Conscience Of Constant Wanderer

Community chest chairman Sutat Chew tells the peak how his off-grid travels have shaped his worldview and spurred him to become a changemaker in Singapore.

- KAREN TEE

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS STUDYING abroad often choose to tour European cities as a rite of passage. Not Sutat Chew. In 1994, the then-Oxford humanities student saved his scholarship allowance to travel for 15 weeks through some of the world’s most politically precarious countries in the Middle East and South Asia. War and revolution had ravaged the regions and the process of recovery bore the scars of political turmoil.

Chew did not become a war correspondent, his childhood dream, but by the end of his tour of nations such as Syria, Iran, and Pakistan, his rough-and-tumble adventures played a pivotal role in shaping his philosophical outlook. As the former executive vice-president of Singapore Exchange (SGX) and finance pundit likes to quip, he is “a banker with a conscience”.

We meet in a sedate environment today, a comfortable, air-conditioned lounge that contrasts sharply with Chew’s knuckle-biting stories. He recalls the time when he rolled into the village of Darra Adamkhel, on the north-western frontier of Pakistan, on the back of a truck. The place was known for manufacturing arms and there he saw not only adults but children assembling Kalashnikov rifles.

Later, soldiers south of the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan offered him two AK47 magazines for US$10 (S$13) to shoot into the hills. Acquiescing, Chew was then invited to choose, as a “target”, either an old man for US$50 or a young boy for US$100. Should the bullet hit home, the family would receive the money in full. Otherwise, the amount would be split between the target and the soldiers.

“Some people call it extortion; others, paying for an experience. Back then, it was almost like a tourist tax,” says Chew. “Obviously, I didn’t pay for this privilege. But you start to think: what is a life worth?”