Sammyboy RSS Feed
03-12-2013, 10:30 PM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
The judges on the Singapore bench, it seems, are made of flimsier stuff. Apparently, they are unable to smile wryly. Twice this year contempt laws were invoked against a cartoonist and a filmmaker. In another case the blogger, Han Hui Hui, was threatened with suit by the Council for Private Education, a statutory board, for highlighting poor standards in a private college. The CPE later withdrew its suit.
Why is our government, so beleaguered since the 2011 General Elections, reverting to the juridical bullying that characterised the Lee Kuan Yew administrations? His successors tried to distance themselves from it. Recall that Goh Chok Tong promised a more open-minded and consultative style of government. Recall again that Lee Hsien Loong, speaking in 2004 to the Harvard Club, said,
I have no doubt that our society must open up further…. Looking ahead, one important task of the government will be to promote further civic participation, and continue to progressively widen the limits of openness…. We will promote a political culture which responds to people’s desire for greater participation, in a manner which supports Singapore’s growth as a nation.
Perhaps the timing is telling. It is midway between general elections and the government is getting nervous. In the last two elections the popular vote declined by 15%. The PAP's performance to date; persistent poor showing in industrial production; prices continuing to rise; corruption in the public service; a slew of protests at Hong Lim Park; and the dismal performance of several ministers, not to mention the loss of another constituency via a by-election, is making it view the internet as the enemy. For it is there that the thoughts and aspirations of citizens, much of it inimical to the government, are expressed.
Ministers, particularly the new ones, began their term of office with such confidence, opening up Facebook accounts, initiating a National Conversation, approaching hitherto taboo policy areas, and even taking upon their lips the words ‘human right’, once so calculated to attract the animus of PAP leaders. But in these last several months, we see a different side to our sorry-saying, promise-making, we-will-do-better cabinet.
The government is insecure. It is not sure what to do or how to do it. The use of the ISA is now all but beyond its reach principally because it no longer has control of the information space. In 1987, all the administration had to do was invent a fiction of Marxist conspiracies and the spectre of state overthrow and a compliant media turned it into fact. There was no internet back then so whatever baloney the government uttered was dutifully reported by the media and – this is the nature of moral panics and scandal mongering – rapidly became truth. Prof Cherian George, in an interview this week suggested,
One of the pillars of PAP dominance was its ability to set the agenda by getting the cooperation of a small number of gatekeepers in the establishment media, and by forcefully keeping everyone else out of the game. Suddenly, there are many more new players and the old legal, political and economic carrots and sticks don’t work.
- https://www.facebook.com/notes/vince...05757739442152 (https://www.facebook.com/notes/vincent-wijeysingha/this-frightened-government-has-shown-its-hand/705757739442152)
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?169496-Vincent-W-This-frightened-government-has-shown-its-hand&goto=newpost).
The judges on the Singapore bench, it seems, are made of flimsier stuff. Apparently, they are unable to smile wryly. Twice this year contempt laws were invoked against a cartoonist and a filmmaker. In another case the blogger, Han Hui Hui, was threatened with suit by the Council for Private Education, a statutory board, for highlighting poor standards in a private college. The CPE later withdrew its suit.
Why is our government, so beleaguered since the 2011 General Elections, reverting to the juridical bullying that characterised the Lee Kuan Yew administrations? His successors tried to distance themselves from it. Recall that Goh Chok Tong promised a more open-minded and consultative style of government. Recall again that Lee Hsien Loong, speaking in 2004 to the Harvard Club, said,
I have no doubt that our society must open up further…. Looking ahead, one important task of the government will be to promote further civic participation, and continue to progressively widen the limits of openness…. We will promote a political culture which responds to people’s desire for greater participation, in a manner which supports Singapore’s growth as a nation.
Perhaps the timing is telling. It is midway between general elections and the government is getting nervous. In the last two elections the popular vote declined by 15%. The PAP's performance to date; persistent poor showing in industrial production; prices continuing to rise; corruption in the public service; a slew of protests at Hong Lim Park; and the dismal performance of several ministers, not to mention the loss of another constituency via a by-election, is making it view the internet as the enemy. For it is there that the thoughts and aspirations of citizens, much of it inimical to the government, are expressed.
Ministers, particularly the new ones, began their term of office with such confidence, opening up Facebook accounts, initiating a National Conversation, approaching hitherto taboo policy areas, and even taking upon their lips the words ‘human right’, once so calculated to attract the animus of PAP leaders. But in these last several months, we see a different side to our sorry-saying, promise-making, we-will-do-better cabinet.
The government is insecure. It is not sure what to do or how to do it. The use of the ISA is now all but beyond its reach principally because it no longer has control of the information space. In 1987, all the administration had to do was invent a fiction of Marxist conspiracies and the spectre of state overthrow and a compliant media turned it into fact. There was no internet back then so whatever baloney the government uttered was dutifully reported by the media and – this is the nature of moral panics and scandal mongering – rapidly became truth. Prof Cherian George, in an interview this week suggested,
One of the pillars of PAP dominance was its ability to set the agenda by getting the cooperation of a small number of gatekeepers in the establishment media, and by forcefully keeping everyone else out of the game. Suddenly, there are many more new players and the old legal, political and economic carrots and sticks don’t work.
- https://www.facebook.com/notes/vince...05757739442152 (https://www.facebook.com/notes/vincent-wijeysingha/this-frightened-government-has-shown-its-hand/705757739442152)
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?169496-Vincent-W-This-frightened-government-has-shown-its-hand&goto=newpost).