Partisan Polemics
July 3rd, 2006 | Published in general | 3 Comments
This country has been worrying lately. Unlike some other people, who are concerned with rising prices and the economy, I’m concerned with what seems to be the rising number of murders. And I thought this was a country with a crime rate so low that the police has to create crime to fight it! How come so many murders can happen in our great nation: body parts murders, double murders and corpses stuffed in boot of cars in Orchard carpark, bodies chopped up in plastic bags and dumped in Orchard Road? I work everyday in Orchard Road, you know. Skali me how? Of course I scared lah. But I’m more scared I don’t have alternatives or solutions, I don’t know how to stop people from killing each other, or stop people from being killed, so I should shut up. Later they say I partisan lah, then simi polemic, and exploit my access to media and undermine their standing wor. Not constructive anymore. Gahmen will write letter, say I distort the truth. Mampus aku sia! (I tried for a Hokkien accent but my inner mina had to resurface…)
What a wonderful country. If you have an opinion at all, that’s being partisan, and if you articulate it, it becomes polemic. Why am I still here?
“Uniquely Singapore: don’t like the slogan? Do you have an alternative?”
An article my friend Teng Qian Xi wrote in 2002 is still shockingly relevant today. I quote:
I live in a country where the state makes its arguments too simple.Such as: the PAP = the country.
Such as: democracy = protests = violence = disorder = national disaster.
Such as: human rights = confusing Western concept that our people don’t need to learn very much about.
Such as: history = one man’s story.
Such as: Chia Thye Poh = opposition = Marxist = dangerous = 32 years of imprisonment = non-existence in the authorised history.
I live in a country with a population that is constantly hit by men in white with invisible and visible sticks. I live in a country where it is hard to expect people to value anything more than protecting themselves from these big sticks, or getting their own stick and white uniform.
Related
The original storm
Mr Wang Says So - Bhavani and Brown
Tomorrow entry with trackbacks
Why I am cynical about Singapore’s political process
July 5th, 2006 at 4:55 pm (#)
this is worrying - “social contract” - citizens part with civil and political rights in return for crime-free state?
what do you say, A? (loved the Singlish.. and the Sinese?)
July 7th, 2006 at 4:21 pm (#)
social contracts are moot when there is a monopoly of interpretation
July 15th, 2006 at 1:33 am (#)
well, we are a bunch that can never be satisfied. Somehow, we are blind to see goodness, quick to fault…this is actually a good thing…perhaps that is how improvements are made.
But wouldn’t you say that relative to other countries, our pappies gahment deserved some or least a shed of merit? What is good. What is our utopia….doesn’t it even exisit in reality…if it does, how does it look like….