Is Our Pledge an Aspiration Leading to Expiration?

I read MM's Pledge/Aspiration Tsunami but after watching the video [link], my heart skipped a beat or two and I almost had another heart attack!

As a Singaporean Cheena who's old enough to sing "God Save The Queen"; "Negara Ku" and "Majulah Singapura" as a National Anthem, I'm shocked by MM's retort to Viswa Sadasivan. It was uncalled for.

In his typical pompous way (though not as loud now) of demolishing what he finds irksome, MM gave examples of Indians (Brahmins not in Sinda and Non-Brahmin in Sinda) and Malays (getting pregnant at a young age) which I and many of my Mat, Neh and Grago friends find racially sick and nauseating. Hello, does he not know that young unmarried Singaporean Cheena girls get pregnant too? Wouldn't it be more politically correct to use young Chinese prego instead of Malay as an example?

Isn't the rich/poor divide, the elites/heartlanders divide a greater cause for concern than the divide within each race. For heavens sake, there are arseholes and good guys in each and every race! Let the Brahmins and the Indians be. And please, the history lesson of America (with crazy dates all jumbled up) is better left unheard.

Instead of tackling Viswa's pleas for government's accountability in gerrymandeering; media control; locals losing out because of foreign workers/talents influx; helping the poor and, the elites/peasants divide, MM went on with his "knuckle-duster-meet-you-at-the cul-de-sac" rhetoric to bring Viswa and everybody else "down to earth" by saying that the Pledge is an Aspiration.

If that's not enough, the guy who mocks all 55-year-old male Singaporeans for their active libido [sad link here] has to put in his $3millon worth. Extracted below is Channelnewsasia's report on Ng Eng Hen's response to NMP Viswa Sadasivan maiden speech in parliament.

"Singapore and Singaporeans cannot afford to ape any model, but must choose or create a solution which is best suited to our nation."

Dr Ng added that the government had consistently presented a "frank accounting" of the realities facing the republic, and if the PAP government was corrupt or incompetent, it would be voted out.

Mr Viswa, in reply, said he had been misunderstood on some points. "I'm not saying that the government is stuffing ballot boxes or doing things that are unconstitutional," he said.

"I was highlighting a lingering perception that I sensed on the ground that politically it's not a level playing field, and if you don't address this, there'll be growing cynicism, especially among our youth, who choose to express their displeasure through angry postings on the Net, which is not useful," he added.

Mr Viswa also clarified that when calling for a repoliticisation of Singaporeans, what he envisaged was not riots on every street corner, but simply getting more people interested in politics. He said he believed this would help Singapore going forward.

And this came from the mighty MM: "We’re here today, we have this building, we have all these facilities, and all around us is evidence of our accountability. Without being accountable, we would not have been re-elected and there would have been no Singapore of today.” [link]

Just when will they stop their chest-thumping? It eats me up because we are here today not because of Lee Kuan Yew or Ng Eng Hen alone.

We are where we are today because:

We, the citizens of Singapore
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, language or religion,
to build a democratic society,
based on justice and equality,
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and
progress for our nation.

And we bloody well did our part by working hard (in whatever job/vocation we did/still do) to improve this land that we call home. And yes, I treat my Mat, Neh, Grago and cheena friends as my brothers with racial and religious sensitivity as we are sensitive souls who accept the funny labels that we give each other! Instead of aspiring, my Mat, Neh, Grago and Cheena friends whom I've grown up with have been doing and living the Pledge since we were playing marbles and huntam bola! In our tiny ways, though we joke about ourselves like Kumar does [link], we've done our part in making the Singapore what it is today. Please lah, it's the people, the citizens regardless of race, language or religion that make it! Without the co-operation and hardwork of its citizens, the government can't do squat!

So please be sensitive to the sensitivities of others. It's just not nice as a Cheena (in whatever high falutin postion one may be) to draw ill examples of other races to justify one's paid contribution to society.

In 1965, Lee Kuan Yew cried when a Malaysian Malaysia could not be a reality.

In 2009, a 58-year-old Singaporean choked when he heard that a Singaporean Singapore is just an Aspiration.

To every life, a little rain must fall.

My concern is whether Aspiration will end up as Expiration?

feedmetothefish

Is it Lightening Up or Bo Pian? (No Choice?)

They did one on Mr Brown, a full page in Straits Times.

Then, they did another on film-makers Martyn See, Seelan Palay and Ho Choon Hiong.

Wow! Or is it a case of "you ain't seen nothing yet?"

When was the green light given to give such exposure to these "activists" with such alternative thoughts and mindset? During the last National Day Rally?

Finally they've come to realise that: "You can't give that which does not belong to you". You do not have the freedom to give freedom. It's there. It's been there all the while. It's just that in Singapore, freedom of speech and expression has been hijacked 43 years ago and "fixed" in such a way that freedom is bad for Singapore. In their despotic minds, they figured that "freedom" should be replaced with fear of "money not enough' or "security not enough" and scare the shit out of them with "Pappy knows best"!

Or have they finally come to realise that:
You can screw all the people some of the time;
You can screw some of the people all the time;
But you can't screw all the people all of the time!

It's about time.

Well, they did not have a choice.

Bravo, at last, they have awakened to the idea that Singaporeans aren't that dumb after all.

I mean, just how arrogant and stupid can they get?

Meanwhile, enjoy this.

September 2008

Pressure Builds on Singapore’s System

by Hugo Restall

Posted on Sept. 5, 2008

During the National Day festivities last month, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s gloomy prognosis for the economy—a “bumpy year” ahead—was overshadowed by even more dire warnings that the city state is about to start running low on its main resource, people. With an aging society and one of the lowest fertility rates in the world at 1.29, the government is pulling out all the stops, doubling the budget of baby-making incentives to $1.13 billion. Meanwhile, in order to make Singapore a more tolerant and pluralistic place, political videos will be allowed, as well as protests in a downtown park.

It’s all straight from the ruling People’s Action Party’s standard playbook. Play up the anxiety of a small nation beset on all sides, in need of a strong government to take positive action to avert disaster. Individual citizens who are failing to live up to the expectations of society need to be brought back into line. At the same time, leaders are willing to give those citizens a few of their rights back, as long as they are not used to undermine harmony.

Since Mr. Lee took over the premiership in 2004, Singaporeans have been watching for any sign he plans to reform substantially the authoritarian state created by his father, Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. So far there has been little indication that in his heart the prime minister is a liberal democrat. But the system of control is coming under increasing stress due to the changing structure of society. A process of subtle change will continue to be driven by pressure from below, rather than a change of heart at the top.

Last month’s gestures far fall short of lifting what the opposition calls the climate of fear—past experience, such as the detention of former Solicitor General Francis Seow in 1988, suggests that retribution for challenging the PAP can come in many forms, from bureaucratic harassment to detention without trial under the Internal Security Act. The government is making a virtue out of necessity by lifting the 10-year-old ban on making or showing political films, and allowing political podcasts during election campaigns. Oppositionists were successfully skirting the restrictions, so that they only served to hamstring the PAP's own efforts to utilize online media. The opening of a protest area is a token gesture, which no doubt will be raised to deflect international criticism the next time police arrest dissident politician Chee Soon Juan for illegal assembly. In that sense, the move suggested that Mr. Chee’s campaign of civil disobedience is causing some heartburn within the regime.

But the real problem is not Mr. Chee—the stressors on Singapore’s political machine lie elsewhere. The PAP’s legitimacy has always rested on its performance, backed by trust in the party. Given its chaotic past and neighbors, Lee Kuan Yew argued, the tiny country could not afford the risks associated with liberal democracy. In the past that argument was largely taken at face value by the Chinese working class, despite the experiences of other Asian nations that contradicted it. Today, however, there is more apathy than agreement. No one seriously questions the PAP’s track record of governance or probity of its top leaders, yet trust is giving way to resentment at the party’s arrogance.

The main proof is in the erosion of the party’s share of the popular vote in elections. In 2006, it hit 66.6%, down from 75% in 2001, and 75.6% in 1980. In the past, opposition parties deliberately refrained from contesting more than half of the seats, since they found that while some Singaporeans wanted to cast a protest vote, they would not vote for the opposition if there was any chance the PAP would be thrown out of office. But in 2006, the opposition contest 47 of 84 seats, suggesting that the PAP’s hold on voters’ loyalty is not as fearsome as before.

Why is this? For one thing, Singaporeans are better versed in critical thinking. During the 1980s and '90s, people may have grown wealthy, but they remained politically unsophisticated. Development happened so quickly that it took decades for education levels to catch up. According to the government statistics, between 1990 and 2005 the percentage of the population with a university degree grew to 17% from 4.5%. That is matched by an even more dramatic shift in individual age cohorts—in 2005, 32.1% of 30-34 year olds had a university degree, as compared to just 6.6% of 50-54 year olds. The language spoken at home is now predominantly English, meaning that Singaporeans are increasingly able to learn about and interact with the outside world.

Moreover, the PAP has pushed the economic structure of the country in a direction that is no longer win-win for all classes. A certain amount of economic inequality is tolerable as long as there is a sense that everyone’s lives are improving. But inequality and real hardship are on the rise, as inflation running at 6.5% erases the 3.3% wage gains that the poorest tenth of the population enjoyed last year, even as the top tenth picked up an 11.1% increase in income. PAP loyalists control a lucrative web of government-linked companies, while ministers have also picked up big pay rises, since their salaries are indexed to the private sector, making them some of the world’s highest paid politicians. As for social mobility, the top scholarships, which are a ticket into the elite, increasingly go to students from wealthy families that live in private apartments, rather than public housing.

Despite this trend, the PAP is unwilling to dismantle its policies of holding wages low in order to attract multinational companies to invest. This was a strategy born of necessity in the 1960s, when Singapore was short of capital and struggling to catch up with Hong Kong’s model of creating an export-oriented growth. Today it is economically obsolete, yet it suits the government politically because the combination of state-owned companies and politically quiescent multinationals prevents the emergence of an independent commercial class that might push for political change.

The result is a top-down economy which is running up against the limits of its capacity to drive growth. Without an entrepreneurial class and successful home-grown companies, Singapore’s productivity growth has historically lagged behind that of its laissez-faire twin, Hong Kong. As University of Chicago economist Alwyn Young showed in a 1992 paper, Singapore had one of the lowest returns on physical capital in the world. Its growth has been fueled by forced savings programs shoveling ever increasing amounts of capital into the furnace, rather than by innovation or managerial efficiency.

Mr. Lee’s administration has found that the only way to defuse public dissatisfaction is to do something the PAP consistently condemned as the hallmark of Western democracies: Give away money. The government used to damn welfare as a dirty word, yet transfer spending is on the rise. This year, $2.1 billion in giveaways were planned. Then last month Mr. Lee announced a 50% increase, totaling $179.8 million, in utility rebates and “growth dividends”—cash payments to households that started in 2006. The new prime minister has brought in other social spending programs for the poor. For instance in the 2008 budget, the Ministry of Manpower’s expenditure rose by 184%, almost entirely due to a new scheme of workfare, the $306 million Income Security Policy Programme.

The pressure for more entitlements will only grow as retirees find that their savings do not provide enough of a cushion. The compulsory government-run Central Provident Fund sucked up a huge percentage of income to finance the state’s development goals, but offered dismally low returns. As a result, many of the generation that built the Singapore miracle now finds itself eking out a retirement in public housing while the government surpluses remain under the management of the PAP.

Beside the carrot, there is also a stick. Starting in 1985, the PAP began to warn voters that if they supported the opposition, their government-built apartment buildings would not get priority for maintenance. This was gradually refined to the point that in 1997, then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong explicitly campaigned on the promise that individual precincts would get housing renovation spending according to their votes. When the U.S. State Department condemned this as undemocratic, the interference of foreigners was used as another rallying cry.

Indeed, it seems that Singapore is increasingly cursed with the shortcomings of a democracy without enjoying the benefits. During the 2006 campaign, Prime Minister Lee inadvertently blurted out his fears of what would happen if there were more opposition members of parliament: “Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I’m going to spend all my time thinking what’s the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters’ votes….” Putting aside the ominous sound of “fixing” opponents, the remark was ironic because the PAP now expends so much effort to buy the support of the populace with giveaways, all in order to avoid the transparency and accountability that a vibrant opposition would bring.

Some younger Singaporeans with skills respond to this by voting with their feet, moving abroad to find greater freedom and a higher standard of living working with the kind of entrepreneurial companies that Singapore has yet to create. In order to eventually win some of them back, the possibility of recognizing dual nationality is increasingly discussed, a move that would represent a huge concession for a nation-building party that demands self-reliance and sacrifice of its citizenry.

In the place of the émigrés, foreign workers are flooding in to man the factories, docks and construction sites, as the government steadily opens the doors wider. Foreign workers already account for more than one million of the total population of 4.6 million. Among the immigrants are talented individuals like the Chinese table tennis players who provided the country with its first Olympic medal last month. But they lack the loyalty to the country that the PAP has put a premium on.

If Singapore were a plural democracy, it would no doubt have developed an independent civil society capable of binding together the native-born and immigrants, providing mutual support. But the PAP and Lee Kuan Yew are like the African baobab tree, whose spreading canopy hogs the sun and prevents other trees from growing up underneath. Such a society may be easier to control, but it is also alienated and rootless, jealous of others’ gains—the oft-quoted national characteristic, kiasu, literally means “fear of losing.” In a developed economy that depends on attracting and retaining creative individuals, this has become a significant handicap.

The arrogance of the winners in society is becoming a major issue. The elder Mr. Lee’s ego is legendary, but given his accomplishments it is perhaps understandable. When his minions take on similar airs, however, it is a different story. In one extreme example two years ago, a furor erupted after the daughter of MP Wee Siew Kim used her blog to berate a man afraid of losing his job as “one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country” who should “get out of my elite uncaring face.” To make matters worse, Mr. Wee tried to defend her remarks.

Naturally the PAP is aware of these trends and that its monopoly on power has become an important issue in itself. Over the years it has tried to come up with mechanisms for citizens to register their complaints and blow off steam. The government no longer seeks to destroy all opposition, leaving alone and even praising those tame MPs who focus on constituents’ issues rather than the PAP’s system of social control. Yet ultimately there is no solution to this problem, since the party is unwilling to share power in any meaningful sense.

A siege mentality has been the hallmark of Singaporean politics for four decades, often with good justification given hostile neighboring governments to the north and south. Yet it is increasingly hard today to see how that anxiety can be justified and maintained. The generation now coming onto the political scene grew up in at least moderate prosperity, and may not be so easily bullied into voting for the PAP. It is eager to put down roots and create a civil society. So far the PAP has finessed this aspiration without compromising its control.

Prime Minister Lee can afford to be sanguine for now, with the security apparatus, corporatist economy and civil service all at his command. Yet if this economic downturn worsens, he will be confronted with a more difficult choice of whether to accede to demands for greater pluralism. As academic Michael Haas once wrote, “Whenever the public exercises the independence of thought that better education brings, ‘a danger to be nipped in the bud’ or some similar cliché is articulated as the basis for repression.” It bears remembering that the laws like the Internal Security Act that have been used in past such exercises remain on the books. If pushed too hard, Lee Hsien Loong still has the means to prove he is his father’s son.

Psychopath with an anti social personality disorder?

Or is he?

"I've had several of my own doctors who are familiar with such conduct . . . tell me that he is a near psychopath", Lee Kuan on on Chee Soon Juan.

'Today one cannot help but conclude that the trailblazer is more a sputtering meteor, and perhaps one with an anti-social personality disorder", ST Political Editor Chua Mui Hoong on Chee Soon Juan.






After watching the videos above, I guess reasonably sane people will not agree with Lee Kuan Yew's and Chua Lee Hoong's perception of Dr Chee Soon Juan as a nut case.

For almost 2 decades, I have never seen or read of the mainstream media putting Chee Soon Juan in a good light. If he was not condemned, he was totally ignored. His recent party's alternative National Healthcare Plan [Link] and other ideas were shunned and never brought up for discussion by the msm. Considering the NATCON that is supposed to hear from citizens to make their lives better, isn't it a waste that such ideas from Prof Thambyah and CSJ and his team are silenced?

Chee Soon Juan is neither Nelson Mendela nor Aung San Suu Kyi. However, he's definitely not what LKY and Chua Mui Hoong describe him to be. Instead of "a sputtering meteor, and perhaps one with an anti-social personality disorders"  is it time that out of the ashes, a phoenix rises?

Glad as I am that Chee Soon Juan will be discharged from bankruptcy, I'll still worry that the power that is will throw him another curved ball to prevent him from competing in the next general election. Let's wait and see.

Meanwhile, I'm amused that the way Straits Times is still milking Amy Cheong to keep the NATCON going!  Page D2 and D3 of Saturday's Insight of ST, "The Race Issue - Different Shades Of Grey" reported "Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Ms Cheong's comments were totally unacceptable". Dear honourable PM, just where were you when your dad said/wrote that Muslims in Singapore cannot integrate with the rest of us? Was his comments acceptable to you? If not, why wasn't your finger and that of your other ministers as fast on the trigger as you shot Amy Cheong for her indiscretion, stupidity, racism or whatever?

Maybe "Justice and Equality" as stated in our National Pledge is nothing more than an 'aspiration' as stated by the PM's father. Or is it a song and dance to pull wool over the eyes of the faithful Singaporeans? If there were justice and equality in Singapore, LKY should be fried or torn asunder like Amy Cheong was by PAP Ministers and the mainstream media for her insensitivity to the sensitivity of fellow citizens!

However, in trying to protect the sensitivity of some, I'm sad to note that the power that is is messing up the sensitivity of others. After Amy Cheong's incident, the Media Development Authority decided to ban Ken Kwek's "Sex.Violence.Family-Values". Unless we are ready to lighten up and not be 'pap'politically correct all the time, we are nothing but "daft digits" controlled by the "pappolitically correct"! Wake up, have fun and let's start to smell the roses and laugh some!



I guess reasonably sane people would laugh and not be offended by Kumar's performance. If so, why ban Ken Kwek's work?

Is Ken Kwek the same young Ken who was fried by LKY for asking a pertinent question that riled the old man a few year ago?

If so, I'd appreciate if my readers who know will enlighten me.

Thank you.

feedmetothefish

Truth Hurts!

And it touched the raw nerves of the Old Man and got him going. . . . . . . . to the extent of belittling a new NMP.

So the National Pledge is nothing more than a high faluting - pompous; bombastic; haughty; pretentious "aspiration".

Poor Mr Rajaratnam must be turning in his grave.

We, the citizens of Singapore
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, language or religion,
to build a democratic society,
based on justice and equality,
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and
progress for our nation.

The citizens pledge but the government aspires . . .

Isn't that interesting?

To MM and PAP, the National Pledge is just an aspiration? And they had the temerity to do it on National Day in front of the TV and whole wide world?

Aspiration . . . WTF is that? Breathing? Hope? Goal? Ambition?

Isn't a Pledge a solemn promise or agreement to do or refrain from doing something?

So now we know the Pledge means nothing because it conflicts with our Constitution?

A case of meaningless "chui kong lumpar song*" for the past 4 decades?
*Translated from Hokkien: Mouth speaks, testicles titillates.

I do not see why MM had to interrupt his newspaper reading and physiotherapy [read below] and choked on Viswa's maiden speech. Read the speech [here], put your hand on heart, and pray tell is there malice in Viswa's speech? What's so 'false', 'flawed' or 'untrue' as claimed by MM?

Or is the MM annoyed and hurt by the naked truth of Viswa's maiden speech?

In the typical LKY style, Viswa got an earful (including a lesson in Sinda and his Indian ancestry). In his own way, "to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation", Viswa has spoken the truth which I and many appreciate.

It's interesting to note that they have had enough of Siew Kum Hong's truths and they threw him out. Now they have to deal with a new thorn - Viswa Sadasivan.

I am grateful to Viswa for living and doing the Pledge instead of 'aspiring'. You have done what my MP (whom I did not vote for) would never dream of doing. Please accept my sincere appreciation for taking the road less traveled and tell it like it is. Please keep up the good work! Your parents and those who love you will worry for you (as the great-grandma of my grandchild does) but truth will always prevail!

Truth hurts only those who are not truthful and insincere.

So is Viswa or MM high falutin?

Your answer is as good as mine :)

feedmetothefish

____________________________________________________________________

Dangerous to let highfalutin ideas go undemolished: MM

Edited transcript of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's rebuttal of NMP Viswa Sadasivan. -ST

Thu, Aug 20, 2009
The Straits Times

SIR, I had not intended to intervene in any debate. I was doing physiotherapy just now and reading the newspapers and I thought I should bring the House back to earth.

Mr Rajaratnam had great virtues in the midst of despondency after a series of race riots when we were thrown out of Malaysia. Our Malays in Singapore were apprehensive that now that we (Chinese) were the majority, we (Chinese) would in turn treat them the way a Malay majority (in Malaysia) treated us. He drafted these words and rose above the present. He was a great idealist. His draft came to me; I trimmed out the unachievable, and the Pledge as it stands is his work after I've trimmed it. What is it? An ideology? No, it's an aspiration. Will we achieve it? I do not know. We'll have to keep on trying. Are we a nation? In transition.

Sir, reference was made to the Constitution. The Constitution of Singapore enjoins us to specially look after the position of the Malays and other minorities. Article 152 says: 'Minorities and Special Position of Malays. It shall be the responsibility of the Government constantly to care for the interests of the racial and religious minorities in Singapore. The Government shall exercise its functions in such manner as to recognise the special position of the Malays who are the indigenous people of Singapore and, accordingly, it should be the responsibility of the Government to protect, safeguard, support, foster, promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social and cultural interests and the Malay language.'

And on Muslim religion, Article 153: 'The Legislature shall by law make provision for regulating Muslim religious affairs and for constituting a council to advise the President in matters of the Muslim religion.'

Our Constitution states expressly that it is a duty of the Government not to treat everybody as equal. It's not reality, it's not practical, it will lead to grave and irreparable damage if we work on that principle.

So the Pledge was an aspiration. As Malays have progressed and more have joined the middle class with university degrees and professional qualifications, we have asked Mendaki to ask them to agree not to have their special rights of free education at university, but to take the fees they were entitled to and use the money to help more disadvantaged Malays.

So we're trying to reach a position where there is a level playing field for everybody but it's going to take decades, if not centuries, and we may never get there.

Now let me read the American Constitution. The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, reads: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' That's 1776.

The US Constitution passed a few years later says: 'We, the people of the United States' (this is the preamble) 'in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings and liberties to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States.'

Nowhere does it say that the blacks would be differently treated. But the blacks did not get the vote until many decades later. Racial segregation was not ended until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s with Martin Luther King and his famous We Dare To Dream speech. Enormous riots took place and eventually, then President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. From 1776, it was more than 200 years before an exceptional half-black American became President.

My colleague (Nominated MP Viswa Sadasivan) says we are trying to put square pegs into round holes. Will we ever make the pegs the same? No. You suggest to the Malays that we abolish the (Article 152) provisions in the Constitution, you will have grave disquiet. We start on the basis that this is reality: We will not be able to get a Chinese minister or an Indian minister to persuade Malay parents to look after their daughters more carefully and not have teenage pregnancies which lead to failed marriages. Can a Chinese MP or an Indian MP do that? The Malays will say to him: 'You're interfering in my private life.' But we (the Government) have funded Mendaki and Muis (Islamic Religious Council of Singapore), and they have a committee to try and reduce the numbers of such delinquents.

The way that Singapore has made progress is by a realistic step-by-step approach. It may take us centuries before we get to a similar position as the Americans. They go to wars, the blacks and the whites together. In the World War I, the blacks did not carry arms, they carried the ammo, they were not given the honour to fight. In World War II, they went back, these ex-GIs - those who could make it to university were given the GI grants - they went back to their black ghettos and stayed there. Today there are still black ghettos.

These are the realities. The American Constitution does not say that you will treat blacks differently but our Constitution spells out the duty of the Government to treat Malays and other minorities with extra care.

So the basis on which the NMP has placed his argument is false and flawed. It's completely untrue, it's got no basis whatsoever. I thought to myself, perhaps I should bring this House back to earth and remind everybody what our starting point is. If we don't recognise where we started from, we will fail.

Nobody can speak with the knowledge that I have; I knew the circumstances in which the Pledge was made. I admire the sentiments of Mr Raja. In August 1965, my worry was, what would the Malays in Singapore do, now that they knew they were a minority? When I returned on Aug9, on the advice of our Special Branch, I did not go back to my house. I stayed at Sri Temasek (in the Istana), which was my official residence. I stayed there for one week, then I went to Changi Cottage and stayed there for two months to make sure that everything subsided.

These are realities. Today, 44 years later, we have a Malay community, I believe, at peace, convinced that we are not discriminating against them, convinced that we are including them in our society.

NMP Viswa used to work in Sinda. I'm told for 10 years. He will know Indians are not equal. Brahmins will not be in Sinda. It is the non-Brahmins who are in Sinda. So I think it is dangerous to allow such highfalutin ideas to go undemolished and mislead Singapore.

Is Salah Tin Pailin Salah?

It's been many weeks since a police report was made against Tin Peh Lin [Link] on what happened to her facebook on "Cooling Off Day".

Is the law in SIngapore working? Is justice at work? Why was there such a whole shebang on James Gomes five years ago and not a whimper on Tin Pei Lin in the main stream media today? They were snapping away at the Opposition then. Why are they so quiet on PAP now?

If we know history like we know history, I think there will not be even a case against Pei Lin, She won't be caught 'salah'! It is difficult, very difficult for MIW to be 'salah'. I remember the case of Lee Hsien Loong, Goh Chok Tong and Tony Tan at a polling station at Cheng San where WP and SDP claimed that they were not supposed to be. Workers' Party made a police report but the AG then reported to the Law Minister and the whole incident did not see much of the light of day except here.

Alas, now we know why Lee Kuan Yew said that our national pledge, "To build a democratic society based on justice and equality" is nothing but an aspiration! As much as this video touches more on racial equality, I think we wish to see justice and equality for all, regardless of race, language, religion and, more so, political affiliation. white or otherwise.

Going through the letter from the AG to the Law Minister [below], let's not be surprised if we hear nothing more from the heat generated from the 'Cooling Day' by Salah Tin Pailin.

A precedent has been set more than a decade ago.

feedmetothefish

Unauthorised persons inside polling stations: Attorney General's letter

Text of a letter from Singapore's attorney general to law minister S. Jayakumar on the presence of unauthorised persons inside polling stations. The minister summarised the attorney general's opinion when he replied to a query in parliament from non-constituency MP and Workers' Party chief J. B. Jeyaretnam July 30.

The Workers' Party had complained to the police that Mr Goh Chok Tong, Dr Tony Tan and Brigadier-General (NS) Lee Hsien Loong had been inside a Cheng San GRC polling station on Polling Day.

But the Public Prosecutor recently advised the police that the PAP leaders had not broken the law.

21 Jul 97

Prof S Jayakumar

Minister for Law

PRESENCE OF UNAUTHORISED PERSONS INSIDE POLLING STATIONS

On 14 July l997, THE Workers' Party issued a press release expressing "amazement" that the public prosecutor had advised police that no offence was disclosed in the reports made by it leaders against the prime minister, the two deputy prime ministers and Dr S Vasoo that they had been present inside polling stations when they were not candidates for the relevant constituencies. The Workers' Party queried why such conduct was not an offence under paragraph (d) or (e) of section 82(1) of the Parliamentary Elections Act.

2. On 15 July 1997, the Singapore Democratic Party also called on the attorney general to explain his "truly befuddling" decision and to state clearly if it was an offence for unauthorised persons to enter polling stations.

3. You have asked me for my formal opinion on the question raised in these two statements. My opinion is set out below.

Opinion

4. The question is whether it is an offence under the Parliamentary Elections Act for an unauthorised person to enter and be present in a polling station.

5. For this purpose, the authorised persons are the candidates, the polling agent or agents of each candidate, the Returning Officer, and persons authorised in writing by the returning officer, the police officers on duty and other persons officially employed at the polling station; see section 39 (4) of the Act (quoted below)

Activities Outside Polling Stations

6. The relevant sections of the Parliamentary Elections Act to be considered are sections 82 (1)(d) and 82 (1)(e). These provisions were enacted m 1959 pursuant to the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Corrupt, Illegal or Undesirable Practices at Elections, Cmd 7 of 1968 (hereinafter called "the Elias Report)"

7. Section 82 (1)(d) provides that - "No person shall wait outside any polling station on polling day, except for the purpose of gaining entry to the polling station to cast his vote".

8. Plainly, persons found waiting inside the polling stations do not come within the ambit of this section. Similarly, those who enter or have entered the polling station cannot be said to be waiting outside it. Only those who wait outside the polling station commit an offence under this section unless they are waiting to enter the polling station to cast their votes.

9. Section 82 (1)(e) provides that -

"No person shall loiter in any street or public place within a radius of 200 metres of any polling station on polling day."

10. The relevant question is whether any person who is inside a polling station can be sad to be "within a radius of 200 metres of any polling station". The answer to this question will also answer any question on loitering inside a polling station.

11. Plainly, a person inside a polling station cannot be said to be within a radius of 200 metres of a polling station. A polling station must have adequate space for the voting to be carried out. Any space has a perimeter. The words "within a radius of 200 metres" ' therefore mean "200 metres from the perimeter of" any polling station. This point is illustrated in the diagrams in the Appendix. (Editor's note: Diagrams not available).

12. The above interpretation is fortified by the context of the provision. The polling station, as a place, is distinguished from a street or public place. It is not a street or a public place. Hence, being inside a polling station cannot amount to being in a street or in a public place. By parity of reasoning, loitering in a street or public place cannot possibly include loitering in the polling station itself and vice versa.

13. There is no ambiguity in section 82 (1)(e). If the legislature had intended to make it an offence for unauthorised persons to wait or loiter inside a polling station, it could have easily provided for it. It did not. The mischief that section 82 (1)(e) is intended to address is found in paragraph 99 of the Elias Report. It reads:

"In order to prevent voters being made subject to my form of undue influence or harassment at the approaches to polling stations, we recommend that it should be made an offence for any person to establish any desk or table near the entrance to any polling station, or to wait outside any polling station on polling day except for the purpose of gaining entry into the polling station to cast his vote; and that it should be an offence for any person to loiter in any street or public place within a radius of 200 yards of any polling station on polling day ."

14 . Paragraph 99 of the Elias Report appears under the heading "Activity OUTSIDE POLLING STATIONS". The Commission of Inquiry was addressing the possibility of voters being subject to undue influence and harassment as they approach the polling stations. There is therefore no doubt whatever that this provision was never intended to cover any activity inside the polling station as there would be officials and election agents in attendance.

15. The legislative history makes the provision so clear that it is not even necessary to consider the application of an established principle of interpretation that any ambiguity in a penal provision should, whenever possible, be resolved favour of the accused.

Activities Inside Polling Stations

16 Activities inside polling stations were made subject to a different regime under the Act. Section 39(4) provides that -

"the presiding officer shall keep order in his station and shall regulate the number of voters to be admitted a time, and shall exclude all other persons except the polling agent or agents of each candidate, the Returning Officer and persons authorised in writing by the Returning Officer, the police officers on duty and other persons officially employed at the polling station."

17. Under section 39(7), any person who misconducts himself in the polling station, or fails to obey the lawful orders of the presiding officer may be removed from the polling station by a police officer acting under the orders of the presiding officer. If an unauthorised person refuses to leave the polling station when told to do so by the public officer, he commits an offence under section 186 of the Penal Code for obstructing a public servant in the discharge of his duty.

18. There is a consistency in the rationales of the regulatory schemes governing activities inside and those outside polling stations on election day. Waiting outside a polling station is made an offence because it gives rise to opportunities to influence or intimidate voters: see paragraph 99 of the Elias Report. Hence, the Act has provided a safety zone which stretches outwards for 200 metres from the polling station. In contrast, the possibility of a person inside a polling station influencing or intimidating voters in the presence of the presiding officer and his officials, the polling agents etc was considered so remote that it was discounted by the Act.

19. I therefore confirm my opinion that the Parliamentary Elections Act does not provide for any offence of unauthorised entry into or presence within a polling station. Accordingly, those unauthorised persons who only wait or loiter inside a polling station on polling day do not commit any offence under the Act.

20. You are at liberty to publish this opinion.

Signed:

Chan Sek Keong

Attorney General.

"Exceptionalism" is to Ignore, Rebut or Engage?

Chua Mui Hoong, Senior Writer of Straits Times wrote this in "In defence of Singapore exceptionalism" on Friday, 6 Nov 2009.

"THERE are three ways to respond to critics: ignore them, rebut them or engage them.

For a long time, the Singapore Government's preferred response to criticisms levelled at the Republic's civil-political milieu has been to ignore them. Some ministers with a more combative nature - notably Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew - have chosen to rebut them robustly. Few have done the critics the honour of actually looking at their views and engaging them publicly.

Law Minister and Second Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam did so, as did Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, during the recent meeting of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) International Section in Singapore."

Law is law and we should respect the law of the land.

I have always respected Singapore Law until I read of how the Attorney General of Singapore in 1997, Chan Sek Keong wrote a letter to the then Law Minister of how law can be so cleverly interpreted. The issue was The Workers Party had complained to the police that Goh Chok Tong, Lee Hsien Loong and Tony Tan had been inside a Cheng San GRC polling station on Polling Day. [Link] After reading this story way back then, I have come to conclude that we have laws in Singapore that can be quite weird. It depends on who is interpreting it.

I wonder why Shanmugum, the current Law Mintster did not do the honour of engaging the IBA on this [Link] - International Bar Association Human Rights Report July 2008 on Singapore. To engage Reporters Sans Frontiers (which ranked Singapore's press freedom at 133) but to ignore IBA is "exceptional" indeed.

Ignore, rebut or engage? What the difference?

In trying to make Singapore 'unique' we now have the new term, 'exceptional'!

What is "Exceptionalism"?

• When Chan Sek Keong wrote in 1997, "There is a consistency in the rationales of the regulatory schemes governing activities inside and those outside polling stations on election day. Waiting outside a polling station is made an offence because it gives rise to opportunities to influence or intimidate voters: see paragraph 99 of the Elias Report. Hence, the Act has provided a safety zone which stretches outwards for 200 metres from the polling station. In contrast, the possibility of a person inside a polling station influencing or intimidating voters in the presence of the presiding officer and his officials, the polling agents etc was considered so remote that it was discounted by the Act." That's "Exceptionalism". I think a person may not be intimidating but to have the current SM, PM and former DPM in the same room where you put your cross on a voting slip can be quite "exceptional"!
  

• When MM said that the 'National Pledge' is just a high falutin' 'Aspiration', that's "Exceptionalism"!

• When Shanmugum said Singapore is not a Country but a mere City in defending government's restriction on press and other freedom, that's "Exceptionalism"!

Rule of law?
Rule by law?
Ruler's law? or
Lawyers rule?

In SinCity, who knows?

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Based on Justice and Equality?

Right is right and wrong is wrong. Or is it?

Sistic got fooked, I mean fined, so did some modeling agencies for price fixing.

Is taxi company like ComfortDelgro (part of NTUC?) capable of price fixing? Who knows?

Interrupting his physiotherapy, Lee Kuan Yew said in Parliament [Youtube Link] that our National Pledge is nothing but an aspiration. If that is so, is justice and equality in Singapore just an aspiration?

Different folks . . . different strokes!

Do we do the time for our crime?

Or do we only get punished for who we are not and who we are not affiliated to?

But what is criminal in Singapore? Could it be a 'noisy cowboy' [Link] who blogs with heart?

Read the following and you may have a thought worth pondering.

In the 80's, the so-called Marxists Conspirators including Vincent Cheng and Teo Soh Lung [Link] were detained under ISA.

"SINGAPORE: The Internal Security Department (ISD) has arrested an ex-lecturer whom it said had made plans to pursue "militant jihad" in Afghanistan. Abdul Basheer s/o Abdul Kader, 28, was arrested in February this year, said a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) statement on Friday. He is a "self-radicalised Singaporean", said the statement." [Link] This happened in 2007.

As recent as last year, 20-year-old full-time NSman Muhammad Fadil Abdul Hamid was detained under ISA for being "self-radicalised" [Link]

Just who the fook (in ISD or anywhere else) decides who deserves to be detained and who does not? Just who deserve the slammer, solitary confinement and torture? [Link]

With the sensitive race/religion hullabaloo on Jason Neo, Christian Eliab Ratnam and Donaldson Tan, I wonder the outcome and fate of the 3 facebookists? For what they did, will they end up like Muhammad Fadil Abdul Hamid and/or Abdul Basheer s/o Abdul Kader?

Or will they end up with just a slap on the wrist just because it's been claimed that someone said that Islam is a "venomous religion" [Link].

So does Justice and Equality apply to Who We Are and Who We Are Affiliated To . . . or What We Did? (or did not do as in the Marxists' Conspiracy?)

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