Fake news stifling free speech?

In thenewspaper front page news on 11 Jan was this heading, ‘Will fake news end up stifling free speech?’ What a dumb question to ask? What are the factors that limit, restrain or control free speech? Fake news? What has fake news got to do with stifling free speech? At the most fake news would be misleading, telling untruths and falsehood and lies. As to stifling free speech, the answer is obvious. I will deal with this later, no rocket science.
 
The govt is setting up a high power Select Committee to look into the issues of fake news in social media. This committee is headed by Charles Chong, Deputy Speaker of Parliament and 7 PAP MPs and one WP MP. No fake news in main media? What about half truths or select truth or alternate news? Would these constitute fake news? Was the statement that CPF is not the people’s money fake news?
 
Would the committee also look into the definition of fake news and include half truth, select truth, alternate news and propaganda as fake news, to mislead the readers? This is the first and basic step to take to define what constitutes fake news.
 
Singapore today has the highest percentage of its citizens with tertiary education, more than 50%, not like the days under colonial rule when less than 3% went to university. In many instances, such high percentage of tertiary graduates would qualify the people as smart people, a smart nation, not a smart nation of daft and unthinking zombies, waiting for the govt to spoon feed them with real news and fake news and telling them what are fake news. Is this not a sad state of affair, when a highly educated people cannot differentiate between fake and real news? Has our education system failed the people to reach this pathetic state of affair?
 
Ok, the Select Committee is not to deal with the stifling of free speech. Many wise ones in Parliament have commented that it is falsehood that is the problem with fake news, spreading falsehood to mislead. But telling half truth or select truth can also mislead right? MP Sun Xueling said repeated falsehoods can lead to crying wolf. Would this exercise of setting up a committee to look at fake news and to justify stronger legislation be also a kind of crying wolf? Misleading the readers is not only a result of fake news. There are many kinds of falsehoods in all the media, even in so called reputable American and western media, telling untruths, fabricated truths and outright lies. Social media is not the only source of fake news.
 
A notable comment from Seah Kian Peng is worth mentioning here. ‘Heavy handed legislation may backfire on the Govt, acting as the judge, jury and executioner of what constitutes credible information. We may end up freezing free speech online.’ NMP Kok Heng Leun also cautioned against abusing the law against people who were just expressing their opinions.
 
What would stifle free speech is simply power and the abuse of power, not fake news. No need to elaborate this simple fact. It is everywhere. What is dangerous about this issue is that it will end up with more power than necessary to deal with fake news and ended up with the stifling of free speech. What is the real intent of this expensive exercise? To curb fake news, to help to educate the people, or to curb free speech? The grey area is so grey and fussy, more like fake news, more like crying wolf.
 
What do you think?

The rise of North Korea as a nuclear power

The North Koreans have proven that they have the capability and the missiles to deliver their nuclear weapons. Period. The silly buggers in Washington can go on yelling that they would not recognize North Korea as a nuclear power but the facts are facts and no amount of silly denials would change the situation.
 
Oh, the rogue Empire would still be thinking of changing this reality by conducting a preemptive strike to destroy North Korea’s nuclear weapon and missile facilities. They have made elaborate plans to invade North Korea together with the rogue Japanese. They have sounded out to Russia and China and the UN and their European allies. Russia and China have made it clear, no invasion of North Korea, no war in the Korean Peninsula. And if the Americans dare to, they would be on the side of the North Koreans, to take on the Americans and the Japanese.
 
To make their position clear, the Chinese and Russians have moved their troops to the borders of North Korea. China has moved at least 150,000 men to mean business. Though the diplomatic excuse was to control an anticipated surge of refugees, the troops and their anti aircraft missiles would not lie. The missiles have no relevant to the refugees and are meant for the Americans and the Japanese.
 
Kim Jong Un is very secure with the Chinese and Russian troops at the borders. He knew very well that the troops were there to support him in case the mad Americans and barbaric Japanese attacked. And he can continue to defy the Americans and call the American bluff. An American attack would be against North Korea, China and Russia and it would be a multi lateral war. All the American forces would come under the attack of the Russian and Chinese forces. The anti aircraft missiles would be targeted at the American bombers. The anti ship missiles will be aimed at the American aircraft carriers and North Korean medium range missiles against all the major targets in Japan and Guam.
 
The Chinese and Russians would not allow a war in the Korean Peninsula and would do everything they could to prevent it happening and would fight the Americans if necessary. What is frightening and dangerous is the reckless rhetoric and manouevres of the Americans that could be misread by the North Koreans and all hell breaks loose. The mad Americans must restrain themselves and desist from fiery and foolish talks of attacking North Korea and flying their war machine all over the sky. A miscalculation is all it takes to bring about Armageddon.
 
An additional risk is the Japanese element. The Japanese have all to gain to provoke a fight between the Americans and the Chinese/Russians to mutually destroy each other. They could easily force the issue by conducting a sneak attack that would trigger a full blown North Korean reaction and the rest would be history.
 
Though a war is unacceptable and unlikely given the severe nature of the consequences, it cannot be ruled out when some actors would want to provoke it. With or without a war, unless it is nuclear annihilation of the Korean people, North Korea is now an established nuclear power to be reckoned with. The Americans like it or not would have to accept this reality and live with it. It is in their interest and the good of the American people that they should behave themselves, not acting like a rogue, and avoid raising tensions and risking a nuclear war with the North Koreans with the backing of China and Russia.
 
To the rogue Empire, you are not alone. You cannot hit anyone at your pleasure with impunity. Your reckless and irresponsible aggressive ways have come to an end, at least in the Korean Peninsula.

Keppel O&M cannot come at a better time

This thunderbolt from Brazil finally struck and many were stunned as to how to react. Damage control was uppermost in many people’s mind. The fine of a few hundred millions is nothing or of little concern. What is a few hundred millions? What is more difficult to deal with is the punishment for those involved. Fortunately, by an act of God, no one really knew what happened. Everyone did not know nothing about the scandal. Honest, trust me. So a warning from the AG office would suffice. This episode further strengthened the belief that Singapore is a country that is free from corruption. And if there is a corruption in a GLC and in another corner of the earth, it is reasonable to believe that those in charge in Singapore would not know, not a clue about it. It is so far away, for goodness sake.
 
But the severity of this corruption case involving tens of millions and only one PR, an American citizen, would still be a good reference to other corruption cases in Singapore. How this case is handled or dealt with, the severity and the punishment of people involved or associated with it would or could be used to measure how other corruption cases in Singapore are being handled. It will set the standard or what is acceptable or not norm.
 
The WP MPs must be quietly smiling. They would be comparing their Town Council case with this case. The Keppel O&M is a proven corruption case involving US$55 million. What about the Town Council case? Has corruption been proven and if it does, how much was involved? Can the WP MPs also use the excuse of not knowing, did not know, not aware, so may be a warning would suffice?
 
The debate in Parliament about how innocent the management of Keppel Corp in Singapore is and how they should not be held accountable for a crime they did not know would be carefully studied by the WP. How would the WP use this case in their defence of the Town Council case still in question would be interesting. The law is impartial and one set of law shall be applicable to all, one set of punishment must also be applicable to all. The lighter the punishment given to the Keppel management, the better would be for the Town Council case.
 
The WP MPs must be taking down notes of who and who saying what and what in the defence of the Keppel O&M case in Parliament and how to use the same arguments in their defence. Listen to the great arguments propounded and the moral high ground taken, and the excuses. The ‘not light or did not get off lightly’ penalty would come under the spotlight when the Town Council case is heard in court.
 
Godsend?

Singapore Bicentennial 2019

Singapore Bicentennial 2019

Celebrating Racism, Slavery and Exploitation

By MIKOspace

Next year 2019 has been designated Singapore Bicentennial to mark the 200^th year of the founding of Singapore by the Englishman Sir Stamford Raffles, working for the British East India Company (EIC) on behalf of the British Colonial Empire. Singapore history is actually more than 200 years old with official verifiable records from the middle of the first century (about 100AD), some 1,800 years before Raffles.

Of course, Raffles did not “discover” Singapore. Singapore was neither lost, obscure nor an isolated and uninhabited island. Much documentary evidence points to events and activities involving ancient kingdoms, wars, communities and economic trade.

History has been revised to refer to Raffles as the founder of MODERN Singapore.  This attempt at re-creating history is even more dangerous and particularly disingenuous in the absence of any evidence that any specific past British Colonial policy was designed to create “modern” Singapore. 

In a 10 June 1819 letter to his friend Colonel Addenbrooke, Raffles stated that “Our object is not territory but trade, a great commercial Emporium, and a fulcrum where we may extend our influence politically, where circumstances may hereafter require. By taking immediate possession we put a negative to the Dutch claim of exclusion, and at the same time revive the drooping confidence of our allies and friends; one Free Port is these Seas must eventually destroy the spell of Dutch monopoly; and what Malta is in the West, that may Singapore become in the East.”  

Singapore colonial history has been carefully packed in chewable childlike lessons: a barely inhabited quite virgin island; Raffles’ landing (exact location unknown); promotion of free trade; growth of entrepôt trade; growth of immigrants from China and India; town planning; building of government centre; and the development of necessary infrastructure to support British rule over the local population and to preserve law and order so as not to disrupt British and EIC business interests.  The result is the erroneous conclusion that her 140 years of British colonial rule has been the springboard and foundation of today’s Singapore. 

Our school history textbooks have also propagated this alternative reality.  It was familiar and uncontroversial, also comforting without provoking any anti-colonial sentiments by fabricating false colonial history to foster an unthinking and uncritical mind-set that the tools of colonial subjugation have exceptionally moral good impact in Singapore, but not seen in any other British Colonies!

As Singaporeans enter the buzz and business of the Bicentennial, we need to deconstruct the myths of benevolent colonialism to discover for ourselves, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, the awesome truth that today’s MODERN Singapore would be impossible if we had continued with British colonial rule.

Racism

British colonialism, like the French, Dutch and American, is based in part on racism even as it is appears to be motivated by material wealth, financial gain and territorial expansion. They believe they have a God-given right to govern and subject indigenous people in continuous subjugation with their power and resources. The idea of a master race is inherent in imperial powers to justify their right to exploit, degrade, humiliate and rule over non-white peoples. 

Many racist comments in post-colonial Singapore can find its origins in British stereo-types, especially targeted at Malays.  A 1883 observation by Maj-Gen Sir George Leith, that “They (Malays) are incapable of any labour apart from the cultivation of paddy fields” sums up British sentiments regarding the Malays at that time.

Years earlier by the 1870s, the British had already placed Malays at the bottom of the racial competency order.  In the 1879 Commission Report into the Police of the Straits Settlements, the Singapore Attorney-General Thomas Braddell indicated that he preferred the “Klings” [Indians/Indian-Malay] to Malays as being more intelligent and more active, and better disciplined as a body” as more suitable to be as Police recruits.

A British tourist, Isabella Bird, also observed the Malay’s lack of interest in industry in The Golden Chersonese, 1883, p357: “The Malays won’t work except for themselves”

In May 1823, Sophia Hull, Raffles’ wife, founded the Singapore Malay Female-School. A report, betraying its racist bias and stereotype, expressed surprise at the progress made by some of the students "considering their native habits of indolence, and their want of energy." 

It is clear that race relations and racial conflicts in post-colonial Singapore are very much a result of nearly 140 years of British policies based on their racist altitudes and stereotypes regarding the Malays, Indians and Chinese communities. The various communities were also separated into spatial residential clusters and allocated to jobs based on “the ‘inherent’ biological traits of each race”. The consequence of deliberate geographical segregation and institutionalisation of jobs based on race effectively formalised the (artificial) differences among the races.  They also prepare the stage for the eventual economic inequality among the races with the Malays and Indians in lower pay jobs as compared to the Chinese.

Slavery

The growing workforce of colonial Singapore in the 19^th and early 20^th century composed of mostly indentured labourers.  The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought increased maritime activities to Singapore as the larger steam-powered ships became the major ocean ships.  Eventually, Singapore became the major port for the thousands of labourers brought by labour agents from India, China, Bugis (West Indonesia), the Malay Archipelago and the Dutch East Indies for the tin mines and rubber plantations in Malaya.  The Port of Singapore thus became the major slave labour hub in the region even though slave trading, but not slavery itself, was officially outlawed by the British in 1807.

Colonial Singapore would not have prospered without the forced labour needed to build roads and bridges, work on the booming rubber plantations and tin mines, as well as providing prostitutes, concubines and domestic maids to serve the rich businessmen, British and Anglophile elites for nothing or pittance.

Under the British, Singapore became a prominent network hub of slave traders which linked villages in China and Japan to procure slaves and prostitutes. Even before Raffles, Bugis ships have also regularly brought slaves captured from the Indonesian Archipelago for trading or as gifts for government officials.    

True, we did not get to where we are today by accident or natural evolution.  However, we also did not get here through British Colonialism.  The transformation of Singapore from a fishing village to modern metropolis was not driven by the vision and foresight of British politicians in London and their colonial administrators.  True again, independent Singapore on 9 August 1965 did inherit a collection of laws, institutions, structures and processes after a brief 2-year “marriage” to Malaysia. These colonial legacies however were neither appropriate nor designed for nationhood and nation-building.

For example, the economy of Colonial Singapore was centred on entrepôt trade, which became obsolete in the post-war global international trade faced by a fledging Singapore economy.  The journey to modernity was not easy for an independent Singapore.  As with Hong Kong on July 1997, the British colonial masters had not actively address the critical issues of housing, education and health because their only goal was economic and the only interest was a British, not Singaporean, future. Raffles’ 10 June 1819 letter (see above) clearly attested and confirmed as much. 

The notion that British colonialism was a tool for the moral good of Singapore, and therefore should be celebrated as the driver of our modernity and as the catalyst of Singapore nationhood is sorely misguided.  It is a fallacy and has no historical truths.

As we carefully deconstruct our long history of more than 2,000 years, we will realise that most of us today (80%) came or were born after the British surrendered to the Japanese in 1942.  And about half (50%) of us are born after Independence.

Singapore was in fact abandoned by the British in the greatest surrender by the powerful British military to a much inferior Japanese Imperial Army on bicycles.  Colonial Singapore ended on 15 February 1942, ostensibly the best Chinese New Year “ang-pow” present if not for the subsequent Japanese unmitigated pogrom of cruelty, rape, killing and torture of all things Chinese.  The epiphany of Singaporeans during the 1942-1945 war years was the realisation that we could only depend on ourselves, and not the British or any outsiders.  This is now deeply ingrained in Singaporeans and drives the motivation of our National Servicemen and the indomitable Singapore Armed Forces.

The Japanese surrender on 12 September 1945 saw the shameless return of British colonial masters who thought, wrongly, that business would be as usual with her former colony. In April 1946, Singapore became a British Crown Colony to be ruled directly from London. Again, Singapore was treated like a commodity not unlike the prostitutes in her ‘red-light’ districts of Change Alley, Geylang, Keong Saik and River Valley to be mounted by any conquerors.

The Japanese war years have toughen Singaporeans to resist the restoration of Rule Britannia. The British imposed martial law – The Malayan Emergency - from 1948-1960 on security grounds to counter the emergence of communism, whose fighters were bred and trained in the Anti-Japanese Army during the war.  During the Emergency, the British suppressed legitimate civil and political protests through legislations controlling the newspapers and radio, introduced arbitrary detention with trial, banned workers unions and legitimate trade union strikes, deny ordinary civil rights (enjoyed in Britain!), and banned legitimate anti-colonial societies eg student unions, old boys association, farmers associations and trade unions.  All forms of challenge to British colonial rule were ruthlessly struck down and make illegal.  

Know that the celebration of 2019 Bicentennials would also glorify the failed measures of the Malayan Emergency.  Ironically, if these measures were successful, there would be no MODERN Singapore!   

It is clear that British rule over Singapore was never fully and effectively restored after the War.  And the battle for MODERN Singapore began in 1945 with the Japanese surrender. 

MODERN Singapore is the creation of a small group of politicians and activists of various political parties with somewhat conflicting ideologies, and NOT the natural outcome of British colonialism.

The People’s Action Party (PAP) led by Lee Kuan Yew eventually won the electoral right to flesh out and actualise the aspirations of Singaporeans for a free, sovereign, just, prosperous and equal nation. All the infrastructures, education, human talent, social services and armed forces needed for MODERNITY were built from scratch from the ground up.  Nothing needed for MODERNITY was inherited from the British colonial past. In repeated fair and transparent general elections over the past 50+ years, the PAP has assured and ensured that Singapore will never again be subjugated and subjected to the humiliation and indignity suffered under the British and the Japanese.    

The proposed Singapore Bicentennial celebrations must provide the true history of Singapore’s journey to MODERNITY which began in 1945.  Otherwise, it would be just a celebration of misplaced and wronged history! Suggest we should wait for 2045 to truly commemorate 100 years of MODERN Singapore.

“Until very recently Singapore’s past was a matter of supreme indifference for most Singaporeans simply because they believed this island never really had a history worth remembering…” – S. Rajaratnam, ‘The Uses and Abuses of the Past’, 1984.

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4G PM hopeful not fixated to be PM

Indranee had said that the fourth generation PM candidates are too busy focusing on other things like jobs and social issues and not fixated on being the next PM. This speaks very well of these PMs to be, that they only care about the people rather than their promotion to be the next PM. I like it. You can smell the sense of selflessness and righteousness in them.
 
From a personal perspective that these are unselfish men that did not care too much about being the next PM and rather work for the good of the people is admirable and laudable. This is probably the first time that a country has so many such noble men waiting on the side line to be the PM but not really interested to be, or not concerned if they become or not become the next PM. Even the most eligible candidate, Tharman, has openly expressed that he is not interested in the job.
 
From another angle, this is bad, that no one thinks of running this country. How come nobody is interested in the top job and paying millions? If no one is interested, would the reluctant candidate be pulling his weight when thrust into the job? Or would he use this as an excuse eventually if he did not perform, that he was not really interested in the job, so don’t blame him? Or would the job eventually go to someone who volunteers to be the PM, like this a social service work, doing charitable work?
 
Whether these crown princes like it or not, this is not a wishy washy job for someone to volunteer or for someone that is not interested to take up. It is the most important job in the country and the well being of the people depends on it. This job is no pray pray thing. Whoever wants the job better be serious about it. There is nothing more important than wanting to do this job well as the viability and well being of the country and people depend on it. You don’t want a misfit to be the PM and eventually runs it to the ground or hands it on a silver platter to another country or to foreigners, simply because he is not interested, never mind if Singaporeans would be the losers in the end.
 
The PAP was very serious about who would fit into the shoe of the PM in the last two changes. They did not want to risk putting a dud as a PM. Chok Tong had 5 years of apprenticeship to see if he was fit for the job. Perhaps 5 years were too short and Hsien Loong had 14 years to measure up to it. Now we have less than 5 years before Hsien Loong retires. Would there be enough time to train the next apprentice? Trump, who do you think?
 
By the ‘callafarre’ look of things, this apprenticeship thing is really not important. Or at least this is the impression given, no hurry, never mind, they have more important things to do than to go under training for the job. If this job is not important, what else is? Or is it that the apprenticeship scheme is really unnecessary and thus whether they have 5 years or 14 years OJT, it does not matter?
 
How can it be? Even being an MP needs to be OJT to run a town council first to prove one is capable to being an MP. The PM job is definitely more important and complex than running a town council. If an MP needs to prove his worth in running a town council, a potential PM must prove his worth while an apprentice before being pronounced fit to be PM.
 
Maybe, maybe all the trainings are applicable only to opposition politicians. The crown princes are no ordinary politicians. They are super talents and born to be leaders, to be PMs. So got OJT or no OJT would not make any difference. They will be fit to be PM regardless, when the time comes.
 
So there is absolutely no need to rush to put them under the apprenticeship scheme. They are born natural leaders, born to be PMs. No one needs to worry why no crown prince is being appointed and to go under the wing of the PM, to be tested and to prove himself. Did I get the spelling right on crown prince?