By Kumaran Pillai
Managing Editor
Firstly, my sincere thanks to MDA and folks for announcing our arrival. And I thought that it would be apt to start the inaugural issue about the threats to free speech on the Internet in Singapore.
The Internet has played a pivotal role in somewhat democratizing the media landscape in Singapore. It opens up new avenues for innovative companies to exploit the market for the pent up demand for alternative news sites. However, the only thing that seems to be standing in the way is government regulation. Or, so it seems.
Orchid Revolution
The key question in our mind is is regulation necessary and what would the government achieve out of this?
Our society is going through a swift transformation and according to The Independent’s editor, PN Balji, it is “the orchid revolution,” a more subtle quite change that is taking place in our country.
“Because the government has played a critical role, a womb-to-tomb role in people’s lives, now there’s a boomerang effect. They blame the government for everything that goes wrong in Singapore,” said Balji.
Given the new political climate, it appears that the government is trying to take back control by controlling the media, or more appropriately, the Internet.
Government Control
However, when it comes to regulating the Internet, Singapore is not alone. Countries like Russia, China, Vietnam and Middle Eastern countries are proposing some form of regulation that would rein in online publications.
Jordan has recently shut down 200 online publications which are critical of the government and it is only ranked 134th by Reporters without Borders while Singapore is ranked 149th without having to shut down any site. It speaks volumes about how efficient and effective our MDA is.
But that is not the only troubling fact. There are bigger threats to our freedom on the Internet and it has nothing to do with the Singapore government.
In 2012, the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union proposed to bring the Internet, currently overseen by private sector and engineering groups, under governmental and UN control. The bill was opposed by the US, Canada and European nations. However, there is still concern that this bill may be passed at some stage in the future.
Internet is overseen by for-profit companies
One needs to bear in mind that the Internet is nothing more than computers interconnected with each other through optic fiber cables, wireless and 3G networks that are controlled primarily by telecommunications companies. These companies may decide at some time in the future to charge toll for international traffic which is provided free of charge today.
What this means is that blogs that are running on the basis that the Internet is free may face extinction due to the additional costs that are imposed on them.
There are also new technologies that are being developed that may replace Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) which powers the Internet today. Again, this may affect the future of Internet and the underlying cost structures.
This is one of the primary reasons for me to move to a commercial entity so that I can mitigate these risks. For, free speech as we know it is only as strong as the weakest link.
Regulation has a downside
Regulation needs to be taken in the proper context. While I am no cyber utopian and while I do think that some form of Internet code of conduct is necessary. I prefer it to be something that originates from the Internet community rather than a government sanctioned one.
In an already highly regulated media industry like Singapore’s, additional forms of regulation do little for the development of the industry. In fact, it only stifles innovation.
I have already jumped through several hoops to set this up. And it is quite likely the authorities will put up more hurdles to make this journey even more exciting for me and the rest of the team and I suppose, we’ll just have to take it in our stride.
With that note, I take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Happy National Day!
Free speech is only as strong as your weakest link
The bald truth of education
By Alfred Dodwell
What does a shaved head mean to you? Prisoners have to have their heads shaven. In Singapore, the first steps into national service are usually accompanied by having the hair cropped off. Some religions practise it as a ritual or as part of fulfilling a sacred vow. In the early days of Singapore, we had a campaign, ‘Men with long hair will be served last’. Needless to say, a bald head was the preferred choice.
Who knew then we would be splitting hairs over shaven heads? There has been a right royal rumpus over a broken promise, a breach of school rules and five bald schoolgirls who had their heads shaved for a worthy cause. The heated debate has thrown up an array of questions that can be summed up as whither Singapore, whither education?
It all began with the Hair for Hope event organized by the Cancer Foundation of Singapore over 27-28 July at Vivocity. The event itself was a booming success, with long queues of people waiting to have their heads shaved, and the commendable services of the Jean Yip group which, as the official stylist sponsor, had its many hairdressers giving of their time, effort and energy to help each and every one make a bald statement to the world.
There were also many individual and group sponsors seeking to raise $6 million for a worthy cause. After all, one would not wish cancer upon one’s worst enemy, let alone a child. Imagine the ordeals of a child suffering from cancer, including losing hair from chemotherapy. It’s traumatic. So, the CCF’s noble purpose as outlined in their webpage: “The only head-shaving event in Singapore that serves to raise funds and awareness of childhood cancer. Every shaven head in Hair for Hope represents the understanding by an individual of the ordeals that a child with cancer is subjected to. By volunteering to shave, shavees become CCF ambassadors in helping to raise awareness of childhood cancer among their family and friends. It also provides an opportunity to garner support from the public in the form of donations. Hair for Hope is in its 11th year running this 2013.”
Regrettably, this event made the news over a promise made by five students to the principal of St Margaret Secondary School, Mrs Marion Tan, to don wigs after they shaved their heads. Needless to say, they did not keep to their promise. The principal was displeased. It made the news and became one of the most talked- about issues online and offline. It raised a lot of valid questions and people spoke up both for and against Mrs Tan.
The five girls and Mrs Tan have now resolved their difference and all is peaceful now in St Margaret Secondary. Even as the dust settles, and valuable lessons learnt, what other lesson can one take away from this?
Today, on National Day, we salute the nation, but is ours a nation where rigid and somewhat blind adherence to laws, rules and regulations is taking precedence over understanding that we live in an ever-changing world and sometimes we need to be flexible to enable our people to express themselves? We reside in a country where OB markers control many forms of expression and news is sanitized to a point where it is oftentimes deemed to be tasteless.
Can’t Singaporeans be free to express themselves in ways such as shaving their heads? Must there be restraints on that too? Is a teenager with a shaven head or coloured hair a bad influence on the rest of the school?
Perhaps it is time for the education ministry to re-look at the importance of uniforms and allow schoolchildren some level of self-expression in terms of the way they dress and choose to wear their hair. It is not unknown that many polytechnic students, given the first foray into freedom of expression, usually do take huge liberties with their dress sense and hair sense, and this oftentimes does not curtail their academic performance.
So, what is the purpose of these rules and regulations that Mrs Tan so dearly was holding onto, insisting the girls suffer the discomfort, heat and needless to say ridicule of their fellow students as they parade around school in their wigs? Somewhere rote education seems to have won the day and creative education appears to have taken a backseat.
Today, we live in an increasingly changing world. Innovation and creativity has won over dull and boring. Even Singapore has desperately tried to become a fun place with integrated resorts and entertainment. So, is it not high time to re-look at the true sense of education and train our children to make smart choices on every aspect of their life – from their dress sense and their overall portrayal of themselves to the world. It speaks volumes of the Singapore we live in that heads shaven for a worthy cause can raise the ire of the lead educator in what is a top-notch school. Does she honestly believe that her role is purely to create automatons that look alike, dress alike and does this magically make them all alike as they transform into adults? The sad reality of education in Singapore is that individual autonomy and hence individual creativity has become stifled from the outset of school life.
St Margaret’s school mission itself states that it seeks to impart “an all-round education” and values continuous learning. Are the actions of Mrs Tan in keeping with an all-round education? Is there really room for one to learn continuously? Mrs Tan started off from a point of rigid adherence, but once the folly of her position was pointed out, she was prepared to reflect and change her stance. The girls have also to learn that Mrs Tan did extract a promise from them and they should have stood their ground then in explaining to the principal why her request was impossible to fulfil.
Mrs Tan has every right to feel let down as it is, after all, a broken promise and hence defiance. We cannot encourage our children to take liberties with laws, rules and regulations, and they must be taught that a promise made must be a promise upheld. After all, what we fail to acknowledge is that the principal was not stopping them from shaving their heads, but in a misplaced attempt to balance the personal choice of the girls and her greater role as principal and not to allow this to become an infectious copycat act, she placed discipline over the bald statement that this particular act of baldness was meant to convey.
However, this incident has clearly been a valuable lesson for us all. This has truly been a learning experience for everyone including the many who have been posting online about it, the newspaper reporters and even Minister for Education Heng Swee Keat. He said on Facebook that he was pleased that the five students and the principal had been able to resolve this impasse after they shared their perspectives. The principal clearly learnt that she must learn to exercise flexibility in place of showing blind adherence to rules and regulations. The girls, one hopes, learnt that a promise broken can understandably raise the ire of anyone.
As for the many others who had their heads shaved at Vivocity, some came with friends and they encouraged one another to do so for a good cause. This is a lesson in solidarity. Some came alone, stood alone, weaved through the long lines alone, resolved to carry out their act of shaving their heads to show their firm commitment to understanding the ordeals of cancer patients, especially the children, and they were prepared to go it alone. Oftentimes, it is hard to stick to a commitment alone when it is so easy to follow the crowd, to mock, ridicule and toe the line.
This incident, one would hope, would open the eyes of the many educators in schools and various institutions in Singapore. They should spend some time reflecting on the wisdom in the words of Minister Heng, who said: “This, then, is the real heart of education, that everyone appreciates there is a learning moment in every situation, in every decision we make, in every promise we pledge. Our Principals and teachers have a huge responsibility to help shape our students’ characters. Of course, parents play a most important role, so I ask parents to work together with our educators to give our children the best experiences and lessons to become outstanding young people of character. Because ultimately that is what is really at stake.”
So, what can we learn from this? We all make mistakes, we all break promises, and dialogue, reason, understanding and wisdom should win the day. Educators should not be so rote in meting out education and the youth should learn that they should seek to educate the educators about their perceptions and reasons for things. Perhaps it is high time to consider that uniforms could be on the way out, strict adherence to such rigidity is not doing the country any good. Perhaps it is time to go back to the heart of education and acknowledge that there are many ways to get a good education and the path should not be hard and fixed with all kinds of rigid rules and regulations.
Finally, a simple suggestion to break the mould of rigidity. Maybe the principal of St. Margaret’s secondary school should kick off the Hair for Hope 2014 by being the first in line to have her head shaved. This would truly reflect a lesson learnt and the process of continuing education, which is of course what is needed. That is the bald truth of education.
Singapore’s 5 political and non-political myths
By Tan Bah Bah
1. Lee Kuan Yew was the architect of post-colonial Singapore
Not quite. Lee Kuan Yew led a remarkable team of people who overcame great odds to transform a struggling post-war colonial outpost and entrepot port into a major metropolis. He played a dominant role in forging a common destiny for once disparate groups of people.
But the real architect behind the island’s spectacular economic success and many other iconic institutions was his No 2 Dr Goh Keng Swee. Among the contributions: Jurong industrial estate (and its lake gardens), Economic Development Board of Singapore, Development Bank of Singapore, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Singapore Armed Forces and Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Much of the Republic’s education system still owed much to the recommendations of the 1979 Goh Report.
2. Raffles built up Singapore into a major port and trading city
Yes, Stamford Raffles founded Singapore. As lieutenant-governor of Java, Raffles was worried about the expansionist ambitions of the Dutch. He sought permission from the East India Company (EIC) to set up a post south of Malaya to counter the Dutch moves. He landed in Singapore, liked what he saw and later signed a treaty with the local rulers. Date: 6 February 1819.
He did not spend much time in Singapore, however. He visited the island only three times and stayed for nine months. The person who did the real work of building up of the administrative and physical infrastructures was the Resident, William Farquhar.
Farquhar stayed for four years trying to make the colony work. He had little financial support from the EIC and Raffles himself. But his efforts , which were backed by the grateful settlers, brought results which unfortunately were credited by some to an undeserving Raffles.
3. Is there genuine racial harmony here?
Measured by the absence of outright strife, Singapore does have a kind of enforced harmony. By consensus, outwardly, everyone is politically correct on the race issue – the government, the private sector, the communities.
But beneath the surface, there are the occasional outbursts of racism, and the usual undercurrents of frustrations. Indian Singaporeans find it hard to get jobs in Chinese-dominated companies. PRC workers should not be allowed to work here if they can’t speak English. Why are there no Malays in the top SAF ranks? Inter-racial harmony exists but harmony? Frankly, no.
4. Singapore is a nation
Here, the jury is still very much out. Singapore is a sovereign and independent state. As a country forged through battling adversity or a determination to be different from others or make a mark or have all its citizens equally committed to its success, Singapore is a work in progress. For the time being, we seem content to see it as just a great place to earn a living and raise one’s family.
5. Swiss standard of living
Singaporeans were promised a Swiss standard of living by 1999. By GDP performance, the island has surpassed Switzerland. But by a host of other determinants, it is behind. By Gini cofficient, it trails the Swiss. By the happiness index, it is miserable.
Five Non-Political Myths
1. Singapore does not have natural resources
No gold, oil, diamonds, plutonium, vast tracts of fertile agricultural land. But the island does have a precious resource – its navigable harbour. It is not just another harbour but one that is strategically located.
The location was what attracted the East India Company in the first place. The Singapore Strait was the main sea channel between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Singapore quickly became, after its founding in 1819, the hub for exports/re-exports to the region and other parts of Asia.
2. Singapore was an impregnable fortress
In the lead-up to the Japanese Invasion in World War II, Singapore was built up by Whitehall as an impregnable bastion of British military might. With big guns placed to face an invasion from the southern seafront, it looked that way. The British just did not expect the Japanese to come from the north, on land through Johor. Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival surrendered to General Yamashita Tomoyuki on 15 February 1942.
3 . Singapore’s public housing scheme began with HDB
No, the housing programme was started by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), predecessor of the Housing and Development Board. The SIT was formed as far back as 1927 and undertook a number of housing projects, including for the poor, till its dissolution in 1959 when the HDB was formed.
4. The Road To Singapore was filmed in Singapore
The name Singapore was immortalised into Tinseltown folklore by this 1940 Paramount film which starred Big Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. But one could not imagine America filmmakers risking their lives travelling to Singapore when World War II was already in full swing. Most of the action took place in Paramount studio in Hollywood.
5. Singapore never had a world champion in a major internationally recognised sport before the table tennis imports
We had. Badminton champion Wong Peng Soon won the All-England singles title in 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1955. The All-England was the de facto world badminton championships at that time.
Tan Bah Bah is a retired journalist. He was a senior leader writer/columnist with The Straits Times and managing editor of a local magazine company.
Media in Singapore
For media watchers in Singapore, this is bonus time. In the space of just a year, two definitive books have emerged to tell the Singapore media story from two very different angles.
And this in a country which hardly scrutinises its media, both from an academic and a practitioner’s perspective.
The media here watches everybody, but nobody, except the government’s large monitoring unit, really watches the media.
The books by former editor in chief of the English/Malay Newspapers Division of the Singapore Press Holdings Cheong Yip Seng and Nanyang Technological University’s Associate Professor Cherian George have brought a refreshing twist to that truism.
It is Cheong’s book, OB Markers: My Straits Times Story, that goes against the grain. It is not fashionable for Singapore editors to tell all; instead, they prefer to take stories to their graves. But Cheong, who was a journalist for 43 years, 19 of them as editor in chief, is the exception.
Told by a journalist who grew up writing racy stories as a crime reporter, his book relates in vivid detail how the government intervened in appointing editors, shaping news coverage and restructuring the media landscape to maintain the ruling party’s grip on power.
Sometimes, the orders were downright gangster-like. Cheong the editor reflects on the example of how Cheong the reporter was told by Lee Kuan Yew that “I will break your neck if you report what I had just said”.
Sometimes, they were given matter-of-factly. Like when Cheong was told during a plane journey back home after an assignment covering then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong’s visit to Myanmar in 1987: We want you to take over as editor in chief.
Cheong was then the editor of The Straits Times.
But what should make this book a favourite of media watchers are the heroic battles fought behind the scenes by the editors of ST to resist government pressure. One such incident was Lee Kuan Yew’s attempt to get the paper to publish the full O-level results of Opposition politician Chiam See Tong at the height of the hustings in 1984.
The intention was to show that Chiam, because of his not-so-good academic performance, was not the right choice for MP.
George’s book, Freedom From The Press: Journalism and State Power in Singapore, is grounded in sound research and a writing style that is more that of a journalist than an academic.
The beauty of this book is the rational way in which it approaches government-media dynamics.
These relations have always been seen in a very black-and-white way by those who have studied Singapore’s media history. But George digs into the grey areas and brings out a new perspective.
“Calibrated coercion is an important feature of Singapore’s approach to managing the media.
Draconian powers remain in the statute books. Yet, the government has often left these on the shelf and reached for less visible tools to prod the media this way and that.
“Over the decades, there has been a shift away from flamboyant punishments such as imprisoning journalists and banning publications to behind-the-scenes cohtrols that create the conditions for self-censorship.”
George devotes one whole chapter to this sophisticated management of media which sets apart this authoritarian government from many others. “…Lee Kuan Yew recognised that he could only use newspapers effectively if he alllowed them to retain some credibility, which would be crushed if his grip was too tight.”
I have seen this kind of management at work when I was an editor. An inordinate amount of time is spent by political leaders to convince the journalists why the government’s way is the right way.
Sitting in a cosy dining room with the Prime Minister within touching distance can have an overpowering effect, especially on the up-and-coming journalists.
Everything is said with a straight face, there are no direct orders, you are allowed to put up counter points but in the end there is no doubt whose views prevail.
As George hints, this kind of approach breeds self-censorship, and as a couple of examples of recent times have shown, will only lead to media losing its grip on a reading public who now have mutltiple sources to get their news from.
Both took place during the 2006 general elections. The Straits Times had an aerial-view photograph of huge crowds at the Workers’ Party rally but did not publish it before polling day for fear of a government reprisal. But some members of the public had similar pictures and they went viral in no time.
At a ruling party rally, the Prime Minister got so carried away in warning voters of the danger of having too many opposition politicians in Parliament that he said: “Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I’m going to spend all my time thinking what’s the right way to fix them…”
The next day’s ST published this part in reported speech but substituted the word “fix” with “counter”.
But the person who made that change never realised how times have changed with the online media on a frenzied spree critical of the PM for using the word “fix” and of ST for trying to protect him by editing his quote.
To make matters worse, PM apologised in the next day’s paper and put ST in a major fix over its self-censorship.
The media in Singapore has prospered as a business under the government’s careful protection and nurturing and in the process has created a group of journalists who are likely to second guess the authorities.
And the biggest loser will be the government because as eyeballs move away from mainstream media, the leaders will find that they have no other pervasive platform to get its views across.
The big question then is whether the powers-that-be are prepared to cut the umbilical cord and pave the way towards a media system that is directed by autonomous professional journalistic judgement.
George answers his own question this way: “…such a prescription seems to be too much of a mental leap for those in power.”
That would be the view of most media watchers.
Shareholders agreement makes it clear about funding
THE INDEPENDENT – SINGAPORE
- We refer to the statement from the Media Development Authority issued on 29 July 2013 regarding The Independent, which operates theindependent.sg
- The Independent is a new Singaporean media brand that aims to provide responsible, intelligent & robust journalism to the Singapore public.
- The Board and core team behind The Independent consists of Singaporeans. There is no foreigner in this team, nor has there ever been. The identities of The Independent’s core team have been posted on its website since June 2013.
- The founding shareholder’s agreement for The Independent, dated19 April 2013 states very clearly that the shareholders to this enterprise is restricted to Singapore Citizens/Permanent Residents or Singapore Registered Businesses/ Companies/ Societies, that is, The Independent expressly prohibits the acceptance of foreign funding and has taken cognizance of the relevant provisions of Section 43 of the Broadcasting Act (Cap. 28). The said relevant clause in the said agreement was voluntarily agreed to by the founding team of The Independent prior to any discussion on registration and commencement of the venture.
- The core team of The Independent includes two former journalists with Singapore’s mainstream media institutions – Mr PN Balji, the former CEO and Editor of Today newspaper, and Mr Edmund Wee, a former Straits Times journalist and editor.
- We would like to highlight that the posture of The Independent is and has always been to be a purely Singaporean-funded media operation which does not accept foreign funds, was formulated and documented 19 April 2013, that is at an early stage of the venture’s formation.
- We are pleased to register under Section 9 of the Broadcasting Act (Cap. 28) and to comply with all laws, rules, regulations and code of practice in place to regulate broadcasting in Singapore.
- The Independent has not and will not ever come under the influence of, foreign entities or funding.
Issued by: The Management of The Independent, Singapore
Gayhood in Singapore
After playing hide-and-seek for many years, the gay community is finally coming out of the closet; and what a confident and proud group we are seeing as they are declare their sexuality openly and unabashedly.
The most recent pink declaration came from Opposition politician Vincent Wijeysingha when he said on his Facebook: “…Yes, I am gay”
He revealed this on the eve of Pink Dot, an annual event to celebrate homosexuality. This year it saw a spill-out turnout of 21,000 people, nine times more more than when it was first held in 2009.
Another signifcant development was the kind of sponsors this year’s event drew — J P Morgan, Barclays, Google and Park Royal Hotel.
The gathering at the Speakers’ Corner saw even straight people turning up in droves to show their support.
Nominated MP Janice Koh was there with her children. She says in a newspaper column: “As a parent, this is an opportunity for my children to learn the importance of treating everyone equally and with respect, no matter their race, language, religious background or sexual orientation.”
The surprising but silent partner in this coming-out party is the government which is well known for its hard conservative stand and has not openly accepted gayhood as a form of lifestyle in Singapore.
Two factors have played a major part in this turnaround: Economics and politics.
It was the chase for the pink dollar that saw the government declaring way back in 2003 that it would accept gays in the civil service, even in sensitive positions.
The quote that caught many by surprise was this extract from the interview he gave to Time magazine:
“We are born this way and they are born that way, but they are like you and me.”
Why make such an important political point to a foreign magazine?
This is where economics comes into the calculation. It was the time when the recruitment of foreign talent was
being pushed strongly and the government wanted to send the word out to the world that Singapore was was shedding its image of a staid, prim and proper city state to one that is fun and funky.
Even founding father Lee Kuan Yew, the man who jealously guards the nation’s conservative values, was sympathetic.
He said three years before Goh’s interview — again to an American journalist: ” Once we conclude that homosexuality is also a
DNA problem, then you have got to approach the punishment in a different way. And if you have consenting adults, God bless both of them.”
From a political perspective, the change in government attitude reflects the new Singapore reality. The gay community and those who support their cause are generally anti-establishment and as the support for the ruling party at the elections continues to erode, this is a pressure group the establishment cannot afford to ignore.
Since the two leaders’ comments, Singapore has become more relaxed allowing gay clubs to open and plays and films with outspoken themes to be performed and shown.
Benjamin Low, 35, is enjoying this openess. He said: “Growing up in a country was tough.
“I was lucky. I had very understanding parents. But it was my overseas education that opened my eyes to the reality that there was nothing to be ashamed about being gay.”
The Benjamins of Singapore are still waiting for the day when the law that criminalises sex between two men, Section 377A, will taken off the statue books.
There was an attempt to do this in Parliament in 2007 but the conservative majority voted against it with most MPs thumping their chairs to show their support.
Six years later, the gay law is still very contentious with both sides of the divide, especially the Christian groups, pushing back the gay groups.
The debate spilled into the open once again when two gay men decided to test the constitutionality of Section 377A by taking it to the High Court.
It was thrown out but now the duo are appealing and have asked for permission to hire prominent Queen’s Counsel Lord Peter Goldsmith to argue their case.
This testing of the boundaries, with the conservative ground pushing and the gay groups shoving, will continue as the government walks a thin line of new realities.
In the meantime, people like Benjamin are basking in their new-found freedom, a freedom they never thought they would experience in their lifetime.
Mother of Singapore's civil society
It is a rare combination in a society which worships materialism and connections.
Seen from that perspective, civil society activist Constance Singam is a poor cousin to many of her fellow citizens.
But seen from another — and more satisfying and enduring — angle, she is a rich citizen, having combined the intellectual and the ethical centres to launch her many fights to correct the wrongs she saw and still sees in her country.
The mother of Singapore’s civil society — as she is described by Alvin Tan, founder and artistic director of The Necessary Stage — has a disarming charm about her.
Behind that charm is a fighter who couldn’t close one eye to being “alienated as an Indian, a woman and activist.”
Her baby steps into the world of activitism started when her husband of 18 years, journalist N.T.R Singam, died of a heart attack in a private hospital because of a cardiologist’s bad judgment.
A letter she wrote to The Straits Times, A Rest In Hospital Became A Nightmare, triggered a debate about the standard of patient care in private hospitals with the government moving in to act.
“I had no idea that the letter …was going to be the first of hundreds of letters I would write to the press. But life has been like that for me, thrusting me into situations that I would never have thought of entering,” she writes.
The big steps were to come soon after. Her husband’s death in 1978 when she was 42 lead to searching questions about her identity, loneliness and future.
She decided to get a driving licence, something her husband was not in favour of. “The day I drove on my own remains the most liberating experience of my life,” she writes.
The next decision — to go to Melbourne to do an honours degree in literature — opened up a new world of intellectual curiosity and discovery that finally lead her to Aware, the Singapore women’s group.
“Its agenda demanded intellectual work, which appealed to me…Equally important were its broader goals, which went beyond the movement against sexism to embrace the liberation of our society from racism and other behaviour that demumanise certain segments of society,” she says in her book.
One year after she joined Aware as a member came the numbing ISA arrests of 1987 when a number of her friends were detained.
Would she be the next target, she feared. “For the first time, I experienced what it was like to live in fear…
“I am not fearless and am actually a coward,” she writes with candour.
Fear continued to haunt her as she went on to head Aware for a total of six years and to confront issues frowned upon by the state.
One of them was domestic violence against women. The official line was that it was a domestic issue. It took 10 years of lobbying for that mindset to change to one where the victims were given legal protection.
It was not just female-oriented issues that Aware concentrated on. In 1989 Constance and an Aware colleague wrote about the under performance of Indian students and called for government intervention.
Two years later, the government formed the Singapore Indian Development Association to tackle the educational and socio-economic issues facing the community.
“I was appalled that yet another race-based organisation was being set up, reinforcing the attitude that underachievement was race-related and not an outcome of disempowerment, as I suspected,” she writes.
Don’t politicise issues, she and her team were told.
The fear was made worse by friends and relatives who kept asking about it.
Did you ever get over this, I ask.
“I don’t think I ever did. But then I am single, not rich, have no status. And I am from Kerala,” she says matter-of-factly.
Peter Lim, who has known Constance for more than 40 years, said: “Her blossoming was totally unexpected by me. It is a testimony to the way Singapore society was transitioning that it took the death of a doting husband to liberate her and give her the freedom to eventually respond to her conscience and take the path towards socio-political activism.
Constance is passionate about her roots. Whether it is Kerala, that narrow-strip of land in south India where everybody has an opinion on everythihg and where she lived for seven years as a child, or Singapore, where she spent almost all of her 77 years, she is a patriot.
She could have decided to make Australia her home, disappointed with the events back home.
But she is a concerned citizen, she tells me when I bring up the two interlocking personalities in her book and ask: Which comes first — the veteran activist or the concerned citizen.
“The concerned citizen first because of the treatment of the minority in Singapore, the arrogance of the people at the top that they know best.”
That is the Constance Singam Singaporeans have come to know and admire. No mincing of words, true to her cause and a fiercely independent soul.
Is anguish over new ‘authoritarian moves’ unfounded?
Talks between the Singapore government and the bloggers broke down this week following the MDA’s announcement about the new
Internet regulation for news portals.
The Online Citizen’s editor Mr Choo Zheng Xi said, “There is a need for this physical protest because numerous dialogues with the government over the last five years about liberalisation and deregulating the Internet have actually concluded in the opposite.”
Calling themselves #FreeMyInternet, the group is organizing a protest on the 8th of June 2013 at 4pm at Hong Lim Green. They have also planned a “blackout day” on Thursday 6th of June where their blogs will be blanked for a period of 24 hours.
#FreeMyInternet is carrying on with the protest despite the government’s assurance that blogs are not affected by this new regulation.
“We want the government to know that the people need to be consulted, and that parliament needs to be consulted before sweeping changes are made to legislation,” said Choo.
There also seems to be some disagreement about whether the new ruling is a regulation or legislation.
A regulation is the manner in which a particular legislation is enforced. In this case, the new Internet regulation seems to be the enforcement of NPPA online. MDA said that it wants to create the parity between traditional and online media.
Pre-emptive strike on aspiring media companies
Some media watchers in Singapore, however, view this new regulation as a pre-emptive strike on aspiring media companies.
Currently, the media landscape in Singapore is dominated by two government linked companies – The Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and Mediacorp. According to an earlier report in The Independent Singapore, SPH’s latest quarterly results showed a double dip in readership and revenue of its papers, “including The Straits Times, declining by S$2.4 million and advertising dollars going down by S$13.9 million.”
Some Singaporeans feel that there is some fatigue among Straits Times consumers and they are seeking alternative online news outlets.
While self-styled blogs have had a lot of traction recently, Dr Cherian George says that existing online players, often run by volunteers, have yet to develop into a viable alternative news outlet. They also do not have the broad base news that is currently offered by the traditional media. At best, online blogs are good supplements to traditional media in Singapore, he says.
That leaves a yawning gap between what is demanded and what is currently available in the media landscape in Singapore. Given the shift in readership and the desire to consume news from non-state media, the online space is left vacant for an upstart news media.
Climate of fear
The latest move by the government has created an environment of fear. #FreeMyInternet seems to be of the opinion that government is out to get them, to effectively shut them down and to silence them indefinitely.
The government does have a history of clamping down dissent though. In 2001, a popular socio-political site, Sintercom.com was asked to apply for a media license with Singapore Broadcasting Authority and ten years later, The Online Citizen was gazetted as a political association.
One PAP grassroots member said that strategy now is to give the netizens the rope; “Let them protest and overreact about the new Internet regulation. The people will soon know that they are just crying wolf!”
Their fear and anguish is not unfounded – the new Internet regulation’s rules are so broad that most blogging platforms like TOC, TRE and TRS fall into this new regulatory framework. The government has not made its intentions clear and has left much to be speculated, creating an environment of fear and anguish.
We do not know what the government’s real motivations are, whether their real target is the aspiring media company or the blogger sphere. As for now, we can only speculate – but one thing for sure, the government moves-in to not only protect its monopoly on the media; they also want to shape public opinion by controlling the mass media and most importantly hold their grip on power.
But who is the real target?
Predictability suffers as PM No 4 remains elusive
By PN Balji
Who would have thought that this piece would still be relevant a decade later?
Way before Mr Lee Kuan Yew stepped aside as Singapore’s first Prime Minister in 1990, the world knew who would take over. And as Mr Goh Chok Tong warmed the seat, everybody knew that he was keeping it nice and sweet for his deputy and Mr Lee’s son, Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
These were perfectly-scripted handovers of power, something that must have been envied by administrations the world over. Today, nine years after Lee Junior became the country’s third PM, a major unpredictablity has crept into the smooth and sanitised succession process that has been part of the Singapore government’s bragging rights.
For the first time in Singapore’s post-independent history, there is no clear clue as to who will become the country’s fourth PM.
With another seven years left for a new leader to take over — PM Lee has set a target of 2020 to step aside — the succession issue will get more vexing.
The bumps on the road to a predictable succession are many, some are self-made, some reflect the changing political times.
There is an archaic obsession among the elite that the person taking over must be in his late 40s or early 50s. Mr Goh became PM at the age of 49 and the present PM took over at 52. If the political bigwigs are still stuck in this mindset, then even the three front runners — Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, Acting Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing and Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan Jin — are unlikely to hit winning post.. Mr Heng is 53, the other two are 42.
They have had a fast track into politics and into the Cabinet. Leading the pack is Mr Heng. He has an impressive track record: he started his career in the police force as a front-line officer, spent three years as Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s principal private secretary, moved up to become the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and went on to become Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
As Education Minister, he is already making a name for himself by pushing through subjects like character-building and values-immersion in a school curriculum fixated with excellence in examinations.
A source who attended one of his closed-door sessions said: “He gives the impression that he means business. He
seems to be someone who doesn’t want to be bogged down by his predecessor’s policies. He is in a hurry to get things done.”
But, and this is a big but in Singapore politics, he might be considered too old to be groomed for the top job. He has already breached the 50-year age barrier.
Next in the pecking order are two top army men: Mr Chan and Mr Tan.
The military men, together with Mr Heng, were introduced into politics in the last elections in May 2011 and, more or else immediately after, thrust into Cabinet positions.
Of the two, Mr Tan seems to have a little edge so far. His Manpower Ministry is a hot political potato as Singapore tries to shift away from a free-wheeling immigration policy that became the single biggest and sharpest lightning rod at the elections. The flip side of the immigration debate is a big push to improve this modern economy’s low productivity, which again comes under Mr Tan’s ministry.
He has had to deal with a crisis when some SMRT bus drivers went on strike last year. Although found to be shaky initially, Mr Tan managed to tackle the repercussions of the country’s first strike in 26 years with a firm and fair hand. Firm in taking the strikers to court and fair in blaming SMRT for not being nimble enough to detect the drivers’ grievances and avoiding the industrial action, a sharp blow to Singapore’s proud record for labour peace and harmony.
Mr Tan has also made it a point to reach out to NGOs and journalists of the online media, not always successfully.
A source who met him a couple of times said: “He indicated that his efforts were not very successful. Some of the NGOs, he said, had played him out by saying one thing in front of him and doing just the opposite in the public arena.”
What is more tangible is his ministry’s efforts to go after employers who treated their foreign workers in a way which brings shame to a First World country. Just this week, on Tuesday, 20 officers inspected dormitories after a tip-off. The accommodation was in a bad state. “This is clearly wrong…and the ministry has given the employers notice to move the workers to proper housing,” it said in its blog.
It also threw the book at 1,062 bosses last year and this year alone it has hauled up 428.
Employers who put their foreign charges through Third World conditions has been a sore point with many Singaporeans. Nothing much was done until recently, a situation the government wants to change.
As for the other front runner, Mr Chan helms what the PM expects to be a game-changing ministry. It has to bridge the ever-growing gap between the haves and the have-nots, another troublesome political topic. The same source said: “Mr Chan seems to be very comfortable when it comes to one-to-one chats. He follows up to fix meetings and engage on issues.”
When it comes to public speaking, Mr Chan has still a very long way to go. A source who attended one of his public speeches said: “He lacks charisma, and is not sure-footed enough to stray away from a prepared text. Even when reading from it, he comes across as being a dull speaker.”
But Mr Tan and Mr Chan do not seem to have time on their hands to prove themselves in the next seven years, when PM No 3 is likely to step aside. In contrast, Mr Goh had 14 years and Mr Lee 20 years, although many would say that if not for being stricken by cancer, the latter would have made it to the top much earlier.
If PM Lee sticks to the script of giving the young blood the normal gestation period to show their mettle, then it is possible that one of the two present deputy prime ministers will be asked to manage the ship for a few years until one of the young stars are ready. That is, have an interim PM. If that decision was left to Singaporeans, then Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam will be the man. He has the right mix of empathy, intellect and international standing (he is the only Singapore minister who chairs as high-powered a committee as IMF’s policy steering group) that voters now demand of their leaders. The obstacle is that he is from a minority community in an overwhelmingly Chinese society. Even as recently as five years ago, in an effort to blunt the Obama wave hitting Singapore, PM Lee said publicly that the country is not ready for a non-Chinese.
There are also other possibilities. Some observers are beginning to look at a dark horse: Foreign and Law Minister K. Shanmugam. The man who was catapulted into the Cabinet after remaining in the sidelines as MP for 20 years seems to be putting his finger in many pies. From animal rights to gay issues to blowing the whistle on stall holders selling beef as mutton to having a heavy media presence, Mr Shanmugam is becoming a new player in a country where politicians are known to keep strictly to their portfolios.
His charm is also being displayed at private functions. A source who attended a recent charity dinner was touched to see him moving from table to table, shaking hands and displaying a perpetual smile.
“I have never seen such a display of warmth by a Singapore politician in recent times,” she said.
There is also a wild card that cannot be discounted. A potential long-term leader might emerge in the next election — that must be held by 2016 — and fast-tracked into the Cabinet and into the No 1 position.
Who said Singapore is a dull place for political watchers? Look beneath the surface and you will see signs of impending changes emerging every now and then. Political unpredictability is the big running story here.
Netizens told to put their money where their mouth is
Talk used to be cheap but not anymore. It will cost you $50,000, no less, to express your point of view on the Internet. Even if you had a great idea, or a better way of doing things or a feedback to the government, the Internet is not the place to raise it.
MDA announced a new Internet regulation to rein-in free speech on the Inte
rnet. The new regulation apparently applies to all socio-political “news” sites. However, there seems to be a lot of ambiguity over what that means and how it will affect websites like TRE and TOC. According to the latest MDA press statement, “the content guidelines apply to all content on the news sites, including readers’ comments on the news sites.”
Leading bloggers in Singapore are up in arms over the new Internet regulation. They are concerned as voluntary based organizations and free news site, they will not be able to operate in such an oppressive environment and to raise the $50k performance bond would be too onerous.
There also seems to be a wider concern that this is used as an effective tool to stifle dissent and to clip the wings of opposition political parties on the rise. Both NSP and SDP have made their press statements expressing their concerns and regret.
According to media observers, the PAP hardliners have won over those who have championed for a more open and consultative society.
Nevertheless, the latest move did not come without warning. Kishore Mahbubani, the current Dean of NUS’ LKY School of Public Policy recently said: “I am extremely worried about the cynicism that the Singaporean blogosphere is developing towards these public institutions. Over time this cynicism could act like an acid that erodes the valuable social trust accumulated.”
On the contrary, a leading blogger in Singapore Alex Au argues in his blog that the best way to counter cynicism and irresponsible speech is for the community to build immunity. He says, “The best defence a community has against irresponsible speech is to firstly acquire an immunity to it and secondly for many individuals to feel empowered to speak up against it. Government playing nanny again is the surest way to thwart this maturing process. A government that puts on iron gloves disempowers citizens from doing their bit.”
Just as we were discussing this, one political observer said that this may have wider ramifications for Singapore in the global setting. A quick research on the Internet shows otherwise.
Global crackdown on dissent
It seems Singapore is not alone in curtailing free speech. Apparently, some member countries in the United Nations have been lobbying for stricter control of the Internet with the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Some 42 countries filter and censor content out of the 72 studied by the Open Net Initiative. This doesn’t even count serial offenders such as North Korea, China and Cuba. Over the past two years, Freedom House says governments around the world have enacted 19 new laws threatening online free expression: “Accustomed to media control, these governments fear losing it to the open internet. They worry about the spread of unwanted ideas. They are angry that people might use the internet to criticize their governments.”
Like Singapore, several authoritarian regimes reportedly propose to ban anonymity from the web, making it easier to find and arrest dissidents. In Singapore, we have several incidents of bloggers and opposition politicians who have either paid damages or have been intimidated with a defamatory suit.
It is also quite likely that the responsibilities of the private sector system that manages domain names and internet addresses may be transferred to the government.
Other measures may include the internet content provider, small or large, to pay new tolls in order to reach people across borders, meaning to say sites like TRE and TRS that have servers hosted in foreign countries may have to pay toll to reach our readers in Singapore.
Oppression is counter-productive
Contrary to the views of our leaders, freedom of speech has a stabilizing effect on our society. According to Thomas I. Emerson, freedom of speech helps to provide a balance between stability and change. It acts as a “safety valve” to let off steam when people might otherwise be bent on revolution. He argues that “The principle of open discussion is a method of achieving a more adaptable and at the same time more stable community, of maintaining the precarious balance between healthy cleavage and necessary consensus.” Emerson furthermore maintains that “Opposition serves a vital social function in offsetting or ameliorating (the) normal process of bureaucratic decay.”
Perhaps it is the bureaucratic decay that we should worry about for it is the same decay that is standing in the way of progress. Our ruling elite think that they can stop regression through oppression; that they can stop bureaucratic decay through regulation.
Putting a price tag so that we can speak cheapens, not us, but the very bureaucrats who have committed this travesty. Our words are worth their weight in gold for our feedback is pensive.
The crackdown has just started and this government, the very guardian of our democracy, is using the power that we have bestowed unto them to regulate and put an end to free speech on the Internet. They are supposedly our spokespersons – they speak, they act and they execute – just to persist for their own political ends.
The new-found freedom as we know it, that we are so fond of; that gave us hopes of a better tomorrow; that rekindled our spirit of nationalism expires on the 1st of June.