IMDA – Brown face ad insensitive but did not breach Internet Code of Practice

The Nairs were given conditional warnings for their racist and highly offensive rap video, attacking the Chinese as a racist race with vulgarities. Conditional warning means if they remain crime free for two years, no action would be taken against them. Is this too lenient for such an offensive video? According to a lawyer Ravinderpal Singh, quoted in thenewpaper, ‘the intention to knowingly harm the harmony between different religious or racial groups has to be present to constitute a criminal offence under Section 298A(a) of the Penal Code. From the sentence given, can one read that the Nair siblings has been judged as having no intention to harm racial harmony and thus only a conditional warning?
 
How then could one judge that a person has intention to harm racial harmony? By own admission? In this case the people making the judgement was the Attorney General’s Chambers and ‘they concluded that the video was in contravention of Section 298A(a) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224. How does one interpret this judgement by the AGC? If there is a contravention, should not the siblings be charged for the criminal act?
 
In the case of the brown face ad, the AGC has ruled that ‘there was no criminal offence disclosed in the advertisement’. Both the brown face ad and the offensive video led to police reports. Legally and clearly, according to AGC’s decision, one is criminal and the other is not.
 
The other issue is the insensitive or inappropriate part. How to decide what is insensitive and what is not? Who to decide? We have two organisations, the Council of Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore and the Attorney General’s Chambers have ruled that the brown face ad did not break any law. So why are some people still uttering that the ad was insensitive and inappropriate when it did not break any law? Oh, because a few bigots said so. The few bigots are setting the standard of social norm in Singapore, not the Council of Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore, not the AGC.
 
There are hundreds of millions of people with brown faces. If their brown face is offensive, their lives would be very miserable having such a colour on their face. What about the white Europeans travelling thousands of miles here to buy suntan lotion to lay under the sun to bake themselves just to have a brown face? To them brown face is beautiful, a colour of choice. Offensive to who?
 
The same reasoning applies. A swine woman threatened and bullied an innocent 9 year old that saying beef curry was insensitive and could get him killed in some country. To her, no one in Singapore can mention eating beef. My God, there are hundreds of millions of people eating beef daily. These people even studied the various types of beef and how to cook them to get the best taste. Would some minister or MP table in Parliament to ban the mention of eating beef and beef advertisement in Singapore? Would one have to whisper to a waiter when ordering steak, ‘Psst Psst, I want it (beef steak) done it this way. Sorry I can’t say it loud as it would offend some bigots and I could get myself killed’?
 
Singapore is not only a multi cultural, ethnic and religious society. It is also a cosmopolitan city. We respect the sensitivity of the different races and religion. But none should be allowed to impose their sensitivity on other people. Singapore must not allow a few bigots and extremists to dictate the social norms of what is right and wrong or what is permissible or insensitive. There are rules and laws on such matters and these should be the deciding factor, not some bigots and idiots.
 
We must not allow bigots and idiots to set the rules of social norms.