What Shall We Do With the NKF?

From The Human Stain, Philip Roth

"It was strange to think...that people so well educated and professionally civilshould have fallen so willingly for the venerable human dream of a situation in which one man can embody evil. Yet there is this need, and it is undying and it is profound."

"There is truth and then there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbour figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies. Caught in between, I thought. Denounced by the high-minded, reviled by the righteous - then exterminated by the criminally crazed. Excommunicated by the saved, the elect, the ever-present evangelists of the mores of the moment, then polished off by a demon of ruthlessness."

"Everyone knows...Oh, stupid, stupid, stupid Delphine Roux. One's truth is known to no one, and frequently...to oneself least of all."

I'm approaching the end of The Human Stain, and it has been an excellent read. The secrets that people hide in their lives, those secrets that are kept for fear of moral censure, and those that are kept by choice, as a challenge to society and to oneself. The latter kind bears a certain harsh nobility about it. And when can you be really truthful about yourself to other people? Even when completely naked and frank, the two lovers in the book are unable to delve into their deepest secrets. Certainly there's an element of pride and self-protection there, but there's also a feeling that their secrets give them depth. It may very well be that those that have no secrets are shallow, that only the most superficial people can be totally honest. The sheer complexity of a human being that is neither saintly nor evil but an immoral mix of both necessarily means that there are some things that we cannot tell others, whether it is because of fear or inability of expression.

Roth's style appeals to me. His poingnancy derives not so much from condensed wordplay, as is the case in Hardy, Conrad and Winterson (though it may be heresy to mention the three in the same breath =P), but from a simplicity and earnestness bordering on the intimacy of the colloquial. It's not so much of an effort to read, because he takes you by the hand through the moral maze that he uncovers. He reveals the daunting complexity, but he does not dump you in the middle of it with no way out. He is a considerate writer, I think, not given to flair but to clarity, and doubtlessly it takes skill too to express complexity in a way that is easy to comprehend. Heaven knows I've tried, with little success...

But it has been a cool read. Reading a book for pure leisure, without the pressures of literary analysis needed by Lit S, or the time pressures of iminent exams. Something I hadn't done since Term 1 I think. It's more than reinvigorating. I think it's a healing process, almost, a reestablishment of equilibrium, a retreat to an old refuge: the book.

* * * * *

What shall we do with the NKF? Breach of trust, siphoning off of funds, and an idiot of a patron that only makes things worse when she tries to defend her favourite charity. Mrs. Goh Chok Tong's calling the sum of $600,000 "peanuts" just goes to show how out of touch with reality our social cream of the crop are. A corrective sense of perspective is desperately needed. But, to be fair, the alienation of the top from the bottom is not a problem that is unique to Singapore. But still, what kind of idiocy does it take to make such an obvious blunder?

I don't remember a time when the public has ever been this outraged. Irritated, concerned, maybe, but not clamorously outraged, to the point of scrawling hate graffiti on the NKF headquarters. The greatest harm that their CEO has done by his misstatements (technically, lies, but one must keep away from inflammatory terminology) is to destroy the public image of the NKF. There is a real sense of betrayal, that the donations made by a public in trust have been siphoned off for purposes that were not made clear and are not even justifiable in any practical sense. Read a petition calling for the immediate resignation of the CEO just now, and the acidity and sarcasm in some of the comments are really biting. Powerful words, indicating powerfully stirred up sentiments.

The worst thing, of course, is not that the CEO has been discredited, but that the patients that the NKF treats have to bear the real cost. When a charity breaches public trust, the instinctual reaction is to stop donating. And yet, it is undeniable that the NKF has provided top-notch kidney dialysis treatment. The obvious result would be that patients will stop getting treated. Which, again, raises the question of what we should do with the NKF. Thinking of all the people he exploited, and all the lives he has put at risk (literally), I think the CEO's life deserves to be destroyed. He should be brought down low.

But that of course does not solve the question of what to do with the NKF. Who will control it from now on? Will reforms really be initiated? Or will all be sacrificed just so Mrs. Goh can save face? More importantly, will the public take things into their own hands? Will they even be allowed to do so? That, I think, is worth watching out for.

My mum (who is going to London soon, lucky her) was saying that as public servants, one must be extra careful not to take money that one does not deserve. The problem with that, obviously, is how to determine what sum of money is actually deserved. I'm not convinced that top civil servants must actually be paid that much, and the reasons given are rather inadequate (imagine: paying politicians heaps to preclude corruption is like inviting Mussolini into power to prevent him from taking it). But then again my mum is paid that kind of salary, so I don't know what to think now. You see, moralising always becomes terribly difficult when the punishments you propose impinge on yourself, as many people in class will undoubtedly agree.

So what shall we do with the NKF? My first step would be to look at the people as people, not only as patients or donors. And to think, whether they really should be treated like that. And to think how far the status quo is from how they should be treated. I reckon that whatever comes out of this issue will be rather telling on the moral compass and humanity of this little island, regardless of the outcome.

pondered by phoenican @ 13.7.05