烟雾问题的根本

烟雾问题的根本

最近闹得热轰轰的烟雾问题使这几乎被遗忘的课题重新浮上桌面。在我的记忆里，这烟雾问题早在八十年代初就一直困扰着我们。八十年代有一部电视连续剧叫“雾锁南洋”非常受欢迎，每当烟雾问题一而再的出现时，国人总会无奈的用“雾锁南洋”来自嘲一番。

一转眼二十多年，我们还是弥漫在“雾锁南洋”的无奈困境里，这到底是怎么一回事呢？难道在苏哈多强人统治时代无法解决的烟雾问题真的能在这时候迎刃而解吗？

如果我们要一劳永逸的解决这烟雾问题，我们就必须严正看待这烟雾问题的根本。首先我们必须对印尼这国家有所了解。印尼是一个巨大的发展中国家。虽然它有很多天然资源，但因为长期被贪腐政权所腐蚀而导致积弱多时。苏哈多政权虽然已经倒台，但他所建立的政治体系并没有完全随着瓦解。虽然历年的政改使得中央政府不得对人民厌倦贪腐的诉求有所回应，但地方政权并没跟进政改，贪腐的情况并没有显著的改善。在这种政治情况之下，对印尼中央政府再施多大的压力也是徒然。印尼中央政府可制定任何严刑峻法惩罚烧芭者，但如果地方政府为了各种利益而没有执行这法律的意愿的话，问题也就会继续存在。在一般情况之下，地方政府为了不影响它本身的税收而不敢得罪那些拥有大片土地的大企业。这也就是为什么烟雾问题这么多年来无法解决的根本原因。

烧芭种植是印尼农业悠久的文化。为何烧芭？烧芭在一个落后贫穷国家能为农业解决两个重要的困难：

1)以最省钱的方式把大块野林迅速清除掉
2)烧芭所残留的灰烬能变成自然的肥料

当然，大型的烧芭活动会带来严重的空气污染，使我们面对烟雾问题。每一片烧芭得来的农地只能让农民耕种几年。这是因为烧芭所得来的自然肥料经过这几年的耕种后便会耗尽。这也就是为什么烟雾问题通常是每隔几年便会严重的原因。

在我们城市人来看，烧芭就是空气污染的问题所在，但对许多印尼贫穷农民来说，烧芭就是他们经济来源的重要部分之一。没有烧芭他们便会失去廉价肥沃的农地。唯一能使这些农民停止烧芭种植活动就是帮助他们找寻廉价替代的种植法，或扶助与资助他们农作的需要。

当然，那些大企业的大型烧芭活动是我无法忍受的。他们为了节省费用而导致膨大的污染社会的代价。如果印尼地方政府对这些财雄势大的污染企业束手无策的话，亚细安诸国就必须介入制裁这些污染企业，坚决的不让这些企业立足于亚细安诸国的经济体系内。

最终的问题是，我们是否有这强烈的政治意愿来执行这样大规模的制裁政策？这样的制裁政策必然会使我们蒙受巨大的经济损失。我们的社会必须决定是否为了杜绝这一些污染企业而付出这经济损失的代价。我们必须衡量广大民众的健康利益是否比这些金钱的损失还重要。我们的政府是有这能力执行这样大规模的制裁政策的。这是因为政府掌握了政联公司控制，能有效立法和执行制裁这些污染企业和它们的任何附属公司的政策。

假若我们亚细安诸国只选择每几年当烟雾弥漫时才坐下来谈谈，例行公事般的大声嚷嚷，写些无法执行的协议书的话，那我们和我们的子孙们也只好永远承受烟雾侵袭的宿命。亚细安诸国对这烟雾问题谈也谈了少有十几年，但几乎一无所得，毫无建树。为什么？根据以往亚细安诸国所达成的“协议”，似乎没有谈及如何对那些污染公司采取集体的制裁行动，也只以非常消极的态度去制订“亚细安联合消防队”的协调条款。我认为这是各国缺乏根治烟雾污染决心的表现。亚细安诸国国民应该对他们各自的政府施压，促使它们拿出道德勇气和政治决心，果断、坚决的制定真正有效的协议，集体制裁那些污染公司，捍卫我们人民拥有清洁空气的权力，保障我们人民的健康！

与此同时，亚细安诸国也应积极的为印尼贫农寻找替代种植法，扶助他们以更有效率的方法提高农作收入，鼓励他们放弃烧芭种植法。只有这样双管齐下才能全面解决我们大家被烟雾危害的根源。

吴明盛

For the benefits of English readers, I have written the following summary of this article:

If we want to solve the haze problem, we must first understand three important factors:

1) Who are those who create the haze?
2) Why did they do that?
3) How could ASEAN countries do more than talk and coming up with ineffective resolutions?

First of all, we must understand the Indonesia political reality. Although Indonesia is a huge country with numerous natural resources, it continues to be a very poor country due to corrupt management by the govt.

Even when the Suharto adminstration was dismantled, the inherent system of corrupt political struggle still largely remain intact at the ground level. The central govt may heed calls to political reform to curb corruptions but those at the local govt may not change for the better. Thus, putting pressure on the Indonesia central govt is not very useful because even if its central govt could legislate stringent laws against pollution, these laws may not be executed by the local govt basically because they may not want to antagonize the large corporates that are involved in the use of fire to clear land, as they are the main source of tax money to these local govts. This is primarily the reason of the Haze problem.

Burning the forest to clear land for agriculture is a traditional practice in Indonesia. It solves two primary important problems for those poor farmers:

1) Provide a cheap way of clearing forested areas for farming
2) After burning the forest, those ashes left behind provides as free fertilizer.

Thus to city dwellers like us, we see the haze as pollution but to the farmers, it may be the necessary process for them to get cheap fertile land. If we want them to stop doing this, we must help them to find alternative ways to get fertile land for farming. A land cleared by burning down the forest will provide the poor farmers a few years of fertile land. After this, they will start burning and clearing other forested area again. Thus, you can see that the haze problem will worsen every few years.

What I could not tolerate is those rich corporates who use the same practice to save cost. By doing so, they created huge cost of pollution to us. If we are determined to stop them from doing such thing, there must be a concerted effort from ASEAN countries to saunction these companies of pollution and their affiliated companies. They must be prevented from accessing to ASEAN economies

Yes, we may suffer economically by cutting ties with these big companies but ultimately, the question is, are we politically determined enough to protect our people from the pollutino created by these companies? If there is no strong moral courage and political will, all talks will end up useless. These talks and agreement only aims to build a ASEAN FIRE FIGHTING FORCE and I think this is a very passive moves.

Citizens of ASEAN countries should put pressures on their govt to go for such drastic moves, make it into law that it is illegal to have dealing with companies of pollution. Singapore could effectively carry out such sanctions as it controls huge GLCs, but will there be strong political will to do so? Else not, we and our future generation will be destined to suffer from such pollution forever.

To tackle the problem of the haze, there must be strong political will from ALL sides. Indonesia is a weak developing country and I do not think its weak central govt could carry out any effective measures against those powerful countries. Only a concerted effort from each and every ASEAN countries to saunction them would create enough clout to punish these companies of pollution.

And only couple with active measures to seek alternative agriculture methodologies for the poor farmers, we could solve the haze problem permanently.

This is the gist of my Chinese posting.

Goh Meng Seng

What Political System do we want to preserve?

I was "presently surprised" when I heard MM Lee Kuan Yew talking about his aim is not about preserving PAP but rather, to preserve a system that could work well for Singapore in the long run.

If I remember correctly, this is the very first time that a prominent leader of PAP has openly declared the need to construct and preserve a "good" system for Singapore, instead of going by the line that without PAP, Singapore will not survive.

However, I could not really reconcile the need to create and preserve good system with the image that PAP projects in each and every elections the critical "scare messages" that if voters voted for opposition, we will be doomed. The reason is simple; if the system is good enough, how would it end up as "doomed" if PAP loses power?

What is the "good" system we are talking about? A system that could be abused if it "falls into the wrong hands"? I find it strange that such message has been repeated again and again, suggesting that our system could just turn into a "monster" if opposition wins the election and become the government! And yet, we want to preserve such system that is so vulnerable to abuse?

This could only mean one thing, this supposedly "good" system has given too much power to whoever in power. It is only when a system gives too much power to those in the government, it could possibly become a monster that could be abused by "bad government". Is this the "good system" that we are talking about in "preserving"?

This high concentration of power in the system could be abused by anyone, opposition parties as well as PAP included. Nobody could predict or even foresee the future. Nobody could guarantee that PAP will always be filled by people of great integrity with high morals. High concentration of power will result in a very imbalance system.

I am not saying good people is not important for the government to run smoothly. However, any instituition that gives great power to a few must have a system of effective checks and balances. If a system could just be "abused" by the "wrong people" being elected into office, it means that the mechanism of checks and balances is ineffective or simply lacking.

Checks and balances could come from two or more dimensions. Within the system, it could come from the government's internal mechanism like Auditor General, CPIB, judiciary etc. It could also come from the political balance in terms of adequate representation of non-ruling parties' MPs in the parliament. If one believes that that the system will fail or even abused by some "rogue" government, it would mean that the internal governmental mechanism will fail due to some inherent weaknesses or reasons and that, the ruling party have the means to curb effective representation of opposition parties in parliament.

We need good people to be in politics, both in the ruling party as well as alternative parties. At the same time, we must create a balance system that could effect good checks on whoever in power. We should not take chance that we will always have "good government". The only way to minimize the adverse impact of having "bad government" is to have a system of good checks and balances.

It is ironic to see PAP constantly harping on how "vulnerable" Singapore's system is if the "wrong people" are voted in as government but at the same time, they wanted to "preserve" such system of great vulnerability! Personally, I agree that the present system is very vulnerable and it should be changed for better checks and balances. This could only be done when PAP is willing to curb some of the powers that it has held on now as the government. As long as PAP is unwilling to subject itself to a system that encourage effective checks and balances from non-ruling parties in parliament, the system we have now will forever remain vulnerable.

I guess it is about time that Singaporeans should start thinking about what kind of political system we want to develop and preserve for our future generation as a Nation.

Goh Meng Seng