Needless to say, I was subsequently angry with God too. Did he not promised in Psalm 121:

He will not let your foot slip - he who watches over you will not
slumber.... The Lord watches over you - the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm your by day, nor by the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm - he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

This was to mark the beginning of the end for mum that stretch 12 painful years. Where's God? Was it wrong or naive of me to expect a miracle from Yahweh?

I know there are others worse off. But should I take comfort at the expense of other's more grave miseries? Where's God for these people anyway?

The Problem of Evil - A Theological Pain

Warning!!: Before proceeding, please read my entries on 1st & 2nd January 2005 and Personal Disclaimer.

As a Christian, one believes that God is in control of all that occurs. He has a plan for the entire universe and all of time, and is at work bringing about that good plan. But a shadow falls across the comforting doctrine: the problem of evil.

Read this excerpt from Millard J Erickson's Christian Theology - Evil and God's World: A Special Problem. Chap 19, pp 411ff. (Baker) which helps to describe the nature of of the problem of evil:

The problem may be stated in a simple or a more complex fashion. David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) put it succinctly when he wrote of God: "Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing: whence then is evil?" The existence of evil can also be seen as presenting a problem for the mealtime prayer that many children have been taught to pray: "God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food." For if God is great, then he is able to prevent evil from occurring. If God is good, he will not wish for evil to occur. But there is rather evident evil about us. The problem of evil then may be thought of as a conflict involving three concepts: God's power; God's goodness, and the presence of evil in the world. Common sense seems to tell us that all three cannot be true.

In varying degrees, the problem is a difficulty for all types of strong theism. Specifically, it is a difficulty for the theology which we have been presenting in this writing. We have discussed the omnipotence of God: his ability to do all things which are proper objects of his power. We have noted that creation and providence are implementations of this omnipotence, meaning respectively that God has by his own free decision and action brought into being everything that is and that he is in control of that creation, maintaining and directing it to the ends he has chosen. Further, we have observed the goodness of God - his attributes of love, mercy, patience. Yet evil is obviously present. How can this be, in light of who and what God is?

The evil that precipitates this dilemma is of two general types. On one hand, there is what is usually called natural evil. This is evil that does not involve human willing and acting, but is merely an aspect of nature which seems to work against man's welfare. There are the destructive forces of nature: hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, and the like. These catastrophic occurrences produce large losses of life as well as property. And much suffering and loss of human lives are caused by diseases such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, and a host of other illness. The other type of evil is termed moral evil. These evils which can be traced to the choice and action of free moral agents. Here we find war, crime, cruelty, class struggles, discrimination, slavery, and injustices too numerable to mention. While moral evils can to some extent be removed from our consideration here by blaming them upon man's exercise of his own fee will, natural evils cannot be dismissed from our consideration. They simply seem to be there in the creation which God has made.

We have noted that the problem of evil arises to varying degrees for different theologies; in addition, it takes differing forms. Indeed, John Feinberg (Theologies and Evil) argues that we are not dealing with a problem, but with a set or series of problems appearing in varying combinations. Moreover, the problem of evil may occur as either a religious or a theological problem or both. In terms of the distinction made in the opening chapter of this book, religion is the level of spiritual practice, experience, and belief. Theology is the secondary level of reflection upon religion, involving analysis, interpretation, and construction. In general, the religious form of the problem of evil occurs when some particular aspect of one's experience has had the effect of calling into question the greatness or goodness of God, and hence threatens the relationship between the believer and God. The theological form of the problem is concerned with evil in general. It is not a question of how a specific concrete situation can exist in light of God's being what and who he is, but how any such problem does not necessarily imply personal experiences, but there will have been a specific situation at least vicariously encountered. The theological form of the problem, however, does not necessarily imply any such specific situation at all. One's focus on the problem may well move from religious to theological as a result of such an occurrence, or concentration on evil in general may devolve from much broader considerations. It is important to note these distinctions. For, as Alvin Plantinga (God, Freedom and Evil) has pointed out, the person for whom some specific evil (this is perhaps more accurate than the problem of evil) is presenting a religious difficulty may need pastoral care rather than help in working out intellectual difficulties. Similarly, to treat one's genuine intellectual struggles as merely a matter of feelings will not be very helpful. Failure to recognize the religious form of the problem of evil will appear insensitive; failure to deal with the theological form will appear intellectually insulting. Particulary where the two are found together, it is important to recognize and distinguish the respective components.

Perhaps another simplistic way of looking at how the problem of evil affects me can be stated in the following way:

• If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
  
• If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
  
• If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
  
• If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
  
• Evil exists.
  
• If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil.
  
• Therefore, God doesn't exist.

For some more additional reading, click here

A Sad Day

Rosy Tan 1934-2002. Wife, Mother & Grandmother par excellence!

Exactly three years ago to this day, my mother died after a painfully long spell of illness (12 years) that saw her deteriorate from an abled-bodied, proud, merticulous, first-class home-maker, enterprising person to an almost blind, bed-ridden, insulin dependent, dialysis dependent, had to be fed through a nasogastric tube and a catheter sticking out of her stomach. She had a stroke, followed by a heart attack that required a quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery, diabetic retinopathy, and a transtibial amputation of her left leg. So for her sake**, I was glad her misery finally ended. I really wished we had other options. Unfortunately, death appear to be the only panacea available to her.

You see, I have this "secret wish/dream" that I always haboured. Things I wanted to do with my parents - especially my mum. I rarely ever have a wishlist when I pray to God. This is one of those. Never came to pass. Don't get me wrong, when my mum died, I did not have things that I wish I had done. I believe I did the best I could for her. But I just wanted to do a little more. Why not. She gave birth to me, raised me with every cent she could and could not spare. She has never ceased to care for me - not even after I got married and have children of my own. I've always felt she deserved better. Her life on earth was harsh - to say the least.

I think of her often. Even more so now on every 7th day of June and 1st day of October - the anniversary of her death and her birthday. I still get picture flashes of the first time I had to see her fully naked before me. Completely hapless. No, I'm not ashame of seeing her naked. It's the circumstance. Another is the day she took her last breath in the hospital. It was painful to see her live with all the tubes, and missing or non-functioning body parts. So death was really the lesser of two evil. But nothing prepared me to see someone I love take her last breath. Suddenly, life felt so cold, so noir, so meaningless.

Anyway, I do try to move on. She did teach me many invaluable lessons about life. I cherish them. I hope to see and talk to her again. Frankly, I have very little confident I will. My Christian faith is fast diminishing. Much of my Christ-ian hope is turning into despair. Regardless, I miss her. It's funny how I actually have not dreamed of her, not even once, since her death.

**There are some dark days when I wonder if my own tiredness & despair had wished for her death. As a caregiver, I (my other family members too) was physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and financially drained. On such days, I feel very shameful, am very angry and hate myself. God is not spared either!