Amos Yee – The cuckoo in IMH

Amos Yee has been pronounced as insane in many shades of colours by the psychiatrists, the latest by a Professor Munidasa Winslow for saying, but not confirming, that Amos ‘may’ have Autism Spectrum Disease. For this suspicion, Amos is now in the IMH with the really mentally disturbed patients, in the same Ward 7, a most feared place by any normal person or mental patient. How cruel can the system be, how thoughtless can well meaning adults be?

The political cloud hovering over this Amos Yee case has led many people to comment about it, and the UN Human Rights Office had written to the Govt to release Amos Yee immediately. The Human Rights Watch had also written to the Govt about their strong views of this case. Notwithstanding these interferences by international organisations, the Amos Yee saga continues in its own course, according to our highly legal judicial system in a country that respects the rule of law. It is all legal, transparent and above board, as legal as it can be to the commas and full stops. Amos is in IMH for more psychiatric reviews to confirm if he has ASD or just a may be. Question, does a person being suspected to be having ASD need to be warded and live with the insane?

Another article appeared in the TRE on 27 Jun by a ‘Cuckoo – parent and psychologist’ titled ‘Amos Yee case – One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’. His concluding paragraph reads,

‘The politically-motivated move to label Amos Yee as someone who is suffering from autism is an insult to the integrity, humanity, and intellect of parents everywhere in Singapore whose kin, child, or relative are truly afflicted with this debilitating disorder and are coping with it every day.

I beseech parents who feel the injustice to voice out now.’

No one has been brave enough to make such a stark comment. This article and the other articles, all expressed an unspeakable exasperation that something very wrong is happening but nothing could be done to stop it. The fact that the people writing all these articles to show their frustration and dismay were netizens, mostly unknown or not prominent citizens, except perhaps Dr Ang Yong Guan,  may be a reason why they did not matter. Who are these ordinary people to make a case for a boy already pronounced as a bad boy, a mental case and to expect things to change in favour of the boy? What about the UN and HRW? The ethos of this govt is that foreign interferences in our domestic affairs should be ignored at all cost, they should not matter. We are responsible for the welfare of our people and we will do what is right. We know what is good for Amos Yee.

What is right looks like right in this case if silence is consent. Not a minister or MP, not any elite, not a person of any stature or distinction, has said anything in favour of the boy or to cast any doubt that this case may be not that right after all. Knowing that Singapore is a highly righteous society where the elite are men and women of high moral standing, that would not allow any injustice to happen before their eyes and do nothing, remember the noise of condemnation about heckling sensitive children at Hong Lim, the silence says a lot. Hypocrisy, no, just being pragmatic, to go with the flow. This is essential to get rich and dignified in this place. The silence is to mean that there is nothing wrong, nothing fishy that demands our elite and people of prominence, people with a lot of conscience, to open their golden mouth. There is nothing wrong with the case. Period.

This must be the only reason why there is a total silence or an appearance that everyone has gone into hiding, to stay clear of this Amos Yee case.  We used to have very vocal personalities speaking out on things that they perceived as wrong.

Maybe this is a holiday season and everyone has gone on vacation, or at least their conscience has gone on leave. The fortunate thing is that no one of any respect or reputation has step out to say the boy deserves it. Only the trash has been very outspoken in the social media to condemn the boy and with threats of all kinds. Maybe this is supposed to be an encouraging sign, that only trash would spew trash and the decent at least would do the decent thing, to keep their mouth shut. Perhaps there is an uncomfortable and grudging reluctance to believe there is still some hope, some goodness that are temporarily concealed or went underground.

The AHPETC has already caused the PAP a lot of votes though it thinks otherwise, that it has done a brilliant killing of the WP and scored a convincing victory. There will be the superficials that could not see through the façade and believe innocently that it was a simple case of questionable management practices. What is the intent of this effort to harp on how a town council is being managed and ignoring the bigger issues when huge losses are happening almost every other day?

How many more votes would the PAP lose in the Amos saga? Taking on a boy is already a no no and politically unwise thing to do. The whole process is making things looking so ugly that if it still thinks it could walk away unscathed and go on to win the goodwill of the people, then it must be totally out of sync with the sentiments of the people. A few die hard unthinking IBs fighting furiously with their stupidity, to put on a brave front in the social media, is not going to do any good. The damage has already been done, and this damage is likely to be a hole too big to cover. Damage control will be a vain effort.