A light drizzle turning into a storm

First the Taiwanese protested and demanded the release of Amos Yee. Then the UN Human Rights Organisation and then the Human Rights Watch. Now the Penangnites are taking up the cause for Amos Yee. Any decent human bean would see the injustice and wickedness in this case. Only the evil and wicked would keep on drumming about a crime that was not a crime.

‘Now, Penang civil society groups would also like to remind that Singapore is a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and we hope the Singapore authorities can respect the regulations of the CRC and release Amos Yee immediately.

Expression is not a crime and nobody should face any inhumane treatment or torture for criticising the government. If you want to break the silence, please join us on this 1 July to show your support and solidarity’.

Date: 1 July 2015 (Wednesday)
Time: 6PM
Venue: Penang Speakers’ Square (Esplanade)

Who else will stand up for Amos Yee? Don’t count on the elite Singaporeans or the hypocrites. They are too righteous and holy to see any wrong in this case. Is there any decent people in Sin City?

'Scholarism, HKUSU and and Lingnan University Students’ Union will stage a petition outside the Singaporean consulate in Admiralty today afternoon (30th June) to call for Yee’s immediate release.' Full article in TRE.

Whither the Malays in Malaysia

The recent spate of moral policing in Malaysia is a sign of things to come in Malaysia. Non Malay citizens were forced to wear sarongs to enter govt offices by security guards who acted as if they are highly moral and religious puritans to impose what is the right way to dress. Though govt officials subsequently apologized and claimed that there is no such regulation, the security guards were not disciplined and more cases continued to appear.

The opposition leaders are taking up this issue to question the govt on why this is allowed to continue and the govt not taking a stand on these incidents? If it is not a govt regulation, why not put a stop to it? Why allow it to continue?

Malaysia is a beautiful country with beautiful culture. The Malay culture, dresses, customs and way of life are distinct and beautiful in its own right. At the look of things, soon they will all be covering up in drapes of black and grey like the Arabs. They will change their culture, custom and way of life to be like the Arabs.

What then would happen to Malay culture? Who is going to protect Malay culture and custom? If Malay culture is going to be replaced by Arab culture, then what would be the definition of Malay? Would there still be Malays in Malaysia?

Or would Malaysia become a little anomaly in Southeast Asia, as a mini Arabia? Would the Mlalays become Arabs but not accepted as Arabs by the Arabs? Would the Malays destroy their once proud and beautiful culture for the Arab culture? If there is no more Malay culture and custom, whither the Malay race?

Are the Malay leaders protecting Malay culture and custom or protecting Arab culture and custom? Are these better than Malay culture and custom?

The Singapore Malays will continue to enjoy their beautiful culture, traditions and custom. Would Malaysia turn into a country where people wrapped themselves in black and grey and walk around without anyone having a clue what is inside the drapes of cloth?

What do you think?

Volunteer soldiers in SAF

A lot of fanfare and publicity have been given to this new animal called SAF Volunteer Corp. Someone must be congratulating himself or themselves that they are able to think out new ideas in the vein of innovative and creative solutions to a non existing problem.  And they must be saying how clever to get non citizens to the defence of the country.  Really, so good ah? The Alternative View, a blog site has an article on the foolishness of this scheme in the TRE and I quote a paragraph from the article here.

‘However, the fate of Singaporeans now lies in the hand of these newbies and volunteers because they are assigned “to one of 17 vocations …. to pick up rifles and patrol KEY installations like Changi Airport’.

Need we say more? With the spate of fake degree foreign talents slipping through, the security breaches at our entry points, the threats of terrorism, the pillar of our security system is already in tatters. (We are like walking naked with MERS in the island).  Yet, we are placing our lives in the hands of people who are trying to integrate – foreigners who step forward to volunteer to help protect our land.’

There are many valid points of concern raised in the article about security of our country. Presumably all the concerns must have been thought through and nothing to be alarmed, a kind of unnecessary fear mongering. Everything is well and fine. The volunteers will be a good thing for nation building and integration of foreigners.

Have we learnt anything yet? Many of the new citizens or PRs are unknown unknowns. Can anyone remember the new citizen who was given a SAF scholarship to study in Australia and ended up being charged for clobbering two SAF scholars to death? He was acquitted after an appeal, after serving several years in prison, for insufficient evidence.

Are we so naïve to trust foreigners in the defence of our nation? There is a saying, 来者不善，善者不来。The volunteers all look so nice, so innocent, so enthusiastic and so good. We are inviting them into our security organizations, train them to fight!

Not to worry, we have many good experience in the industries that foreigners are trustworthy and would not do harm to our people and country. We even have so many foreigners running out IT systems, exposed to all the confidential data and information especially in the finance and banking industries. If they wanted to, they will have all the information on the wealth of every citizen here.  But see, after so many years, no problem. Nothing bad happens. Trust the policy, trust the foreigners, they are very nice people. Everything has been thought out.

The Japanese also thought out everything about nuclear safety before they built all their nuclear power stations. Think Fukushima. Think Murphy!

Do not wait until some ugly incident happens to regret and call for a review, call for a BOI. We can’t allow our national security to go blowing in the wind. Anyone in the security business interested in such matters? Anyone think this is not suicidal, not idiocy? Maybe our super talents know better, like the millions of fakes and cheats that they think are genuine here. What security do you need for a hotel? A hotel is for hotel guests from all over the world. We need to treat hotel guests well or they would not come.

Open the legs. Oops, I mean open the immigration doors. Open up the SAF for more volunteers and new citizens and PRs. They are assets to our national defence.

Dum da da dum dum, dum dum.

GE 2015/16 issues for the voters to consider – Issue 3 – Do you want to be replaced by a foreigner?

Do you want to vote for a party that says we will bring in the best from the whole world regardless of nationalities?

Many of you have spent a small fortune on yourself and your children for the best education money can buy. Would that be enough against the best of 7 billion people out there?

How many of you think this is a hotel and citizenship has no privilege except to sacrifice 2 years for NS and another 20 years as reservist? How many of you think that foreigners should replace Singaporeans if they are found better, more meritocratic than Singaporean and not having to serve NS?

You shall vote for this in the GE. This is the future you are voting for.

Think about it.

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.