p. 24 #
As a result, my father grew up as an unsupervised young teenager in Singapore. Inevitably, he acquired many bad habits. He began to smoke, drink, and gamble. With these rough foundations, he ended up having a rough life. I discovered these facts only after I had become an adult. Hence, even though my sisters and I resented (and sometimes hated) our father when we were young, I came to forgive him when I understood that life had dealt him a very bad hand.
In general, I’m a sucker for memoirs and it’s quotes like this that make me love the genre. I know how hard it is to forgive your parents and loved how vulnerable Mahbubani stayed in the whole book. It sets a tone that makes it more truthful somehow.
p. 36 #
Since I had experienced poverty all through my childhood and youth, for a long time, I associated this period of my life with deprivation. Looking back now, it’s clear that while I lived with material deprivation, I was absorbing cultural richness. Unknowingly and unwittingly, I was inhaling the vapours of three of the most dynamic and resilient Asian civilisations: Indian, Islamic, and Chinese. This was an extraordinary privilege. Through this direct exposure, I could intuitively and unconsciously absorb the deeper thought patterns and cultural drives of these rich cultures, which together make up half of the world’s population.
This resonated with me very deeply. I have a very humble (border-line poor, really) upbringing and yet I recognize the incredible privilege of growing up poor in a very rich country. I had free healthcare, I had free education. And being surrounded by people that could afford more things than me widened my perspective. I believe this is what made me as empathetic as I’m today. Hard not be grateful for that.
p. 81 #
Even though my brain was hazy, I managed to scribble a report. I have no idea what I said in it, but a few days later, I received a cable from the Foreign Ministry saying that they had found my report illuminating and had sent it to the Cabinet. This episode confirmed that alcohol and diplomacy go well together.
This witty bit caught me by surprise so I decided to include it here.
p. 149 #
Since the Israeli government was not recognised by many Third World governments in the 1980s, their ambassadors would not attend a dinner with Bibi. Anne and I decided to invite just Bibi Netanyahu and his wife, Fleur, to dinner at our residence in New York. We had a good dinner as a foursome. After dinner, we opened all the windows of our apartment so that Bibi could enjoy his cigar and liqueur. He was quite relaxed by then. This gave me the courage to pose an uncomfortable question. I shared with him one undeniable demographic statistic: the population of Israel was 4.2 million, while the total population of the Arab countries was just under 200 million. I asked Bibi how long 4 million people could fight 200 million people. He paused, took a few puffs of his cigar, and then replied, “This is why we have a stranglehold on the US Congress.” qThis fact was, of course, well known. Any reasonable observer knew this. Still, Lee Kuan Yew was impressed by Bibi’s candour.
In a post Oct.7 world, it shouldn’t be hard to understand why I included this here. But I also use it as excuse to reiterate on a concept I bring up a lot. The cancer is the Empire, the rapist colony is just its most violent symptom. Their relationship is symbiotic of course. But the head of the stake is the US. Don’t fall for it.
p. 206 #
I believe that I learned more about the state of affairs of our world, and the conduct of diplomacy, from these twenty-six months on the council than I had from my previous twenty-nine years in the Singaporean Foreign Service. I had nurtured many illusions about our world. The UNSC firmly scrubbed them out. Before we joined the council, I believed that in the contest between ethical principles and brute power, ethical principles would have some sway. After twenty-six months on the council, I came to the conclusion that power always trumped principles.
Maybe when the book came out these words may have made a stronger impression on people. Nowadays this should be obvious but I included the quote here so I can refer to it. Mahbubani words are definitely worth more than mine on diplomatic matters :)
p. 211 #
A senior Egyptian diplomat told me about a meeting between Omar Suleiman, then the director of the General Intelligence Directorate in Egypt, and Dick Cheney, who had become vice president of the United States just before the Iraq war. Suleiman accurately and perceptively warned that while the invasion of Iraq would be easy, the US forces would then be bogged down in a painful war of attrition, and many US soldiers would be killed. His prediction proved exactly right. But Cheney brushed it aside and just said, “We will kill them all.”
I bring this story up to explain the US empire was always genocidal so it’s good to have a reference somewhere.
p. 212 #
As the Bush administration, and the American elites in general, were focused on the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq war, none of them paid careful attention to an event of even greater significance than 9/11 that took place in 2001: China’s admission to the WTO. To be honest, I didn’t pay attention to this WTO admission either, yet it changed world history far more significantly than the Iraq war did.
This is undoubtedly correct. I want to go as far as saying that one day historians will retro date the start of the collapse of the Empire to 2001.
p. 243 #
Unfortunately, even though peace is critical, we spend far more resources on studying war than on studying peace.
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