Singapore, the world’s 20th biggiest arms exporter

Posted on March 21, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘S’pore 20 in weapons exports’, 21 March 2013, article by Hoe Pei Shan, ST

SINGAPORE is now the world’s 20th biggest arms exporter, having jumped 11 places in a year, new figures for last year reveal. Think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) found the volume of exports of major conventional weapons from Singapore leapt from a trend-indicator value (TIV) of 12 million in 2011 to 76 million. TIV is a common unit created by Sipri and, although based on the known unit production costs of a core set of arms, it is not representative of the financial value of the transfer.

…Sipri’s arms trade database is put together with information culled mainly from governments, the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms and military trade publications. It shows Singapore’s recent exports include a £150 million (S$286 million) delivery of 115 Broncos (armoured personnel carriers) to Britain for its troops in Afghanistan and 10 to Thailand. An Endurance amphibious assault landing ship was also sold to Thailand in a $200 million deal and delivered last year. Singapore also made sizeable deliveries to Africa, selling six light helicopters to Chad and two patrol craft to Nigeria.

…Sipri data also shows Singapore remained the world’s fifth largest arms importer, securing 4 per cent of the global arms imports from 2008 to last year just as it did from 2007 to 2011.

The weapons-maker in question here is ST Kinetics, of ST Engineering. If you visit the ST Engg website, however, it doesn’t seem that they’re selling tanks, machine guns and other toys for crazy militant dictators. They specialise in ‘products and capabilities’, to provide customers with an ‘integrated force structure’, as a ‘reliable technology partner’ to local and overseas military ‘customers’. You’d think from such descriptions that they deal with radio equipment or satellite dishes, when the real money spinners are machines that either kill people or prevent them from getting killed.

Interestingly, this multi-billion dollar arms-trading conglomerate is partly owned by Temasek Holdings. The workshop which produces this gamut of weaponry calls itself the ‘Advanced Material Engineering’ Office, located at the aptly titled Rifle Range Road. That’s like calling the arsenal in the Matrix movies Toys R’ Us. I wonder if there are rebel child soldiers somewhere in darkest Africa carrying ‘Made in Singapore’ grenade launchers. There are already countries as far away as Latin America using our very own SAR21 as we speak, but the problem with being a producer of top quality guns, especially one with rave reviews like our SAR21, is that more people will want to give it a shot, be they actual armies, rogue paramilitia or loony gun enthusiasts with a licence to kill.

For a country so tight on security and still bans firecrackers, we’re shamelessly ingenious in our weapons development and export. In 1983, the Singapore Technology Corporation unveiled a GPMG (machine gun), a pod (containing 2 machine guns) for aircraft, and a commando mortar. That same year, CIS (Chartered Industries of Singapore), the precursor of ST Engg, celebrated 15 years of beefing up our armed forces with ‘quality products’ like the Ultimax 100 Semi Automatic Weapon and SAR 80 Assault rifle, both having won ‘world acceptance’. CIS was also incidentally the first ever government-linked company, established in 1967 for the sole purpose of manufacturing bullets.  These days, they don’t just produce ‘ammo’ anymore, but a ‘platform that carries and delivers payload‘. And what a payload indeed.

In 2008, the company boasted earnings of $115 million from 3 contracts, UK, Norway and an ‘unnamed Middle Eastern customer’. In that year alone, they reported 5 BILLION earned revenues. In 2009, they won a near 700 million dollar contract from the US Army selling rugged laptops among other equipment. Other recipients of our innovative ‘defence products’ include Chad, Indonesia and Nigeria, among other top secret customers kept on a tight lid. War is big business, and the last thing a company like ST Engg wants to see is feuding countries offering each other olive branches and group hugs. Arms makers will go bankrupt in a world where everybody ‘gives peace a chance’ and wouldn’t be global success stories if not for terrorist networks spurring militant governments into gearing up for cycle after cycle of needless violence. Thank you God of War for keeping us at the forefront of ‘technology’ and ‘advanced engineering’. The world definitely needs more ‘smart bombs’ and ugly tanks than, I dunno, robotics to mobilise the paralysed, or ‘magic bullets’ to treat malignant disease.

The secret to becoming a successful arms giant, then, is to give yourself a brand that sounds as innocuous as possible, and portray your ‘suite’ of products as ‘defence solutions’ and ‘delivery systems’ rather than harbingers of death. It’s like calling a company that makes and sells land mines Twinkle Toes Industries. Oh did I say land mines? I mean ‘improvised explosive devices’ (Thanks to commenter JayF for expertly explaining the difference, perhaps ‘area denial munitions’?)

 

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Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, 2013, Army, Money, Violence | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Satanic soldier having sex with 11 year old cousin

Posted on March 12, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Soldier jailed for sex with two minors; told one minor that he was a Satanist’, 12 March 2013, article by Elena Chong, ST.

A 21-year-old army regular was jailed for 20 months on Tuesday for having sex with two minors. Neither the accused nor the two girls, then aged 15 and 11, can be named as there is a gag order. A district court heard that he was initially given a 12-month conditional warning for having sex with his girlfriend, aged 15, at his home in November 2008. He was then 17. The girl, now 19, became pregnant and underwent an abortion.

He breached the condition of the warning to remain crime-free for the next 12 months by committing similar offences. This time, he preyed on his 11-year-old cousin. Claiming that he was a “Satanist”, he told her in October 2009 that since she was the first person to touch him, she must have sex with him or else “Satan” would “come after her”.

The girl became disturbed and later on, began to believe him as she started seeing “figures” in her bedroom. She was often scolded by her mother and she attributed the incidents of “bad luck” to the fact that she did not have sex with the accused.

Satanism is one way to use alleged powers of the occult to frighten gullible girls into sex, but the Horned One and the blood rituals committed in his honour have gone out of fashion in recent decades, which makes the victim’s fear of the Prince of Darkness rather surprising. Telling a kid horrific stories about Satan these days is as good as wriggling your fingers in a creepy fashion and summoning the Boogeyman. Parents no longer use scare tactics to send children to bed or ‘be good..or else’, when sometimes the threat of imaginary monsters may be more effective than a stern wagging finger and ‘rationalising’ with a brat who refuses to let go of your iPad.

There seems to be a trend of boys taking liberties with evil deities to deceive innocent girls. A certain ‘John’ fell into a trance in order to make girls succumb as he channeled Yan Luo Wang, the Chinese God of Hell back in 2011. Just earlier this month, Simon Wong Choy Chuan pretended to be possessed by ghosts whilst chanting and speaking in a different voice, calling himself ‘Gasura’, which sounds more like Godzilla’s bumbling arch nemesis than an embodiment of pure evil. For his theatrics he got 5 girls to submit to him, his hisses, fits and sputters probably more convincing than any of the professional actors on Channel 5′s Incredible Tales. But even blessed angels and saints aren’t spared from lecherous pretenders. You have fake monks ripping you off your ‘donations’ and priests touching boys where they shouldn’t be touching. If drawing inspiration from the pits of hell doesn’t work, there’s always the other side of the ‘supernatural’ to turn to.

The ‘medium con’ was first brought into public awareness by the shocking trial of serial rapist-killer Adrian Lim, who was an ‘ardent believer of the goddess Kali’. In 1983, he related to the courts how he SOMERSAULTED and rolled to the front of an altar, mimicking the ‘voice of an old man’. But it’s not just playing a vessel for spirit possession that makes people piss their pants. Conversely, you may trick someone into sex by convincing her that she herself is the one who needs a special brand of ‘exorcism’, taking ‘sexual healing’ to gruesome extremes. Lying alone is useless without a little persuasion, authority, plenty of charisma, and perhaps some gravity defying acrobatics for authenticity. You also have to choose your avatar wisely. It would be embarrassing to channel Hades, mythic Ruler of the Underworld and get a blank stare instead of reluctant undressing.

As customary as it is to symphatise with any victim of such a ruse, you’d have to wonder what good a little common sense and skepticism could do to save a child, or even an ADULT for that matter, from trouble. We teach our kids how to solve complex Maths problems but fail in our duty to protect them from malicious superstition or predators. Even if you’re the sort to be fooled by eyeball rolling and scary gibberish, at least ask yourself what our army is doing letting these wild, incestuous Satanists serve the country, what with their blood rite nonsense and heavy metal music and all. Let’s see what the Dark Lord has in store in return for this follower desecrating a nubile and blood relative like a good Satanist should. A hot tub in hell would be well deserved.

Filed under: 1980s, 2013, Army, Justice system/Lawsuits, Kids, Religion, Sex, Superstitions, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Bullying recruits the only good thing about army sergeant’s job

Posted on February 14, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘SAF investigating allegations on Facebook comments’, 14 Feb 2013, Channel News Asia

The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) said it has begun investigations into allegations that a third sergeant had boasted about being able to vent his anger on recruits. The third sergeant is believed to have posted the comments on Facebook four days ago.

Screen grabs — believed to have been taken off his Facebook page — have been making their rounds on the internet. When contacted, SAF said it cannot comment further, as investigations are under way.

Angry 3SG

I thought this was sourced from the SAF Confessions Facebook page, but those are supposedly anonymous, protected and moderated. It’s not clear from this post HOW this guy shows his anger, so it’s rather premature to accuse him of recruit abuse unless it involves physical battering or ear pulling. Maybe he just hurled some vulgarities, stomped his feet or slammed some doors. If you look closer at the text, you’ll see that he’s vague on the source of the anger (‘show my anger when I’m pissed…at the recruits’). He could be pissed with an unrelated personal matter, or pissed off AT the recruits. So ‘venting his anger’, which suggests the former, may not be the accurate term to use here.

Anyone in the position of authority would be naturally inclined to bully, or ‘tekan’ others on a bad day if given the chance. Some teachers, for example, would threaten to sodomise you with a bat if you’re cheeky. But unlike proper professions that invoke authority and mentorship such as educators, nuns or doctors, the role of a sergeant in the army is mainly of command and control. As one who’s been through his own share of verbal abuse during NS, there’s no ‘code of conduct’ among army specialists to speak of, and you won’t lose your ‘job’ if you spend half a day ordering your boys to carry a locker up and down the stairs just for the heck of it. The trick, perhaps, is to act like you’re in foul mood on a permanent basis, so that we can’t tell the difference if you’re teaching us a lesson or your girlfriend just ditched you for another guy because you’re such a angry bastard outside of camp anyway.

Like most viral Facebook screengrabs, I believe this incident has been blown out of proportion. People exploit and abuse each other everyday without being reported about it. Your boss doesn’t approve your leave because his wife rejected sex. Your teacher calls you ‘stupid’ when she’s having her period. Your orientation camp leader makes you do push ups on top of girls you hardly know for no damn reason. It’s even harder to remain ‘professional’ when you’re a 3SG serving your time like the rest of your recruits. This guy got picked on because abuse in the army is a particularly sensitive issue, in fear of causing accidental death, psychological damage or worse, suicide. He also chose to voice what most guys in his position secretly relish inside. At the risk of vengeance attacks, notwithstanding.

The SAF Confessions page contains far worse, explicit depictions of abuse and juvenile tomfoolery if they to be believed. A pissed off sergeant would take a shit on your bed, for example.

Screen Shot 2013-02-14 at 9.59.04 PM

Figures of authority are not spared the wrath of their charges though. Some underlings ejaculate into their officer’s coffee.

Screen Shot 2013-02-14 at 10.19.24 PM

The army sure does crazy, extreme things to the mind, having to subject oneself to an atmosphere of regimented violence, confinement and blind obedience. I don’t see this going anywhere beyond a counselling session and maybe extra weekend duties at most, but my advice to this guy is to keep a really close watch on his canteen and coffee mug from now on.

Filed under: 2013, Army, Violence | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

We do duty, they pay a duty

Posted on February 14, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘MP moots defence tax on foreigners who don’t serve NS’, 14 Feb 2013, article by Amir Hussain, Today

…In his Facebook post early yesterday, MP Hri Kumar Nair proposed to impose additional income and property tax on PRs and foreigners via a “National Defence Duty”, to address “a current imbalance”.

Pointing to the “sacrifice all Singaporean males make” in serving NS, Mr Nair argued that there is also “a significant economic cost we pay”, as he cited men lagging two years behind in terms of career prospects, pay and job experience, among others.

“The thing is everyone living in Singapore benefits from this sacrifice — including PRs and foreigners,” he said. “In short, we do duty, they pay a duty. The rationale is simple — since PRs and foreigners cannot contribute manpower to our SAF and Home Team, they make a financial contribution to the protection and preservation of their lives, families, jobs, investments and properties.”

Further in Hri Kumar’s post, he proposed a National Service Trust consisting of foreigners’ ‘contributions’ which aims to compensate NSmen for any injuries or even loss of life during their stint. Isn’t it SAF’s and the Ministry’s DUTY to make sure NO NSmen gets hurt or dies needlessly at all during training? If Hri Kumar readily admits that there is an ‘imbalance’ because of NS in spite of its merits of building character and what not, one shouldn’t simply charge foreigners for peacekeeping pittance to treat the symptoms of what many perceive to be a waste of 2 years, but perhaps review the entire NS system, including reservist call-ups which take men away from work and family commitments. By depriving our men of family time, you’re forcibly relieving us our another far more important national ‘DUTY’; Making BABIES.

Ironically, the thought of ‘protecting’ foreigners’ assets and interests in this country never crossed my mind during my army days. If I were held captive and forced by an enemy soldier to choose between shooting a Singaporean vs an expat or the alternative of both dying, I’m likely to spare the Singaporean. When we’re told to defend our ‘land’, I take land to be synonymous with our ‘countrymen’. This is Singapore, our families and kin come first and we don’t do Godfather protection services.

Then there’s the lament by critics of this duty putting a ‘price tag’ on NS, or how much money SAF should take from you to cover the ‘loss’ of one soldier should you wish to bail out. One gauge of NS worth would be the looking at the penalty of dodging conscription, which is ‘up to $10,000 fine‘, or a 3 year jail term. In 1985, you would be charged a measly $2000 for refusing to serve your NS as long as you’ve made ‘positive contributions’ to Singapore. A high profile case which prompted the review of Enlistment Act penalties was that of internationally acclaimed pianist Melvyn Tan, who was fined $5ooo ($3K in some accounts) for failing to perform his NS duties. He also happens to be a British citizen, though apparently we have all forgotten about his AWOL stunt and continue to laud him as a ‘Singapore-born’ virtuoso, having performed here recently with a ‘Time Travel’ recital.

Naturally, most of the indignation stemmed against successful defaulters is not so much that they turned their back on the country, but because it’s just unfair that they could sneak away and make it big while at it. But you’d feel the same way about white horses who get to pursue their dreams till completion abroad anyway, whether or not they choose to remain Singaporean citizens thereafter. So it appears you can desert your country, become a citizen of another, pay the penalty of defaulting and still be celebrated as a ‘product’ of the country that birthed you, even though the SAF views you as a fugitive. Mixed messages, no?

If we ever do get into a real war, a foreigner may be more than happy to pay their ‘duty’, but I’m not sure if many will open their doors, feed, nurse and clothe you when you’re riddled with bullets and bleeding all over the place. In fact, when Armageddon hits, they could be long gone before the first bullet is even fired. When it comes to the crunch, we do duty, they scooty with their booty.

Filed under: 2013, Army, Justice system/Lawsuits, Money, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ah Boys to Men is sexist and promotes premarital sex

Posted on November 30, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Ah Boys to Men is Bad for SAF’ and ‘Why promote pre-marital sex’, 30 Nov 2012, Voices, Today

(Vanessa Tai): I recently watched Ah Boys to Men with my parents and younger brother, who is undergoing National Service. Like other Jack Neo films, the humour was slapstick and littered with Hokkien expletives.  Those jokes were tolerable, but the misogynistic script was unbearable. For example, the recruits referred to women as “clothing that can be easily discarded” in a bid to cheer up one of the recruits who had been dumped.

Another example was a sergeant showing his recruits how to tear a certain leaf in order to form the shape of female genitals. Perhaps Mr Neo is accurately representing army life, but there is no value in such distasteful jokes. From what I understand, such banter is commonplace in the army, and while most guys do not hold sexist views, they play along so as not to be ostracised, which is a shame. Such behaviour should not be accepted as the norm.

A first-class military is not one that is just well armed or well trained in combat. A first-class military – in fact, a first-class society – is an egalitarian one that treats each member with respect, regardless of sex or socio-economic background. The Singapore Armed Forces is moving into a Third Generation, with greater emphasis on nurturing and engaging each soldier, which is a step in the right direction. However, more can be done to improve the image of our soldiers. Ah Boys to Men is a caricature, yes, but with many impressionable young men watching it, my worry is that Mr Neo’s careless stereotypes may undo a lot of the SAF’s good work.

(Goh Lee Hwa):As a mother, I am perturbed that Mr Jack Neo (picture) is endorsing pre-marital sex, in the scene where a guy told his girlfriend that he must have it before enlistment, or else the angels in “heaven” would laugh at him should he die during National Service. We parents are trying to discourage such practices, yet Mr Neo is endorsing it. That scene was uncalled for.

Careless, MDA. You’ve banned another local film for insulting Indians but clearly forgot about a film from a celebrated director that puts our entire ARMY to shame. Thanks to Jack Neo, now we know our boys are NOT writing letters to their loved ones, singing camp songs or playing carom in their bunk in their spare time, but trading sexist jokes, boasting about stealing their girlfriends’ virginity away or playing with ‘CB’ leaves. They also shouldn’t get drunk, steal rifles, cry like woosies in field camp, smoke cigarettes or have their maids carry backpacks for them. All that sort of loutish behaviour would surely do our military in. Leaves as sex paraphernalia instead of camouflaging against the enemy. The cheek!

Yes, our SAF has done a remarkable job of keeping Singapore SO safe we’ve never suffered a single war since its inception. Thanks to our army grooming responsible, ‘egalitarian’ citizens out of rough jewels, we’ll never have to worry about the same men beating women about, having sex with underage prostitutes, cheating on their wives, surfing porn or exchanging sex for favours even if they’re head honchos of key public institutions. How could you, Jack Neo. Why can’t you stick to making I NOT STUPID sequels, and portray students as suicidal depressives instead? That would be accurate, at least.

But seriously, why pick on Jack Neo when there are so many other movies out there which insult both sexes and plug stereotypes about young horny men? Does the writer think Jack Neo is a ‘role model’ for Singaporean boys? This guy cross-dresses like a grandmother for God’s sake. Boys are not going to watch Ah Boys to Men to PREPARE for army, or even for the humour. They would rather accompany their teenage girlfriends to watch the Breaking Dawn finale, and then hope that she returns some hot lovin’ for their painful sacrifice. No, Ah Boys to Men is likely to be a fave of Jack Neo’s staple audience, heartland uncles and aunties, and perhaps the entire singing crew of A Nation’s March. There are, of course, more important things to be worried about than SAF turning your boy into a Hokkien-spewing wife-beater. You’d better hope that he comes out of it ALIVE with his sanity and limbs intact, and lungs not permanently scarred from inhaling grenade smoke.

Any army boy booking out to spend their weekends seeing a whitewashed version of army reality is simply wasting his time. He’d rather polish boots than swallow cheap comic-relief stereotypes about potty mouthed drill sergeants, the mummy’s boy who can’t do a single pull-up and gets bullied by everybody until his geekiness saves the day, and of course the effeminate sissy afraid to damage his nails but dons the best camouflage skills in the platoon. The original NS movie Army Daze had all that, and those horrible ‘misogynistic’ stuff too. In one scene, the word ‘sexbomb’ was used to describe a soldier’s girlfriend. Even the Indian recruit had an exaggerated accent.

[Youtube clip disabled]

Resorting to bawdy humour is inevitable if you want to produce any sort of local army film given the constraints. Which is a waste as Jack could have pulled off something more ambitious without recycling the same old stock characters. You don’t need Jack Neo to EDUCATE young Singaporeans on what to expect in the army, just like you can’t prepare a woman for giving birth by watching ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’. He’s a businessman first and entertainer second, and the trailer alone has formulaic product placement and government approval written all over it. I haven’t watched the film myself, but for all its alleged heartfelt pandering to Total Defence, I think it could have redeemed itself with some badass aliens or mutant zombies. Or maybe an angry horde of striking PRC bus workers. Otherwise I can’t think of any homemade action movie which involved anything beyond a car flipping over and exploding on cue. But there’s hope because Ah Boys to Men Part 2 is coming soon FYI.

Our boys, being moulded into THINKING SOLDIERS as part of the 3G philosophy, should know better. Not thinking about sex, that is. I’m not sure what’s a more dangerous misconception though; that our army is actually READY for bloody battle, or that it’s a MONASTERY that preaches equality to all humankind.

Postscript: Hoping to be proven wrong, I rented the Ah Boys to Men DVD. The slo-mo panning of SAF slogans as the boys walked through the ferry terminal to Tekong could give one nausea before even boarding the boat. The much hyped war scene was packed with special effects that could match high-octane monster films like MEGASHARK vs CROCOSAURUS. The cast, however, saved the movie and kept it entertaining. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the sequel would have less propaganda and more character development, though a climax involving the Ah Boys learning to appreciate NS and becoming Best Buddies Forever seems to be a foregone conclusion.

Filed under: 2012, Advertisements, Army, Film, Local actors, Sex, Singaporean men | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

SAF offering citizenship to Malaysian enlistees

Posted on October 20, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘ Knuckledusters era over, says former ST editor’, 20 Oct 2012, article by Amir Hussein, CNA

In 1973, a reporter at the now-defunct New Nation broke a story about how the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) was inviting Malaysians to enlist, with Singapore citizenship as an incentive. The reporter got the story after spotting a small classified advertisement put up by the SAF in The Straits Times.

On the same day that the story was published, plainclothes police officers turned up at the newsroom and whisked him away for interrogation.  A week later, on a Sunday, the reporter was personally served with an enlistment notice – even though he had completed four years of National Service in the Vigilante Corps.

Detailing the episode in his book OB Markers: The Straits Times Story, former Singapore Press Holdings English and Malay Newspapers Division Editor-in-Chief Cheong Yip Seng said that, until now, the episode was not publicised and was known only to the newsroom, the reporter’s family and friends.

…Among the chapters is one on the “Knuckledusters Era” of the 1970s where Mr Cheong, 69, recounts the Government’s “tough treatment of the Singapore media”, including crackdowns on newspapers.

“I have seen newspapers closed when they fell foul of the government, and friends lose their jobs. Journalists have been detained. I did not suffer their fate, but many were the times when I was at the receiving end of Lee Kuan Yew’s fury,” he writes.

Bringing non-locals into the armed forces with the carrot of citizenship isn’t so shocking when you consider how we dangle incentives in front of foreign talent these days, especially when it comes to our Olympic Table Tennis players. However it’s one thing to have a foreigner win medals, and another to have one bear arms for the country. I just had to find out for myself if such enlistment ads by SAF actually existed. It didn’t take long to dig the online ST vaults to uncover one in 1974, which was out to recruit non-combat staff like mechanics, armourers and storemen.

Zooming in, you can see that ‘non-citizens who are successful in their applications will be offered citizenship’.

You can also refer to a 1973 ad which may be the one mentioned in Cheong’s book, where in addition to those listed above, foreigners may serve as a combat medical orderly. There was, however, no specific mention of Malaysians. Even the NAVY was offering foreigners the same reward. Where one’s loyalties lie was secondary to the urgency of building up military numbers. Shoot first, integrate later. You could apply the same analogy to the current state of ping-pong. Paddler first, Singaporean second.

So how different are things these days? Check out this Navy recruitment brochure, where one prerequisite other than being Singaporean is that you’re a Singaporean PR ‘intending to take up citizenship’.  According to the QnA, you will need to be a Singapore citizen, however, before putting your ink on the contract. You also have to serve NS if you’re a second generation PR. Although there are no explicit terms and conditions guaranteeing citizenship after 2 years of wasting your life, there are subtler ways of nudging you into becoming Singaporean. In 2010, a $9000 payout to NSmen was withheld from PRs, only to be handed out once they become citizens,  serving as both reward (for citizens) and BAIT (for PRs). However, there are still many who would rather give up the PR status than submit themselves to conscription. Minister of Defence Ng En Hen revealed in 2011 that a third of male foreigners who became PRs under the sponsorship of their parents renounced their PR status just before enlistment.

The government has since been juggling between having enough men in the SAF to defend the country vs retaining enough countrymen (and PRs) itself. But it’s not just prospective Singaporeans who are repelled by NS,  many born and bred here are equally reluctant to bear arms for the nation. Ng Eng Hen recently revealed an increased number of Singaporean and PR defaulters (those who failed to register or went AWOL after going abroad) this year compared to last. A sagging birth rate isn’t helping either; we can be discharging all the state of the art missiles our inflated military budget can buy, yet fire nothing but blanks in our bedrooms. You can roll in the mud, hurl a grenade or assemble a rifle in less than 30 seconds, but fail in the most basic task of replacing yourself.

But back to knuckle-dusting. It wasn’t just the 70′s that was a thugs’ life for journalists who question the status quo. The last reference about ‘knuckle-dusters’ came as late as 1994, when LKY wrote in his memoirs his affection towards political writer Catherine Lim.

Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister . .. She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul de sac . . . Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle dusters.

Strong words, but you’d have little to fear really; Knuckle-dusters are banned here and we’re getting too crowded to be caught alone and defenceless in ‘cul de sacs’. But here’s what they look like, for the benefit of those who think LKY’s referring to sparring mittens. You can see it’s far too deadly a weapon even for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Your knuckles are dusted

Filed under: 1970s, 2012, Army, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

LKY and the ‘folding up’ of Singapore

Posted on August 12, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Get married, have babies’, 12 Aug 2012, article by Leonard Lim, Sunday Times

…In his annual National Day dinner speech to residents of Tanjong Pagar GRC and Tiong Bahru, Mr Lee kept his message on population simple: The country’s citizens are not reproducing enough, and migrants are needed as a temporary solution. But in the long run, mindsets must change, and the trend of declining birth rates needs to be reversed.

“If we go on like that, this place will fold up because there will be no original citizens left to form the majority,” he said. And we cannot have new citizens, new PRs settle our social ethos, our social spirit, our social norms.

“So, my message is a simple one. The answer is very difficult, but the problems, if we don’t find the answers, are enormous.”

Oh boy are we in trouble. According to the CIA Factbook, we are down in the doldrums in terms of total fertility rate at a miserable 0.78, which is way below the minimum number to replace ourselves. But what’s interesting about LKY’s exhortations to procreate is not what’s being said, but what’s NOT. For example, he did not say that educated women with pHDs should get boyfriends and settle down. He also did not specifically urge the Chinese to pick up the slack. What can only be inferred, from how he social-engineered the Singapore population experiment over the years and from the number of PRCs working here, is that it’s the faltering Chinese Singaporeans that he’s really concerned about.

Racial composition is rarely mentioned these days, but it seems that the old man built this nation using his own golden ratio of how each ethnicity should make up the population, even if it meant staunching its growth at certain critical periods in Singapore’s history, and to see his formula for success fail in the face of ‘personal choice’ is like God stomping his feet because his creatures are not sucking on the sweet nectar of the fruits that he created for them. I would feel the same way if I’m playing Simcity and my little people refuse to reproduce themselves. Anyone would be tempted to push the reset button rather than see your piece of work destroy itself. You get the feeling that LKY’s lament is more an emotional one than one that involves deep, probing reflection or acceptance of the fact that where we are now is the result of an abject failure of balancing First World ambitions with First World problems. We are having it faster, stronger, better but weaning ourselves off the face of this earth while at it, like tireless, naive male spiders trying to get it on with the Black Widow of progress.

The last time LKY mentioned ‘racial balance’ was in relation to the SAF and the tenuousness of our position in the region in terms of defence.

‘If we continue this way without the new immigrants and PRs and their children doing national service, the composition of our SAF will change. So please remember that…..It is in Singapore’s interest to have immigrants who can be integrated without upsetting the racial balance.‘

In response to the influx of Hongkongers in the eighties, he expressed a resolute fondness for the ‘status quo’:

Let us just maintain the status quo. And we have to maintain it or there will be a shift in the economy, both the economic performance and the political backdrop which makes that economic performance possible…..You look at the educational levels of the performers. It has got to do with culture, nature and so many other factors. But year after year this is the end result. Let’s leave well alone. The formula has worked. Keep it.

‘Nature’, of course, is a euphemism for RACE. A UMNO MP did not mince his words when taking the cue from LKY regarding the fate of the Malay majority in Malaysia, saying that LKY’s coercions were to ‘strengthen the dominance of the Chinese on the island’. When you mention ‘racial mix’ and optimal ‘performance’ in the same breath, it becomes quite obvious that you’re hinting that a certain group is driving the success of the country, though that looks set to change at the rate we’re welcoming Caucasian billionaires with open arms, not to mention plying foreign income off our two casinos. LKY wouldn’t want to mess up the HDB ethnic quota too. The Ethnic Integration Policy, by capping the proportion of races in housing estates, was intended to ‘maintain a healthy racial mix’, without specifying what an ‘unhealthy’ composition is. In 20 years when our homegrown population will presumably halve in size, the EIP and its secret ratios will need some revisions as well. I mean, you don’t want your neighbours rioting and burning the flat to the ground over curry smells would you.

We have no data on the proportion of races among Singaporeans renouncing their citizenship, erstwhile pretending that emigration doesn’t exist. If making couples have sex more often is an insurmountable hurdle, how about trying to figure out what’s making Singaporeans want to LEAVE? It’s likely that the answer would partially explain our reluctance to have children. Chan Chun Sing and the MSF have their work cut out for them, and if he’s serious about pushing our TFR up, perhaps he should come clean with the numbers, examine the reasons why people abandon their Home, and let us all know of the gravity of the situation, instead of hiding painful facts from Singaporeans like sweeping broken glass under the carpet. If all else fails, be wary when our NEWwater starts tasting funny and you feel tingly sensations in all the wrong places after drinking it.

But it’s not just a freak census that LKY’s terrified of. It’s the PM’s position and PAP leadership itself. In 1988, LKY remarked that Singapore ‘was not ready’ for an Indian Prime Minister, that he would have considered S Dhanabalan if not for his ‘Indian ethnicity’. Our cabinet still holds a majority of Chinese ministers, and remains a reflection of the ground demographics. So when it looks like that precious ‘formula’ is on the brink of shattering and LKY’s worst nightmares are on the verge of coming true (though he probably wouldn’t live long enough to witness it), we have an ENORMOUS problem on our hands, and it’s not just a matter of the EXTINCTION of the Singaporean, but the fall of a NATION, when the house that is our little red dot is no longer a home. In the spirit of the business parlance used by LKY, Singapore Inc may have to ‘close shop’ if nothing is done. And it takes more than a cheeky Mentos ad  (National night, hip hop or hip flop?) and a Ministry playing the role of Love Guru to do it.

Filed under: 1980s, 2010, 2012, Army, Babies, Foreign workers, Politicians, Racism, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

NDP Committee ‘singing’ A Nation’s March

Posted on June 17, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Netizens hit out at a video of NDP song’, 15 June 2012, article by Fabian Koh, TNP

A VIDEO recording of a new National Day Parade (NDP) song for the marching contingent has drawn flak after it was posted online on Wednesday. Meant to introduce the key members of the NDP 2012 Parade and Ceremony committee, it featured them singing the song A Nation’s March.

But their performance has drawn brickbats for being out of tune, unprofessional and, in the words of some critical netizens, “an epic fail”. Some feel that the performance was unacceptably below par.

Despite the brickbats, there are those who feel the idea of making a video to motivate the marching contingent and help them learn the song was a refreshing one by the committee, and applauded the efforts put in.

Although intended to ‘introduce’ the key members of the NDP committee, not a single person was namechecked in the video. Being ‘unprofessional’ aside, most of these guys sound like they have never even stepped into a SAFRA karaoke room. But perhaps the lack of quality in army personnel singing could have been compensated with enthusiasm and patriotic verve, which was clearly lacking in the video. It’s OK to sing badly and laugh about it afterwards; no one expects a crooner out of a colonel.  However if you want to dish out a propaganda war tune in all seriousness, at least do it with gusto and lung power like you would actually die for the nation, with fists clenched, not swaying like a conductor for some children’s woodwind orchestra. No one’s going to march to this believing they have something to fight for if you guys struggle and wince your way through this like a vegetarian walking into an abbatoir.

The chorus has the following rhyme pair: We are Singapore, a nation we ADORE. The sweet cuddly word ‘adore’ doesn’t fit into a war cry. It’s like putting a teddy bear in a tank, or getting the New Zealand All Blacks to do pirouettes. If they wanted something to rhyme with Singapore, they could have chosen ‘…and we will GIVE IT ALL’,  ‘our nation and MORE’, or ‘a nation WITHOUT WAR’.  So this could be one of the reasons why  ex-Committee chief Colonel Nelson Yau quit suddenly in March this year: He saw the lyrics sheet for this song. Maybe he also found out that the Facebook page for this year’s ‘Loving Singapore, Our Home’ slogan is NDPeeps. Anyone not familiar with teenage slang would think this year’s parade will be a hardcore voyeur fest.

What’s this song for then? Cyberpioneer reports that A Nation’s March is the background music for the Commitment to Defence March, or to be hip about it, (C2D). It also includes student uniformed groups like the Boys and Girls brigade as you can see from the video where no one opens their mouths (i.e the best bits), which explains the ‘contemporary soft pop’ angle to dilute an otherwise triumphant march which may be too harsh and overpowering for kids. Someone needs to remix this pronto, something more befitting of an industrial, state-of-the-art, military machine to showcase our might and scare our enemies, not tickle them.  Skrillex would be ideal.

Perhaps it’s unfair to blame the singers or the director here. As the latter, you wouldn’t want to order a bunch of rugged army officers to do re-takes or sing like they have over-sized testicles without having to ‘knock it down’ right in the middle of the studio. If anything, this clip and it’s ‘Making Of’ video just shows that army men (and woman) can be just as camera-shy, awkward and atonal as most of us. At least the ‘Sing-Gah-Pore’ enunciation wasn’t so obvious as one would expect from army regulars, though I think this would sell better if they had a Hokkien version. Still, a song to accompany a march makes more sense than a Lady Gaga rip-off to promote a ‘fun pack’. Thank God no one raps in here too.

Since no one put captions on the video, I thought I’d take a shot at identifying some of the more prominent singers myself, using this very helpful list from a forum.

First singer. Colonel Roland Ng, Chairman of Parade and Ceremony sings only 4 words (‘Forward we’re marching on’)  Got that ‘How did I do?’ look on his face thereafter.

Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Tan: The guy who looks like he’s having the most fun among the lot. Turns out he’s also Parade Commander. Well chosen, I say.

OMG! It’s Tay Ping Hui! No..it’s just Major Kenneth Chiong, Chairman Parade and Marshalling. Got that ‘What am I doing here’ face. Sings better than Ping Hui though

Master Warrant Officer and Parade Regimental Sergeant Major Tamizh Kannan singing to the floor. Hope he doesn’t shout commands like this too.

ME5 Phui Peng Sim, Chief Trainer or The Conductor. The future is in his hands. ME5 means Military Expert by the way(Dunno about the ’5′. Expert in 5 things?). The guy behind watching remains emotionless.

Senior Warrant Officer Tang Peck Oon, Chief Trainer. This guy shouldn’t be singing the most important line in the chorus. He doesn’t even wear his headphones properly

Lieutenant Colonel Ning Tau Yee, Chairman Special functions: Oh man, you’ve got to hear him to believe it (1.28). Only 3 words solo, yet….

OMG! They got Andrea Bocelli on the team!
Wait a minute..no, it’ just Master Warrant Officer Lee Yong Kwang, Chairman Engagement. And very engaged in this song I must say.

All together now! And yes, someone is snapping his fingers to the beat. Encik, it’s called a Nation’s March, not a Nation’s Jitterbug!

Filed under: 2012, Army, Local music/bands | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

SAF regular found hanged from a rope

Posted on May 6, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Soldier found hanging from rope at Changi Airbase’, 5 May 2012, article in asiaone.com

An off-duty Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) regular serviceman was found hanging from a rope in Changi Airbase on May 5, 2012. 2nd Sergeant (2SG) Suresh S/O Seluras, 24, was a military policeman from the 608th Squadron.

An SAF ambulance with a medic went on site immediately at 9.35 am. The medic found the serviceman stiff, unconscious and without pulse and tried resuscitating him.

The death of a soldier always strikes a nervous chord with anyone with loved ones serving the army. The job of defending the nation is itself hazardous by nature, and with the risks of collapsing from 2.4 km runs or training exercises imminent, you would expect the SAF to minimise further unnecessary losses from what appears  in this instance to be an act of suicide. Headlining could be improved though; ‘Found hanging from a rope’ if read out of context could mean the poor guy was stranded on an obstacle course. If the avoidance of any speculation of suicide were intended, Today’s ‘Found dead at Changi airbase‘ would have been more precise.

Psychological trauma would be the first thing that comes to our minds, and during my own stint in NS, camp suicide was a hot topic off the rumour mill. Even if the army isn’t responsible for your troubles, the job itself is conducive for any kind of self-injury, with our boys (and some girls) having access to bullets, bayonets and barb wire. The army is also notorious for creating an endemic fear of punishment even for the most trivial offences (e.g confinements on weekends, detention), which may lead some to perceive killing themselves as an easier way out.

1971: In what appears to be the first reported army suicide, a private drank anti-rust solution because he didn’t get his promotion to lance corporal.

1979: 20 year old Cpl Tan Cheong Eyong leapt to his death over an illness diagnosed as ‘obsessive compulsive neurosis and reactive depression’. A 27 year old Provost investigator handcuffed himself before drowning off the Esplanade over girlfriend issues. AN 18 year old SAF employee training to be a CLERK plunged to her death after failing military examinations.

1980:  A female trainee leapt to her death after having to endure BMT, even complaining previously that she couldn’t bring herself to bathe in front of other female cadets. She had also signed up to be a clerk.

1981: A top SAF scholar was found hanged from a water pipe in the bathroom of Temple Hill barracks, reasons cited as ‘depression over work and personal life’. He was just 24 years old.

1990: An NS man hanged himself after causing $2000 worth of damages to a military vehicle (NS man hanged himself, 12 July 1990, ST) Anyone who has ever experienced writing statements of lost or damaged property would tell you they would rather be captured and tortured by the enemy than risk losing even the muzzle of their rifle.

1992: A 20 year old former special constable shot himself in the toilet of the central police divisional headquarters after being suspected of theft (Suicide verdict on NS man, 3 March 1992, ST). An incident that suspiciously resembles the notorious Gomer Pyle suicide scene from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.

2009: Capt (Dr) Allan Ooi was found dead under a bridge in Melbourne, presumably unhappy over his job as a SAF doctor and having to serve a 12 year bond after landing an SAF scholarship.

Suicides aside, a mentally disturbed soldier may be a fatal hazard to others as well, with reported cases of officers gunned down by boys who simply couldn’t cope. Some form of ill treatment and discipline is always necessary in any form of regimentation, and arguments about ruggedness and mocking our fighting force as a ‘strawberry generation’ will get you nowhere, sometimes even in a heap of trouble. We’ve seen images of young men crying shamelessly on TV, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the kind of emotional manipulation and threats that are dispensed by men in uniform and the power of authority. Don’t talk about turning ‘boys into men’ anymore, SAF. Giving our boys iPads won’t distract them from suicidal thoughts either. Just have our unwilling sons get out of it in one piece, and hopefully, with their minds intact as well.

Filed under: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2012, Army, Funerals/Death, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Temasek Revealed’s Hoax NSF death

Posted on January 29, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Blog post on NSF’s death a hoax’, 29 Jan 2012, article by Jessica Lim, Sunday Times

The Defence Ministry (Mindef) has refuted as a hoax a blog post claiming that a full-time national serviceman (NSF) was shot dead last Friday during a live-firing exercise. The post appeared that evening on a blog which calls itself Temasek Revealed. It said the incident took place that morning.

The post then appeared on a Facebook page called Temasek Review early yesterday. It said a 19-year-old Singapore Armed Forces serviceman had been shot in the right eye by a stray bullet in the Sembawang area and that he died on the spot. Neither the blog, nor the Temasek Review Facebook page, is associated with the sociopolitical website Temasek Review Emeritus (TRE), which was originally known as Temasek Review.

By noon yesterday, the post had gone viral on forums such as Hardwarezone, and on other blogs and social networking sites. Temasek Revealed first appeared shortly after the original Temasek Review website went offline in September last year. The latter has since returned as TRE. An opposition candidate in last year’s general election, Mr Alex Tan, had said on his Facebook page that the Temasek Revealed blog was published by him.

The ‘Temasek’ brand, though initially created to stimulate political awareness and insider ‘journalism’, has generated enough clones to diminish its credibility as a source of reliable information. The irony of this all is that the original Temasek Review had copyright issues with Temasek Holdings’ Annual Report by the same name, and now has to face the dilution of identity by its namesake ‘sociopolitical’ bastard-child blogs. This is exactly the reason why PM Lee was concerned about the net becoming a free-for-all cowboy town, with a clueless sheriff and dozens of imposter Billy the Kids running amok. Secrecy, something which even the national paper is prone to keeping, in the form of withholding actual names to allow for verification is one reason why people succumb to sensational stories.  The fact that an anonymous death  report was sent by an anonymous relative via anonymous post/email, to a blog with an anonymous author, fails to prevent a piece of delicious tabloid tripe from spreading like wildfire.

Content matters, of course. A hoax has to be believable but not mundane enough to be ignored. If I were to plant a random forum with ‘Famous actress spotted with two guys at a bar!’, nobody would bat an eyelid. If, however, I change a single word to ‘Famous actress spotted lap-dancing two guys in a bar!’, now that’s news, but it can only work if people have a rough idea of which slutty celebrity this might be i.e you need a background history, or reputation. As for the NSF death case, there are three background facts: One, accidents like these CAN happen. Two: Specific accidents in the army HAVE happened in the past. Three: The SAF has a reputation of safety to maintain. Taken together, our natural human tendency is to develop sufficient interest in this to talk about it, whether we ultimately believe it to be true or not. Offline, it’s called gossip. Social media merely multiplies that effect, and by replicating itself through a wider network of busybodies than face-to-face chatter, things are bound to get skewed, and screwed, out of proportion.

Nothing captures attention like a hoax death, whether it involves evil dictators or singer/actors like Jon Bon Jovi and the classic ‘Paul McCartney is dead’ meme. Often these are the result of pranksters with no malicious intent to slurry the reputation of their targets other than send some gullible fans into premature mourning, since such rumours are easily dispelled. A phantom report of death from NS, however, seems designed not just to sensationalise, but specifically to get the ants in MINDEF’s pants. But you don’t even need the Internet to start the ball of ballyhoo rolling. In the past you could simply typewrite a letter, lodge it with the police and then proceed to rub your hands in glee.

In 1958, a spate of hoaxing got the media and affected targets in a frenzy, one involving the murder of a ‘poor girl’ by a gang. In the same year, Government Pensioner Mr A Khandiah of Cumberland Lane was ‘killed’ 5 times by hoaxers, before perishing FOR REAL after a botched operation, a cruel twist to the ‘Boy who cried Wolf’ perhaps.  On some occasions you may even bypass the media and telephone the undertaker straightaway impersonating as an Inspector, if you want to pull a really sick joke on a fellow naval officer.

So, how much distress has this fakery caused that the poster, or publisher, warrants a punishment? If the hoaxer had said ‘A military personnel has died’, people with loved ones in the army may worry a little. Saying ‘A 19-year old NS man has died during live-firing’ narrows the chances of the deceased being someone you know, but intensifies the tension. The most punishing hoax of all is one that falls  midway between being uselessly vague (Someone in the army has died) and the full reveal (Corporal So-and-so, 19 years old, in So-and-so Unit, was killed). In this instance, grisly details about how the bullet busted an eye socket and penetrated a skull was relayed, which sounds convincing until you realise how anyone can cite forensic evidence with such confidence just by watching CSI on cable.  Whatever the consequences, it’s not just the hoaxer/publisher who suffers ill-repute in this case. Such incidents give the authorities further justification for clamping down on bloggers because we’re not showing that we can be mature, discerning adults. By posting frivolous nonsense to generate publicity, this NS hoaxer is either shooting himself in the foot,  has a childish grudge against the army, or is an anti-tech ultra-conservative who wants to put an end to social media freedom forever.

Postscript: A 19-year-old youth has since been arrested for the offence of transmitting a false or fabricated message under Sec 45(b) of the Telecommunications Act, Cap 323. The Temasek Revealed site has also since disappeared without a trace, but like the proverbial hydra with its head cut off, another ‘Temasek Times’ has spawned, run by anonymous ‘freelance’ bloggers agan. Wonder if this site would be confused with TJC’s student newsletter Temasek Times instead. Be creative, people.

Filed under: 1930s, 1950s, 2011, 2012, Army, Bloggers, Fun and games, Funerals/Death, Police officers | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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