Demon-cratic Singapore creator arrested for sedition

Posted on April 24, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Cartoonist arrested over complaint’, 24 April 2013, article by Feng Zengkun, ST

SINGAPOREAN cartoonist Leslie Chew, 37, was arrested last Friday by the police after a complaint was filed against him about one of his cartoons, his lawyer said yesterday. Mr Choo Zheng Xi, who is with law firm Peter Low LLC, said Mr Chew was held over the weekend and released on Sunday night after posting bail of $10,000. He will have to report to the police again on April 30.

…Mr Chew draws the cartoon strip, Demon-cratic Singapore, which is posted regularly on Facebook. According to a description on the strip’s Facebook page, it is “a totally fictional comic with entirely fictional characters based on wholly fictional events in a fictional country“.

Mr Choo said Mr Chew is being investigated for alleged sedition, in relation to a cartoon posted on March 27 regarding the Malay population. He added that Mr Chew was also questioned about a second cartoon which was not included in the complaint.

This was posted on Dec 14 last year, and was the subject of a letter sent by the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) to Mr Chew three days later, said Mr Choo. He said that in the letter, the AGC said the cartoon “scandalises our Courts through allegations and imputations that are scurrilous and false”. He added the cartoonist had not yet been charged.

Late last night, a cartoon depicting Mr Chew’s questioning by the police – whom he described as “very professional” – was uploaded on the Facebook page. Last night, the police said they were looking into the matter.

Chew’s cartoon was not discriminatory against Malays, but referred to the government of ‘Demon-cratic Singapore’ as a racist one. The strip that ‘scandalises’ the courts depicts a character called ‘Pinky’ Loong kicking a High Court Judge out of his office and also involves a cheating politician not so subtly named ‘Michael Phucker’. Other uncannily familiar characters in the Demon-cratic Universe include $8 KHAW,  Teo CHEE HONG, HAIRY Lee, THORNY Tan and Ho JINX. Incidentally, the evil party in Chew’s story is called ‘Party against People’. The entire cast sounds inspired by nicknames straight out of an EDMW or Sammyboy forum thread conceived by 13-year olds. Not exactly Mad Magazine material, I suppose.

Some authors have the nerve to do away with the ‘parallel universe’ angle and mock the PAP straight up. In 1971, 22 year old cartoonist Morgan Chua drew a cartoon of LKY riding a tank threatening to crush a baby symbolising the paper he worked for, the Singapore Herald. LKY’s also a favorite target of foreign humorists;  You can only purchase ‘Harry Lee Kuan Yew, A Pictorial Account of his Life and Times‘ online, a collection of lampoons by Rodney King, an Australian who worked here for more than a decade. In this book the ‘lovable old twerp’ ‘gets a good hand-bagging from Maggie Thatcher’ and ‘falls down a rubbish chute’. It would have been funnier if his caricature of LKY didn’t resemble the stereotype of a slant-eyed Asian.

You can, however, publish a book full of toon politicians here if you’re careful enough. Greg Nonis gave us ‘Hello Chok Tong, Goodbye Kuan Yew’ in 1991. Today, if you’re lucky, the authorities will tolerate your satire if you bypass the censors and post comics on your own blog or Facebook, provided you cover yourself with the appropriate disclaimers and give your characters names that would trigger a knowing smirk in your reader but not an angry lawyer’s letter. My Sketch Times features a DR ‘WOLF WU‘ who’s ‘helping to change the way traffic procedures are performed’. S’pore Says posted a cartoon of a ‘Mr Wong’ in a Monkey King head vice getting a headache when the mantra ‘Mas Selamat’ is chanted. The Cartoon Press, which I must say boasts some of the best pencilwork I’ve seen so far, has a turkey with what looks very much like Lim Swee Say’s head.  Some of this stuff is actually funnier than Demon-cratic Singapore, which has ‘episodes’ with too much text and one too many cringingly lame name-puns.

Anyway here’s a random picture of our Prime Minister in a pink shirt. Hmm..I wonder if anyone has made a caricature of this already.

 

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Filed under: 2000s, 2013, Art, Cartoons, Justice system/Lawsuits, Police officers, Politicians, Racism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

WP’s Blue Paper will cause great hardship to us all

Posted on February 24, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘WP’s proposal hurt Singapore SMEs and workers:Grace Fu’, 24 Feb 2013, article in Today online

…Posting on her Facebook page, Ms Fu said the WP wants to freeze foreign workforce growth immediately which she said, will hurt Singapore small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and workers. She said the government’s plan on the other hand is to significantly tighten the inflow of new foreign workers, but allow businesses time to make adjustment and help SMEs in particular, make the transition.

Ms Fu touched on several points raised in the WP’s paper. Among them is the argument that by raising the resident labour force participation rate, Singapore can maintain its non-resident workforce at the current numbers. Ms Fu said this will “cause great hardship to Singaporeans and SMEs”, which employ 70 per cent of Singaporean workers.

She said if these businesses fail, many Singaporean workers and their families will suffer and added healthcare, construction of HDB homes, and train lines will also be affected badly.

“WP argues that by encouraging more senior citizens and homemakers to work, we don’t need additional foreign workers. But how can our seniors and women fill the need for workers now where we need them most — such as construction and cleaning/maintenance?”, said Ms Fu.

Foreign labour has been the nation’s drug of choice for so long it’s expected that the WP’s cold turkey solution to creating a ‘dynamic resident workforce’ would come with its fair share of withdrawal symptoms. Perhaps this bold suggestion is just another ‘emotional hump’ that needs to be surmounted, though I’m not sure how many seniors and women are willing to do dirty, ‘low-skilled’ work like construction and cleaning in place of the junkie’s ‘high’ we get from foreign workers. Minister Fu was being selective in her blasting of the ‘Blue Paper’ of course, just like how everyone else zeroed in on the 6.9 million figure of its White counterpart.

I wonder if the SDP has their ‘Red’ paper in draft mode, though I hope it’s less clunky and has more images. I believe the reason why the average Singaporean doesn’t grasp the full picture of such policy papers is because it’s impossible to read them from start to finish without dozing off. WP’s paper may not cure our immigration addiction, but it can certainly cure insomnia. People want to read a summary of your executive summaries. The rest can be footnotes and appendices for the more serious-minded folks. The good news is that Singaporeans are at least aware that such documents exist. Some of us even begin to watch Parliamentary sessions in full over YouTube while the rest of the world is playing Candy Crush.

Grace Fu is one of the more vocal female politicians around, but I’m not so interested in what she used to do for a living (PSA CEO) or how she justifies her astronomical ministerial pay, but rather her bloodline, namely her father James Fu, ex Press Secretary to then PM Lee Kuan Yew. In 1986, the government restricted the local circulation of Time magazine based on their editor’s refusal to publish a correspondence in full, exercising its new powers under the amended ‘Newspaper and Printing Presses Act’.  The article in question was ‘Silencing the Dissenters’, which LKY, through secretary Fu, took offence for its ‘factual errors’. Time was then accused of ‘meddling in domestic politics’ in its handling of a story involving the PAP’s ‘muzzling’ of Opposition MPs. The spotlight was on none other than beleaguered Anson MP JB Jeyaretnam (incidentally from WP). In 1988, Fu, on behalf of LKY, stung another powerhouse magazine, the Asian Wall Street Journal. A full page advertisement had to be bought over to publish government ‘clarifications’ on articles deemed to be ‘distorting’ the truth. His most prominent work for the PAP, it seems, was threatening to ban prestigious magazines altogether for ‘irresponsible’ reporting i.e media censorship. He was also once the ominous sounding Director for Information.

But wait, there’s more.

Long before his role as LKY’s mouthpiece, Fu was a reporter for the Nanyang Siang Pau. In 1963, he was ARRESTED during Operation Cold Store as a political detainee. Only LKY can explain how a political opponent would wind up as one’s personal secretary in 1972. In the same fell swoop was fellow ‘conspirator’ Dominic Puthucheary, who being Malaysian was readily banned from entering the country for  ‘pro Communist activities’.

On 2 November 2009, ST published a feature with the headline ‘Son of former leftist is now PAP volunteer’. In fact, the ST were rather open with Puthucheary’s son about Daddy’s history with the ISD. This son is none  other than Malaysian-born PAP MP Dr Janil Puthucheary. Another ‘son of a leftist’ is Ong Ye Kung, former Aljunied PAP candidate and now part of GLC Keppel Corp, his father being ex-Barisan Sosialis MP Ong Lian Teng. Such media fascination with Janil and Ye Kung as offspring of ‘leftists’ makes Grace Fu’s father’s past involvement with the ISD conspicuous by its relative silence. Any attempt to speculate why may end up with a totally different ‘Paper’ coming my way, one from the White camp seeing Red, which upon reading may see me turn Blue, then Yellow because of threats hurled my way, before this post, or even the blog, is forced to fade into Black.

Filed under: 1960s, 2013, Foreign workers, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , | 1 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 »

Eve Tan calling Malays low educated and lazy

Posted on October 10, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Disgust over Eve and Ivy cyber rants’, 10 Oct 2012, article by Ian Poh, ST

INTERNET users are calling for action to be taken against two other people who posted controversial comments on Facebook. They said the posts’ authors should be dealt with in a similar way to Ms Amy Cheong, the woman fired on Monday for making racially offensive remarks about the Malay community.

One of the two Facebook users, who called herself Eve Tan, also posted derogatory comments about Malays, branding them “low educated” and “lazy”. They were apparently made last month in response to a question on the Health Promotion Board’s profile page. When others challenged her, she replied: “Get real, just see the truth.”

Another Facebook user calling herself Ivy Lim has also come under scrutiny for comments posted on the site. She had written: “Looks like all th(e) Malays can’t get over it. Poor thing!”

…Mr Nazry shared a screenshot of Ms Tan’s controversial comment and captioned it: “A fine example of complete ignorance portrayed by our very own Singaporeans.

“It truly, truly disappoints me that some of us are no longer sensitive and tolerant to the feelings of other races. Whatever happened to racial harmony/tolerance?”

Close call for those who ‘Liked’ this

Hence ‘$50 void deck weddings’

I do agree that this is a ‘fine example of complete ignorance’, because you’d have to be a complete moron to post such things on Facebook in light of how ‘netizens’ react to touchy race issues these days. In a separate post, Eve Tan gave some dubious statistics about how Malays make up the majority of prisoners and underaged smokers. Facebookers like her aren’t the only Singaporeans caught expressing the ‘hard truth’ about local Malays. There’s another more important and renown personality who knows a thing or two about the Malay psyche, and if he had a Facebook account, I wonder if he would be publicly slammed in the media or summoned by the police for ‘investigations’ as well.

Last year, LKY’s Hard Truths was branded as ‘haram‘, or forbidden to Muslims, by the Malaysian government (You may still get a copy from the nearest bookstore). According to Wikileaks, he called Islam a ‘venomous’ religion. He also urged Muslims should let go of some strict religious observances and be more sociable when eating with others, a statement regretted by both his own son and Minister Yaacob who had to apologise on his behalf. The AMP (Association of Muslim Professionals) criticised him for implying that Malays are lagging behind in terms of educational levels compared to Chinese and Indians. But like Amy Cheong’s comment on Muslim marriages, perhaps we should step back and reflect before grabbing the flaming pitchfork and raze Eve and Ivy’s houses to the ground.

In 2009, a 10 year report on PSLE maths reported a plunge in performance for Malays in that subject from 1999 to 2008, along with poorer results overall compared to Chinese and Indians. Teachers cited the reason for poor math as Malay students seemingly resigning to this as a ‘personal flaw’ by nature, as well as their not being able to afford tuition like the other races. Even with free tuition sponsored by Mendaki, there were ‘indifferent’ parents who did not bother sending their kids for classes. PSLE may not the most reliable marker for the success of an ethnic group, but this does highlight the complex interplay between educational level, family income, a system that has become heavily dependent on tuition and a perceived less-than-enthusiastic attitude towards academic performance.

It’s not so easy to back up ‘facts’ about Malays committing crimes though. The Singapore Prison Service Annual Statistics offers no data on ethnic proportion in jails in 2012, although in 2004, the Chinese still made up the majority of inmates (> 40%) with Malays in second place. What has been reported, though, is that the number of Malay drug abusers arrested has increased by 6.8% compared to drops among Chinese and Indian addicts in the first half of this year (vs the first half of 2011). In 2010, stats were released to Khaw Boon Wan showing that the number of Malay smokers aged 30-39 was DOUBLE that of Chinese or Indians. You can also find data to justify your claim that ‘Malays are too fat’ or have more births out of a wedlock, but I wouldn’t expect to get reliable information on teenage pregnancies, violent crime or PSLE/O Level failures, and perhaps for good reason.

All this talk about ‘lazy Malays’ reinforces the  ‘Relac one corner’ stereotype and racist jokes about chauffeurs named Ahmad, and it is one that is entrenched deep in Singapore-Malayan history. In the 20′s you could write freely about how the Malays are ‘cursed with the lazy spirit’ and have a ‘marvellous ingenuity of avoiding work’.   Malays continued to defend themselves against the ‘cruel epithet’ that is ‘The Lazy Malays’ into the 50′s. They were described as a ‘leisure-loving, lazy people contented with what little success they have’, formed the bulk of ‘grass cutters, drivers, PEONS and clerks’ and were struggling in school because of laziness and ‘lack of willpower’. It even appeared in school humanities textbooks in 1956, where Malays were described as ‘lazy and indolent’. Malayan historian Sir Richard Winstedt was accused of writing an entry in the Encyclopedia Brittanica that they were ‘lazy, dishonest and immoral’. It was later attributed to an anonymous correspondent and another white fellow called Sir Hugh Clifford (of whom Clifford Pier was named after). Half a century later and despite societal advancements, this mindset about certain races or classes remains as narrow as before.

In 2004, a motivational guru from Malaysia delivered a reality check on the state of the Malays, which he believed was ‘rotting’:

The Malays are hardworking, but not as consistently hardworking like other races. They are only hardworking in things they are passionate about. The successful races are hardworking in whatever they do.

Malay-bashing isn’t just limited to Singaporeans. A Malaysian-Hainanese rapper named Wee Meng Chee, or Namewee, ranted against the Cantonese, Singaporeans and ‘Bumi’ Malays in a song called ‘Kawanku’ in 2007, where Malays ‘ tak suka kerja’ (don’t like to work), ‘tiap hari tidur’ (sleep everyday) and would regret if there were no Chinese in Malaysia because of one less holiday (CNY). Namewee is considered a seditious troubemaker to the Malaysian authorities, and if anyone came up with something similar in Singapore, they would spend a few weeks hanging out in a cell with people who have sex with underaged prostitutes, while their racist rap goes viral on Youtube.

Well, we are all hardworking in things we love doing. Perhaps the Malays love doing some stuff more than others, and even if they’re lagging behind in terms of what we traditionally view as academic success or an illustrious career, look no further than our fertility rate by ethnicity to see what the Chinese and Indians are lagging behind the Malays in. What really matters now, an issue of national EMERGENCY, is being hardworking in an activity that is the complete opposite of ‘work’ altogether.

I haven’t watched Avenue Q at MBS, but I wonder if this song is still on the playlist after recent events.

Filed under: 1920s, 1950s, 2011, 2012, Racism, Religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments »

Archbishop’s letter harming social harmony in Singapore

Posted on September 20, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Archibishop slams Alex Au, anti-ISA organisers’, 20 Sept 2012, article by Teo Xuanwei, Today

The head of the Catholic Church here has criticised a blogger and the organisers of a rally against the Internal Security Act (ISA) over a blog post which suggested that he was pressured by the Government into retracting a letter he had sent expressing support for the event. The flap arose from Mr Alex Au’s lengthy critique on his blog – posted on Tuesday – of what he described as the Government’s “arm-twisting” of Archbishop Nicholas Chia.

Mr Au wrote that based on “second-hand” accounts, Archbishop Chia had sent a “warmly-worded” letter to the event organisers – civil society groups Function 8 and Maruah – only to later send a second letter to withdraw his statements, purportedly after pressure from the Government. Archbishop Chia said yesterday that he had decided to withdraw his letter because “on reflection, its contents did not accurately reflect my views on the subject, and if used in a manner that I did not intend, may inadvertently harm the social harmony in Singapore“.

According to Alex Au’s blog Yawning bread:

…In the warmly-worded letter, the archbishop expressed his support for the rally and, I am told, endorsed the call for the abolition of the law in question.

The blogger, who previously was coerced into removing posts for criticising the Law Minister and the AGC’s verdict on Woffles Wu, did not reveal who his sources were, and later claimed in his article that His Grace was called up to ‘lim kopi’ with DPM Teo Chee Hean. No one will know for sure if that ever happened, but it appears that past spats with members of Parliament and the authorites have failed to stop Alex from delivering scoop after scoop of incendiary insider news, undeterred by the possibility of being brought to task for ‘serious allegations’. One can still wonder, though, what exactly the Archbishop wrote that made him do a double-take, failing which his letter, once publicised, would have detrimental effects on our SOCIAL HARMONY. At most, you’d imagine a man of God asking for compassion and enlightenment in meting out hard and swift ‘justice’ on political firebrands, be they Marxists or what not. Nothing wrong with that, and I would expect a religious man to apply the same grace of God whether or not it’s ISA detainees or the man on the street, without ‘crossing the line’ into politics or stirring up a frenzy all over the country.

In the last GE, it was often the POLITICIANS themselves treading the fine line through their visits to places of worship, yet  nobody tells them off for mixing their dirty work with religion. Which makes separating religion from politics like keeping a dog away from a lamppost, especially when you’re giving a sermon on what some might refer to a crime against humanity. The Catholic Church indeed has an embittered history with the ruling party for sympathising with the said detainees, though the MHA refers to the relationship as a ‘long-standing’ one. In 1987, a mass was held for victims at the Church of the Risen Christ, at which, according to some fellow Catholics who were riled by the event for transgressing the political sphere, were supporters wearing ‘T-shirts with slogans’. According to a ST report on the 400-strong event, the shirts were yellow and bore the biblical quote ‘The Truth Will Set You Free’. Nothing will happen to you today if you wore such cliches out on the street, other than a wink and nod from fanboys of conspiracy theories and the X-files. It also sounds like a typical lyric from a K pop song with bits of English chorus in it.

Father Edgar D’Souza, one of the organisers of such masses, caught the attention of then PM Lee Kuan Yew, who had terrifying words for this ‘emotional’ show of support for individuals he deemed as violent terrorists.

If this is carried on, it may not be the next mass, it may not be the next statement but if feelings were aroused, if the agitation continued, THERE MUST BE A COLLISION.

The priest, along with 3 others, were later summoned by LKY to the Istana in a ‘closed-door’ meeting and reportedly threatened with arrest under the ISA for seemingly ‘subversive’ activities in invoking the name of God to rouse their clergy. LKY had also complained to the Archibishop Gregory Yong to keep his priests in check and not ‘engage in jousting’ on Government policies. Following the fateful meeting, the Archbishop suspended the 4 priests to avoid a ‘conflict or collision between the Church and State’, apparently under pressure by the PM. It then transpired that LKY had unleashed a litany of criticisms levelled at the Church and the Archbishop, and did not show due respect to the holy chief of churches. When a joint statement was read out by His Grace during the Istana meeting, LKY looked at his watch and asked ‘how long he was going to take’. But losing his frock wasn’t all for D’Souza; he was later embroiled in scandal with a ‘woman lawyer’. A certain Father Joachim Kang who spoke out on how the Archbishop was ‘cornered’ by the PM would be the same priest later arrested and jailed for misappropriating church funds worth $5 million.

So the current Archbishop’s withdrawal could certainly be a change of heart and playing it safe, bearing in mind what the previous Archbishop went through with LKY and the PAP, or, as Alex Au suggests, there was a touch of government nudging to ward off any ‘social disharmony’ that may arise from influential men speaking out on a ‘sacred cow’, a cow so old you could strip its leathery hide off its back and use it to whip people into submission immediately. His Grace later clarified that his first ‘letter’ was intended as ‘private communication’.  You’re the HEAD of the Catholic Church, and you’re writing to an activist group. Unless you’re inviting them to tea at church, anything written in the official capacity of a religious heavyweight to a group that names itself after a button on a keyboard is perhaps too BIG a deal NOT to get leaked, especially if it’s an E-mail. Let this be a lesson to all: If in doubt, use the ‘Recall’ button.

Of course the government understands the power of religion to sway the masses into irrational groupthink. There were probably more prayers whispered for Kong Hee than a decade’s worth of tsunami victims combined, and any force that could propel pastor Sun Ho into superstardom has the power to overturn archaic laws as well. In their fear of whipping up unwanted support for activist groups like Function 8, the Government’s hush-hush sessions with religious leaders on ‘sensitive issues’ have whipped up nothing but curiosity and speculation instead.

Filed under: 1980s, 2012, Bloggers, Politicians, Religion | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Lee Wei Ling and LKY are dyslexics

Posted on September 2, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘The long and short of rules’, 2 Sept 2012, article by Lee Wei Ling, Think, Sunday Times

…Ryan’s mother, however, reacted melodramatically. She went to the press with her son’s story and lodged a police report. She claimed that Ryan “could not leave home for two days because of the way he looked”. Then she arranged for him to have a $60 haircut.

She excused her son’s disobedience by saying he was dyslexic, and that dyslexics were forgetful. Both my father and I are dyslexic. We are no more forgetful than other normal people.

…Ryan’s mother’s reaction to the teacher cutting her son’s hair was, I am afraid, close to hysterical. How do we bring up our children with the right values when parents and schools send such conflicting messages?

I wouldn’t doubt a famous neurologist’s analysis on the symptoms of dyslexia, and I fully concur with her diagnosis of HYSTERIA in Ryan’s mother. But what’s interesting about this week’s Lee Wei Ling column is not so much her stand on hair rules or teachers playing barber (which is not surprising since she fancies a shorn crop, probably one that’s even shorter than Ryan’s), but her admission that both herself and LKY are dyslexics. Wei Ling herself once confessed that she didn’t really pay attention during GP lessons, which could be related to her undiagnosed dyslexia then. Despite that, she did well (an ‘A’ too) and look where she is now.

In a 2009 article ‘Morals and Morale’, Wei Ling was candidly honest about her problems with spelling in English, but did not shy away from boasting about how good she was at Chinese ‘mo-xie’, a test in which you had to regurgitate an entire essay or poem entirely by memory.

Those who know about moxie might be surprised to hear that I enjoyed memorising the classics, and I never got less than 90 marks for moxie. It was English spelling that I had problems with.

Since I had no difficulty with written Chinese, I blamed my problems with English spelling on the strange spelling rules of the language. It was only many years later that I discovered I was dyslexic in English. To this day, I sometimes cannot decide whether to use a ‘d’ or a ‘t’, a ‘v’ or a ‘z’. I have even more difficulty with vowels. Fortunately, my e-mail and word-processing programs have spell checkers.

In 1995, the good doctor was kind enough to sign up as Advisor to the DAS (Dyslexic Association of Singapore), an acronym which I’ve come to realise is a smart wordplay on how dyslexics tend to ‘mirror-write’ (DAS backwards is SAD). Wei Ling also spent some time in the 80′s as registrar at TTSH working with ‘under-achieving’ kids, a euphemism for ‘slow learners’ or ‘backward’ children. In the 60′s, experts were quick to discount myths that children who suffer from ‘word-blindness’, as it was formerly known, were ‘necessarily STUPID’. In the 70′s you would see headlines in the ST like ‘The bright kids who just cannot write; first in a two-part series on ABNORMAL children’. In the tradition of making disorders less dreadful than they sound by making them harder to read or spell, dyslexia has been rebranded recently as Developmental Reading Disorder (DRD).

Looking at the language standards of Facebook posts and Twitter feeds, you would think dyslexia, despite affecting up to 10% of Singaporeans, is still relatively under-diagnosed here. Perhaps the rate would have been higher if spellcheck and Autocorrect were never invented. There’s also a chance that with the stigma removed and dyslexia being erroneously tied to genius like how bipolar mania has become a ‘fashionable’ disease, normal people who write undecipherable emails may abuse the ‘dyslexia’ label by claiming they are ‘dyslexic’ when they’re just TERRIBLE, LAZY spellers. I hope DAS never has to change their name to DRDAS.

In a 2007 interview with the New York Times, LKY mentioned that an unnamed grandson was dyslexic as well (without saying that he had it himself), further supporting the observation that it runs in families and is more common in boys than girls. No signs of it in PM Lee so far, though he has the occasional lapse in mistaking one hawker food for another.

I’ve got one grandson gone to MIT. Another grandson had been in the American school here. Because he was dyslexic and we then didn’t have the teachers to teach him how to overcome or cope with his dyslexia, so he was given exemption to go to the American school. He speaks like an American. He’s going to Wharton.

It was Lee Wei Ling herself who revealed to the media that her daddy suffered from ‘mild dyslexia’ in 1996 (SM Lee has mild dyslexia, says daughter who’s dyslexic, 18 Jan 1996, ST), just like how she told the whole world last year he had peripheral neuropathy. Still, dyslexia didn’t seem to stop the elder statesman from publishing bestselling autobiographies showing a strong command of the written word, though I doubt he said anything about the disorder in ‘Hard Truths’. In the HongKong Journal of Paediatrics 2005, LKY was cited as a case study of highly successful dyslexics, where he submitted himself to testing only when he realised that ‘he couldn’t read fast without missing important items’. Proceeds from sales of a CD-ROM of his life were donated to the DAS (You can still buy it from e-bay but not sure where the money goes now). LKY’s affliction is proof that some dyslexic individuals not only function just as well as their ‘normal’ peers in society, but far exceed their abilities in all other aspects. The list include visionaries like Richard Branson and Albert Einstein, famed Scientologist actor Tom Cruise, Mickey Mouse creator Walt Disney, light bulb inventor Thomas Edison and internet sensation ‘Dog Bless You’ Dr Jia Jia.

And how could I forget Derek Zoolander and Homer Simpson.

Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2012, Kids, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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 »

We’re not ready for a world without LKY

Posted on August 10, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Singapore heaves huge sigh of relief at Lee Kuan Yew’s NDP appearance’, 10 Aug 2012, article by Melissa Aw, Yahoo News.

…In the past week, rumours swirled online and offline that the former Singapore Prime Minister’s health was fading quickly. Day by day, the speculation grew stronger and wilder.

…Although a quick check by Yahoo! at Lee’s Oxley Road house on Wednesday showed nothing out of the ordinary, rumours continued to grow online and offline. Soon, the health of Lee became a topic of national debate and the “will he or won’t he appear at NDP?” question grew into a audible chorus ahead of National Day.

Even members of the media were not immune to the frenzy.  The Straits Times’ political journalist Tessa Wong addressed the rumours on Twitter, dismissing claims of a cover-up and that Lee was alive and well.  Channel NewsAsia editor and presenter Glenda Chong also stepped up to clear the rumours on her Facebook wall on Wednesday.

Without mentioning names, she wrote, “So a lot of people have been asking me a question! He’s alive and please watch NDP tomorrow… Trust me he’s alive, otherwise I will be extremely busy!”

The reporter above was kind enough not to pose the REAL question on everyone’s minds this past week leading up to NDP. Did LKY DIE before the parade? Then there are the conspiracy theorists and their ‘body double’ explanations for his miraculous appearance. The truth turned out to be stranger than the fiction one sees in typical Dictator stereotypes or madcap movies like Weekend at Bernie’s; the old man’s still alive, though to say that such rife hearsay kept everyone tense on the edge of their seats and emitting a huge gaseous sigh of relief is probably pushing it. The nail-biting twisty climax to what appears to be a bad M Night Shyamalan political thriller is an apt image of LKY looking dapper in red, giving a victorious double thumbs up. It could have been two middle fingers instead.

Leader in Red

Don’t these internet gossips know that if they’re trying to start a fire online they’re equally likely to get burnt? Yaacob Ibrahim just added one more reason to this list of ‘Reasons to Regulate the Internet’ in his push for a Code of Conduct. But what’s interesting about the Yahoo article is not so much its content, but the title of its weblink in full:

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/spore-not-ready-for-a-world-without-lee-kuan-yew-.html

Which raises the question: What will become of us when LKY is dead and gone? Will we be like sheeps without a shepherd? A rock band without a drummer? A brothel without a mama-san? Sewer rats without the Pied Piper?

It’s not surprising that LKY has ‘used up’ one of his 9 lives before. In 2010, ex-Singaporean and now American lawyer Gopalan Nair admitted in his Singapore Dissident blog to publishing a hoax that LKY had ‘suffered from a massive heart attack’:

Even though I made up everything I said about Dear Leader about his heart attack, and none of it is true, I can assure you that the scenario that I painted assuming that he dies is completely correct.

So what scenario was Nostradamus here talking about? According to his original tall tale, ‘such a happening can destroy the business confidence and cause total destruction in the small island city state.’ There were also ‘peaceful protesters and demonstrators… holding placards reading “Democracy” and “Down With the Dictator” and chanting slogans.’ As far as I’m aware there were no ‘Hurry up and Die already’ campaigns going on in the build-up to NDP aside from the scatterbrained hullabaloo and white noise in social media. If the sources were in fact reliable, I would think most of us would have been stunned at first, but gradually come to accept and carry on with our lives. We wouldn’t be thinking of packing our bags and, like Gopalan, seek asylum in a country where you can get gunned down by madmen while watching Batman in a movie theatre or praying to your gods in a temple. In fact, Gopalan is still drilling in our heads even in the midst of this gonzo media circus that we’ll be hapless without LKY, that the stock market would plunge, and the Sing dollar would be worthless. WORTHLESS, I tell you. Woe is me!

If LKY did have a major coronary, the media would have jumped on it like a rabid coyote, as how they have done in the past reporting on the state of the elder statesman’s health from minor infections to bladder evacuations. We really didn’t need to know. Telling me that LKY was ‘ill’ before the parade is nothing new, so someone decided to up the ante and say ‘Hey, why not have him DEAD for a change?’

2011-Peripheral neuropathy (as revealed by daughter Lee Wei Ling)

2008 -Abnormal heart rhythm (article above)

2003- Prostate Surgery 

1998 – Infection arising from minor surgical procedure (SM in hospital, 23 Nov 1998, ST)

1997 – Acute respiratory tract infection (SM Lee in hospital due to infection, 7 Sept 1997, ST)

1997 – Elective evacuation of the bladder (SM Lee to undergo elective evacuation of the bladder, 11 Jan 1997, ST)

1996 – Balloon angioplasty (SM’s balloon angioplasty op a success: PMO, 16 March 1996, ST)

It’s easy to spin insensitive yarns about someone’s father and grandfather when you’re based overseas and still persist in egging LKY’s lawyers to sue you for slander, but more importantly, bad taste. Gopalan had it easy compared to Twitter users like ‘izreloaded’, who got name-dropped in the Yahoo article above as one of the perpetrators of a highly contagious rumour. But it’s one thing to plant a lie in the national psyche for your own sick indulgence, another to condemn the country into anarchy and chaos because of the demise of one man, especially if you’re not doing anything to help avert the impending end of Singapore as we know it, a ringside commentator pulling one awful joke after another. This Gopalan prophet of the coming apocalypse may have no love lost for LKY, but where’s the faith in the the rest of us? If the old man is as formidably crafty as he’s reputed to be, he would have set a series of events in motion as part of an elaborate grand scheme of command and control, to ensure that Singapore runs like clockwork centuries after his death, like how we splice a dead Nat King Cole with his daughter Natalie in an ‘Unforgettable’ duet and still make it number one on the charts.

Still, nothing bugs a nation like an dead or dying dictator/autocrat. Fidel Castro was reportedly dead (false) earlier this year, the dates of rumour-mongering occurring near two special dates for the Cuban leader, similar to how sparks flew near our very own 9th of August. Barely taking over the reins from his late father, Kim Jong Un was ‘assassinated’ by gunmen in what would have been the month of his dad’s 70th birthday. Equally ‘killed by Internet’ were Hosni Murbarak, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Suharto. This bespeaks a frivolous trend of ‘Dead Evil Leader pranking’, which plays psychological parlour tricks on our basic emotions. Rumour feeds the need to be heard, the sudden loss of a figure of stifling authority feeds our need to be free, while the stock market blips attest to our fear. What we need the most now, though, is the belief that we can carry on. With or without LKY.

And we can only hope that when the time comes, it doesn’t end up like this.

We are all doomed

Filed under: 2010, 2012, Bloggers, Festivals, Funerals/Death, Politicians, Public holidays | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Keyboard thug apologising to DPM Teo

Posted on June 9, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘JC student apologises to DPM for blog post’, 8 June 2012, article by Stacey Chia and Matthias Chew, ST

Junior college student Reuben Wang was so annoyed by what he heard from a VIP at a seminar that he blogged: ‘F*** you, sir.’ The VIP was Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, the key speaker at this year’s annual Pre-U Seminar attended by more than 500 students last week.

Reuben’s blog post went viral and he blogged again, unrepentant about his use of the expletive. But on Thursday, the St Andrew’s Junior College (SAJC) student had a change of heart, met Mr Teo at the Ministry of Home Affairs and apologised to him.

The JC1 student told The Straits Times later that he realised his post was ‘rash’ after reading his friends’ comments. Mr Teo said: ‘I am glad he has taken the time to reflect, and recognises that what he said, as well as the way he said it, were wrong.

…He accused Mr Teo of dodging difficult questions during the question-and-answer portion of the seminar on May 29, by turning the questions on students instead of answering them himself. They included questions on press freedom and a sense of belonging in Singapore.

Reuben wrote the profanity three times in his 700-word public post. Three days later, he wrote again to say he stood by his remarks, even as he conceded that his use of the swear word was in ‘bad taste’.

‘I  see people asking you questions but you tossed them right back, so I’m like F*** you..ooo-hoo-hoo!’

Just before Reuben had a sudden change of heart and decided to man up and apologise to TCH, someone wrote an article bashing his behavior as the sign of a cowardly, impertinent youth gone wild with no ‘respect for an elder person’, referring to the generation of kids who’re more vocal online than face to face as ‘a generation of keyboard thugs’. Fact is  ‘keyboard thugs’ have always existed, before even blogs or Facebook, and it’s not just irresponsible brats with no experience in the ‘ways of the world’ (unlike ‘elder statesmen’) who’re ‘hiding behind screens’ dishing out the dirt. Reuben doesn’t deserve to be given a name associated with certain gangsta rappers, and anyone who’s an advocate for Internet ‘hygiene’ should himself refrain from calling 17 year olds names as well.

Bone Thugs and Disharmony

If critics are so appalled by the utter disrespect displayed by an otherwise passionate 17 year old like Reuben, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise when they trawl random forums, where one will see anonymous ‘fuck you’s aimed at politicians in general, including the ELDEST politician ever, without even bothering to end it with a ‘SIR’. ‘Lack of respect’ and ‘Asian values’ are also used on plucky journalists who dare to interrupt elder politicians as well, as ‘Why My Vote Matters’ Today reporter Lee Ching Wern would attest in 2006, after calling the PAP ‘arrogant’ before the likes of LKY. ‘Asian values’ which tell you the right way to bow before seniors has no place in healthy political discourse, and even a politician on a ventilator with peripheral neuropathy approaching his 90th birthday shouldn’t deter challengers, as long as you pose your argument like a gentleman.  Of course it’s one’s choice if you decide to use ‘F-U’ is a stat sweetener (hence more attention) for what you write.  It’s probably unfair to generalise our youth as a bunch of gutless, ungrateful, vulgar cyber-whingers. If you equip a kopitiam uncle with the necessary skills, he’d probably slap TCH about with a couple of Hokkien vulgarities as well. And he may even be OLDER than our DPM too.

Before the rather harsh ‘thug’ connotation, bloggers like Reuben were  ‘keyboard warriors’. A derogative term meant to describe anyone whose online bark is worse than their bite, instead of the usual classic virtues of sacrifice, strength and honour associated with the ancient word ‘warrior’. Celebrity model blogger Xuesha used it against people calling her a bimbo for mispronouncing ‘Forbes’. A YOG Cheer contest winner used it against critics of JJ Lin’s ridiculous Oh Yeah Oh Yeah cheer. Before you know it, anyone with an honest OPINION is dubbed a keyboard warrior (which makes me the Braveheart of all keyboard warriors…You can take away my blog, but you can’t take away..MY KEYBOARD!!). It’s only in 2011 when the GE took hold that ‘keyboard warrior’ applied to people expressing their political views online without following up with ‘action’. Yet we know of people who talk  in public all the time with the same end result (NATO:No action Talk Only). Do we call them ‘microphone’ warriors then?

Once were warriors

Last year, the Cyber Wellness Student Ambassadors created a role unfortunately titled ‘Cyber WARRIORS’, where instead of launching online attacks on incompetent teachers as the role suggests, these volunteers are in fact countering ‘cyber-bullies’, who are a vicious subset of ‘keyboard warriors’ more aligned to the ‘thug’ family. To add to the confusion, we also have ‘trolls’ too. Thugs, warriors, bullies, trolls. I think we should rename the Internet  community ‘Middle Earth’, more specifically MORDOR. I guess we know who’s Gandalf the WHITE then.

This tired tactic of ‘questioning the questioner’, despite its intention to ‘provoke thought’ instead of spoon-feeding kids with answers, should be used sparingly, lest it be seen as an unlimited ‘Get out of Jail card ‘when one DOESN’T have the answer himself. DPMs can’t afford to say ‘I don’t know’ in front of the bright-eyed future of Singapore, and we can’t expect them to have the answers ALL the time.  As a public figure, in fact for any public speaker with subject expertise in my opinion, you need to at least show some mettle and set an example through wisdom and confidence. You need to inspire instead of being seen as a ‘good listener’. You need to hold the handles on your child’s training bike and give direction before letting it go. You want your audience to occasionally nod in unison instead of sitting slack-jawed and dumbfounded feeling like this ‘dialogue’ was an utter waste of time.  You need to deliver a ‘take-home message’ not ‘homework’. Otherwise it’s not so much Q n A but rather Q n Q. Or you can totally dominate your quizzers like the consumate lawyer-politician that is LKY.

Perhaps our history of political stifling and fear indoctrination have rendered our youths mute in the face of politicians, which explains our pent-up hostility online. LKY once complained why no Singaporean spoke up at a NTU student forum. Vivian Balakrishnan had a tough time engaging youths in 2008, with one attendee saying that ‘you can’t anyhow say what you want to a minister…in case the minister shoots a question back at you’. Asking the questioner questions back isn’t the only thing deterring aspiring youths from confronting ministers. Some would even pry into your private life and ask you to to weigh your priorities between a pHD and having a boyfriend. It’s also not surprising that some conspiracy theorists would see this a calculated ploy to boost TCH’s ratings after his own WP bullying. A rascal says ‘fuck you’ to him and he not only tolerates it but entertains a face-to-face apology cum getting-to-know-you session, which gives the impression of a leader who not only encourages the youth to ‘think for themselves’ but is magnanimous and obliging as well. The government’s PR unit must be wetting their beds in ecstasy.

Filed under: 2000s, 2010, 2012, Bloggers, Foul language, Kids, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Lee Wei Ling’s ‘child-like’ friend-categorisation process

Posted on June 3, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘I have friends, but not because I’m Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter’, 3 June 2012, article by Lee Wei Ling, Think, Sunday Times

I wrote about the distinctions I made between close friends, true friends and comrades some months ago. After that article appeared, I received a sarcastic e-mail from a reader who said: ‘One would be extremely fortunate if one can count to two the number of comrades one has in his life. If it is so hard for an average person to find true friends, it is manifold harder for you because of your family relations.

‘It may be arrogant for me to call you child-like since you are older than me. But I have no better word to describe your friend-categorisation process.’

…His reference to my family relates to the fact that I am the daughter of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and the sister of current PM Lee Hsien Loong. The writer suggested that my ‘family relations’ may induce people to act friendly towards me. He misunderstands the Singapore system. Being a member of the Lee family may mean that I do stand out, but that does not afford me any special power.

My friends – NNI staff or otherwise, doctors or something else – are friends because of mutual goodwill. We either share common interests or have in some way helped one another.

…Take, for instance, the security officers (SOs) who have protected my father and family for decades. Some of them are my close friends – having remained so even after they left the police force. The SOs are paid by the Government to look after us, but they often go beyond fulfilling their duties. And the goodwill goes both ways, for I have always helped them whenever they have approached me with their problems, usually medical in nature.

…There are the friends I made while pursuing various other activities, including writing columns and what I call ’tilting at windmills’ in pursuit of certain causes. This heterogeneous group, some of whom I have known since childhood, are also comrades, for we share the same aspiration – to make Singapore a better country and a better society.

…I do not think, however, that my family connections alone can account for my having so many friends, close friends and comrades. I have become friends and stayed friends with various people as a result of the conscious effort by all concerned to help each other, and also to help others when we can because it is the right thing to do.

Perhaps I have so many close friends and comrades because my family’s position brought me into contact with many good people whom others may not have had a chance to meet. But I think the more probable reason is that I am willing to extend the hand of friendship, be it to colleagues or people I meet in the course of my life. Perhaps my sarcastic letter writer short-changed himself with his cynical attitude towards mankind, which may explain why he has pitifully few close friends or comrades.

According to a previous piece ‘Close friends from all walks of life’, Lee Wei Ling categorises her friends as such:

I categorise people I know into enemies, acquaintances, friends, close friends and comrades. This is admittedly a rough and perhaps simplistic way of classifying people, but it serves my purpose.

I personally can’t think of anyone in my social circle befitting of a ‘comrade’ since I have no evil Communist dictator to topple, but Wei Ling’s clinical dissection of the people around her may well come in handy for someone of her ‘pedigree’, where one has to keep her close friends close, but enemies closer. She describes friends in terms of ‘mutual goodwill’, as in ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’, a pragmatic approach to networking which also applies to her employees and  ‘Security officers’ (SOs), or should I say ‘Bodyguards’.That admission alone would either make her more attractive as a ‘friend’, or scare you off totally because of the possibility of someone shuffling you off with a bag over your head in the middle of the night if you so much as forget to reply to a text message.

I wonder if she knows anyone that she actually enjoys ‘just hanging out’ with, or has a ‘best friend’ for that matter, someone who has a common passion for ridiculous amounts of exercise and not afraid to admit it.  Someone who doesn’t need to beguile you with intelligent discussions to be worthy of company. Someone to, God forbid, gossip with. Her defensive article betrays none of the emotional, and less cerebral,  stirrings that characterise what most of us refer to as ‘true friendship’. We usually don’t have to think so hard about altruism, trust, aspirations or incentives to appreciate the people around us. We just enjoy their company, for who they are, not what they can do or what they have done.  But as a neuroscientist and borne of a man like LKY, you probably would expect otherwise mundane, instinctive perceptions of people to go through the higher brain before ‘hitting it off’ like the rest of us do. Subordinates aside, it’s only natural if you’re a high-profiler to mix and click with people of a similar calibre and background, simply because it’s lonely at the top and these people are all you have. But I can’t speak for the author; she could have a roti prata seller as a key confidant for all I know.

The question of how many of your friends are ‘true’ applies to anyone else in a similar position of prestige and power, whether you’re the daughter of a man renown for striking mortal enemies down or a benevolent king who rules the land and beyond. Perhaps that was the intention of the evil (and quite fearless) ‘fan’ (who just got him/herself filed into the ENEMY basket), not to question Wei Ling’s ability to retain so many ‘friends’ (that’s a given), but whether any of these folks are genuine at all. One may be entertaining fawning syncophants who would benefit from your skills or influence, or people submissive and accommodating to you because of Daddy’s paranoiac, tyrannical shadow looming over like a thunderous dark cloud.  But I suppose that’s up to the good doctor to decide, and being a neuroscientist, I’m certain that in her private capacity she would be able to tell the friends from ‘people who just want something in return’ and ‘people who are nice to you but really just freaking terrified’.

She claims that she has no ‘special power’, but the very act of highlighting someone’s fan-mail and shaming him in the press does stink of a little petty malice. And looking at what her own brother Lee Hsien Yang has done to the TR website despite not being in the business of politics, one can’t help thinking that such crowd-pleasing modesty on the lack of any ‘powers’ as a Lee whatsoever  is a tad too far-fetched to be believable.

Filed under: 2012, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

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