Confessions of a Prime Minister

By now, most Singaporean netizens who are concerned about their country are likely to have heard that Kuan Yew’s son, the Prime Minister of Singapore, has made a confession that the government had lacked foresight. While his detractors tend to lambast him and his party based on the admission, it can only be considered a confession as much as his utterance of a ‘sorry’ two years ago could be considered apology.

In 2011, he made a pre-General Election confession. Two years later, he is still at it, post-election. The pre-election, post-election timings are like fine patterns in an intricate work of art, giving the entire charade such an artistic feel that you almost want to forgive him:

[I]f we didn’t quite get it right, I’m sorry, but we will try and do better the next time. (Kuan Yew’s son, pre-General Election, 2011)

So we lacked that 20/20 foresight. Next time, we will try to do better. (Kuan Yew’s son, post-Punggol East by-election, 2013)

Next time. Do better. Try. More contrived than contrite, his words exude more indifference than assurance. The PAP has become a pathetic echo of itself at its prime, holding us captive like a monstrous team of Norma Desmonds in their delusional bid at preserving a glory long faded, tragic yet deserving no pity.

With the irony that comes immediately after the confessional moment with the release of the population white paper which presents a utopian scenario where Singaporeans are compressed like gases in a pressurized can, one cannot help but marvel at how Singapore appears to be the work of an ingenious artist with a wicked—even cruel—sense of humor.

The confession, though, is no confession. In fact, instead of being an explicit display of remorse, it is an implicit self-exoneration coupled with an insinuation that the accusers, and not the accused, are the guilty ones. Clearly, it would be unreasonable for us to blame anyone for not being able to predict the future with complete accuracy (with 20/20 foresight, in other words); so the PAP is really not blamable, and it is unreasonable of  the people to expect the PAP to be clairvoyant.

If there is a difference between the 2011 and the 2013 statements, it is the lack of the semblance of something like an apology this time round, suggesting perhaps a hardened attitude. Nevertheless, the mainstream media spin it as an admission of fallibility—as if the PAP has finally realized what they had done wrong. Channel NewsAsia came up with the headline, “PM Lee admits govt lacked 20/20 foresight”, which makes it seem as though the government is now able to see where it has gone wrong. It is unfortunate that even the PAP’s detractors, in acknowledging and emphasizing the lack of foresight, are paying more attention to what appears to be said than what is really being said. To unwittingly seem to expect the government to have 20/20 foresight is also to be susceptible to the accusation of having unreasonable expectations.

While what the prime minister is saying could have been a good retreat-as-defense strategy had it been executed with more finesse, the 20/20 reference betrays him from the outset by making him appear excessively defensive. A more astute politician might have said that he could have done with better foresight, but Kuan Yew’s son wants to emphasize that the only way the PAP could have avoided screwing things up was to have an impossible amount of foresight. In doing so, he also unintentionally reminds us precisely of the fact that not much foresight was needed to ensure that Singapore’s infrastructure is adequate for its population. Khaw Boon Wan, in the typical way the PAP politicians try to engage what they probably see as the unintelligent masses by using analogies of the mundane, makes this apparent. The Straits Times reports:

The Ministry of National Development . . . released its Land Use plan, which details how the planners will find enough land for the 6.9 million population and the 700,000 extra homes they will need.

Mr Khaw likened this effort to throwing a wedding banquet. When one invites 1,000 guests, one must cater for all 1,000, he said, even if they have not RSVPed and perhaps only 600 or 700 ultimately turn up.

Thanks to the PAP’s eagerness to pacify Singaporeans, who are getting increasingly frustrated with the ever-expanding population, by assuring them that the infrastructure will be sufficient, it has become clear to the people that ensuring that there is enough land, housing, and amenities is, far from requiring exceptional foresight, actually a matter of common sense. In defending himself and his party, the prime minister has indirectly admitted to either lacking common sense or to having bulldozed his way through the population increase with iniquitous disregard for the people’s quality of life.

In both the non-apology of 2011 and the vapid self-defense of 2013, Kuan Yew’s son is perhaps right in holding one particular assumption about Singaporeans: Singaporeans, by and large, are not motivated by a strong desire for democracy when they vote—even when they end up voting for the opposition; many are likely to vote for the PAP if it gives the impression that it will take care of their livelihood. They are often unwilling to rock the boat lest they fall into the water, however illogical such thinking is. The apology of 2011 was aimed precisely at giving this group of voters, even those who were skeptical of how sincere the apology was, the hope that the PAP would start to solve the problems it has caused. Hope and conservative voting behavior help the PAP’s triumph. The same hope could have been generated by the admission of 2013. The message is simple: “We already know what went wrong, and we will fix it.” The PAP has always banked on a general lack of political maturity to actually want a more democratic system.

The last week of January 2013, however, could well mark a significant turning point. With the release of the white paper on population, Singaporeans were left in a state of helplessness for a few days as the state-controlled media churned out visions of the future and ministers repeatedly assured Singaporeans that their lives would continue to be good (as if there were any goodness left to continue). It is this sense of helplessness, especially just days after a by-election where the opposition emerged victorious, that pushes Singaporeans to start drawing the connections between democracy and agency, between neglected democracy and the bread-and-butter issues with which there is a constant preoccupation. Perhaps—just perhaps—a strong opposition presence, which Singapore sorely lacks, could help Singapore avoid the 6.9-million nightmare.

Of course, the PAP has been relatively quick to change its tack. Now, Minister Khaw and the son of Kuan Yew are saying that the 6.9-million population is simply a worst case scenario. We may find yet another confession here. For years, the influx of foreigners has been marketed as a compensation for low fertility rates. Yet, if this were true, how could the influx of foreigners ever lead to a worst case scenario? Imagine a Singapore where the fertility rate has always been what the government now claims to be the ideal. Would the problems resulting from population growth still exist? If so, then high fertility rates would be the culprit with which we do not have to concern ourselves. We can only conclude, therefore, that the influx of foreigners has not been calibrated to compensate for low fertility rates, but to drive economic growth that can be seen in official digits but not experienced by the average Singaporean. It has been and will continue to be excessive.

Nevertheless, we may just be surprised for a while—things may actually improve. Even as the population grows, the infrastructure is having a race with the population. There may be a point when the infrastructure overtakes the population, allowing the people to experience some respite and feel the temptation vote for the PAP again. Kuan Yew’s son has been reported as saying that there will be improvements within three to five years. Some respite as early as 2016, the election year? Things may improve, but only until the population overtakes and wins the race. There is only so much space in Singapore, and so much that can be reclaimed, but there is an endless supply of foreigners to increase the population till apocalypse strikes. The same old trap of thinking that things are finally improving works as long as Singaporeans keep walking into it.

Eventually, we will relive the same miseries. Immigration policies will continue to be liberal. Singaporeans will continue to experience overcrowding, crushing wages, and unhappiness which we will always be made shameful of articulating. The less privileged foreigners will continue to be lowly paid, easily replaceable pawns of economic growth as Singapore maintains its zero tolerance for strikes, high tolerance of exploitation. The PAP will continue to promise to do better next time. There’s always a next time for the PAP. Unless we collectively and decisively put a stop to it.

Papers Full of Nonsense

Lucky Tan recently posted an article,  “US Presidential Debate: High Stakes, High Drama…” in which he says, “[i]n the US, they don’t do “conversations”, they debate.” In an article that makes no reference to Lucky Tan or his blog post, the article “Fiery Debates? I’d rather have boring politicians” by Jeremy Au Yong in The Straits Times also compares political discourse in America and Singapore. Predictably, Au Yong favors “conversations” over debates. It is as if the paper is on auto-pilot mode to help the PAP engage the people by praising the status quo with remarkable feats of illogic.

As a start, Au Yong describes the Obama-Romney debate with seemingly innocuous and almost positive words such as “fiery”, “exciting”, “fireworks” and “fiesty [sic]” without actually making any reference to the contents of the debate. He even compares the debate to sports. The purpose is clear. The descriptions are a sneaky way of discrediting and trivializing the debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, making it appear as spectacle sans substance.

Au Yong then makes an odd, if not downright ridiculous, comparison between the debate between the American presidential candidates and a forum attended by both opposition politicians and PAP MPs. While he is certainly entitled to prefer the forum to the debate, he frames the issue as one of two forms of politics involving two types of politicians: the first being the fiery American politics and politicians, and the second being the apparently polite Singaporean politics and politicians. It is like comparing a Windows notebook with an iPad instead and saying that one is better than the other when they are not meant to be comparable.

Clearly, the fact that there are debates between American presidential candidates does not mean that American politicians cannot be at other times behave more like Singaporean ones too. Neither does the politeness between politicians in the forum in Singapore mean that politicians do not sometimes (or at the same time) resort to mudslinging and unsubstantiated claims, especially when one party has every local newspaper presenting its twisted representations of reality as immutable truth.

If Au Yong’s article is not a display of plain ignorance about the different natures of debates and forums at work, it could simply be a devious disregard of logic, semantics, and context for the sake of supporting political insipidity while demonizing other practices that could lead to a freer flow of ideas. Au Yong is evidently not blind to the difference. This is obvious when he says:

The comparatively sedate nature of the discourse between Singapore’s politicians does lead suggestions – every once in a while – about holding an American-style debate here.

Au Yong does know that just because local politicians attend forums, it does not mean that they cannot also debate with one another. It is obvious that having supposedly “American-style” debates in Singapore does not mean that it is the only way discussions are going to be conducted in Singapore. This does not matter to Au Yong, however. As far as I can see, he believes that the mere existence of debates between politicians as one of the various modes of political discourse is bad for Singapore politics:

But is a televised live debate good for Singapore’s politics?

To answer that question, it is perhaps worthwhile to first understand how such a debate works.

What the audience sees is a 90 minute face-off between two articulate people who effortless [sic] shoot off insults and attacks at one another.

In Au Yong’s eyes, the debate between the American Presidential candidates is nothing more than a trading of insults without any actual arguments about policies. He must have watched an different cut of the debate from the rest of the world. Indeed the trading of insults is a taboo in Singapore where only the PAP is allowed to insult others while the press helps to publish and circulate these insults. When others insult the PAP, it is called defamation. God forbid that politicians from different parties be allowed to insult one another in Singapore! Insulting opponents is the prerogative of the PAP, which is made up of really polite people who will never label their opponents as cheats, liars, sociopaths, chauvinists, etc.

Au Yong must have totally forgotten about debates in the Singapore Parliament, where PAP politicians would offer rigorous “rebuttals” to what severely outnumbered opposition politicians are saying, even when the rhetoric of the dominant party is full of fallacies. No, I am just kidding. He has not forgotten anything; he just thinks that politicians here are very polite to one another:

In Parliament, MPs generally remain polite even when they are pushing for something they believe in passionately.

Perhaps he is right. There is probably a limit to how rude politicians here can be, even if they are PAP politicians. After all, when the opposition is threatened by the specter of repressive laws and severe consequences, they tend to be careful with how they argue with the PAP. With a relatively tame opposition, a PAP politician would have to be infected with rabies before he gets as heated up as Obama or Romney when he is speaking to an opposition politician. In Singapore, face-offs are rare. Insults, when one is entitled to the prerogative, tend to be behind the back or below the belt.

Au Yong believes that the “American-style” debates are all about style and not substance:

Given the cut and thrust nature of the debate, it is impossible to verify instantly if everything said by either side is true. And as such, winners are rarely determined by whether they had the best facts, but on whether they had the better style.

Fact checkers do run through the points raised in the debate, but the results of these come out well after the viewing audience has already decided in their minds who won.

While Au Yong may well be justified in having reservations about political debates, the concern applies to all other modes of political discourse. It may be true that facts may be misrepresented and the audience misled. If the person with more sophisticated rhetoric has an advantage, it really does not matter whether it is delivered in a debate or a forum. Is the apparent politeness itself as something more credible not also a rhetoric move in politics? Where Au Yong has a valid concern, his distinction between the debate and the forum proves to be spurious, if not cunningly deceptive.

If the problem of debates is ultimately that the audience may be misled by articulate but less than truthful speeches during a heated debate, there is also a worry that the audience is misled by speeches in apparently polite exchanges. The problem is, in fact, aggravated in Singapore where the ruling party enjoys unfair advantages and the mainstream media helps to circulate the rhetoric of the ruling party while misrepresenting ideas from the opposition. At least there are different newspapers taking different sides in America, even if there is a lack of truly objective papers. In Singapore, there is only Singapore Press Holdings and the publications that offer dead trees as sacrifices to the PAP gods. If Au Yong is concerned about the audience being misled, he ought to be paranoid about the potential effects of this particular article of his, and the very paper he works for.

Au Yong seems to acknowledge his partiality at the end of his article, but not without throwing more misleading claims at his readers:

Look across Parliament and you will likely see many who would not otherwise do well in a debate format but have useful contributions to offer.In fact, in many ways I am partial to boring politicians.

Because there is a good chance these people won because of their track record and what they can do, rather than how good they were at talking about those things.

While Au Yong has been careful not to clearly favor the PAP for a large part of his article, preferring to support the way politics is conducted in Singapore instead of overtly supporting the way the PAP conducts itself, his final remark makes his political affinities clear. He is saying that in the PAP-dominated Parliament, many of the politicians won their seats because of their good “track record” (this echoes the PAP’s claims during elections) and trivializes any verbal gaffes they may have committed. Politicians win not because of the unfair GRC system, not because the media help the PAP generate propaganda, not because of how opposition politicians have been bankrupted with defamation suits, and certainly not because they have misrepresented anything to the people since they are such polite people.

In reality, politics in Singapore is not at all polite and benign. In many ways, it is worse for Singaporean politicians than for American politicians – unless one happens to belong to that one very powerful party in Singapore. While not everyone would agree that Singapore should emulate America, the political scene in Singapore has to change if are truly concerned about preventing the public from being misled. The change needs to come from politicians as well as the state apparatuses that have been built over decades to ensure political unfairness.

PAP’s Engagement Yields Results [Or: Who is afraid of being radical?]

After the 2011 General Election, the PAP realized that it is important for them to focus on hoodwinking more supporters over to their side. (This is not to be taken seriously. Actually, PAP politicians already recognized the importance way before that. The election performance is just a way to help them show that they truly want to win more people over.) The PAP’s strategy is intelligent—one even wonders if they have consulted professionals on the matter before proceeding with their efforts—and one cannot helped but be impressed by their measurable success. The strategy employed  is perhaps fairly simple—target a few citizens, including prominent ones and lesser-known ones, that are moderately against the PAP, give them a different impression, and let them spread the news that the PAP really is not what its detractors have made it out to be. In fact, these do not even need to say anything—a mere talk with the PAP that leaves them with nothing to criticize will be effective enough for others who can still be convinced to support the PAP. A blogger like mrbrown would thus be an ideal target because mrbrown is popular, he is critical, but he is never radical—the very traits that have helped to give voice to dissatisfaction with the PAP can be exploited to the PAP’s advantage. He does not even have to be co-opted by the PAP or say anything positive about it—merely leading the pledge on National Day with a minister is more than enough to give the shaky masses an added inclination to have a renewed faith in the PAP without any real change in the PAP at all other than the way it communicates. In fact, even when those who are supposed to be engaged can even criticize the PAP’s endeavors, the propaganda will automatically spring to life because it will seem to show that the PAP is willing to engage its critics. The factors that matter here are visibility and naivety, a trait for which Singaporeans are notorious. (I offer my deepest apologies to mrbrown and my fellow Singaporeans. Please do not be offended. Molly will be pleased to engage you if necessary.)

A change in the perception of those who are looking intently at the PAP is certainly easier to effect than a change in the character or policy paradigm of the PAP itself, and the PAP itself seems to have realized this. On the other hand, with such a strategy, the PAP has made true engagement—should they ever want to do it—more difficult than ever. For once, talking to the PAP signals heretofore non-existent ideological perils. The more successful the PAP is, the more it is distancing itself from those it truly needs to engage. Then again, it is a numbers game—the PAP does not need to care about whom it ought to engage; it simply needs to convert enough to halt and reverse its growing unpopularity. Until most Singaporeans realize this, which is unlikely, given the national character, the PAP will continue to be successful. Of course, the trick is not anything new. A similar strategy was probably adopted around the time the Prime Minister took up his current position, picking up together with his position a new fashion sense and a greater tendency to smile, both of which help to give a sense of renewal until people became sorely disappointed with the discrepancy between appearance and reality. (Left with no other plausible alternatives, Molly would actually very much prefer the stern ‘I may just slap you’ look of the past. But Molly represents the exception rather than the rule.) The same trick can be tried again with fresh sensitivities to its pitfalls that will enhance its chances of success, but it remains a trick, an optical illusion. There is no real wizardry.

The mission to change public perception is, quite naturally, far from completion. Every time anyone who is not obsessively pro-PAP wants to write something giving the PAP credit, a disclaimer lengthier than the actual piece of work is obligatory. (Molly is the exception here again because no one believes that she would ever give the PAP credit even when she does so.) Nevertheless, this also helps to further limit the number of ideological positions available for us all. It serves to redefine what constitutes the political moderate. Arguably, this is the only group that the PAP needs to target since targeting PAP fundamentalists (such as those represented by Fabrications about the PAP) is unnecessary whereas targeting devout non-believers is futile. If the political moderate tends to criticize the PAP most of the time, the PAP has a problem. One solution is to redefine moderation via engagement. It will no longer be possible, eventually, to be a moderate and be consistently critical of the PAP. Prima facie, this would seem to be an ineffective solution if we assume that political stands do not change even when positions are redefined—if one supports the PAP, one supports the PAP regardless of whether it is labeled mainstream, alternative, fundamentalist or stupid. Nevertheless, the situation is perhaps more complex. When the political moderate is redefined, there are likely to be a number of people who will be interpellated into the position of radicalism, which, oddly enough, seems to have a bad name in Singapore. (As I might have said before, moderation is often the worst form of extremism.) If it is the case that most people are averse to being radicals or labeled as such, they either accept the new label or they change. Of course, the way this happens will be natural, invisible, and often unintentional—just like evolution in nature except that the forces governing the change is anything but natural. More than ever before, the moderate must be supportively critical. If this is an oxymoron, it is one that Singapore has brought into its political reality. Whereas the PAP used to demand constructive criticism in the past, it now does so more subtly by providing its fundamentalist supporters and other naïve citizens with the lexical ammunition to launch tirades against those who do not conform to the same ideology. “One-eyed dragon” is such a term. The same job of mudslinging that the PAP and the state-controlled media used to perform so successfully is now outsourced to its multiple agents.

The redefinition may already be taking place. I have never been a follower of Visa’s blog though I recall seeing it before. He seems to be one in a growing line of netizens with whom the government is willing to practice their engagement attempts, and he has recently met the Prime Minister in person at the Istana. In his blog post about the meeting, he has the customary disclaimer—perhaps several of them—that he is not a PAP supporter, he is critical of them, he thinks it is necessary to have opposition, etc. This gentleman doth protest a little too much for comfort, methinks. Does anyone really care if a blogger is an old lapdog, a new convert or simply a freshly redefined moderate giving off the aroma of engagement from the PAP bakery? In their excessiveness, the disclaimers are effectively, if unintentionally, passive-aggressive accusations against harsh PAP critics:

Before anything else, I want to start by clearly stating that I am not a PAP “lapdog” or “bootlicker”. I am not pro-PAP. I am not pro-Opposition either. I don’t believe in picking sides. I’m against PAP super-dominance, but I would be against Opposition super-dominance too. (Of course, then they wouldn’t be called Opposition any more.) If you have to pin me down on something, consider me pro-Singapore, regardless of political affiliation.

While no one should ever fault Visa for having his own opinions, he makes it seem as though he would be attacked by merely making one positive comment about the PAP. It is people like Visa whom the PAP would love very much to redefine and use as agents to redefine moderation. To be sure, he is not pro-PAP, but he certainly does not mind having the PAP in power for a long time to come. If the PAP were a religion, it is not the believers but the naïve ones amongst the agnostics who are the truly potent lot in perpetuating PAP hegemony while being sincerely against it.

It is the naïve agnostics who actually have implicit faith in the establishment and crave for recognition from it. We see this from Visa’s reaction to being invited to the Istana:

Receiving the email from the Prime Minister’s Office- with “@pmo.gov.sg” in the address- set my heart in a flutter. It felt like validation from the world, telling me that I’m on the right track, and that it makes sense to do what I’m doing with this blog and everything else.

It is as if the right track that can be taken by a political commenter or PAP critic must be the PAP-sanctioned one. (Despite having blogged for so many years, no one has ever invited Molly to meet the Prime Minister. She is probably on the wrong track, thank God!) After expressing his exhilaration about being selected, however, Visa seems to contradict himself with words in bold later in his post:

I’m thoroughly, completely convinced that we were not “carefully handpicked” for “wayang” purposes.

What was there to be exhilarated about then? It is no validation at all if there was no selection criteria. After all, it could simply mean that one is randomly picked from a mass of hopeful applicants. With prominent bloggers like mrbrown and Andrew Loh being amongst the 19 people selected (a fact mentioned by Visa himself), the selection process if clearly not random. It has got to be strategic. Nevertheless, Visa is already helping spread the anti-one-eyed-dragon ideology by humbly implicating himself in what he is criticizing:

[. . .] it’s absolutely sickening and disgusting how how [sic] vile online comments can be. I mean, I’m probably guilty of it too, which makes it even worse- we are so quick to label and demonize others that we don’t even know. I’m absolutely certain that this isn’t the Singapore (or world, or internet) that I want to be a part of, and I’m sure that if you take the time to think about it, you’ll feel the same way.

Comments are just comments, actually. There is only so much a vile comment can do to its victim before the commenter’s own reputation is tarnished beyond repair. As a useful digression, what is truly vile to me is the way some PAP supporters can support the PAP cause at the expense of those who suffer the most in Singapore. There is certainly nothing vile about the comments made by Fabrications about the PAP when it posted the news article about a family of eight that manages to survive on a $1500 salary and even manages to go on a holiday once in a while. In fact, respect is expressed for this family. It could have been totally motivational if not for the fact that the purpose behind the post is to suggest that those with difficulty are whining unjustifiably when it is totally possible to survive and be happy and make lots of babies even with just $1500. According to the budget reported, the family spends less than $2 per head per day on food. A vile comment pales in comparison to a vile heart, especially one that is dressed with beautiful comments. By helping to harp on superficial attributes, Visa is unwittingly drawing attention away from that which truly needs to be examined. He does seem to realize this and superficial attributes are enough to convince him about the core:

PM does know what’s happening on the ground. He’s very observant and perceptive for one, and he listens carefully to people, and he has a fantastic team that surely updates him. He has a natural curiosity about him that I think is in the best interests of the country- and I’d say the same for BG Tan.

Visa must have been a little out of his mind (sorry for this vile comment, Visa) if he had, prior to the meeting truly thought that the Prime Minister did not know what was happening on the ground. Of course he knows what is happening even if he is disconnected from it. Politicians, particularly those in police states, always know what is happening. Whether they care or empathize is a different matter.

Like students who score top scores in examinations by regurgitating answers they have memorized without even understanding the content or having any passion for it, politicians can always provide the textbook answers and conduct themselves in the textbook way. In the new age of PAP engagement, PAP politicians are even better than ever at providing the textbook answers. Netizens have provided them with all the textbook answers by ranting at them for years. Whether there is any commitment to address the concerns of citizens is another matter. The pressing matter for the PAP, it seems, is to reverse the loss of support. Unfortunately, the PAP is not made up of people who are adept at changing themselves. If the content of their textbooks is modified, they change their answers and their tact accordingly. But they are unable to change their studying style, to use the same analogy. These are the very people who have propagated the KPI mode of thinking where the existence of the signs is proof of the reality. (Molly has pointed out examples in her series, The Annotated National Day Rally Parts I, II, III, IV, V)

What the PAP is doing is motivated by narcissism. iIt will orchestrate a “national conversation” to demonstrate that it is listening. PAP MPs and ministers may meet bloggers (as Shanmugam has done with Gintai and Teo Chee Hean has done with Reuben Wang), and they may communicate with bloggers through facebook. The crux of the problem here is not that the PAP’s engagement is what we might call wayang. If it is just wayang, the implication is that the politicians are putting up a show simply because they have to. They may in fact be doing so because they want to. But even they may fail to realize that what they want and what they are doing is not engagement but a demonstration of their willingness and ability to engage. There is otherwise no need for all these demonstrations given that, as Visa says, they essentially already know what is going on in the “ground” and could simply act upon their knowledge.

If we ignore the distinction between the intention to demonstrate to engagement and the act of engagement itself, the PAP may even seem willing to embark on engagement sans frontières, allowing everyone to say whatever they want, even anonymously. It reserves the right, of course, to choose what to respond to. It uses the same engagement attempts to propagate the ideology against anonymity and privilege those who trust it enough to divulge enough details to get themselves fixed. In the PAP’s attempts to engage the Other, the Other is always already circumscribed—by the format, by the delineations of topics, by the platform. We may be allowed to ask questions, as though we needed to ask questions and get answers from those who know better. We may be allowed to comment at other times, but the topic is likely set beforehand—even when off-topic comments are not censored or deleted, they are already displaced and disqualified. The very focus on online engagement reflects a certain phobia—the fear of the unruly Internet that could cost the PAP more votes in the long run. (If you are a homeless, illiterate old man, wait till there are enough of you to threaten the PAP’s vote count.) It is also this fear that defines engagement while also destroying it. It is a transaction, not an unconditional free embrace. People are offered the space to air their views insofar as they contribute to the PAP’s image building, even with the harshest of all comments?

How could the PAP engage in spite of its history of authoritarianism? How could the PAP engage with the ISA still current? How could the PAP engage if it essentially rejects democracy? How could the PAP engage if “engagement” has been de-notionized and is purely rhetorical?

Engagement it is called, engagement it is not, engagement is nought.

If there is what Catherine Lim called the “great affective divide” between the citizens and the PAP government, has been aggravated by the PAP’s own engagement efforts, it is now masked with pretty paper bridges under which crocodiles could lurk. If there is hope for Singapore politics, it is when engagement between the government and the citizens is unnecessary. By then, bridges would have been burnt—for a good reason.

[No, please don’t invite Molly to the Istana for tea—well, not unless you want her to be the next president. Admittedly, the pay is very attractive even after a cut. Don't invite her to kopi either.]

The Cultivation of Infantilism and the Rise of Super Establishment Trolls

Working Title: Gahmen Wants Cock (Code of Conduct Kept)

Molly shall, first of all, start with a digression (though she technically cannot digress until she has actually started on a topic) and seek everyone’s pardon for doing so. She has not been following the news very intently of late, but someone told her that a certain Minister Yacock (Ya Ya/cocky and full of cock, the rumors go, but that could refer to practically any PAP politician I have in mind) has been getting a lot of flak for wanting people to behave properly. Being the bimbo that she is, Molly has not even heard of Yacock before. A legendary hero that is able to get into trouble for wanting people to behave themselves is probably born just once every fifty years or more and it is appalling that Molly is unable to find out more information about him. It is a pity that Molly does not have more information about the enigma. Imagine Molly joining the fray and writing a post entitled “Yacock, I Blast Him” instead of having references to some obscure post-fetal life form!

Admittedly, the above digression is utterly frivolous and tasteless. Bloggers writing about politics ought to be more serious and poised, many a wise reader will surely maintain. But both frivolity and tastelessness have been seriously maligned and it is about time we stop depriving them of their right to life.

But before Molly gets carried away by her digressive cyber-fantasies, she should watch her conduct and quickly say what she has to say. She shall start with Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim, though the issue at its crux by no means starts or ends with him. For quite a period of time, Yaacob kept talking about establishing an online code of conduct, causing netizens to lambast him for failing to understand the nature of the Internet. At the same time, there were speculations that the government was intending to extend its stifling restrictions on free expression to the Internet. Then, for a couple of weeks, netizens thought he had given up because he claimed that the government was not intending to clamp down on the Internet, though he did not at any point contradict himself on the issue. Then quite suddenly, he brought up the issue again, getting on the nerves of netizens who disagreed with him. The government soon announced the formation of a Media Literacy Council (MLC), and netizens now seem to have gained irony as an ally, given that the very people who appear to lack media literacy are the ones creating the MLC for others.

Surely those who are protesting against Yaacob’s ideas and the formation of the MLC are overreacting? If a code of conduct is of any real threat to free expression, it probably has to be legally-binding and no such thing is being created. The formation of the MLC may seem like a big waste of the money we give to IRAS every year, but it can hardly do any harm if every other netizen seems to be against it. For years, the PAP government has taken pride in maintaining a “light touch” on the Internet, resisting the impulse to smother and rape that is in its true nature. It is not as though Molly is suddenly going to be arrested for violating the sacrosanct rules of netiquette after posting this article online—well, perhaps she could be arrested, but it will not be because of the MLC. Yaacob’s ideas and the MLC are indeed disturbing, but they are merely symptoms of how Singapore is systemically being infantilized by political leaders who have had too much power for far too long.

To be sure, the PAP does want a “bottom-up” approach to Internet regulation, but it wants to create the bottom in its image. Post-2011, the PAP knows that a top-down approach will not make it any more appealing to the population that is increasingly inclined to vote for the opposition during elections. It knows, but it is unable to transcend itself. It is aware that its authoritarianism is causing it to lose support, but it is also aware that democratizing Singapore could also put the party known for its illustrious history of authoritarianism in a precarious position. The only way to allow Singapore to be democratic without the PAP losing power eventually is to make all citizens mini-PAPies; this way, Singapore can be the most democratic country on earth and the PAP will still remain in power forever.

The effect of many of the PAP’s policies is to interpellate Singaporeans as infantile citizens, whether there is a conscious intention to do so when policies are being formulated. The less money one has, the more vulnerable one is to the PAP’s infantilizing policies. There is neither minimum wage nor unemployment benefit, but there is Workfare and when a person sinks into the quicksand of poverty, he beg his kind PAP MP to pull him out an inch or two with food vouchers just so that he does not die, but can continue struggling. The impression given to the people is that it is not the state with a permanent system outlasting different governments that helps people, but the PAP that does. The people have to keep running to the PAP like the child who with little pocket money has to keep running to his parents for more. Like the child, we had better behave ourselves lest our pocket money is withheld. In the realm of education, we have the dubious but inescapable National Education through which we learn to see Singapore with the PAP’s eyes. We are supposed to believe that babies come from rocks if Papa PAP so tells us. It may not even matter whether we allow ourselves to become whatever our political leaders want us to become. We are either inevitably positioned as obedient, praiseworthy kids or as rebellious, uncooperative teenagers, but never as truly autonomous individuals.

We are thus always told what is good for us, and it is in this context that the formation of the MLC is disturbing. It is supposed to “review approaches such as advocating best practices and shared values to create a more participatory and responsible cyberspace culture.” The good reputation of values has long been tarnished by the PAP for values are not invariably something that compels us to uphold the status quo as favored by the PAP. The references to participation and responsibility are no less familiar to us. Everyone knows by now that to participate (and be “active citizens”, for instance) means that we do things that will bring a smile to the PAP. Participative citizenship should, of course, not involve things like challenging the courts to determine if the prime minister has the discretion to delay the holding of by-elections indefinitely when an MP leaves office. It is also somehow not responsible if you blog like Molly Meek because being responsible means that you need to “balance” any criticism of the PAP with praise and phrase the criticism as mildly as possible. While the constantly recycled vocabulary of PAP-speak induces nausea, unsavory intents lurk behind lofty rationalizations.

Naturally, the infantilization goes beyond policy-making. The PAP also uses baby-talk with us (and perhaps others—it becomes a habit), in the way they keep resorting to silly analogies and puerile language that are nothing but an insult to adult intelligence. The current generation of PAP ministers seem to think that baby-talk is the best way to engage the people, but in attempting to stoop to the level of those standing on the ground, they end up burying their heads several feet below the ground because have misgauged how low the ground is. One may recall the prime minister’s mee siam mai hum fiasco, Chan Chun Sing’s chye tow kuey nonsense, and how being poor in Singapore is “no fun.” More recently, the prime minister himself has kindly warned us that food prices may rise—the price of our soya bean drink may rise by 5 cents according to him, as though anything really goes up by just 5 cents anymore:

So when you buy tao huay zhui, I think you have to be prepared maybe it’ll cost you five cents more. When you have ice-kachang, maybe there will be less jagung (Malay for sweet corn) in the ice kachang. (Source)

Molly is beginning to wonder if they have a fetish for throwing in dialect terms randomly when they speak to us or if they think we actually have a problem understanding them if they simply speak in plain English.

At least during Kuan Yew’s time as a prime minister, his rhetoric may have been hot air, but it was a blast of hot air compared to the feeble lukewarm farts that the current PAP leaders are letting out daily, much to our discomfort. When the prime minister proceeds to reassure us about food prices, he says, “But I think as long as the Singapore economy is doing well and as long as we have resources, we will deal with this.”

Oh yeah? Then why are the prices still going to rise when our wages remain competitive with sweat-shop workers’ in developing countries? Why don’t you just shut up?

When Yaacob says that the “bottom-up” approach to the code of conduct online “is open to all” and that “netizens must take charge,” he is really telling us, his little kids, that it is time for us all to grow up and make decisions. To be more precise, we must all mature according to what he and his fellow power-holders consider as maturity. That’s why the MLC is formed by the top despite the claim that the code of conduct must come from the bottom. It’s the political equivalent of a parent telling a child, “You are old enough to know how to behave yourself.” The latently threatening tone indicates that expectations are clearly already in place. We simply cannot grow up any way we want.

Of course, Yaacob is not as stupid as to really think that netizens are going to buy it all. He is well aware of the fact that netizens have objected to his idea, and will continue to object to it. He must be equally aware of how a code of conduct can easily be violated with virtually no repercussions unless the violators happen to have broken the law as well. He probably also knows that just because the PAP wants to embark on social engineering, it does not mean that its efforts will be successful. Assuming that the government is indeed trying to achieve something through the MLC and the code of conduct, the question we have left is why the government is still trying to do it.

We should first note how disingenuous it is for Yaacob to give the impression that the code of conduct is going to be enforced bottom-up, as though it is a more palatable alternative to having laws to govern online expression. This is totally untrue for there are already laws that circumscribe what we can say and do online. Bloggers can be charged with sedition, defamation, contempt of court and whatever else they can be charged with for saying something offline. Politicians are restricted in terms of what they can post online on “cooling off day”—unless perhaps they belong to the ilk of a certain Ms Denise He. There is no need for any more repressive laws to be enacted because there are already enough laws to fix the hapless irresponsible blogger. The code of conduct and the efforts of the MLC will not reinforce self-censorship and the climate of fear much further, if any further at all.

But while many netizens can and will try continue with their “irresponsible” behavior, what they potentially face are discursive roadblocks. Put your point across strongly and the PAP can wave its thick bible of netiquette at you, derailing any potential arguments on important issues. The mainstream media will be eager to jump in and help out their masters. Those people it employs to offer a “balanced” perspective online and contradict PAP detractors can use the bible in the same way, perhaps with greater freedom. Those that the PAP manages to engineer into subservience, however limited in numbers this group of people may be, will also wave the bible as some sort of divine authority. The only issue that remains for discussion is whether we behave ourselves. There is only so much one can do and so far ideas can be articulated when they are constantly frustrated by super establishment trolls.

Of course the paragraph above is only a dystopian vision of things to come. It does not represent reality. After all, we can always put across our points mildly, constructively and tactfully. Everyone will be sedate and peace-loving. May the PAP be the Valium of the masses!

And may kittens be allowed to migrate to where they are allowed to be the bitches that they are.

*****

*Disclaimer: This article is not meant to give trolling a bad name. Trolls of the world, please do not feel offended unless you belong to the PAP camp.

*****

https://www.facebook.com/molly.meek.100

The Xenophobic Discourse of Integration

Singapore is always in a frenzied search for an other in order to maintain an increasingly illusory sense of self. The only disagreements are only about where the other is located.

By all appearances, xenophobia has never been more rife in Singapore, as exemplified by certain netizens who are able to link every problem to the presence of foreigners with the creativity that Singaporeans have long been maligned of lacking. We know very well that xenophobia has surfaced because of the PAP’s policies that have allowed large numbers of foreigners (or people who until quite recently were non-Singaporeans)—there is neither any point in denying this nor any use in harping on it except in a critique of public policy. The potential for xenophobia, nevertheless, exists even if the PAP had not chanced upon the brilliant idea of bringing in large numbers of foreigners for the creation of addictive economic statistics of such unrivalled pulchritude that benefits the image of Singapore without benefiting the country itself. In other words, it must have been possible for many Singaporeans to manifest xenophobic behavior even before it is manifested. In an alternative reality where the PAP has implemented a closed-door, the same potential for xenophobia is present even if it does not result in any particular behaviors that would prove its presence. In another alternative reality where the potential is non-existent, xenophobia will not be manifested even with the current immigration policies for one could always direct one’s antagonism at the PAP’s policies and not at foreigners or new citizens. From what I see, the PAP ought to be thankful for xenophobia since it has provided the party with a thick buffer of imported scapegoats of premium quality.

To understand the xenophobia that we now see, we have to look to its cousin that is structured by race rather than by nationality. One of the greatest pet topics of the PAP is racial harmony, which is predicated on the recognition of racial differences. The discourse of racial harmony is self-perpetuating. Like the cloud in the sky that remains meaningless until you say that it looks like the face of the devil you have never met, race will only mean something when people are taught to see it. The emphasis on racial harmony provides the teacher who ensures that race is always be in the field of vision to be managed like every other aspect of Singaporean society. The need to put aside differences that are supposed to be coded by race is simultaneously emphasized with the need to view race as a threat. In short, the entire discourse of racial harmony can only make sense if one were in complicity with what is essentially xenophobic. It is just that the centre of alterity is simply shifted from a perceived racial group to the notion of racial disharmony itself. We learn to make friends with those around us because they are potentially dangerous enemies, not because we actually inclined to do so because of certain affinities.

Singaporeans are thus well trained to recognize difference even if it is simply for the purpose of harmony. But things do not always go according to plan. Even though racial disharmony has traditionally been tame/tamed in Singapore, there is always so much to encourage xenophobia that is not coded by race. The superiority of the Singaporean things that we hate is often illustrated by comparison to other countries. We are told, for instance, that if we do not vote for the PAP to lord over us with its nonsense, our women would become maids in other countries (our men will, presumably, not even be able to go overseas because of their national service obligations which must surely be an impetus for gender disharmony, to use PAPspeak). When they encounter such a message, most Singaporeans have the ability to infer that countries with women going overseas to become maids are backward and inferior. (For why else would we not want the same for Singaporean women?) We are also told that we have Asian values, and so the abominable aspects of Western democracy, such as actually having democracy, are unthinkable. The siege mentality that is inculcated by national education and aggressive propaganda on the necessity of military defense—or rather, “total defense” (as though we are under all imaginable sorts of threats)—further sharpen the xenophobic acumen of Singaporeans, as people learn to look at all that is not Singaporean with fear.

The PAP is Singapore’s true leader where xenophobia is concerned, albeit its brand of xenophobia is highly peace-loving. (It is not true that the xenophobic are always out to stir trouble. To make such an assumption is to be guilty of a severe case of meta-xenophobia.) Why else would our Prime Minister be able to perceive the matter of one family wanting to hold a birthday celebration at the same place as another family is holding a funeral as one related to race? Perhaps the world’s most highly paid prime minister truly has exceptional insights into quotidian affairs. Or perhaps I am just too radically displaced from the PAP mindset to imagine how the matter is related to race.

These days, one could possibly derive some pleasure from imagining PAP ministers bawling, knees wobbling, as they appeal to Singaporeans to “integrate” with foreigners and new citizens. Unfortunately, the PAP’s notion of integration itself is xenophobic in its failure to accept difference. It is just that the authorities would prefer Singaporean xenophobes to convert and believe in the god of peaceable xenophobia instead of worshipping the god of war-like xenophobia. The PAP’s notion of equality is to apply its techniques of social engineering on everyone. It is presumptuous enough to define what it means to be Singaporean, making claims about Singaporean values. The PAP wants new citizens to fit into its vision of what Singaporeans are like. Prospective citizens are made to go through programs such as the “National Education Experience Programme” and a “Naturalisation and Integration Journey” where they would be fed the PAP’s version of Singaporean history, its definition of social norms and values. PAP politicians are speaking in agreement about this nonsense. PM Lee himself says: “The new arrivals should embrace the Singapore values and norms, and try to fit in as Singaporeans; Singaporeans can encourage the new ones to integrate and help the new ones to fit in.” If only everyone could work together to make the PAP’s hallucinations a reality! Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean speaks in an uncannily similar way: “Quite naturally, we expect that our new immigrants should adapt to our values and norms, and we get upset if they have not yet done so.” Unfortunately for the PAP, the more immigrants fit into the PAP’s definition of Singaporeaness (in fact, they simply need to be perceived as being so), the more susceptible they are to the vocal group of people who are unable to accept immigrants because the PAP’s schema is anathema to this group of people.

To expect immigrants to become the same, and to expect “old” Singaporeans to help immigrants become the same is to assume that anyone who is different cannot fit in. It is ridiculous because we can never expect new immigrants to become the same as Singaporeans, especially since Singaporeans are not the same to begin with. There is also a chasm between the PAP’s and many Singaporeans’ understanding of what it means to be the same as Singaporeans, making it impossible for new citizens to integrate in a way that satisfies both the PAP and the people. The deepest form of xenophobia in Singapore stems from the assumption that difference will inevitably result in social instability and the state’s impulse to keep emphasizing the difference while attempting to engineer old and new citizens according to the same ridiculous PAP-prescribed mould.

The apparent xenophobia we see in some Singaporeans would likely have remained latent if immigration had really brought about the economic benefits that the PAP thinks it would. Even if the PAP’s dream of integration is fulfilled by some social engineering miracle, the xenophobes that have been worrying the PAP will not be appeased simply because these people are not concerned about whether new citizens have integrated, but about how their own lives have been adversely affected by these newcomers, some of whom are just as xenophobic.

It may at first seem ridiculous that Singapore’s new citizens would be xenophobic. After all, they are the ones who choose to settle down in Singapore and if they do not like it here, they would not have made the decision, would they? We must remember, then, that Singapore’s import of foreigners is exploitative in nature. The PAP has opened Singapore’s doors to foreigners because some of them bring in lots of money, because others provide cheap labor and they supposedly help to keep Singaporeans competitive. (Yes, let us have a competition to see who can be better exploited and more disempowered. Thanks, PAP.) Foreigners are allowed to come because the PAP thinks they would bring about some economic benefit. Those who come to Singapore are likely to be aware of this, and they can only return the favor.

For a start, Singapore could stop trying to cultivate national identity via the production of otherness. But could those currently in power even imagine anything else?

The Functions of Apologies in Singapore

In Singapore, apologies are an indicator of power—or the lack thereof. Publicized apologies, whether they are uttered by the powerful voluntarily or extorted from the disempowered with self-righteousness derived from privilege, are equally insincere because sincerity is secondary, if it is even significant. Nevertheless, apologies are a tool for the powerful to declare their non-existent sincerity and a tool for the disempowered to prove wrong the unsettling truths they have uttered.

A number of years back, a blogger was made to apologize “unreservedly”—and publicly through the blog itself—to Philip Yeo of A*Star as though the declaration of an unreserved apology was the same as a truly unreserved apology. As long as he sounded abjectly remorseful, no one cared if he was apologetic either.  Obviously, no one was stupid enough to believe that the blogger was truly apologetic The necessary and expected referent of the apology was thus its own existence in public space and no longer contriteness from the heart. A private apology would not suffice for it was devoid of meaning insofar as the powerful one was concerned. The apology could only be meaningful if there was empirical proof of its utterance.

More recently, the Prime Minister of Singapore himself fed Singaporeans an apology a few days before the General Election to minimize vote loss, won the elections, and forgot all about the apology as Singaporeans defecated the apology together with the other junk food they eat. (I, too, will not hesitate to apologize unreservedly should this claim happen to be false. As everyone knows, bloggers are known for not verifying their claims, unlike Straits Times reporters who use the most advanced PAP truth-check software to verify all their information.) Whereas a disempowered blogger’s apology to a powerful figure had to be unreserved, a prime minister’s apology could be conditional and non-committal: “if we didn’t quite get it right, I’m sorry, but we will try to do better the next time” (italics mine). It could also amount to self-praise: “we’re sorry we didn’t get it exactly right” (italics mine, source for both quotes here). In other words, they got it largely right and they are sorry they are, so understandably, like everyone else, not perfect. It was a declaration that the blamable was blameless, one that violently exploited the apology as a signifier only to empty it entirely.

When the now infamous delinquent/famous victim Reuben Wang made an apology to Teo Chee Hean after writing a blog article now tragically known more for containing expletives than any political point, anyone vaguely familiar with how Singapore works would speculate that that the apology was extracted via institutionalized extortion.

A mild defense of the use of expletives should first be made to show how trivial the matter really is. An expletive is just another word. Any word can be an expletive as long as enough people decide that is should be forbidden in polite language. Comparing an aforementioned politician’s self-aggrandizing “sorry” and Wang’s expletive, the former is markedly more vulgar to me. Perhaps I should politely request for an apology as a Singaporean citizen and start an unending cycle of apologies. There will come a day when “sorry” acquires the status of an expletive vulgar enough to make whores blush. Expletives also have transgressive potential simply because it is forbidden. The use of an expletive could be an indication of insolence, but it could also be used for illustrative purposes—to indicate a speaker’s emotions, for instance. This is not a defense of rude behavior but a defense of legitimate expression although they may not be mutually exclusive. While Wang need not have used expletives, his use of expletives serves to indicate intensity of his anger and frustration of his encounter with Teo at the Pre-U Seminar. It is one thing to hurl vulgarities at the person you are communicating directly with, and another thing to use vulgarities in one’s communication. If you show a friend an article about how Wang had to apologize to Teo and your friend goes “WTF,” it would be unreasonable of you to accuse your friend of being rude to you although everyone knows that WTF is an acronym for an expletive-containing expression.

As I read Wang’s article, it does not strike me that he was being rude to Teo. Why Wang was supposed to apologize to Teo, and Teo specifically, remains the greatest mystery in the history of well-publicized Singaporean apologies.

Lest we forget, Wang did not hurl expletives at Teo at the Pre-U Seminar where both of them were present. Neither did he send Teo a letter or email rudely sprinkled with his expletives. He wrote a blog post that was not addressed to Teo.  There are instances where “Fuck you” is not said to or for “you”. (Yes, that word came out without being censored by silly asterisks. If you think I am being rude to anyone or that I am being indiscreet with my use of language, go get a life—it comes with a complimentary brain which you would certainly find useful.) Even if you do not like the expression, you could still understand that it shows how angry I am when I use it in my reference to another person. In the case of Wang, he was expressing his views and feelings to his audience. Some may even criticize him for not having enough guts as he had restrained himself when he had the chance to address Teo directly, but only performed an expression of his anger towards Teo in front of a wide but different audience online. It is justifiable for someone to be critical of how Wang had expressed himself, but it would be wrong to say that he was rude to Teo or that he was rude solely to Teo. Why, then, should Teo have the privilege of receiving an apology as though Wang had verbally abused him in his face?

Given that what Wang wrote was posted online and set as public before it was deleted, we may say that his audience is the general public of which Teo is a member, but merely one of many. If readers had found his language offensive, he should have apologized to his readers or to the general public, which would include Teo. If his school had believed that his inelegant use of language had tarnished the reputation of the school, he should have apologized to the school for the impact of his writing and not to Teo. The only way Teo can distinguished from the rest of the audience lies in the fact that the article was critical of him. In other words, the real contention was with the content, not the manners. Singaporeans may already be accustomed to experiencing the bizarre as the quotidian, but the series of events following Wang’s publication of his article highlights certain troubling facets of Singapore.

Wang’s brush with Singapore’s institutions and politicians brings to mind the perennial debate about online anonymity. Netizens are often challenged to be accountable and credible by putting their name to their comments, as though credibility comes naturally to those who reveal the names on their NRIC when they blog. (According to this theory, Xiaxue is one of the most credible bloggers around whereas Molly is amongst the most irresponsible. Molly ought to be ashamed of herself.) It is as though how responsible and credible one is depends on how easily traceable one is to the government. Yet, various state institutions would collude to perform a disciplinary function if you step on powerful toes and tracked down. You are not silenced, but are made to silence yourself, delete your online existence and can only re-emerge anonymously only to subject yourself to the same old asinine claims about anonymity.

It will become clear once you are tracked down why the authorities would like to be able to track you down. According to a ChannelNewsAsia report, Wang “wrote to Mr Teo . . . to apologise for being “too rash and too harsh in using the expletives.”” If the wording of the report is to be trusted, it would seem that Wang was not made to realize that the use of expletives was to be faulted in itself; rather he was made to realize (if this phrase did not seem ridiculous the first time round, I hope it does not) that he was wrong because he was too harsh. If he had substituted the expletive with “marshmallow” and sounded equally harsh in his criticism of Teo, he would still have to apologize. On the other hand, we may also say that if he had been praising Teo but had randomly sprinkled his post with expletives, it would have been deemed more acceptable since the main problem was with how harsh he was. This is truly a learning experience, though perhaps in a different way from what the mainstream media would make it out to be. It would be interesting, though, to know if Wang had worded the apology himself or if the educators in his school had vetted the apology or advised him on the wording with their delicate, disciplinarian-nurturing rhetoric.

If I may be allowed to speculate based on my understanding of how things work in Singapore, I would say that committees are probably now formed in schools or in the Ministry of Education itself to look into coming up with a code of conduct for students attending the Pre-U Seminar next year. Students may be trained to frame their questions and objections in sanctioned templates. There may even be injunctions for students to not blog about it at all. “Character education” teachers and “cyber etiquette” teachers may be rubbing their hands in glee, glad to have found another example to include in their lesson plans so that Singaporean kids can grow up to become active and responsible citizens who are politically engaged but never harsh in their criticisms of the ruling elite—if they even have to criticize. These are just wild, satirical speculations, are they not? Well, one MOE spokesperson has said: “We hope to turn this into a teachable moment for both the student blogger and students in general.”

If the way a single article by a single blogger could result in nationwide social engineering efforts is not exactly disturbing because we are already used to it, the irony of the whole saga may be more disturbing: Student rants about how Teo, who represents the ruling elite, is failing at engaging the people. Student is made to participate in a charade of reconciliation by the forces of the state. Charade is taken as the reality; the original rant is forgotten. Happy ending: Ruling elite has engaged the people. This is not altogether new either. We are a nation repetitively interpellated into the absurd script written by the PAP. The script is scripture and the nation has to dare to burn it if it does not want the perpetually remain as disempowered players.

I have to confess at this point that I have made assumptions about Reuben Wang in my writing. I should be careful not exploit Reuben Wang for my purposes. Perhaps he really is remorseful about using expletives. Perhaps he truly understands the PAP now. Perhaps the state has managed to re-educate him. Perhaps, but I certainly hope not. Perhaps I will never find out—the state has an uncanny power to make people disappear as they continue living their lives as though nothing has changed.

Reuben: I hope you are old enough to vote when the next General Election comes.

Mass State-Sanctioned Population Management

Dear Molly,

I take offence to the fact that you did not pass my contact number to Channel NewsAsia when they were looking for a die-hard PAP supporter. I would have loved to be interviewed about my unwavering support for the steadfast and unchanging political party.

I write to you today, nevertheless, to address a concern that many Singaporeans have: the population size. It has come to my attention that the government intends to study the ideal population size. Many people have said that the PAP government is a victim of its own success (let’s not quibble about what the success is at this point), and I’m worried that Singapore may already be overpopulated because of the government’s foreign talent policy, which has been wildly popular (with foreigners).

In the event that Singapore has already become overpopulated, the leaders of Singapore must, as always, be able to do the right thing, which is not necessarily (i.e. necessarily not) the popular thing. As a citizen who believes in the PAP’s call for constructive suggestions, I would urge the PAP to promptly set up a Committee for Mass State-Sanctioned Population Management, which I believe is necessary for Singapore’s deficiencies as a nation.

If Singapore is overpopulated, the government must take decisive steps to manage the population size and this involves the removal of redundant citizens. It is necessary that the elimination is limited to only citizens for there is no way the state can target foreigners without risking military conflicts. Although I have full confidence in Singapore’s defense capabilities, it just isn’t practical to risk the GDP by going to war when a much simpler solution is at hand. The state should not eliminate Permanent Residents either since we still want to convince them to become citizens so that they would continue to contribute to Singapore’s economic growth.

Having established that we must only eliminate Singapore citizens when the island is overpopulated, one question that may arise is which ones to remove. It would be easy if the number of persons that need to be eliminated is equal to the number of Singapore citizens (sans the members the PAP government and their families). However, the likelihood is that the number of people we need to remove is smaller than the number of eligible people, and we do not want to eliminate too many people because losing one workhorse too many is detrimental to the country’s economic growth. Hence, I propose that the following groups of people get eliminated first:

1)      The elderly who are a burden to the state. Naturally, MPs, ministers, minister emeriti, and multi-millionaires are excluded. We can then stop worrying about whether to send them to retirement villages overseas or not.

2)      Those who are genetically predisposed to whining about the government. These people are disruptive forces in society and there’s no point keeping them.

3)      Adults who have been unemployed for three or more consecutive months and those who accumulated a period of unemployment amounting to five months or more in a period of 2 years. It has been scientifically proven that such people are lazy and are waiting to be fed by the government even though they have been told time and again that there is no free lunch in this beautiful island.

After the first cycle of eliminations has been completed, there is still work to be done. After all, the population must be maintained—not necessarily at a constant, but at a number ideal for economic growth. This number will vary from year to year. Given the current trend, we can safely say that Singaporeans are unwilling to procreate. The Committee for Mass State-Sanctioned Population Management must then ensure that people procreate. I suggest that every citizen should henceforth be given Elimination Credits. Every year that passes after a citizen’s eighteenth birthday without a baby registered as his/her offspring will gain the citizen 100 Elimination Credits. These Credits will be subject to a 5% per annum interest rate. Compounded. (The Committee will have to decide if NSFs are to be exempted during full-time National Service.) At any given year, citizens who are 55 and above will be due for elimination, and the citizens with the highest Elimination Credits (relative to others who are of the same age as them) will get the highest priority to be eliminated. The exact number to be eliminated will depend on the ideal population size determined by the Committee for Mass State-Sanctioned Population Management. The rest, because of their contribution to the production of babies, will get to continue contributing to the economy till Nature decides that they are an economic burden.

Of course, with every great policy, it could become too successful. There might be too many babies made in any given year after the implementation of the policy. Nevertheless, it is always better to work with a surplus. The excess babies will, I propose, be cryogenically frozen and we will tap into these reserves when the need arises—and when technology allows us to do so without killing them. Those who are not frozen will get a chance to contribute to Singapore’s economic growth.

We must leave no stone unturned. We have to remember that there are homosexuals in our society who do not seem to be interested in activities that would lead to procreation. Given that we are all open-mindedly conservative in this day and age, I would propose that the government should pair male homosexuals with female homosexuals for the purpose of procreation. Given that the government has always been magnanimous, they could be given a choice between procreating naturally without any risk of going to Hell and procreating through artificial insemination. As with the rest of the population, homosexuals will accumulate 100 Elimination Credits per year for every year past their eighteenth birthday if they fail to procreate within that year. In Singapore, we believe strongly in equality.

With such policies in place, population size will never be a problem. We will no longer need to rely on foreign talents. It is, after all, a little strange that we keep emphasizing that we cannot rely on others and yet keep bringing others in to rely on them.

Mr. Lee See Nao