Cat Abuser nabbed again | think of the kittens

This seems to have escaped the notice of most bloggers and forums, but the cat torturer has struck again.

Cat abuser nabbed again for hitting kitten
by Tanya Fong

THE Bedok North cat abuser has struck again. Police arrested David Hooi Yin Weng, 43, at 2am yesterday after his neighbour found a limp, bleeding kitten outside his flat. He had already been jailed earlier this year for cat abuse.

The stray cat was unable to walk and had broken teeth.

...

Ms Deirdre Moss, executive officer for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), attended to the case at 4am yesterday with a vet. Said Ms Moss: 'The kitten's eyes were both swollen. It had a blood clot in its mouth and was semi-comatose. The vet said it suffered suspected brain damage likely caused by trauma to its head.'

....

The kitten had to be put down. Its body has been sent for post-mortem at the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority.

In March, Hooi was jailed for three months after he pleaded guilty to torturing a female kitten at his rented flat in Block 544,Bedok North Street 3, in November last year. On that occasion, police, alerted by Hooi's neighbours, found thekitten with its left eye protruding and blood stains on the nostrils. The kitten had to be put to sleep because of the severity of its injuries.

The penalty for animal abuse is a fine of up to $10,000 or a jail term of up to 12 months, or both, under the Animals and Birds Act. Pleading for leniency in court, Hooi said he had made a 'mistake'and would not do it again.

The Community Court, set up earlier this month to deal with 'special' offenders like animal abusers, can order mandatory counselling.

Said consultant psychiatrist Ko Soo Meng: 'A custodial sentence alone may not help, even if it deters potential abusers. Those who abuse animals lack empathy and may have anger management problems. Some may have psychopathic traits.'These are issues which need to be worked through to deter the animal abuser from future deviant behaviour.

- Straits Times, 29 June, 2006

My first reaction is fume angrily about the state of society that would allow this torturer to go practically scot-free. I'd also be tempted to take a pot shot at a newspaper who hires Xiaxue for their Star Blogger, the same Wendy Cheng who thinks that it's ridiculous that we jail people who crack kitten skulls.

But as always, there's the bigger picture that's interesting. Lately, there's been some talk about the need for an alternative to jail for certain offences, where the offender would be better off with counselling rather than incarceration. There's the case of Iskandar Muhammad Nordin, the mentally disabled repeat molester who molested a woman within a day of release, the implications of which former DPP and karma-biscuit baker Mr Wang has discussed here.

When I was young, I used to believe that punishment was the right way to do things. That there should be an eye for an eye, and preferably a limb as well. Teenagers are frighteningly self-righteous that way, which is why I'm glad that blogging didn't exist when I was a teen, otherwise there would be little internet trails of some truly ridiculous things I believed in, that some enterprising young thing would bring up and throw in my face if I ran for election.

I'm (significantly) older now, and I still want bad things to happen to bad people. I am an ENTJ, and one of the traits of ENTJs is that at a certain visceral level, they can't quite understand why people just don't obey the law. But these tests aren't meant to say that your character is set in stone, they're (in part) meant to help you work on your shortcomings. And another trait of ENTJs is that they'll always deal with the world as it is.

The thing about throwing David Hooi in jail is that we're killing more kittens that way.

If I understand correctly, the principle behind jailtime is that it deters the offender from committing the crime, and it deters other would-be offenders from committing the crime. It also announces that the crime goes against societal principles. But the problem with Hooi and Iskandar's case is that it signally failed in the first goal, and probably had very little effect with regards to the second.

It failed to deter the offender from committing the crime again because it failed to address the reason why the crime had been committed - mainly, Hooi and Iskandar had psychological problems.

It fails in the second because it's not going to deter people with similar psychological problems from committing the same crime. People with low IQ problems (Hooi's is at 57) don't think about these things before they commit the crime.

It succeeded in the third goal, namely, to announce that Singapore Society Just Won't Condone this. Then again, it's hard to imagine that any first world country has a pressing need to prove that it hates people who touch unwilling boobies or pop kitten eyes, so I'm not all that sure completing this goal is anything to whoop about. We should make a statement against such practices of course, but I'm not sure that incarceration was the way to do it.

That's why I want to see what happens next with this case, especially with all the talk recently about community courts blahblah. The thing about Hooi's case is that they can afford to be more experimental about it than they can be with Iskandar's - Hooi's victim was a kitten, and as many animal lovers in Singapore have wont to find out, Singaporeans don't generally care about what happens to animals. (At least half of Singapore does care about their boobies going unmolested, though.)

I am an animal lover, mind you. I am particularly fond of cats, and I used to bottlefeed 4 day old kittens, toilet train them, wake up in the middle of the night twice to feed them. I used to choke on the tears that I couldn't cry when they died, because I'm an ENTJ and we don't do soft. Part of me wants Hooi castrated. But punishing him with more jail time is the easy way, and it only satisfies my - our - need for vengeance.

And while we continue to not deal with the actual problem, another kitten's going to die.

------------------------------------------------------------
(Incidentally, Ovidia Yu's got a play coming up called the Silence of the Kittens. There's an interesting dialogue session that will occur:

Sun, 6 August 5.30pm
LIFE: Strays and Critters: The Culling Fields
ART: The Silence of the Kittens

Furry friends or pernicious pests? We had our own era of The Culling Fields in 2003, where senseless phobia overtook logical procedure and a mass cull was ordered. Is there space for vermin in Singapore? Howare undesirables dealt with? How "open and inclusive" are we as a society?
Moderator: Paul Rae (Artistic Director, Spell #7, Academic)Points of View: Ovidia Yu (Playwright), Dawn Kua (Cat Welfare Society); Lucy Davis (Artist, Activist, Critic), Alex Au (Social Commentator, Activist)

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Damn you anonymous bloggers! | ST forum weirdoes

I swear, some people just seem to camp out at the ST forum. I want to be ST forum editor one day, I'm quite sure the letters that never make it are the good shit. You know, the real crazies as opposed to the functional crazies.

The good doctor whose letter got published today is an ST forum regular.

Stand up for S'pore by speaking out from heart
I REFER to the recent debate on anonymous bloggers and would like to express my opinion not just about blogging but also about providing feedback.
Netizens who post anonymously (even with pseudonyms) do so for various reasons:

1. Some have to:

Their employers (eg civil service or illiberal bosses) do not allow employees to post matters which may be interpreted as being anti-establishment.

In any case, it would be unprofessional for any of us to ventilate publicly confidential matters relating to our firms or professions.

2. Some want to:

Some feel (erroneously) that anonymity allows them the liberty to publish just about anything without having to back up their assertions with facts or proof.

Most of us who read these would be foolhardy to take them more seriously than coffee-shop gossip.

3. Perceived fear (whether real or not):

Unfortunately there are some who fear that any opinion - even if credible and valid, so long as it goes against political correctness, is not welcome by the authorities and will be responded to with a sledgehammer.

Their perception that we are a sort of 'quasi-police state' somehow seems more than paranoia to them. Hence, everything is a conspiracy to 'fix' them. Sometimes these perceived fears are understandable.

Although I sympathise with the first group (those who have to be anonymous), I feel that with globalisation, the authorities will have no choice but to loosen the grip on an overly paternalistic 'nanny-state'.

The question is not if but when.

I have also observed that when the newspapers' forum pages discontinued the practice of allowing pseudonyms many years ago, the quality of letters increased noticeably.

No writer wants to look like a fool by making unsubstantiated allegations.

My hope is that more people will stand up to be counted with sincere but candid opinions, irrespective of where one stands on our nation's issues.

If we do not speak out from the heart, the establishment may end up hearing only what it wants to hear because of 'selective retention' and this will not be good for all of us.

Dr Huang Shoou Chyuan
- ST Forum, June 28, 2006

I don't have a problem with the bulk of the letter, actually, because it's all been said before. I'm mainly highlighting this letter because of this part:

Some feel (erroneously) that anonymity allows them the liberty to publish just about anything without having to back up their assertions with facts or proof.

Why is there the implicit assumption there that bloggers are anonymous? Many bloggers don't post their names, it's true. But many don't exactly hide who they are either - do a little homework, and it's there for you to find. The only blogger that I know who's managed to actually maintain anonymity is Rockson. Who started this whole bloggers are anonymous myth anyway?

However, I'm curious about the overall stand that anonymous bloggers with to remain anonymous for reasons that are generally nefarious, unprofessional, or merely unwholesome. Or for reasons that make them untrustworthy news sources. In short, the good doctor believes that anonymity is bad - because if you want to hide, you must be doing something wrong. The good and righteous have nothing to fear.

Dear Dr Huang: I am a (mostly) anonymous blogger. But I'm choosing to remain anonymous because I like my privacy. I'm choosing to remain anonymous for now because I don't want my offline professional life to be confused with this blog. I'm choosing to remain a relative unknown because my offline persona has nothing to do with the topics I'm writing about. If it did, I'd mention it.

But mostly, I'm anonymous because I think Mezzo is so much cooler than my real name.

Lastly, many blogs are essentially people talking to each other, holding online discussions. Yes, I suppose that makes it rather like the kopitiam talk that you disparage. However, the good doctor may or may not be surprised to learn that academics refer to conferences held by venerable (?) institutes such as IPS or IDSS as coffee sessions too. They know that discussions are discussions, and you shouldn't judge the value of the opinions exchanged based on the location.

It's about people talking. It doesn't matter if it's over kopi, or held in a posh hotel conference room. It's about people trading and sharing ideas and sorting things out, and that's always worth listening too.

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GRCs make it easier to find top talent | governmental brats

There are times when I fancy I can read the thoughts of an article's author, some sliver of personality that slips through the self-censorship and the editorial censorship and the professional censorship. The little part of the self, that stands behind the facade of objectivity and journalist responsibility, the bit that understands the difference between reporting what happened, and telling the story, the part called individuality that manages to nudge the article ever so subtly to hint at what the author really thinks.

In Li Xueying's case, I strongly suspect that it of having pulled a Charlie Brown, announced "Good grief", and handed SM Goh onto a professional, objective platform to hang himself.

I'm referring to the article in the Straits Times today: "GRCs make it easier to find top talent: SM". Mr Wang already commented on it here, and once again, thank you Mr Wang for posting up articles by the ST in their entirety. He made a series of good points, although the one that I found most interesting was the meta issue of why SM Goh said it at all.

(An aside: my memory isn't that good, but it does seem to me that SM Goh has been behind a series of governmental gaffes, or rather, the political faux-pas of plain speaking. Off the top of my head - pseudo opposition, upgrading, etc.etc. What's with that, Mr Goh? Were you always like that, or has the ST been given the signal to take off the velvet gloves?)

What Mr Goh Said:

'Without some assurance of a good chance of winning at least their first election, many able and successful young Singaporeans may not risk their careers to join politics,' Mr Goh said at an event marking the appointment of members to the South East Community Development Council (CDC).

I was going to say something about this, in a sensible reasoned manner. About the lack of risk in joining the PAP even as a toilet scrubber, about the contradictions between the government call for Singaporeans to take risks, before pampering and protecting their own, and how the government effectively undermines its supposedly policy of fostering a risk-culture. (although the last sounds like a contradiction). And then I said screw it. I need to rant.

I have had it with these little entitled pampered brats of privilege that the government is carefully bringing up. I've seen any number of scholars go through the system - sorry, make that scholarship recipients. There's a difference - Kwa Chong Guan and Brenda Yeoh are scholars. Mah Bow Tan is a scholarship recipient. Many of them come back fine young men and women, but I don't know any Singaporean who hasn't had a horror story to tell about the scholarship returnee who whinged about having to - eek - serve their bond without being treated as special. Despite the fact that their career path could only go up, protected by the institution that granted the scholarship, because they scored at the A-levels when they were 18.

(Disclaimer: Many are deserving young men and women, who'd have done well no matter what. I'm ranting, I don't do reason and logic when I rant, 'k? )

And this massive sense of self-entitlement - along with horrific indignation when things don't go their way - seems to be the message that is being sent from the top. Our PM is a brilliant man, I'm sure. But he seems to be the only leader of a First World country anywhere that complains, at a political rally, on how annoying it is to win elections, because he has to go and fix the opposition.

He'll say it overseas too:

'Prime Minister Howard spends all his time dealing with this party politics. The result is you don't have a lot of time to worry about the long-term future,' Mr Lee said.
-- Straits Times, 20 June 2006, Aussieparty politics behind
stalemate: PM (Credit: Yawning Bread )

Is this the same country, that just one generation ago, fiercely believed that Singapore could only depend on Singapore, that no one, not the British or the Malaysians or the Americans, owed Singapore a living?

What happened?

So stop calling my generation the generation of whiners, the Why-me? group, the famous "post-'65ers" that expect the government to do everything.

We bloody well learnt it from the generation just before us. We learnt it from you.

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Gather ye laurels where ye may | i say nice things

After I posted the previous entry that mentioned STOMP tangentially, I went to Yawning Bread and came across his take on STOMP.

An excerpt: "But the nature of Stomp is such that, it is the worst habits of netspeak that is likely to be encouraged. Far from cultivating an audience for the journalism products that a quality newspaper can generate, self-service portals cultivate a disdain for that kind of content"

(The tin-foil pyramid hat that I occasionally don when in conspiracy theory mode tells me that Stomp looks set to provide fuel for the "internet people are crazy although some bloggers can be entertaining" argument used by Balaji.)

Anyway, it's a great article, go and read it.

As the entry title suggests, I wanted to say something nice. As everyone knows, bad news spreads faster than good news, and we're more prepared to slap someone than clap them on the back. So I thought it would be nice, for a change, to point out something that was well done.

Chua Mui Hoong recently wrote an article in the ST criticising the government's linking upgrading with voting, and pushing opposition wards to the end of the queue. It was an unsually critical piece coming from the ST, although the signs that it was about to erupt was there for anyone interested ( see here ).

It was a good article, I thought. Although conspiracy theorists with bigger tin foil hats than myself want to talk about her sister and co-worker Chua Lee Hoong being an ex-ISD officer (and some have hinted darkly that "ex" wouldn't be entirely right), I have this to say: whatever. It's Singapore. Everyone's connected one way another. If you say that people shouldn't receive preferential treatment because of their parents, it goes the other way as well. You should consider it, of course, but it's not a determining factor.

Anyway. It was a good article, and it needed to be written. Incidentally, does anyone know what Ms Chua looks like sans spectacles? Just wondering. And they're, like, sisters, right? huh. Just asking. No reason.

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Seditious whistleblowers | talking dog

(disclaimer: not a lawyer. no law degree. am very good at TV law, so if I was on CSI or Law 'n Order, I'd wipe the floor.)

There's one thing I don't like about the whole seditious blogger incident, and it's not unique to the incident, and definitely not to Singapore - it's the annonymous informant-ism of it all. The person being charged or investigated doesn't get to find out who the informant is. The same goes for other similar incidents involving "citizen reporting", and I'm not talking about reporting in the journalistic sense.

And if you don't get to face your accuser, it's a bit hard to mount a defense, I would imagine. After all, how do you determine that the material is offensive to the complainant if you don't know anything about the complainant? I mean, if the complainant complains about anti-Buddhist cartoons, but owns a massage parlour in San Fran with the tag line "Recline your buddha with our lovely lotuses".. well, I'd doubt the depth of his offence.

(of course, it seems that determining whether something is seditious has nothing to whether the complainant found it offensive, but rather that someone would find it offensive. Of course, there are people who would be offended by a banana held in an upright manner.)

And of course, there's the whole personal agenda aspect. The phenomenon of people reporting you in for misdemeanours that have nothing to do their actual grievance with you is a time dis-honoured one. And it's not difficult - after all, as Mr Wang has pointed out, are you sure you've never done anything wrong? Did you criminally intimidate someone recently?

Most of the time, you go unpunished (whoohoo!) for your crimes, mainly because the police can't be bloody arsed (and I don't blame them). However, there are some things that they are obliged to take more seriously, such as sedition. And HDB complaints.

(It sounds strange, but it shouldn't be. The link between politics, social harmony policies and housing is a well documented one in Singapore - I recommend Chua Beng Huat's book on the Politics of Housing for further reading. It's a good read, and Prof Chua is a very smooth writer with a palpable distaste for jargon)

Returning to the topic of anonymous complainants - i do understand the need to guaruntee anonymity to complainants. It's just that I've seen it abused too many times to feel comfortable. Dog owners will tell you that it's amazing how many complaints rack up against you because you own a dog. Sometimes the complaints are dog-related, like the person I know who kept on getting complaints about the barking. The problem was that his dog was a Cavaliar King Charles spaniel, a breed known to be on the quiet side. Unless, of course, to take a random example, the neighbour's kids stood outside the door and barked at the dog. The same (Chinese) neighbour incidentally, used to tell her kids "Dog! Dirty! Don't touch!" and was the only one who ever had problems with his dog.

It's not an isolated incident; in another case the outcome was potentially worse because the dog in question was an "illegal immigrant", a mongrel that the homeowner had adopted from a factory, but considered too large by HDB regulations. After the complaint was made, HDB officers told the homeowner to give up the dog (risking near certain death), or face losing the flat. The homeowner had to resort to bringing his dog out at midnight, so that no one would know he had a mutt. He didn't know who the "public spirited" complainant was, but he was fairly sure it was the neighbour who had insisted that his dog was noisy, spread SARs, and whose hair kept floating into the neighbour's flat. Now there's a guy who'd count the number of wanton he got at the hawker centre, and compare it to the picture.

The anonymous complainant aspect is prone to abuse. Of course, it's not a new phenomenon - to cast an even darker shade on it, similarly public-spirited individuals would report their neighbours to the Japanese/British/Facists/British/Russians/ISD/school teacher. (am guilty on the last score, myself. I'm ashamed, ok?)

It's a necessary evil of course, but at the same time, I wish the police, or rather, the attourney general's office would learn to exercise a little, well, judgement. You could say that political necessity dictates that they go after everyone; well, I would like suggest that it isn't as indiscriminate as that, and that they can choose not to go after a person, as was shown in Chua Chang Zhen's case. In fact, the depth of offense was much higher in this PSC scholar's case than in Char's Zombie Christ case, since Char merely reproduced material easily available on the net, whereas the PSC scholar Chua Chang Zhen wrote that Indians were disgusting and not Singaporean.

Actually, at times, I'm tempted to simply flood CID with a list of complaints about blogs that are offensive - hmm, we could start with Xiaxue the blogger that has been hired by the Straits Times to blog for them despite her bluntly racist entries. Sorry, I should correct that, it's STOMP that hired her, the new ST enterprise that's been launched and I haven't looked at yet because of computer woes. Man, if the hiring of Xiaxue is anything to go by, I feel bad for the ST. The Straits Times is a whore, as I've said before, but damnit, the old girl was just a dame trying to get by. It's too soon to tell, of course, but by comparison, STOMP isn't a whore, it's Paris Hilton drunk on a table at a party, legs splayed open, vagina ready to take on all comers.

Rounding up - Of course, there's a reason why the anonymous complaint/reporter mechanism, and the abuse that ensures works so well in Singapore. We're Singaporeans, remember? As Janandas Devan wrote: "Singaporeans are famous for complaining."

And of course, we have a strong belief that the government should "fix" everything.

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Yet another seditious blogger | zombie christ is bad

I just want to say this:

I'm not entirely sure how seditious the cartoons were, to begin with. After all, the disruption to social harmony was quite minimal - there was no internet war, and there certainly wasn't an uproar on the scale of the anti-Muslim bloggers. And the cartoons were always out there - rather like the Jesus with a crucifix machine gun action figure.

I do know this though - everyone's going to start looking for those pictures now. Way to go to keep social harmony, boys in blue.

(Mr Wang pays for articles from the online ST, God bless him. I just link to him)

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IPS post election forum 2 | mandalas and me

One thing that I had wished was discussed at the IPS was the concept of daulat/derhaka, and the personal mandalas. Having said that to show off, in plain English it would roughly be the idea of giving face, and the likeability factor.

Daulat/Derhaka is a Malay concept that nevertheless has parallels in other cultures. My understanding of it is very rough, but daulat could be explained as the divine right to rule given to the king. Derhaka referred to treason against the ruler, treason including lack of complete loyalty and obedience . The prof who taught it to me is currently very embarressed by my explanation - sorry, but I was only sitting in at the lecture out of interest rather than for the credits, so my note taking was ... sketchy, although my pinball game was awesome.

The reason why I mentioned is because of something that I heard quite often, especially from the older generation, or more traditional Singaporeans: "Vote for the PM lah, give him a bit of face. He's our leader, we owe it to him." There seemed to be the opinion that giving the PM a weak mandate would have translated into making him the laughing stock on the international scene.

This seemed interesting for what it could be thought to say about the Chinese/Asian interpretation of the electoral process. It didn't seem to be a case of choosing a leader, or as is often the case of in walkover Singapore, choosing to express their opinion of leadership to date. For some, it seemed, the electoral process was a case of voting for the established leader as an act of patriotism. The same thing happened in the 2004 US elections, of course, but I wonder if the Bush voters thought of it as "giving face" to the leader, as an extension/representation of the state.

Personal mandalas - a mandala can be roughly described as a concentric sphere of influence, with an object at the centre as the source of celestial power. A personal mandala would have a person at the centre, a person imbued with certain characteristics that would cause power and people to be attracted to him. Southeast Asia has always featured such strong men leaders, strongmen who attract based on two things; what they could give their followers, and this indefinable sense of being blessed.

"Beloved Leader", anyone?

I was wondering how that came into play in the election as well. Chiam See Tong was occasionally described as having gone on a charm offensive, with the ST even featuring articles on Potong Pasir's love affair with Mr Chiam, as well as some appearing in the Chinese papers. Of course, it goes both ways as well - there are people who told me that they were voting LKY - or would have voted LKY because "It's Lee Kuan Yew! I remember when (insert war story) , and he was (insert moment of humanity)".

(At this point, I feel obliged to mention that some people insist that LKY and "moment of humanity" don't ever belong in the same sentence unless the "lack of" modifier is included. I disagree with such people; after all, the PM didn't arrive via stork.)

And of course, when it comes to the ability of the mandala holder to give out the good shit to his faithful followers - well nothing says I love you like a lift shaft. Unless, of course, it seems, if you're in Potong Pasir.

The benefits that the mandala-centre-holding person could give to his followers weren't always material goods or general lobangs. Sometimes it was just about recognition of the follower, the confirmation that the follower belonged to him, to the village, to an imagined community greater than the sum of the individuals. In the wild, frantically developing and shifting world of featureless sea and dark jungle that was Southeast Asia, where boundaries blurred and the dense foliage blocked your view of the greater sky, it was comforting to know one simple fact: I belong here.

I am his man. I belong to this group of people. I follow this leader. And he looks back at me, and he knows who I am, and I am known. It was about identity.

I don't know when I last saw my MP. I don't know when he came around last, if he ever did. Actually, I'm not sure which ward I'm in, to which ward I belong. I don't know when he last spoke in Parliament, if he spoke. I don't know if he thought of me when he was speaking. I'm not sure if he would know where I stayed, even if I gave him my address.

I don't even think he lives here.

I bet Mr Chiam lives in Potong Pasir.

How do I know that I belong to this greater thing called the nation if I don't know who my MP is? How can the government represent me if my MP doesn't know who I am? The government is this big confusing place filled with rules and regulations and faceless parliamentary secretaries and party whips and I don't know what that has to do with me and what it means and will someone help me out and tell me how i belong?

Mandala. It's not some ancient weirdo concept that belongs to 14th century Southeast Asian kings that pierced their penises, it applies to the hear and now. The thing about these people who get votes based on personality is this: they get it because of recognition factor, that's true. But they also get it because they put a human face on the government, and because of that, manage to do what they're suppose to do - functions a link between the governers and the governed, between the grassroots and the greater sky.

And in doing so, they tell people who they are, and where they belong, one more anchor to the soil.

Daulat/Derhaka, mandala, personality cults and loyalties and nationalism - they never got discussed at the IPS forum. It's understandable, there were other things, and it's too soon to tell what role they played. And perhaps we'll never know - this isn't the US, where entire industries sprung up around polling data.

But as long as we're making tenuous links between ancient concepts of kerajaan and politics today, we might as well dig this one up as well: the story of Demang Lebar Daun. He was the one whom, in the Sejarah Melayu, coined the concepts of daulat and derhaka, and in doing so gave his unconditional loyalty and that of his descendants to Sri Tri Buana, better known to us as Sang Nila Utama, fabled founder of Singapore.

What often goes unmentioned was that it was not a gift of loyalty and unquestioned obedience, it was a covenant. An agreement, with two parties, with God as witness and judge. Demang Lebar Daun gave his loyalty.

And in return, his king was never to fail to serve their interests. He was to care for their needs. And most of all, he was never to shame them in the eyes of God and Heaven.

Daulat and voting - it goes both ways.

-------------------------

And the king replied:"I agree to give the undertaking for which you ask: but I in my turn require an undertaking from you, sir... that your descendants shall never for rest of time be disloyal to my descendants, even if my descendants oppress them and behave evilly. " And Demang Lebar Daun said, "Very well, your highness. But if your descendants depart from the terms of the pact, then so will mine." And Sri Tri Buana replied, "Very well, I agree to that covenant"...

... and that is why it has been granted by Almight God to Malay rulers that they shall never put their subjects to shame, and that those subjects however gravely they offend shall never be bound or hanged or disgraced with evil words. If any ruler puts a single one of his subjects to shame, that shall be a sign that his kingdom will be destroyed by Almighty God."

- from Chpt 2 of Sejarah Melayu, or the Malay Annals, CC Brown translation of the Raffles MS 18.
.

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IPS post-election forum | discounted thoughts

The Institue of Policy Studies post-election forum was interesting for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it was the first academic analysis of the elections and election results. Secondly, the topics discussed included elections and the new media factor, trends in political freedom, and voter trends. Thirdly, it had Alex Au (Yawning Bread) and Kenneth Kwek (Straits Times) in the same room, the prospect of which sent me into a very very happy place indeed despite the possibility of future blindness.

The aforesaid happy place was not worth $150 that IPS was charging, so I didn't go for the forum. bastards.

As a result, I was thoroughly happy when Yawning Bread, in the best possibly example of citizen journalism, wrote up a synopsis of the discussions that took place. I hate having to do anything based on second hand reports, since I'm sure he wasn't completely objective, something that I'm sure that those people who strongly suggested that the Straits Times should be turned into kitty litter will keep in mind. Nevertheless, I think he was as objective as humanly possible, and judging from what I heard from other people, he was probably spot on. You can read his account of it here and here, as well as a thoughtful breakdown of Gillian Koh's post-election survey results here.

A few things that caught my interest: Gillian Koh's phone survey which suggested that there was a preference for alternative parties, opposition voices, and "fairness" (whatever that is) amongst voters, and that nearly 80% of them listed it as a key concern. Alex Au made the valid observation that this only represented the views of those actually answered the survey, which was something around 30%, suggesting that those survey results only represented the views of the politically mature/aware. I feel obliged to add the caveat that politically mature/aware does not necessarily translate into "member of the high socio-economic-education class".

(As an aside, conversation I had with a Genuine Heartlander: "Ok lah, the government is efficient, but really sometimes they are too much! We need opposition MP because when they talk cock you need someone with big balls to talk back to them - that's why we need opposition party because no one listen to small fart like you and me.")

However, there was one point I would have liked to have seen raised: how far does this preference for an alternative party translate into votes? Or rather, did this preference actually affect voter decision?

Story behind this - a friend came back on the edge of tears: "I'm so so sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to vote for the WP - I really think there needs to be checks and balances especially after NKF, but I just couldn't do it!"

It's like the Potong Pasir syndrome. Everyone wants Potong Pasir to stay opposition (Chiam! Woo! Hot! Elderly! Statesman!) but it's a NIMBY thing - someone elses' ward should be opposition. In your own ward, you might be a bit more concerned about rising prositutes and lowered property values than opposition voices, which are often misunderstood as something less close to home.

I suppose what I'm also trying to say is this: If you had two equally qualified candidates, would the opposition factor be a factor in your decision making process?


(More thoughts tomorrow. This is a re-typed entry, a mere ghost of the one that Blogger swallowed up and digested in its vasty fetid codes)

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Two laws, one country | James gomez revisited

JBJ was sued for waving a piece of paper (a police report about the PAP) to the election crowd.Technically, the legal decision IS actually correct. Gomez was warned by the police for committing the offence of criminal intimidation.Technically, he DID commit the offence.Mr Wang now says: "[forum poster], I want to slap your face for being stupid."There. Mr Wang is also technically guilty of an offence of criminal intimidation.

The point is - you will not be able to get Mr Wang in trouble for that. The human elements throughout the legal system will obstruct you. For example, if you print out this page and you go to the police station to make a police report against Mr Wang, the police officer will laugh at you and say, "Go away, lah, I'm very busy, don't waste my time with these stupid things."But the police officer won't be able to say: ""Go away, lah, I'm very busy, don't waste my time with these stupid things", if the person making the police report is a PAP minister.

There is a lot of human common sense in social systems to sort things out. But when too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, those individuals will be able to override the common sense in the social system.--- Incidentally, yes, many negative statements that teachers make about their students would probably be defamatory in nature. For that matter, many negative statements that bosses make about their employeers would also be defamatory in nature.The reason why defamation suits don't occur out of those kinds of incidents is that neither the student nor the employee has sufficient incentive to do so. But if an Opposition candidate or a persistent blogger keeps on making negative statements about a public figure such as a PAP minister, you can see why there would be incentive to do so. Don't you?

...Of course you wouldn't. And I hope by now, you understand that it's not quite so easy to comment seriously about politics in Singapore and yet be sure that you haven't broken some law somewhere.In fact, you remind me of a previous discussion somewhere on this blog where I pointed out that technically, most of us have committed many crimes even if we have never been prosecuted. After all, all of these are crimes:drove above the speed limit / drank a little alcohol, then drove / smacked your dog for being naughty / smacked your child for being
naughty / littered / took a little "free" office stationery home / didn't declare bank interest in your income tax form / jaywalked / downloaded porn / owned a pirated VCD / downloaded illegal music / used illegal software / cut & pasted Mr Wang's posts into your blog without asking for permission etc etc.

Taken with permission from Mr Wang

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Posting this because I'm a teacher at heart (ie. bombastic blowhard), and like to remember a good usable punchy turn of phrase when I see one.

Actually it reminds me of a Terry Pratchett quote: Everyone's guilty of something. The only difference is if someone tried to do something about it.

It also reminds me of the etymology of privilege: from the Latin privilegium, an amalgamation of privus, single/alone, and leg, law. Privilege = private law.

Well, that's Singapore - sorry, that's life. It's not a Uniquely Singapore kind of thing - Bill Clinton's feelings about that would also be relevant - but it's life. Not condoning, just .. being aware of the Singapore permutation, I suppose.

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