tell me about it

Members of Parliament from the post-65 generation will be performing hip hop dance moves at the Chingay Parade next year.

“All of us are having fun. It’s not important whether we perform well, we dance well or whether we look professional on tv or during the parade. Most importantly, we have to connect with the youths of today,” said Lam Pin Min, MP, Ang Mo Kio GRC.

“That’s part of the fun – to laugh at yourself, to have a sense of humour about everything and that’s what we’re trying to do as P-65 MPs, trying to connect with the youth and having fun with them, that’s the main thing,” said Chris de Souza, MP, Holland-Bukit Timah GRC.

Photo caption: (From left) MPs Michael Palmer, Baey Yam Keng and Jessica Tan – TODAY Photo
-Taken from Channelnewsasia

I’m just struggling to comprehend the thought process.

Head MP: Now, people. We need to Connect with the Youth of Today. They need to understand that we politicians are On Their Side and we Understand What They Want. Any ideas?
Lesser MP 1: Um, um. We need to do something they like to do.
LMP 2: Yes! Like, play computer games.
LMP 3: And shop in Bangkok.
LMP 1: And go dancing.
HMP: Dancing! Absolutely! Dancing.
LMP 1: Yes, because PM Lee dancing in Zouk last year was such a hit with the local youth!
LMP 2: It showed them that PM Lee is cool, man. See? I understand youth! Cool, man!
*LMPs applaud each other amidst smug smiles all round*
HMP: Let’s get the post-65 MPs to dance this year!
*LMPs gasp in pleasure*
HMP: HIP-HOP DANCE!
*spontaneous appreciative applause at the HMP’s genius*
HMP: AT THE CHINGAY PARADE!
*LMP 3 breaks down and cries at the plan’s utter perfection*
HMP: PERFECT! Because, you know, all youth love hip-hop dance!
LMP 1: And they all love the Chingay parade!
LMP 2: Cool, man!

When will someone tell them that pretending to be youth is not the way to connect to them? You people putting on a pair of fatigue pants and a colorful tee shirt will not endear me to you. In fact, I think this is plain silly. I applaud your chops for blindly going along with well-meaning yet misguided plans like these to try and reach Singapore’s youth, but seriously. This Is Not The Way To Do It.

Instead why don’t you try listening to us when we speak, rather than putting us on national TV with the eminent Minister Mentor and then blatantly steamrollering over all of us and our viewpoints?

That might work.

Dancing hop-hop does not a better politician make, I can assure you.

Thaksin’s been ousted in a military coup and a state of emergency has been declared.

Crap.

Night curfews have been set.

Double crap.

The baht is falling like Rapunzel from her tower and her prince in love.

That’s one minor silver lining.

Please please let this all blow over by the weekend :(

Far East Economic Review’s editor, Hugh Restall, wrote an article that appeared in the July/August issue. The article covered an interview with Singaporean opposition politician, Chee Soon Juan, and described the political situation in Singapore in unforgiving terms.

I will not reprint the article here to avoid running afoul of any sort of law (after attending Media Law class, I’m developing a very wary, cynical attitude) so I will simply provide the link to the FEER article.

Here it is, entitled: “Singapore’s ‘Martyr’, Chee Soon Juan”.

While reading the article I was overcome with a sort of delicious scandalized shock. Here was everything everyone always whispers about Singapore in hushed tones, while looking around surreptitiously as if an MP were hiding behind the next table. And they used such terms! Such daring! Such absolute disregard for the libel suit they had to know was coming.

Which is telling, too; because FEER has themselves run afoul of local libel law before and there’s no way they published this article without expecting at the very least some sort of legal repercussion from the men who rule this country. What with the IMF brouhaha about the ban on protesters during the conference, the timing couldn’t have been worse (or better, depending whose side you’re on). Singapore is getting attack after attack on its issues on freedom (or lack of) and I feel it’s time to take a proper stand and answer for it.

The article itself perhaps makes too much of a martyr of Chee, as the title already presumes; and perhaps the language might be a tad harsh (perhaps they thought ’screw it, we’re going to get sued anyway, might as well go the whole hog’) but essentially with their bluntness and tactlessness, they bring up issues that everyone knows exist. Issues that should be addressed sooner rather than later and which solutions will result in the best outcome for this country – economically, politically, and for the individual freedoms of each and every Singaporean citizen.

What will it be, MM Lee? PM Lee? What will it be?

This libel case is going to play out very interestingly because there is no local representative of FEER who can be served the papers, and the lawsuit might well have to be settled in Hong Kong; in which case the outcome of the suit will be pivotal in the case for or against Singapore’s judicial impartiality. It is of note that no foreign publication has ever won a libel suit filed by the Government here. If the Lee family’s lawyers can reproduce their success overseas, it will be one up for their stance on libel and defamation. If not – well. We’ll see.

…Singaporeans use graffiti too!

Found this on a electrical box at a traffic light in Ang Mo Kio. Singaporeans are speaking up – although you might want to use another way, wait police catch you for vandalising public areas then you know.

Text: “Jobs for foreigners, N.S. for S’poreans. Elite pianist get fine only!! 1 country, 2 system! Majullah (sic) Singapura!”

Obviously referring to The Case of the Runaway Pianist, where pianist Melvyn Tan was fined $5000 for evading conscription and running away to Britain to pursue his musical education rather than let National Service derail his ambition.

It was a nice coincidence that I saw this after making that post about Ike See recently, and I couldn’t resist snapping a picture with my phone camera. These things are very handy.

I just thought it was interesting that people are making this sort of statement with graffiti, and it’s definitely a great step up from “HOT SEX CALL 9xxx-xxxx!” written on bus seats and toilet walls.

Then I walked on and the next graffiti I saw said “Vaginas suck, cocks rule.”

Oh well.

At least I felt gratified for all of five minutes.

So they’ve denied Ike See deferment of NS to go study the violin in one of the best music schools in the world.

And Singapore wants to be an international arts hub?  Go figure.  This whole deal really upsets me because being the age I am, most of my friends have already gone through or are going through National Service and I can’t see what’s so dadblamed important about it that they should deny a world-class talent his chance at world-class education just so he can rub camou stick on his face and run around the jungle eating frogs.

As Michael Phelps (19-year-old winner of eight Olympic swimming medals) put it most succintly: “Phew, thank God I’m not Singaporean.  I’d be shooting blanks instead of breaking world records.”

What really, really pisses me off is that the gahrermen readily hands out dispensations and deferments to their own scholars to go study abroad – I have quite a few friends who did this, including my own cousin – but won’t allow Ike to defer his own NS.

“Min*def is prepared to grant deferment to pursue university studies under very exceptional circumstances. Such cases are rare and can only be considered when there are exceptionally strong reasons.”
-Col Benedict*Lim, Min*def

Oh please.  That’s a bare-faced lie.  It’s not rare at all.

They talk a lot about nurturing talent and encouraging creativity because Singapore aspires to be a regional if not international arts center.  Ha.  HAHAHA.  WHAT FRICKIN’ IRONY.

I can’t believe they’re standing firm on this.  Consider this:

What is Ike’s value to Singapore as a world-class young violinist who is so damn good he received an unanimous 12-judge vote from the auditioners at Curtis Music School – the best music school in the whole world?

Compare that to Ike’s value to Singapore as a bored, uninspired NSman – of whom we have so many.

We’ve got tens of thousands of NS drones already.  We aren’t in dire need of Ike’s ability to hold a gun.

I hope Ike gets out of Singapore before it completely stifles his talent.  Go!  Leave this suffocating place.  I have no talent to quash or NS to quash it with so I have no real impetus to leave – but you, Ike, you deserve a heck of a lot better than this.

Read the Min*def reply and assorted other comments at:
Mr Wang Bakes Good Karma

This is somewhat dated, but still relevant, and he puts across many interesting ideas.  Enjoy. 

Interview by Susan*Long.

Time to get off the autopilot, says a former civil servant.  Since Mr Ngiam*Tong*Dow retired from the civil service in 1999, affairs of state have weighed heavily on his mind. The highly respected former Permanent*Secretary worries about Singapore’s long-term survival and the kind of society the next generation will inherit. At 66, the H*DB*Corp chairman insists he is ‘no radical’, just a concerned Singaporean with three grandchildren, who wonders ‘whether there will be a Singapore for them in 50 years’ time’.

Q. With all this pessimism surrounding Singapore’s prospects today, what’s your personal prognosis? Will Singapore survive Senior*Minister Lee*Kuan*Yew?
A. Unequivocally yes, Singapore will survive SM*Lee but provided he leaves the right legacy. What sort of legacy he wants to leave is for him to say, but I, a blooming upstart, dare to suggest to him that we should open up politically and allow talent to be spread throughout our society so that an alternative leadership can emerge. So far, the P*AP’s tactic is to put all the scholars into the civil service because it believes the way to retain political power forever is to have a monopoly on talent. But in my view, that’s a very short term view.

It is the law of nature that all things must atrophy. Unless SM* allows serious political challenges to emerge from the alternative elite out there, the incumbent elite will just coast along. At the first sign of a grassroots revolt, they will probably collapse just like the incumbent Progressive*Party to the left-wing P*AP onlaught in the late 1950s. I think our leaders have to accept that Singapore is larger than the P*AP.

(more…)

And the men in white have taken 82 of 84 seats once more.

What’s new, Singapore?  What’s new?

Currently sulking at home because no one wants to go to the WP rally with me.

Sniff.

“Let us get down to fundamentals. Is this an open, or is this a closed society? Is it a society where men can preach ideas – novel, unorthodox, heresies, to established churches and established governments – where there is a constant contest for men’s hearts and minds on the basis of what is right, of what is just, of what is in the national interests, or is it a closed society where the mass media – the newspapers, the journals, publications, TV, radio – either bound by sound or by sight, or both sound and sight, men’s minds are fed with a constant drone of sycophantic support for a particular orthodox political philosophy? I am talking of the principle of the open society, the open debate, ideas, not intimidation, persuasion not coercion…”

- Lee*Kuan*Yew, Before Singapore’s independence, Malaysian Parliamentary Debates, Dec 18, 1964

“If it is not totalitarian to arrest a man and detain him, when you cannot charge him with any offence against any written law – if that is not what we have always cried out against in Fascist states – then what is it?… If we are to survive as a free democracy, then we must be prepared, in principle, to concede to our enemies – even those who do not subscribe to our views – as much constitutional rights as you concede yourself.”

- Opposition leader Lee*Kuan*Yew, Legislative Assembly Debates, Sept 21, 1955

as compared to:

“We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don’t do that, the country would be in ruins.”

- Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, 1986

“But we either believe in democracy or we not. If we do, then, we must say categorically, without qualification, that no restraint from the any democratic processes, other than by the ordinary law of the land, should be allowed… If you believe in democracy, you must believe in it unconditionally. If you believe that men should be free, then, they should have the right of free association, of free speech, of free publication.”

- Lee*Kuan*Yew, Legislative Assembly Debates, April 27, 1955

This from the man who now advocates the stringent regulation of politickal blogs and banning of politickal podcasts.  Compare to:

“I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters – who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.”

- Prime Minister Lee*Kuan*Yew, Straits^Times, 20 April 1987

Perhaps then this is the strongest case for why we should not vote the opposition in. Doubtless they too will change their tune if they come into power. And maybe they will hang around in the government until they are 83 years old and refuse to relinquish the reins.

And then they will sue the pants off anyone they like.

All italics are my own.

PAP (pp) noun.

1. Soft or semiliquid food, as for infants.
2. Material lacking real value or substance: TV shows that offer nothing but pap.
3. Slang. Money and favors obtained as political patronage: “self-seeking politicians primarily interested in patronage, privilege, and pap” (Fiorello H. La Guardia).
4. worthless or oversimplified ideas

What’s in a name?

‘Nuff said.

Brought to you by the friendly dictionary.com.