Saturday, May 06, 2006
life's full of shit
-weejie faced death at Saturday, May 06, 2006

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Tuesday, May 02, 2006

-weejie faced death at Tuesday, May 02, 2006

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Monday, May 01, 2006

-weejie faced death at Monday, May 01, 2006

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Sunday, April 30, 2006
forgotten soul...
-weejie faced death at Sunday, April 30, 2006

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Wednesday, April 26, 2006
i am finally done with my PI draft 2.
totally screwed up my first draft, but lyk wad it says, draft..
better screw up nw thn later rite.

aint gonna be blogging much.. too tired.. to much stuff going on

going off for another camp tis friday till sunday, im contactable by hp thou, i hope.. haha

erm.. lots of not-so-nice stuff going on. aint gonna elaborate on it, it'll make make things worst.
i feel bad what happened. very sorry.

anyway, gtg nw

cheers
weeman
-weejie faced death at Wednesday, April 26, 2006

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Sunday, April 23, 2006

-weejie faced death at Sunday, April 23, 2006

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Saturday, April 22, 2006
ELECTION TIME!!!




Joshua Kurlantzick
Joshua Kurlantzick is foreign editor of the New Republic.

To allow its citizens some free assembly, Singapore designated a Speakers Corner, but most people are too scared to use it.

Modeled on the original in London's Hyde Park, Singapore's heavily publicized Speakers Corner opened for business last year. A small crowd gathered in Hong Lim Park, where the corner is located, to watch the landmark event. Public speeches to more than five people had long been prohibited in this tiny Southeast Asian city-state. Now the government was permitting citizens to assemble and pontificate. It seemed a significant change.

But Singapore's Speakers Corner has hardly become a forum for bristling political dialogue. Recently, on what seemed an average day in the park, I listened as an elderly man climbed aboard a soapbox and railed at length about how loud a neighbor plays his music. When one speaker tried to get people to chant "freedom," only four members of the audience joined in. Many people walked by the site ignoring, or pretending not to hear, the speeches.

My experience at Speakers Corner was instructive. It demonstrated that, despite predictions that the city-state's prosperity would foster domestic political consciousness, large-scale change is moving "glacially slowly," to use the words of novelist Catherine Lim.

The experiment does show that Singapore's government, dominated by the People's Action Party (PAP), realizes that the city-state must become somewhat freer. Like most examples of political change here, however, Speakers Corner was driven by top-down policymaking. Also, the controls placed on Speakers Corner, as well as institution of other restrictions, show that the regime is following a familiar tactic: allowing limited liberalization but retaining tight control.

More important, the tepid popular response is revealing. If one can assume that Singaporeans are not afraid of reprisals, it suggests that most either remain satisfied with the authoritarian government's performance or have been part of the island's mind-neutering culture for so long that they remain self-censoring. There are some signs of change: The Internet has given rise to political discussion groups, some controls on freedom of expression have been lifted, and some social behaviors previously regarded as deviant, such as homosexuality, appear to be more widely tolerated. But the PAP will only budge so much, and most average Singaporeans do not appear ready to push the regime. Indeed, contrary to some recent reports of a "new Singapore," the authoritarian state remains very much in evidence.

A tightly controlled success story

From its inception, Singapore has leaned toward authoritarianism. In the 1960s and '70s, the PAP, which has ruled Singapore since independence in 1965, used the Internal Security Act to crack down on opponents and muzzle the press. PAP leaders such as Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father, used the act to arrest suspected leftists such as Chia Thye Poh. (He remained incarcerated for thirty-two years without being charged.) Newspapers were closed down, and the local press was merged into one state-run company, Singapore Press Holdings. In a compact city-state where virtually no one could remain anonymous, it was difficult to evade the PAP. The government defended its actions by emphasizing the need to protect stability on a Chinese-majority island surrounded by ethnic Malay neighbors Indonesia and Malaysia.

Once it had consolidated its hold, the PAP practiced widespread sociopolitical engineering. The government's willingness to dominate everyday life earned Singapore a reputation as "the nanny state." The PAP launched campaigns instructing Singaporeans to be nicer, speak better English, and not chew gum. These authoritarian campaigns were designed to produce a diligent and complacent populace. Citizens were expected to fall in line. But when "necessary," harsh penalties were used to enforce campaigns.
At the same time, the PAP's graft-free, foresighted technocrats turned Singapore into one of Asia's leading economic success stories. Prosperity helped blunt Singaporeans' political aspirations. Government-linked companies such as SingTel used economies of scale and proactive management to become major players in the region. Singapore's stability also attracted multinationals and foreign investments. By 1999, this former tropical backwater enjoyed a gross domestic product per capita of U.S. $27,870. Since Singaporeans' wealth was so closely tied to the government--the state was a shareholder in a majority of the country's largest firms and was the island's largest employer--the PAP was viewed as essential to continued prosperity.

In the past ten years, however, it has loosened its hold. PAP leaders are economically astute. They realize that Singapore's traditional, government-managed economic paradigm is no longer viable. They also recognize that increased political openness in neighboring states such as Thailand and Indonesia has made Singapore look overly staid and repressive. "Asia needs to embrace the New Economy," Lee told potential investors in San Francisco, adding that Singaporean businesses must become more innovative.

Singapore already possessed some attributes crucial to success in the twenty-first century. The city-state boasted a high standard of English, excellent scientists, and an advanced infrastructure. But a major ingredient was missing: years of mass society campaigns had produced a populace averse to the entrepreneurial mind-set needed for higher-value industries. As less-developed countries began to dominate lower-value industries, Singapore had to move into higher-value-added production.

So, as it always had, the government stepped in. It revamped school curricula to emphasize problem solving and information technology (IT) over rote learning, requiring schools to devote 30 percent of teaching time to IT skills and become more "child-centered." It loosened restrictions on the arts--to create the kind of cultural life needed to lure foreign executives--and began liberalizing the economy. The PAP even exposed Singapore Press Holdings to limited competition by allowing a newspaper to go up against the flagship Straits Times.

But the government did not just give orders. The PAP leadership called for wider participation in its decision making, promoting active citizenship with the slogan "every Singaporean matters." To back up its sloganeering, the regime launched a large-scale consultation exercise in which it asked six thousand citizens for feedback on its policies. Freedom of expression began to flourish, and some artists even reported that government censors had eased up on creative talent.

Keeping quiet

Given Singapore's embrace of information technology, developing local arts scene, and limited media competition, some international newspapers have begun wondering whether this newfound vibrancy will translate into political liberalization.

Not anytime soon. Virtually all recent developments were conceived by a small clique within the PAP, independent of bottom-up pressure; the government decreed how and at what pace the regime would consult the public. "After changes are made by the government, then the PAP looks for feedback, like a company passing out customer surveys," said one Singaporean academic. Despite the apparent loosening, the PAP "maintains the myth that our citizens are immature," incapable of generating sociopolitical ideas, added one young Singaporean politician.

What's more, changes to Singapore's education system and arts have had little effect on the political status quo. Citizens are permitted to speak in Hong Lim Park, but speakers cannot remark on sensitive issues of race or religion, and those who speak have their names placed on file with the police. The Internal Security Act remains on the books: Singapore retains the right to detain people without trial. All these restrictions ensure that the populace remains fearful of making political statements. "There is a climate of fear," says James Gomez, a Singaporean political activist. No other modern and globalized city resonates with a similar perturbation. Away from the park, the situation is more restrictive. Public speaking to more than five people is still not allowed.

The local media are another example of how the facade of change conceals little substantive progress toward a more sociopolitically astute society. The government, says one commentator, "is happy to tolerate public discussion over various ways to achieve its goals, but it appears to detest local media championing alternative agendas." Singapore Press Holdings is being exposed to competition, but it is a weak rivalry: Its competitor is linked to the PAP. Meanwhile, the Singaporean media are prohibited from employing foreigners to cover politics within the city-state. Consequently, the Straits Times and other local media circumscribe their reporting.

In fact, in some respects the PAP recently has tightened its grip on power. In early 2000, the government passed the Political Donations Act, under which anyone who donates more than U.S. $3,300 to a party must be publicly identified. Leaders of Singapore's small opposition parties, already largely ignored by the media, fear that this act will wipe out their limited funding. Singaporeans will have no problem being identified as PAP donors but will not want to be revealed as opposition supporters, they argue. This year, the police seem to have stepped up their surveillance of opposition forces. In February the authorities announced they were investigating organizers of a human-rights rally held in December 2000. They also warned Singaporeans that rallies could not be staged without explicit government permission.

It is a far reach to assume that Singapore's economic opening will lead to political freedoms. Outsiders perhaps assume that Singaporeans must chafe under the PAP's authoritarianism, but it is a mistake to believe there is a popular desire for political liberalization. As one leading Southeast Asia specialist has suggested, "tough but fair government ... is exactly what most Singaporeans want. ... The events since 1997 [when the Asian financial crisis helped trigger Suharto's downfall and rioting in Indonesia] confirm their government's incessant warnings that Singapore lives in a tough neighborhood."

One newspaper revealed that nine out of ten Singaporeans would not disagree in public with the government's policies, even if they believed these policies to be flawed. In Singapore, "the strength of the [public's] censorial sentiment is so pervasive that it is crippling," since people still believe political participation "is the exclusive domain of the PAP," Gomez says.

The poll is hardly the only evidence that most Singaporeans don't care enough to change the political status quo. Although several activists emphasize that Speakers Corner is an important victory for sociopolitical freedom, attendance at the corner has plummeted. Few Singaporeans have any understanding of their constitutional rights. Heads of several nongovernmental organizations report that at regional conferences on political issues, Singaporeans are the most timid Southeast Asians, frequently refusing to make comments that could go into official records.

Put simply, Singapore has been bred to be the most politically apathetic wealthy state in East Asia. A deep reservoir of gratitude still exists for the PAP, especially among older Singaporeans, and the city-state weathered the Asian financial crisis relatively well. The government's mass society campaigns have been effective in convincing citizens that there is no need for a vibrant civil society, and the small size of the city-state makes government mandates easy to enforce. Consequently, Singaporean civil society is fragmented and weak. Many Singaporeans still tend to believe that national interests should take precedence over individual interests, and people look to the state to solve all problems. That the government is allowing limited free speech is a testament to how strongly it believes it still has the population under its sway. Moreover, the government's ability to co-opt virtually every key issue means that opposition parties can only run on one platform: that they oppose the government. Without a large coterie of charismatic leaders, which the opposition lacks, running on one issue is nearly impossible.

In addition, years of a media monopoly have meant that most Singaporeans receive only one set of editorial views. The lack of competition in information gathering and reporting has created a culture in which even the most innocuous details are heavily guarded. Recent polls taken by opposition groups showed that, among eight Southeast Asian states, the only country where it was harder to obtain information about the government was Burma, which is ruled by a ruthless junta.

Outgrowing the nanny

Not all of Singapore is apathetic. More than 50 percent of Singaporeans have access to the Internet in their homes. This has made it easier for residents to read foreign reporting and has served as a cheap promotional tool for the few Singaporean civil society groups dealing with political issues. The Web also has been a catalyst for the formation of online political discussion groups and magazines, such as Talking Cock, a satire-heavy Webzine that frequently slams the PAP.

In some cases, Web sites that began as general-interest sites on Singapore have begun exploring explicitly political themes. The less-biased commentary found on one, sintercom.org, may have affected the Straits Times, which in recent months has been more outspoken. "A good many Singaporeans will choke ... on revelations of million-dollar Cabinet ministers," the paper said in a editorial last year on the government's move to raise annual cabinet pay as high as 1.7 million Singapore dollars (U.S. $1.02 million), the highest in the world. Yet readership of online political discussion groups remains limited, and the government monitors the Internet (as well as citizens' phone calls). In a particularly disturbing incident, in spring 1999 a government-linked Internet service provider hacked into 200,000 of its subscribers' computers, allegedly to check for a virus.

In other small ways, some Singaporeans have tried to push the sociopolitical door open. Plays such as Ong Keng Sen's Desdemona explore sensitive themes like race, Singapore's sterility, and even some aspects of politics. Gomez released a print magazine called Shame that introduced competing political ideas onto the scene.

But it will be some time before the island develops a well-founded culture of speaking up, a vibrant civil society, or a truly representative parliament. Apathy and self-censorship will take at least a generation to overcome. The PAP's subtle but rigid controls remain in place, and the government is effective at recognizing its mistakes and correcting them. The economy continues to perform, community ideals remain strong, and the idea that the Internet is a viable political tool remains unproven, as few Singaporeans visit political Web sites. Speakers Corner, though a step toward greater freedom, was initiated by the government and has not triggered much popular response. In one now-infamous episode, when the British Broadcasting Corporation came to film a show on the corner, nobody showed up to speak, giving the BBC's audience the impression that Singaporeans are too timid to talk, even when officially invited to do so.

Ultimately, change will be precipitated by the PAP. Either the government will allow a truly honest vote and free media, or a major mistake by the party will finally force people to become more politically active. Possibly, the PAP's inability to address the country's widening income gap--the richest 20 percent of Singaporeans now make eighteen times what the poorest 20 percent earn--could finally puncture the ruling party's aura of invincibility. But the government has launched a major initiative to reduce income disparity, just in time for the next national elections. Will the PAP lose seats in that poll? Don't bet on it.
-weejie faced death at Saturday, April 22, 2006

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"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly.AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES."
-, Nike ad

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.
-Pierre de Coubertin, "The Olympic Creed" Inspired by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot, speech, Olympic Games 1908

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt

think about it.
-weejie faced death at Saturday, April 22, 2006

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