when will the singapore government (PAP) stop its bullying??

 

Our Great Leader, the Holy Prime Minister, successor to the Holy Father of our beloved Lee Dynasty – all praise and honour to Him – exposes his real nature last Sunday when he issued a legal letter to the editors of sociopolitical website, TR Emeritus (TRE), commanding them to withdraw an article which apparently accused the government of partiality (cronyism), when it appointed Our Great First Lady as head of the Asian investment firm, Temasek Holdings.

 

PM Lee sends lawyer’s letter to editors of TR Emeritus

 

The Great Leader, in the letter, reminded TRE of the government’s (the People’s Action Party) terrible and awesome powers, as was demonstrated by the numerous defamation suits it waged against international newspapers and periodicals, such as the Far Eastern Economic Review, and won.

 

And so our Great Leader warned TRE that a similar fate would await them unless they withdraw the article and post an apology on the website.

 

This is Singapore, my motherland and my home. An autocracy which masquerades as a democracy only in theory. Our people has no power at all in deciding how the country is run. Isn’t this what democracy is all about – power of the people? Although I do not suspect any foul play during vote counts, it does not take a rocket scientist to realise how disparate the arena is during election campaigns, with the ruling regime having an obvious advantage over the opposition by constantly fiddling with electoral boundaries as well as having more press and media coverage.

 

TRE has withdrawn the article although it has yet to post an apology, as our Alex Au had done in his blog, Yawning Bread, when a very insecure Minister decided to play the defamation game on him over some rumours about his moral indiscretions. Competent and intelligent as he is, the minister does not realise he is digging his own grave, at least in the eyes of netizens, by using the law to bully Yawning Bread into silence.

 

Dear PAP, if you are innocent, just say so – and debunk the allegations once and for all by speaking the truth. There is no need to emotionally and psychologically abuse and bully Singaporeans into withdrawing their comments. Where is civil discourse in all of this? Why the need to use the law to threaten and frighten us?

 

WHEN WILL THE RULING REGIME STOP ITS BULLYING TACTICS?? When will the PAP stop its thuggish ways on its people like a hysterical parent brandishing a chopper over mischievous children?

 

The Holy Father, peace be upon Him, claimed in the past that any political accusation against the government taints their reputation and as such a legal victory, via defamation suit, would always be the right thing to do as it vindicates the ruling regime. Besides, this is politics. Shouldn’t we be unscrupulous against our political “enemies”?

 

Our Holy Father thinks he is Cao Cao living in ancient China.

 

On the contrary, the megalomaniacal antics of the PAP has time and again allows itself to be exposed to the world as a strangely first world country with third world ethics.

 

Mature individuals pay attention to constructive criticism and simply ignore unwarranted and unjustified ones. One does not see the governments in the US or UK lash out against all the rude and critical comments made of them by the many newspapers and tabloids.

 

Human beings have the right to say anything they want, even if such speech is irresponsible and rude. This is life.

 

And it takes a mature and self-secure government to accept it.

 

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a shrewd political move?

 

Some have lauded the recent expulsion of the Hougang MP by the Workers’ Party (WP) as a brave and shrewd political move. They have “taken, boldy, the moral high ground”, to quote Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Eugene Tan, the assistant professor of law at the Singapore Management University.

 

The expulsion was carried out in response to a very immature Singaporean society which still holds on to very quaint ideas of public civil service and its supposed moral standards. The media cannot seem to keep their partisan hands off the poor gentleman and his personal life. It was also his mistake to remain silent amid the media silliness…he should either reaffirm his innocence, if he is, or come out in the open and confess to his indiscretions and apologise to the residents of Hougang.

 

The latter would indeed place him on the moral high ground. I will applaud him for the moral courage and the strength in humility to be transparent to the people.

 

UNLIKE the schemes of the ruling regime…which only “appears” CLEAN because they are craftier and more skilled in covering up their tracks. I always believe in the adage that there can be no senseless smoke without fire…and the disparity is so obvious for any discerning individual – the media is so quick to pick up on any rumour of moral indiscretion on the part of the political opposition but if it comes to the ruling party, ALL IS SILENT.

 

Of course, the testicle-squeezing silence can be attributed to the classic Singaporean fear of being legally sued by the ruling regime if there is any sign of criticism (think of Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, Chee Soon Juan and Alan Shadrake). The capacity to sue has nothing to do with moral innocence but with resources and power, full stop.

 

We are not fooled, though. Until the day when the Internet is cruelly and senselessly censored and squashed (thank goodness for twinkles of humanity in our current PM) by the powers that be, netizens in Singapore would always be the watchdog against a government that is constantly suppressing our civil rights to free speech and expression.

 

Are Singaporeans so naive as to think that the PAP (People’s Action Party) is really that CLEAN and FREE of moral indiscretions? Have you ever wonder why the people of Singapore are in the dark when it comes to the families of the ruling regime, apart from the Lees? We are hardly acquainted with the kin of most of our parliamentarians, let alone MPs and those on the ground.

 

A very good strategy, if you ask me. If the public knows next to nothing about the personal life of their leaders, there is no way we could hold them to account for any moral indiscretion, if they exist.

 

Contrary to propaganda, the truth is really out there. In the worldwide web.

 

While there is still hope for a liberal society, and a fairly liberal internet, please traverse far and wide for the truth.

 

Before even the Internet is unjustly censored.

 

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can we really look toward a multi-party government?

 

Singapore is as small a nation as it is young, a 46-year-old full stop on a world map, not counting the years between its official founding in 1819 by a Sir Stamford Raffles of the East India Company and its separation from the Malayan Peninsula in August 1965.

 

The first generation of Singaporeans lived through the labour pains of a seedling nation to the turbulent years of its adolescence and has since appreciated the competence in which the founding men of the PAP wield their iron fists adorned in velvet gloves.

 

They knew it would take the cunning genius of a Lee Kuan Yew to reign in a diverse immigrant country and lead it to where it is today – a multinational corporation with over seven million workers.

 

The younger generations, with me among them, will never understand the complexities our ancestors faced and thus may never see beyond the bias we already have of a perceived one-party autocracy. We blame the PAP for its control of the media and the press. We bemoan our legal system which still uses an archaic and barbarous form of criminal punishment. We wonder when will our society stop stigmatising the LGBT community. We wish we could have more liberties in expressing ourselves and speaking our minds.

 

And so we root for the political opposition like the Workers’ Party, the Singapore Democratic Party, the Reform Party and the Singapore People’s Party. We cheer for our champions in the likes of Chen Sao Mao, Low Thia Kiang, Chiam See Tong, Kenneth Jeyaratnam, and even the Freedom Prize-winning self-professed liberal democrat, Chee Soon Juan.

 

They loom large before us as our patron saints of political and civil liberty, and we listened, enraptured, by their rhetoric. We get drunk over the preachers who scream the loudest, we shriek alongside some of them when they conquered Aljunied GRC last year. But the chimera of the reel world aside, when the banal and mundane sets in, we start to witness how the scraps start to fall from the rusty junkyard that they really are.

 

If these blokes cannot even keep their houses in order and their respective parties united, can we trust them to lead the country? Tsk, tsk. If you want to play with fire, you should prepare the extinguishers. Will democracy – the power of the people – be nothing but a dream we erect like sandcastles on the beach?

 

The lesser of two evils will get my vote. And it is no surprise who the devil would be.

 

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the “super league” and all that hype

 

(source)

 

Although an argumentum ad hominem can always be utilised for my not being a soccerphile in general as I would never conceive the sin of ever losing my sleep for a three or four a.m. football match on the telly, one cannot be forgiven for accusing me of treason.

 

Singapore is the beautiful city state in which I was born and raised, educated and plied my trade, a peaceful oasis of calm and prosperity amid the chaotic mess that often reads as the description of our tumultuous geographical region. It is thus utter lunacy and a crime against the state for the ridiculous clobbering of all that is our own.

 

When our table tennis team emerged runners-up in the 2008 Olympics and world champions in a subsequent tournament, idiots all over the country grumble about the fact that we were but a neo-chinese team, devoid of pure Singapore stock. Some lunatics even cry foul when our very own swimming champion Tao Li obliterated the opposition in the 2011 Southeast Asian Games – she was after all, born in China.

 

And it becomes criminal when many good-for-nothing, booze-gurgling blokes become fanatical devotees of foreign football clubs like the useless outfit from Anfield and the devilish thugs from Old Trafford – which still brought back nightmarish visions of cantona-esque violence – while rolling their eyes over our country’s sincere attempts at psyching up support for our national football team as well as our domestic league.

 

What is the warped reason for worshipping a group of thugs so unlike our ethos while trying to desecrate our own? What is the foolishness of going drunk-mad over a group of English hooligans chasing after a ball when the same time could be spent investing in conjugal or emotional bonds with one’s spouse? Or the love of one’s family? Or the support of one’s own national aspirations?

 

And so…it is OUTRAGEOUS to read of the reactions of Singaporean netizens who constantly take potshots at anything Singaporean – our public transport system, the flooding situation in certain parts of Singapore, the PAP, our attempts at brushing up our spoken English, etc. – and now our forays back into the Malaysian football league.

 

The match was aired live on the telly last evening, and of course, rather than cheering a foreign rabble of thugs, it is more reasonable to be behind a SINGAPOREAN team instead. Of course, please forgive my insolence, as I often find it infuriatingly odd as to the belligerent antics of foreign football fans (including that of Malaysia and Indonesia). Football seems to attract hooligans.

 

Still, I admit it did nothing to revive the past age of Malaysia Cup fever in the late 1980s and early 1990s, of which memories of Fandi Ahmad, Abbas Saad, Alistair Edwards and V. Sundramoorthy still linger. Perhaps I’ve grown older and hence the zealous naivete of youth eludes me. Perhaps the fever has indeed been revived last night, but somehow my interpretations of the past-present continuum has been twisted.

 

Yet the experience of last night might well prophesy of better things to come in our hopes of having something of a football culture. The marketing spin on the twelfth “player” in the Singapore Lions is interesting as it is deliciously patriotic. But somehow as mild as we are, as tame as we are, we are too civilised and courteous a lot to become the monstrous horde as our Indonesian or even Malaysian neighbours are.

 

In fact, I would rather believe that for our fans to be able to become virtually the twelfth player on the field – we have to be as barbarous as the Indonesians who use foul language at rival teams and behave riotously when their own team loses.

 

But somehow, I reckon, that we Singaporeans are too civilised and polite for that.

 

We have better things to do and live for.

 

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court allows proselytisation?

 

Last year, a federal court in the US allowed a christian pastor to distribute christian literature to muslims during the annual Arab International Festival which would be held in Michigan. The annual festival is a secular one, celebrating the arabic culture with numerous food booths, an interactive children’s stage, a large carnival, arabic merchandise, etc.

 

Court allows Pastor to distribute Christian literature to Muslims

 

The basis of the ruling is none other than US’ pet topic, the rights to free speech. It seems that because of the rights to free speech, christians in the US have the right to attempt proselytisation of people of other religious faiths, which include Islam.

 

In principle this might be the right thing to do although I sincerely suspect if the authorities would do the same for a muslim who wants to spread the knowledge of his religion in a christian event.

 

Anyhow, the basic human right to free speech and expression, in theory, is inviolable and proper. However, the implementation might be problematic as it leads to all sorts of social conflicts. Does the right to express oneself include irresponsible speech, unwarranted diatribe against authority, public displays of sexual intercourse, etc? Of course there are some countries in Europe that might consistently apply this so-called basic right to its logical extreme and allow its citizens to do whatever they want in the name of free speech; but is it the right thing to do?

 

We may have the right to express ourselves, but I do not believe that such a right includes unbridled irresponsibility – and this includes the “rights” of harmful religious cults who might practise animal sacrifice, self mutilation, rebellion against authority, etc. And thus I am ALL for the Singapore government to BAN “religions” like the Jehovah’s Witnesses (who oppose the military, salutation to the national flag and blood transfusion), Scientology, Satanism, Wicca and all of the other belief systems that run counter to national progress, peace and social stability.

 

The liberal democratic US and Europe can take their potshots at us anytime, criticising our leaders for their “draconian” and “autocratic” rule, but results speak for themselves, really. I don’t want to live in a society where riots and protests take place almost every other day, with scientologists and religious quacks running amok, attempting to brainwash my children with their rubbish and irresponsible atheists who, contrary to what they might verbally claim, are in all practical terms, trying to get rid of religion completely from society.

 

Okay, back to the christian pastor’s case. If such overt attempts at proselytising people of other religious traditions are allowed, it negates the very principle of religious plurality – the acceptance of other religions other than our own as our metaphysical equal. It is plausible if a christian expresses his beliefs and ideas to a personal friend or relative – but to do so in a public space is tantamount to inciting conflict. What if the community one is attempting to proselytise DOES NOT WANT to be handed out literature?

 

Singapore is incredibly wise in criminalising all attempts at instigating inter-religious conflict. Dialogue and discussion among religious groups is admirable and encouraged, but not debate and diatribe. Thank goodness open-air preaching is forbidden in Singapore. Thank goodness religious extremists like the evangelical christian women from Church of Our Saviour (COOS) who attempted to take over a woman’s rights organisation was somehow put down by the public. Thank goodness extremist faith healers like pastor Rony Tan from Lighthouse Evangelism was sanctioned by the society at large for putting down buddhism and taoism (besides, such an exclusivist view is actually the predominant view among christians in Singapore).

 

Anyway, let these liberal democracies be deceived by their own arrogance and delusion, and witness the corruption and downfall of their societies. Europe is now in economic tatters, and so is the US. And with all the rioting and the strikes, let’s see how these nations will continue to run. The more they criticise Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore, the more they will witness the flaws in their own ideologies.

 

It is sad that political loonies like Chee Soon Juan are so blinded by their love for Western cuisine that they seem to think that liberalism would be a better choice for Singapore.

 

Really?

 

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