In response to Ms Juliet Chua...

I write in response to the letter by Ms Juliet Chua ("Shame on you, young bloggers", ST Online Forum, 22/8/2009).

Firstly, with regards to Ms Chua's statement of her being irked by young people who "blog negatively about the Singapore Government", I would like to point out that being critical or negative about the Singapore Government is not exclusive only to young bloggers; older bloggers, I believe, have been and are also critical about the government. In fact, I would think that being critical of the government is not something unique to any community or group, online or otherwise.

Moving on, similar to Ms Chua, I also acknowledge, appreciate and applaud the achievements made by Singapore under the leadership of the incumbent government. I, however, do not think that this precludes me from adopting a critical stance towards lapses in performance by the government and deficiencies in public policies. Being appreciative of Singapore's achievements and being critical of the government's deficiencies are, in my opinion, not mutually exclusive. As Nominated MP Viswa Sadasivan aptly pointed out in his maiden speech in Parliament, "There is a distinct difference between being pro-Singapore and anti-government".

Perhaps Ms Chua was hitting out against some of the baseless criticism against the government that exists on the internet. With regards to this, while I concede that such criticism do exist on the internet, it however pales in comparison with the significant amount of well-reasoned and insightful discussion about local politics and public policies that also exist online; and Ms Chua would perhaps be surprised to know that such discussion are made by both young and older Singaporeans alike.

Lastly, I would just like to add that while Singapore may have progressed greatly, there nonetheless remains aspects in which it can and should improve in. And I believe that such improvement would not be possible if Singaporeans, thinking that criticism against the government is a sign of ungratefulness, keep silent about deficiencies in Singapore that they recognise; such improvement will also not come about if all of us engage only in praising Singapore's past achievements.


P.S.

This blog post has been sent in as a letter to the ST Forum and has been published in the ST Online Forum.

National Day Rally 2009 -- Was PM Lee preaching to the converted?

I suppose most, if not all, of you all would be aware of the fact that Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong delivered his National Day Rally Speech 2009 yesterday night.

While PM Lee discussed several issues, ranging from the state of Singapore's economy to healthcare issues, in this speech of his, he perhaps devoted the most amount of time and attention to the segment in which he discussed the state of religious harmony in Singapore. And this was the segment which I was most interested in.

In this segment of his speech, PM Lee reiterated the importance of religious harmony and the four basic principles that have to be adhered to in order to preserve such harmony in Singapore.

Yet, while I appreciate and agree with what PM Lee said during this segment of his speech, I nonetheless cannot help but wonder: is PM Lee preaching to the converted? As a friend implied in his comments about this segment of PM Lee's speech on my Facebook page, would the minds and behaviour of the religiously fervent change after listening to the words of PM Lee, if they were listening to him speak yesterday night?

Indeed, in my opinion, while the top echelon of religious leadership and most religious believers may generally agree with the points discussed by PM Lee, there is nonetheless a significant minority (or at least I think and hope it's a minority) of individuals, as the recent AWARE saga has shown, who believe that their religiously-based beliefs and opinions should hold sway in Singapore. In fact, without divulging any names and if I am not wrong, it is the aim of a particular local religious grouping/institution to "transform the nation" (i.e. Singapore) so as to enable it to fulfil God's agenda for it (to become the "Antioch of Asia").

[aside: to add on, I must confess to having raised an eyebrow when following the AWARE saga, the religious leader of the abovementioned religious grouping/institution, citing a particular religious text, preached about how those in his religion should be more discreet (covert?) in the way they propagate their religious beliefs and values; I have developed the habit of listening to the religious teachings this particular religious grouping/institution uploads onto their website even though I remain an agnostic free-thinker, in case any of you all are wondering]

Hence, in light of the above, I cannot help wonder if PM Lee, with his speech last night, will change the minds and behaviour of those who make up this significant minority. Or would he be preaching to the converted and this significant minority will still persist in their mindset and practices?

And just as a final disclaimer, although what I have said above seem to targeted against a particular religion (or a particular variant of it), I bear no animus towards this religion or other religions. In the end, in my opinion, extremism, fundamentalism and exclusivity are not unique to any particular religion.

Say No to (Marital) Rape -- "It is time we speak up"

Petition to abolish marital rape immunity in Singapore

National Day Parade = a military parade?

As I was watching the National Day Parade earlier on TV just now, I cannot but be reminded, especially by the segment in which a "terrorist attack" was resolved, of an academic article a friend of mine referred me to several months ago.

Specifically, I was reminded of the following passages from "Consuming the Nation: National Day Parades in Singapore" by Dr. Lawrence Leong, which was published in 2001 in the New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies...

By far the most significant part of National Day celebration is the parade, significant in terms of the numbers involved, visual spectacle, media focus and extent of preparation. And the parade is overwhelmingly military in emphasis. Indeed, all National Day parades have been a military enterprise, planned annually by colonels and lieutenant-colonels, led by sergeant majors, marched, staged, performed and de-staged by soldiers. Even the glossy souvenir programme is produced by the Ministry of Defence.

The sequence of each National Day parade follows the logic of military protocol: a school choir sings; hundreds of provost guards march; ministers arrive; spectators stand as the prime minister appears; guards salute as the president arrives with a fanfare; the national anthem is played; the president inspects the guards; the show begins with gun salutes, military stunts, fly-past, drive-past, and march-past. In this schema, the highlights are always some military display, while civilians and students trail behind in the last half-hour of floats, show and dance.

Artillery units and armoured regiments rumble the streets with their tanks, mortars, guns, missiles, armoured vehicles and jeeps. In the 1990 drivepast, there were 250 vehicles from the army, police and defence forces. Here there is a demonstration of the state’s monopoly of force. The military emphasis of the parade dramatizes the power dimension of the state, particularly with reference to violence.

Although a sense of oneness is promulgated in the celebration of Singapore’s National Day, the parade institutionalizes separation and hierarchy. The ritual dramatizes roles in clearly differentiated ways: there are officials, participants and spectators. Officials and authorities are not the participants in the marching contingents or the dancing troupes. They are the reviewers, and their position of dominance is marked off from subordinates by an elevated position or platform from which they can look down upon people and comfortably observe the event. And within this viewing stand, there are finer distinctions of status and power spatially given in the seating arrangements.

If the parade were a carnival, the distinctions between reviewer, spectator and contingent would either dissolve or be reversed. If it were a festival, there would not be any clear line between participant and observer.

Clearly, the National Day parade is not a fiesta of the masses, but a display of power and dramatization of hierarchy. Whereas a carnival or festival is a fluctuating and diffuse nucleus of individuals who enter and leave as they please, the National Day parade is a centralised unit ordered and orchestrated temporally from beginning to end and spatially from one corner of the stadium to another.

The rigid hierarchy of the event is further exemplified by the rank-order of the marching contingents: commando battalions, infantry regiments, police force, civil defence brigades, and uniformed school groups (national cadet corps, national police cadet corps). The uniformed school groups are miniature versions of the defence forces. Throughout the parade, the music played is militaristic: infantry brass bands, school military bands and police pipers. The civilian contingents tend to be represented mostly by civil servants and statutory board employees. Private organizations are led by males who are identified by their military designation as reservists.

The military drill and march symbolize the nation in its orderliness, discipline and obedience under a controlling center. In the parade, everyone has to obey the commands of the grand marshal, everything has to be coordinated, every soldier must march or move in turn with the music, following choreographed steps and sequences. Their unique identities submerged and drowned in uniform, the soldiers assume the psyche of a collective conscience as they parade in a series of formations that are artfully coordinated.

The militaristic elements, the rank-ordered hierarchy, and the orderliness and regimentation of the event render the National Day parade similar to the May Day ceremony in Moscow’s Red Square before the Kremlin, Nazi Germany’s military processions, and official rituals in Beijing, Hanoi and Vientiane under communist rule (Scott 1990: 58). In Scott’s aptly-phrased words, the parade is:

"a living tableau of centralized discipline and control. Its logic assumes, by definition, a unified intelligence at the center which directs all movements of the “body” ... The leaders stand above and to the side while, at their direction, their subordinates, ranged in order of precedence from most to least, marching in the same direction and in time to the same music, pass by in review. In its entirety, the scene visibly and forcibly conveys unity and discipline under a single purposeful authority. ... Any evidence of the disorder, divisions, indiscipline, and of everyday informality is banished from the public stage (Scott 1990: 60)"

The resemblance of Singapore’s National Day parades to state rituals in fascist and communist regimes is in large part a consequence of the military dominance of the parade. The military presence has been clearly felt since the first anniversary of Singapore’s independence when the theme was ‘national pride and confidence in the future’ (1966). Militarization has continued to be tied up with the themes of subsequent anniversaries: ‘rugged and vigorous Singapore’ (1967), ‘youth and ruggedness’ (1968), ‘work for security and prosperity’ (1970), and ‘total defence’ (1985).

Why does the defence force occupy center stage in National Day parades? The answer to this question depends very much on the intended audience of such spectacles. Devashayam (1990: 50) argues that National Day represents a symbolic dialogue with Malaysia. In a sense, National Day in Singapore does not connote independence or liberation from colonial rule. The 9th of August 1965 was the day Singapore was expelled from the Malaysian Federation. Given this inauspicious expulsion, the display of military might in National Day parades calls Malaysia’s bluff.

While boasting the strength of its weaponry and defence forces to neighbouring countries signals the viability of the Singaporean nation in the face of adversity, and conveys the message that Singapore is like a small but poisonous fish in the Southeast Asian seas, such military exhibitionism is also targeted to the local population, not only as visual entertainment of the Top Gun and Star Wars epic film variety, but also as reassurance of safety under the current political leadership. How far this reassurance is realistic or not is a moot point, but military exhibitionism usually indicates anxiety rather than security. It is precisely because Singaporeans are still not courteous that courtesy campaigns have been waged for more than twenty years to drum into people the need for behavioural change. So too, thirty years of annual displays of the defence forces serve to instill confidence where this is waning or lacking.

In sum, the militarization of National Day parades renders the parade a ritual of power and hierarchy, dramatizes the state’s monopoly of force, personifies the nation by underscoring values of order, discipline and regimentation, and reassures the populace in the face of anxiety...

For those of you all interested to read the article in its entirety, you all may refer to here.

And here's wishing you all a Happy 44th National Day!