What defines a Singaporean? Principles or Pragmatism

Funding target met for appeal to Appellate Court

Ms Ten Leu Jiun Jeanne-Marie has on Monday (26th Aug) informed TR Emeritus (TRE) that she has managed to secure enough funding to bring her case before the Appellate Court.
On 10th August, Ms Ten had made an appeal for funding on her blog and TRE for a sum of SG$20,000 being costs for an appeal she intends to file with the Appellate Court. [ LINK ]
Ms Ten has been involved in a lengthy 12-year legal battle with the National University of Singapore (NUS) over a Master’s Degree which she has earned but has been withheld by the university. [ LINK ]
Of the $20,000 required, an interest-free loan of $6000 was offered by a student with the balance met by proceeds from the online crowd-funding and her own savings.
Representing herself, Ms Ten filed the Notice of Appeal at the very last minute on Monday (26th Aug).
Ms Ten would like to express her appreciation to all those who have contributed and/or offered encouragement.
The Team@TRE wishes Ms Ten all the best.

The above article is posted in the TRE. Ten Leu Jiun is fighting NUS for her masters degree which she claimed was due to her but NUS refused to confer to her because she was a whistle blower on the misconduct of her professor. It has been a long 12 years battle and she is going to court again after raising enough money to fight for what she thinks is right and hers. You can't find justice in Singapore if you can't pay for it like this case. I have contributed my small part to her legal fund.

Some have dejectedly told her to give up as it is too costly both in time and money, like most Singaporeans would do, being practical or being hapless. Some have told her to fight on on the grounds of principle and ideals. It is tough fighting the establishment and hope she gets her justice she deserves. Big question, principles and values more important or being practical more important? This question defines what a typical Singaporean is like.

Below are a few comments on her case in TRE.

Rabble-rouser:

August 27, 2019 at 9:10 am  (Quote)

Nothing to say except good luck! I hope that you find what you’ve been pursuing all this time worthwhile!
A 12 year legal battle takes a lot out of your productive lifetime. And a lot of money went to feed the lawyers & the court system in the process.
The legal mechanism is an unproductive industry where everyone loses except for the ones holding the court proceedings & their legal players. The only other such industry I know are the casinos.
Would wish you all the best but my gut feeling is that there will be more to come after you take on a system which is not only authoritarian but also unaccountable to public opinion. There can be only one outcome!
Court of Appeal judgement cost are even more prohibitive! If the appeals judges awards 100% cost to the defendants ie. NUS. Methinks that $20k deposit wouldn’t be enough to settle the final sum on the appeal on top of the earlier court judgement amount mentioned which is yet to be settled.

patriot of TUMASIK:

August 27, 2019 at 11:12 am  (Quote)

You deserve to WIN…(12 years is a long time and your patience is God-Given)… even if the odds look bad with the current system in place…May the Hand of God & Fair Justice be upon whoever that sits on that Panel and may he/she have the CONSCIENCE of Mind and NOT the CONviction of man to come to a JUSTIFIED decision

Self Check Self:

August 28, 2019 at 4:57 am  (Quote)

Bernard:
My own experience shows there are Principled and Morally upright Judges.
Hope you get appeal Judges with these values.
Importantly, provide facts with evidences.
These facts can’t be twisted.
Only hope that the appeal Judges don’t say “it’s not the mandate of this Appeal Court” for what ever reason.
Stay strong, be focus, be and have patience, never loose your cool, be graceful and nice to all including the Appeal Judges.
You can’t go wrong.
May God Almighty guide, enlighten, bless and Justice will prevail
Merdeka

This is the belief that led to the mess she is now.
Your experience is not worth a dime and costly outside the familee.
Wake up.

Brown face, who to decide what is sensitive and what is not?

The brown face ad again became the topic of discussion of Shanmugam and some academics and undergrads at NUS. According to Shanmugam, we should be discussing about race and sensitivity, ‘how do the minorities feel, and how do the majorities feel. Have this openness in the conversation.’

Perhaps this is the first time someone asked about how the majority feels. It has all the time been how the minorities feel. As the majority, how do they feel when some minorities, bigots, scold you as racists with four letter words? Only in Singapore can the minorities get away with such coarse verbiage hurled at the majority freely and with increasing frequency and thinking that it is ok, and the timid majority will not hit back but accept being cursed and attacked meekly. Try that in Malaysia or Indonesia and see if their majority would be as meek as the so called ‘racist’ Chinese here.

If the Chinese are racists as the two bigots claimed, there would not be so many mixed marriages involving Chinese to other races, to a lot of Indians. If the Chinese are racists there would not be so many ministers and CEOs that are Indian, based on meritocracy. If the Chinese are racists, the President of NTU, the seed of Chinese language and culture, would not be given to an Indian. If the Chinese are racists, Chee Soon Juan would have won in Bukit Gombak hands down, not to an Indian by the name of Murali. Or maybe the Chinese are simply stupid, did not know what is going on, did not bother.

What more is needed to dispel the views of the bigots that Chinese are racists? If the Chinese are racists, the silly Chinese that appeared in the bigots’ video clip would not be so silly to be there, chirping along as if he is not Chinese and enjoying being cursed and fucked at.

In this whole episode, no one bothers to ask the view of the Chinese majority as if they are non existent. What is important in such claims of racism and discrimination is who should be deciding when it has crossed the line. Obviously it must not be left to the bigots and minority racists to decide. In the brown face ad case, it was the two bigots that set the agenda, that decided that it was racist, wrong, insensitive. And the unthinking stupids went along and demanded everyone to apologise. Not true?

Hey, what is wrong man? The Council in charge of advertising in Singapore and the AGC said there was nothing wrong with it, nothing criminal! So what the fuck is this brown face ad being repeatedly used as something wrong and insensitive to the minority, that this is the new OB line? Which minority? Can a black face decide for the brown face and call foul? Maybe can because we are still puzzled if the President is a Malay or an Indian. 

If minority bigots are to decide what is right or wrong, acceptable or not, sensitive or not, then the swine woman that tore apart an innocent young boy for mentioning beef curry without knowing what’s wrong should be seen as right and Singapore and all Singaporeans should henceforth ban the saying of anything about eating beef, eating steak etc etc. In the same vein, no one should be talking about eating bak kut teh or roast pork, suckling pig or steakhouse because a few bigots claimed these to be sensitive to them.

There is the law, there is the govt. Should not the govt set the agenda, have laws to draw the line between what is sensitive and what is not? And there is the courts of law to be the arbiter. The last thing to happen on such a sensitive subject is for the bigots in the minorities to set the standard and norm. In fact the bigots should be locked up and shut up. Singapore must not be ruled by the tyranny of the minorities. The majorities have rights to live their way of life and are also sensitive too. Do have some respect for the sensitivity of the majority while peddling your minority views and sensitivity.

I am semi vegetarian. Should I imposed my sensitivity to those around me not to eat meat when I am around? While we respect each other’s sensitivity, we must not use this as an excuse to impose our will on others. We have different lifestyles and love different things, eat different things and do different things, like and dislike different things. If everyone is allowed to claim sensitivity and play victims, there is no way for a multi culture, ethnic and religious society to coexist peacefully.

The govt and the law must rule above others and put the bigots in their place. Do not allow the bigots to set the agenda, to rule over the rest by crying victims, feeling hurt and the rest must appease to them.

What is the problem? The problem is when the govt lost its way and bowed to the pressure of a few bigots. I say again, the AGC and the Council for Advertising Standards said there is nothing wrong with the brown face ad, nothing criminal, no intention to offend. So buck off and stop using this brown face ad to whip the innocents for the sake of the bigots.

The bigots are damn happy after a punishment that was anything but a punishment and thinking that they have done right, achieved in making their points, as bigots to impose their absurd sensitivity on the majority. And the govt is playing into their hands by agreeing with them.

Maybe Shanmugam may want to follow up with the discussion on the privileges of the Chinese majority and wanted to change this, or about an article in theindependent.sg titled ‘101 ways to erase Chinese privilege’ in Singapore.

Wildlife in Phuket

The husband of a Singaporean was strangled to death by a wildlife in Phuket. Amitpal Singh Bajaj, a Briton, was holidaying in Phuket with his Singaporean wife and a 20 month old son. The cause of this tragedy was a din caused by the wildlife in the early morning hours, screaming and shouting out his hotel room balcony. The Norwegian is a martial arts expert, a Roger Bullman.
 
Amitpal Singh and family were in the next room, wife and child disturbed, went to the balcony to tell the wildlife to stop the noise. Wildlife kicked down the adjoining door, barged in and attacked Singh and strangled him to death. Wildlife claimed he did not know it would kill Singh. Must believe him because he is white.
 
This wildlife has been arrested and facing 15 years of jail for manslaughter and granted a bail equivalent to S$18,400. Is this the price of a Briton to take? Cheap, cheap, cheap. Maybe killing a white wildlife will cost more.
 
For those who are very caring and protective of wildlife and got irritated by this term, my definition for wildlife is anything that behaves like wild animals, including those that may earn more than $500k and wearing business suits and driving fast cars and living in high end condos.
 
One innocent life gone over something so trivial. Only wildlife can kill so freely, by animal instinct.

Benjamin Lim - A pathetic case of unnecessary and premature death

'In 2016, 14-year-old Benjamin Lim fell to his death from his Yishun flat, hours after returning home from Ang Mo Kio police division for an alleged molestation incident involving an 11-year-old girl in a lift.

The North View Secondary School student was brought to the police station by police officers for his statement to be taken and released to his mother after being questioned by the police for three and a half hours, without the presence of a lawyer or accompanied by any adult.

As expected, the case sparked a debate on police processes and speculation over the circumstances leading up to his death. In fact, many instances of what happened before his death also emerged, causing the Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam to take the rather unusual step of delivering a ministerial statement on the issue in Parliament in March 2016.

In August that year, State Coroner Marvin Bay ruled that the teenager’s death was a deliberate act of suicide that could have occurred probably from issues with managing his anger and emotions, as well as stress of being under criminal investigations....'

The above is from M Ravi's post in the TRE on the need to protect a child during police interrogation by the presence of an adult so that a child would not self incriminate itself. What is so tragic about this case was what Benjamin was put through alone, a 14 year old being interrogated in the police station by police officers. How frightening was the experience to a young boy without his parents or teachers to lean on for support.

Let hope no young person in Singapore would ever have to go through the same ordeal as Benjamin Lim. Some might have the wrong impression that Benjamin was having a party with his friends in the police station instead. His sad and miserable ending told you otherwise. This is a case of feeling sorry for Benjamin and his family is not good enough.

Anyone feeling guilty about Benjamin's death? Any sense of guilt, prick by conscience? Or everyone thought they had been very kind and caring to Benjamin?

New laws to prevent religious strife

To claim that religion is for peace is looking more and more silly by the day. Many wars and strife around the world are caused by religion, religious beliefs, religious intolerance often claimed as misinterpretation of the religious doctrines and text. In short, religion is spelt trouble. To some religions, peace means the annihilation of other religions with only one religion left.
 
The sensitivity and highly prone to war and destruction of religion must be tackled carefully and forcefully. Singapore is a secular state and religion must always be kept at a level not to upset social and national security and stability. Singapore cannot be ruled by religion. How to when there are so many religions in this little island and each has its core values and doctrines that are in conflict with other religions and if not restrained, could lead to open hostility?
 
The Govt is going to act, to nip in the bud, threats to religious harmony under a religious harmony law. This fake and unnatural state of affair called religious harmony can only exist in Singapore if the govt is strong and not be influenced by any particular religion or be hijacked by religious extremists. Religious harmony is so artificial when one is to really look at what religion is all about vis a vis other religions. Religious intolerance and exclusivity to other religions is the core of trouble in this world. Let’s not deceive ourselves to think otherwise. Without a strong govt to keep the lid tightly over religion, conflict could flare up at any moment anywhere. There would be some cuckoo religious leaders that would come along to whip up religious intolerance and could claim correctness by quoting their religious books.
 
Having this understanding of how sensitive religion is, it is fair and necessary to stop people from being too free and generous in their comments and views about religion. This comment from Hsien Loong is fair. ‘But we do not allow unfettered and rambunctious discussion on religion, or even worse provocative or blasphemous cartoons, performances and videos, nor are we likely to do so for a very long time to come…We have no illusions about the depth of the religious fault lines in our society, and the harm that will befall us if we neglect to manage them, he said,….’ This point is particularly important in this blog especially to Matilah. When the law comes into effect, I would have no choice but to delete his strong views that he thought are funny about religions. Not many are mature enough to tahan his caricatures of religions and religious icons.
 
But while respecting and being aware of religious sensitivity are important, the govt must not allow religious sensitivity as an excuse to set the agenda and norms of civility and correctness in society. Religion and claims of religious sensitivity must not be allowed to determine what is right or acceptable like ethnic sensitivity. This reminds me of the swine woman that threatened and bullied a young innocent boy for saying ‘beef curry’ and attacked him and threatened the boy that he could be killed in some silly country. I am still waiting to see if the govt would take this silly woman to task for spreading fear in Singapore with her extremist and bigot views of what is or is not acceptable and permissible in Singapore. The best part is that she could not see her folly and bragged about it in facebook to tell the world that she did the right thing to attack the innocent young boy. Poor boy must be terrified by his encounter with this swine woman.
 
To guard against religious extremism and religion to set the agenda and way of life for everyone, this is what Hsien Loong said, ‘We must also have religious and govt leaders who are broad minded and enlightened, who understand the context in which we operate, and who set an example for others to spread the message of tolerance and understanding.’ This is a tough call and demanded the religious leaders to fake their stand and often have to say or do things contrary to their religious beliefs and doctrines. Tough, but they have to oblige in the name of religious harmony.
 
Religion and religious differences are things that are best be left alone, not spoken. Their truths may not be your truths. What an irony when truths are questionable and often seen as untruths by the non believers. How can one truth be so wrong and another truth be so right? Is not truth be truth?
 
Lets pretend that there is religious harmony and keep it that way. As long as the lid is kept in place, we can live with this religious harmony and it is good for everyone, especially the non religious, not to be bullied and threatened by religious bigots and extremists and be allowed to live their own lives of their own choosing.