Remember, Prison Got No Broadband

Listen, you NUS brats that I'm invigilating in the semester exams. I was a student once. Your lecturer was a student once. His lecturer was a student once. Hell, even the Vice Chancellor was a student once.

So you know what? WE KNOW ABOUT THE TOILET STUNT. We have entire briefings about the "stash your notes in the toilet" gag. We check the toilets. By the way, the girl who stashed your notes behind the sanitary napkin bin? You're gross.

We also know about the back of calculater stunt, the pencil box reversi, and the point form pen tattoo. GIVE IT UP. Make my life easier. I don't want to have to fill out a form tomorrow. If you want to make my invigilation more interesting, do something standard like having a nosebleed or a dying relative.

But whatever you do, don't cheat. Because if you cheat, we expel you from the university. Then you can't get a degree job. And then you'll have to take a job even more lowly than the polygrads, because A-levels aren't a real life qualification. And then you'll fall in with the wrong company, because your little charmed priviledged membership in tertiary education (only 20% of the cohort make it!) hasn't prepared you for real life. And you're book smart, not street smart. And then you'll get caught using your passport to smuggle babies from China.

Then you get jailed.

And you know the Yellow Ribbon project? Is all fake.

So don't cheat, ok? Remember, Prison got no broadband.*

Tag: Singaporeelections, NUS

*Refer to here for further explanation

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Playing God

Yawning Bread has an excellent post on fundamentalism and its (detrimental) effect on Singapore. Appealing to the only true sensitive spot on the government body, he illustrates how fundamentalism's influence is counteractive and undermines policies intended to spur the Singaporean economy. Specifically, Christian fundamentalism and its overrepresentation in positions of power.

This isn't going to be a post about fundamentalism, Christianity, or demographically representative elected parliaments. It's just a little story that occured in NUS. However, I'm going to issue a disclaimer anyway, because I'm just so Singaporean that way, so "I dunno anything but jus my opinion ok", "just saying only, not serious" and oh yes, I have Christian friends.

(I do. And Christian relatives. Some of these Christians believe that even suggesting that Jesus Christ looked like a dark-haired man of Semitic descent is blasphemy - how can Jesus look like a terrorist?? - while others go to church every Sunday, read the Bible before bed, and simultaneously believe that it's none of their bloo- blessed business if gay people want to get married. But yeah, saying that I have Christian friends shouldn't be taken as proof that I'm not-anti-Christian, or that I don't have my own prejudices, it just means that I have Christian friends who managed to overlook my flaws. God bless 'em.)

So I have a friend, who knows a boy. And by knows a boy, I mean it in the Biblical sense. As in she knows him. Frequently. She kinda liked him, you know how these things are.

As it turns out, there was this one time Mr Durex sprung a leak. So like any sensible girl, she headed to get Plan B, also known as the morning after pill. In Singapore, you need a prescription for it, so she headed for the NUS clinic. Yes, the NUS clinic does provide them. The doctors will discuss a birth control pill scheme with you if you want, and various other options available to you. It's part of the same reason why condoms are cheaper at the NUS Co-op - because while the NUS halls of residence are great ways to get graduates to hook up and hopefully one day marry and produce graduate children, well - NUS doesn't want them to actually produce children just yet.

She goes in, and she gets a doctor - young, personable, male, around maybe three years older than she was. She explains her dilemma, condom broke, yeah, so could she get the pill that prevents an fertilised egg from taking root in her womb and causing her trouble some 18 years down the road when it starts wanting to borrow the car?

"No."

wuh?

"No. I won't prescribe this. It goes against my beliefs."

??

"Look, I've been in this world awhile." He leans forward, fatherly fashion. "I've done a lot of wrong in my life, and I don't want to add to it."

He leans back, and as he does so, a tiny crucifix pendant slides past his open, neatly pressed shirt collar. "You'll thank me one day, and I hope you use this to rethink your attitude to.. certain things in life."

My friend gave up on him, and went off. Since she was sensible, she also knew that the pregnancy chances were pretty low for that particular day, so she got on with life. Never reported him.

I wish she had.

Because what just happened here was that a doctor, sworn to the health of the patient, told her that he didn't want to prescribe her the morning after pill, because his religion said no. His interpretation of his religion said that contraception was bad. He believed that his beliefs superceded any of her own wishes. He believed that because he believed that it was wrong, he was right to punish her. He all but called her a slut, because pre-marital sex was wrong. In his belief.

And because of his belief, she might get pregnant. She might have to face the prospect of an abortion, of an invasive procedure that is traumatising to the woman on the receiving end. She will have to make the choice that no woman wants to have to make.

Of course, if she gets a doctor who believes that women shouldn't have abortions because it goes against their beliefs, then problem solved.

But the bottomline is this - because he believed it was wrong, she lost control of what happens to her own body. She lost the choice. He believed that it was wrong of her to have sex, so guess what? He gets to punish her.

To what extent does a doctor get to deny treatment to a patient because they personally don't agree with it? Can a Hindu doctor refuse to hand out medication derived from cows?

If the medication was potentially harmful, that would be a marginally acceptable reason. But it isn't. The morning after pill has been proven, time and again to have no harmful side effects. Studies that "proved" otherwise, were found to have been sponsered by the Christian Right in America, and were denounced by leading medical journalists.

Maybe you'd like to think that I was exaggerrating things. After all, one doctor, right? Yes, it would be easy to point to him and say, oh, fundie, you always get a few of those hahahahah.

Except that in the US, there have been hundreds of cases of pharmacists refusing to sell birth control pills to women.

I've only dealt with one way he punished her, and judged her. Luckily for her, she wanted the morning after pill because of mostly wholesome activities. What if it hadn't?

There's another name for the morning pill - the anti-pregnancy pill, used in the cases of rape.

What if my friend had been raped the night before, and for reasons of her own, didn't want to go to the police? Raped - by a stranger, by someone she knew, by her own father.

And she tries to deal with life the best way she can, and tries to avoid at least one consequence - that of being pregnant with her rapist's baby. So she goes to the NUS clinic, and that same doctor tells her, "Oh you slut. I'm Christian, we don't believe in contraception. Nope, not giving you the pill. If you get pregnant, well praise the Lord!"

Because that's what he just did.

And that's my story. It happens to be true, and I didn't make it up. I know who the doctor is, but I have no intention of naming him. It happened awhile ago, and there's nothing to be done. I don't even consider him representative of fundamentalist doctors as a whole.

So I suppose that it's not that important. After all, there are other doctors around, so as long as you can do it within the timeframe of 2 days or less, you or your girlfriend or your sister or your godsis or your cousin can get the pill. Sure, she'll be a tad traumatised, what with being called a slut for getting raped and all, but hey, at least she got a pill.

I wonder what will happen if that doctor ever reaches political office?

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Miracles

The Italian Stallion has just returned from Jakarta. Or rather, not returned from Jakarta. Because he was never there. He was especially not there should anyone from the university inquire, since in addition to not possessing a cheap $81 return air ticket to Jakarta, he also did not possess approved leave.

"The fish market was just so terrible - I thought I was going to catch malaria from the fish and the people - my gosh, why do people keep having so many many many children when they can't afford them and they cram them all into one little cardboard box?"

The Stallion is a bright young man, and although more whippet than stallion, can still charm like an Italian. He is also given to the stereotypical Italian hyperbole and the tendency to never use one word when 20 run-on sentences will do. I wish he wouldn't, it's a complete waste of a good mouth. A very good one.

"Honestly, if I could vote, I would vote PAP - after all, the PAP brought this country from third world to first. It could be like Jakarta!"

Why not? He's absolutely right - the PAP did wring a miracle of sorts. Some miracles are born in shining lights and thunder clashes - Singapore's miracle was in a lightning bolt. Our nation was Struck By Lightning. But not all miracles are godly and divine; some are bred from uninspiring sweat and smelly toil, over years and generations. They are called miracles nonetheless. They've been dusted off, polished and presented in nationalist histories, clad all bright and shiney to become a reliquary on the PAP altar of Cathedral Singapore.

But like a reliquary, something frail and foible and human lies at the heart. And if you know where to look, you can find the dirt. Hidden in words not said, behind lips now rotted, held in minds that take one step closer to the grave every day.

It is nonetheless, a miracle. No one said it had to be nice. And it did happen - one of the little bitter jokes about Singaporean nationalist history is that it is true. Mostly. It is true, unlike the more common type of Southeast Asian nationalist history, which generally suggest that after the [insert colonial oppresser] were chased off by the [insert relevant local term meaning blood sons of the soil], peace reigned and beer was available to all. Such national histories are easily labelled myths or more cruelly, as jokes and dismissed. The only joke about the Singapore Story is a bitter one - that because it is true, it cannot be dismissed and has achieved credibility, making it that much harder to for the casual citizen to recognise it for what it is: nationalistic. It crawled out of the same genre of optative histories that were written to serve a purpose.

But it is hard to remember that when you sip your latte and surf for net porn amidst soaring skyscrapers, and marvel that a mere generation ago, your father walked 20 miles to school every morning. Uphill. Both ways. And, against all probability, in the snow.

So we shall assume that the story is true, that it is the leadership of the PAP that brought a little red dot to become the honking great pus-filled pimple on the back of Malaysia. That good governance, by gifted men (were there ever woman? not in that time, and not in that version), brought Singapore to first world status. In the name of the Lee, we honour our miracle workers: LKY, hallowed be thy name, Devan Nair, Rajaratnam, Goh Keng Swee, David Marshall, Lim Kim San, and others.

And I say this with respect. Yes, the PAP, led by some of these men, brought Singapore to First World status. If they were running, I might vote for them still.

But they're not. The PAP that runs Singapore today is not the PAP of those heady tremulent years of nation-building. The MPs that stand for office are the new elite - to me, they too are the post '65ers. They did not build Singapore any more than I did.

So don't tell me to vote PAP MPs because of what they did for Singapore. The PAP members that run for election today had nothing to do with the triumphs of the 70's-'80s, only the triumphs and failures of the 90's.

All this I tell the Italian. He looks at me meekly, cocking his pretty head to one side. "You know, I'm joking, you know that right? Of course, the PAP of today is nothing like the old PAP, you can't vote for it on that basis, parties change over time."

He turns back to his work, but glances over to add, "You know, you talk too much sometimes."

Oooh. Snap.

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How to get girls

Taken from the comments of a rather funny post on flirting:

I have also come to the conclusion that being self confident and bold or however you want to term it is about communication pure and simple.
"I am attracted to you and will not weep uncontrollably if you reject me."
Now if more people of both sexes would be able to do this there would be a lot more happy people with silly grins on their faces on Monday morning

The comments in there crack me up.

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Youth Ink, or You think?

I finally got to Monday's papers on Tuesday, due to work schedules. I would subscribe to the Straits Times online edition, but the thought of having to pay for something that I already subscribe to annoys me. Somedays I wonder whose idea was it, because all the reporters that I know seem to turn red in the face, as if I'd just uncovered that their sister works as a part-time stripper. A cheap one. That does lapdances for an extra $15.50 per month.

Now, I just want to say this once - oh who am I kidding - I hate YouthInk. YouthInk is a section of the Monday's papers devoted to letters/articles written and submitted by young Singaporeans, young Singaporeans being, upon forensic examination and statistical sampling, undergraduates. (Ok, I lied about statistical sampling, but doesn't everyone? That's why you should always use a condom.)

I hate YouthInk for a variety of reasons, with commensurately varying levels of reason. The first is - let's start with the bile - yes, I'm just jellus. I am exactly that jus jellus. I hate not being young anymore. I hate that I don't have half the opportunities that they will have. I hate that I'm considered too old for many student programs - for scholarship boards, for internships, for exchanges to places where the weather is cold and the women are men. Let me get this straight - I don't want to be young again, as I was when I was twenty. (Ok, I lie, I had abs when I was 20, so I'd like to be young in that respect. Alright, I still lie, I never had abs when I was 20 - still, I possessed a body that had a greater potentiality of abs than my current one.) I just want to have the mind, the understanding that I have now, with all the opportunity that is offered, and often seemingly limited, to the young.

The second reason I hate YouthInk: It's contrived. It's not representative of young Singaporeans - it's representative of the General Paper essays of an elite group of young Singaporeans. And not even first tier-elite current or future, as the contributers are mostly from local universities, and even as I complain about the opportunities offered to the young, it is nothing compared to the gulf between that of the NUS cohort and their scholar counterparts. But it's not representative. I've seen frequent contributers there - more power to them, but I wish they had something to say.

The third reason is a continuation of the second - it's contrived because they read like General Paper essays. I knew the conclusion - heck, I knew the points, the justifications, the language, the sheer blah before I got to the end of the first sentence. They read as though Mummy had cooed and suggested that wouldn't it look, oh so impressive, on your resume if you had something published in the papers? Now, go and do what Mummy says and you can prove to later job interviewers that you are Proactive and have an Independent Interest in Public Affairs.

(Unfortunately, it works. I've written too many student references to not know this.)

As a direct consequence of that - they stink. I seldom get a sense that the authors feel their convictions to any great depth. Or if they do, aforesaid convictions will come back to haunt them, the same way adults since time immemorial have winced over their youthful opinions, starting with "I did not have relations with that mammoth." Convictions that have been expressed in YouthInk include:

1. Singapore has no culture because we don't know enough about ancient traditions in China. Japan also has no culture because they changed after WW2. (I can only assume that the editor for YouthInk hates you and let it through on purpose.)

2. Media breeds immorality and it is hard for me, as a youth, to keep my viriginity in an environment chockful of media temptation. (Sweetie, it's amazingly easy to keep your virginity even if you want to throw it at the first dick wielder to come along. Then again, that's not the point - the point is that you are 19 years old, and university is about to hit your hormones big time. There's a reason why condoms are about 30% cheaper at the NUS co-op)

These are just a couple of articles, and there are better ones of course. In fairness, I would say that most of the contributers are just 20, and their convictions and opinions, however uninformed and shallow, are nonetheless their own and should be respected. And I think that it's great that the youth (however you define them), are given a platform, however limited, where they can practice getting their voices heard, and engage in at least some form of public discourse. Seeing as how many times I've gone down on my knees and offered blowjobs to anyone, anyone who would raise an opinion in a tutorial group discussion, these lot should be commended for wanting to take part at all.

Except. Except that I want it to be a lot more. I, too, am still young, and I want everything. I want real discourse, real thought, real understanding by Singapore youth. I want to hear the real voices - not some watered down PC crap generated by a recycled General Paper essay. I want to know that the youth of today, with all the advantages that I never had, are prepared to take those opportunities granted to them and grab the ones that weren't.

And I'm dissatisfied because I know these kind of youths exist. I know that what I'm seeing isn't what there is - because I've seen those real voices, and I am just young enough to remember thinking those thoughts myself. I've read excellent blog entries, articulate little essays submitted to me that while historical, were nonetheless commentaries on the present (much as all history is.) I've seen opinion pieces submitted to campus rags, though not earthshattering, had the fire of conviction behind them, as they rampaged through topics ranging from terrorism to abortion, from AIDS to child prostitution. They weren't all great. But they rang with the author's voice, and in a place like Singapore, they were the equivalent of grabbing a banner and joining a demonstration.

Maybe that's what gets me so riled up about YouthInk. Because I don't think it shows how Youth Think at all. I think it's more about presenting the articles such that the impression the casual reader receives is that Youth doesn't think at all.

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Does Balaji Blog?

I hate this blogging thing. It's like that hallmate you once had - you know, the one that was really cool to do - I mean, do things with and hang with on Friday nights, but just would not get off your bloody back when you had a presentation the next day, the presentation that was way behind schedule because you'd spent too much time f- hanging with aforesaid hallmate. They would be all: "Yo, wanna Fong Seng/prata/table soccer?" when all you wanted was to finish the stupid freaking essay on International Political Economic Relations with China in a Globalised World System and make a nice cover page with the NUS logo because everyone knows that TA's give you extra points for NUS logo cover pages. But you couldn't tell them to fuck off, because God knows that friendships need maintenence, blahblah, and if you didn't do it, eventually the only friend that you'd have would be your own hand.

So when Senior Minister of State for Information, Communication and the Arts Balaji Sadasivan announced that political podcasts would not be allowed during elections, and that blogs that persistantly espouse political views need to be registered and have to stay out of the blogosphere during the election period... well, I just wanted to run up and snog him. Hard. Roughly. Passionately. Upside down. Finally, someone shared my ambivalence about blogs. Knew my problems. My dreams. Even the littlest ones. Cared. *clutch hand to heart*

(Actually, I don't mind snogging him anyway - he's in a pretty good shape for a Senior Minister. There's a slight paunch, but you know what they say - when you see a thin businessman, how can you do business with him? Fat businessmen are worth investing in. The fat is evidence of being very good at getting rich.

See? Snoggable. Politicians, businessmen - go for the slightly paunchy ones.)

Then I actually read the article on the front page of the ST through, and I swore. Then I yelped, because I'd dropped the papers after I swore, and it hit the head of the Partner, and the Partner accidently bit down and I had to go find some cold water, and didn't get back to the paper till about half an hour later.

Just as well I didn't snog Balaji, I guess. He might think that I'll give him AIDs.

Anyway, by now everyone's heard about the podcast and blogging restrictions, and there's a truly excellent analysis of the legal implications by Yawning Bread, as well as what you should observe as a blogger. Alfian Sa'at has more to say about the actual workings of getting your blog registered, including the implication that the Media Development Authority really needs to get their internet division wing (or whoever it is that managed to claw his way to a deskjob with unlimited net porn) replaced with my 12 year old tuition kid. Mr Miyagi talks more about the podcast aspect, which I know nothing whatsoever about, and because of that, I shall shut up and not volunteer an opinion about it in the fine tradition of politicians everywhere, especially in Singapore. After all, I don't know anything about it - it doesn't really make sense for me to say anything, right?

(On the other hand, feel free to ask me about goats.)

So a couple of things passed through my mind, in between the oil and the candlewax. One question was: Who's actually affected by all these rulings? Whoever blogs and podcasts, which means the technologically abled, and those who for a variety of reasons, have restricted access to more mainstream methods of information dessemination. The first category generally, though not exclusively, refers to the post-65ers. This would be the same group that has no memory of fighting for independence against a patriarchal government dominated by an overpaid elite, that at the same time sought to shut down dissenting publications and arrested people who threatened the status quo, all the while citing the precariousness of a tiny city state against the wilder forces of the world outside. The same group that wants the vote, the same demographic group in every single ethnic group in the world, that wants things to change.

(I was talking about the British earlier, by the way. I get confused easily.)

The second would be fringe groups - for example the newer activist groups that have limited funding. A prime example would be Cat Welfare and Action for Singapore Dogs, groups that have had to deal with the existence of a decrepit, morally bankrupt white elephant charity that nonetheless had official recognitioin and was rewarded duly for its careful refusal to rock the boat. The second category would also include groups that had restricted access to other forms of information dessemination, whether through state control by dominant groups, or pre-emptive censorship by the media.

The next question was: What could actually be done to enforce the ruling? Well, judging by the stellar performance by MDA, and the fact that surfing for Crazy Killer Bikini Teen Nymphoes is more fun than surfing Crazy Professor Politician Chee, er. Not much. Don't get me wrong - as the recent racist bloggers episode proved, if shit looks as if it's about to hit the fan, the authorities are more than prepared to get to the room, wait for impact, then arrest anyone still standing. And they'll prepared to prove that they take the law very very seriously, and apply it. Unless, of course, you're a PSC Scholar, in which case you were merely youthfully stupid to suggest that Indians were repulsive, but you'll only get a slap on your wrist because everyone knows that blog entries aren't to be taken seriously and don't reflect what you really think.

And in both cases, someone proved their Singaporeanhood by writing in, and demanding that the government needed to do something about it.

At this point, I'm issuing a disclaimer: I know nothing. Whatsoever. I have been told that repeatedly by various authority and romantic figures in my life, starting with my mother. Who is an authority figure. Only.

Anyway, so given that barring the obvious candidates or extant opposition party bloggers/podcasters, the average blogger, it seems, can rely on the good old noise-to-sound ratio, and general reluctance to oppress people too vigorously, in case they start doing things like throwing Thousand Treasure tea in the harbour and demanding human rights extremely vigorously.

They know that. Maybe even Balaji knows that. We know that. So... why?

Because something needs to be said. The thing about being a law-abiding government is that you have to abide by the law. Being a law abiding government doesn't mean that you're incorruptable, or kind, or nice, or help little old ladies wearing WP badges cross Potong Pasir Ave 5. You just have to follow the law - which you made. It's as if the government was a Lawful Evil/Good/Neutral character in an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game. You know the character - it would be the Evil Overlord who proposes to kill your half-elven ranger and his gang, but allows them to claim trial by combat and the use of +5 Str +2 Ag breastplate. Because it's the law, and he's got to uphold some kind of law, or where would he be? He'd look all kinds of crazy, there would be no structure to things, and then all hell would really break lose.

So it's been said. They've made a ruling, and drawn a line in the sand. They've explained that crossing the line means that you will be charged, made an example of, kicked to the back of the HDB queue and your favourite 4D number forever withdrawn from the Toto machine. But not every time. Not all of you. Just sometimes. Occasionally. More than occasionally, if you're non-pseudo opposition.

But not every time. Go on, cross the line. It won't be you.

This time.

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Potty Wisdom or, Disposable dogma.

In the loo cubicle of the Kuang Chee Buddhist Association:

I don't know about defecating and urinating, but I was achieving a state of bliss.

Close enough.

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