TR EMERITUS

Lee Hsien Loong, like his father, has always been absolutely ruthless about manipulating elections and harassing and intimidating any opposition to his rule. Despite the PAP’s claims to be a “robust” democracy and the shameful collusion of much of the Western media and governments in that pretence, Singapore violates the most basic conditions for free and fair elections. These include a monopoly over print and broadcast media and a battery of repressive legislation to restrict and make economically unviable what little independent online media there is, an Elections Department that is under the personal control of the PM, a battery of repressive laws including defamation, sedition and the recently added but already frequently used (except against PAP MPs) Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, draconian restrictions on political campaigning (except by the Government), and the use of state resources to bribe and intimidate voters. When the Government is your employer (the state owns between 50-70% of the economy) and owns your house as well as controlling your savings, it would not be surprising if you thought twice about voting against them. Even for the 30-40% who are willing to vote against the PAP, their votes are effectively disenfranchised by the GRC system, which magnifies all the unfairness of the First Past The Post election, with the result that the PAP get over 90% of the seats with 60% of the vote. This election Lee Hsien Loong has already signalled his determination to make full use of the pandemic to try and drive the Opposition off their tiny beachheads and into the sea. He sees an opportunity to take back Aljunied GRC and leave only Hougang still held by the Opposition. Disregarding any pretence at fairness he and his Ministers have already kicked off their GE campaign with a series of speeches, with Lee Hsien Loong being the first on Sunday. If Singapore had even the semblance of an independent Elections Commission, as in genuine democracies, then this would surely have been judged illegal and he would have been forced to allow Opposition parties access to the same media. However as the head of the Elections Department he is in the enviable position of being able to police himself just as he is with corruption allegations as the head of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau reports to him. In his speech, LHL even shamelessly went as far as to ask Singaporeans to vote for him, cloaking his appeal in the language of patriotism and the need for national unity (where unity is defined as the identification of the PAP’s interests with Singapore’s). Heng, his anointed successor and faithful servant to both LHL and his dad, indulged in further blatant electioneering in the state media where he branded opposition parties which try to fulfill the role expected of them in a democracy, that of holding the Government to account: “Unfortunately, it is not the case for all parties. There are parties that are looking at ‘well, this thing was not well done, that thing was not well done’ and so on, and ‘this Government has not done well in this’.” “There is a time and place to look back and see what can be done, but right now, you are in the midst of a major battle on many fronts, and all our people and all our leaders in every segment of our society must first and foremost look forward to what is ahead of us,” Heng is merely reiterating the PAP line, going back to when LKY seized power in 1963, that the normal checks and balances of a democratic system should not apply to the Government but instead Singaporeans should trust them without question. It is consistent with Lee Hsien Loong’s condolence letter to me and my brother, on the death of J B Jeyaretnam in 2008, when he infamously said, “He used to engage in heated debates in the House. Perhaps it was because he and the PAP never saw eye to eye on any major political issue and he sought by all means to demolish the PAP and our system of government. Unfortunately, this helped neither to build up a constructive opposition nor our Parliamentary tradition.” Trying to fulfill the patriotic duty of holding the Government to account is equated with trying to destroy the country. Heng took pains to balance his criticism with praise of the Workers Party under Pritam Singh who said in Parliament that “partisan politics should take a backseat”. In other words, do not do what you are supposed to do in Parliament but just go to sleep and not oppose, the actions that led JBJ at the inception of the Reform Party to say that if Singaporeans were happy with the status quo they should go to Low Thia Kiang. After receiving a nasty shock with the judgements in the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council civil suit, Pritam is clearly now being offered a lifeboat if he is a good boy and cooperates with the PAP. With the need for accountability greater than ever, and the Government failing to provide any transparency over the reserves and doing less for its citizens than those of almost any other rich country while lying about the level of support , it should be obvious to Singaporeans that their own interests reside in electing a real Opposition who will not shy away from asking the tough questions. They must not allow themselves to be fooled by LHL and his Ministers’ calls for everyone to abandon the capacity for independent thought and hand the PAP another blank cheque. They talk about everyone being in the same boat but what they really want is another five years of paying themselves and their spouses and relatives enormous and secret sums out of the public purse. If Singaporeans do hand the PAP another landslide win Lee Hsien Loong will feel secure in setting up his son to succeed the interim seat-warmer, Heng. The next stage might be to abolish Parliament altogether since having to account for their actions is unnecessary and inefficient and the PAP do such a good job of listening to the people through such initiatives as the Singapore Together Movement. If Singaporeans want to stop this from happening then they need to elect real Opposition and deny the PAP a twor-thirds majority.   Kenneth Jeyaretnam * The author blogs at https://kenjeyaretnam.com/ .  Read More →

Muhammad Ali Thanks to Covid-19, I’ve been consuming lots of Netflix moments. One of my most recent was to watch Ali, the 2001 film that depicts the life of boxing legend Muhammad Ali. This is perked my interest in boxing and the story of the man himself. I could not have found a better time to get interested in the life of Muhammad Ali. Like most people, I’ve been glued to the TV, watching images of protest and riots caused by the murder of George Floyd, the black man, murdered by a white policeman. The Western world is going through a lot of angst about racism and police brutality. I’ve argued in a previous blog posting that Singapore, which, while geographically in Southeast Asia, has the same underlying problems that the Western World in terms of race relations, particularly with a dark-skinned underclass. However, if you look at the life of Muhammad Ali, you’d find that there is a glimmer of hope. While his boxing achievements are well known, there are small, lesser well-known anecdotes from his life, which should inspire hope. What I found most interesting, came from the eulogy given by his fourth wife, Mrs. Lonnie Ali, where she told the story of how he got started in boxing: [LINK] Muhammad Ali or Cassius Clay as he was known before then, grew up in Louisville, Kentucky in the 1960s. This was during “segregation,” a period of American history that was pretty similar to apartheid in South Africa. Government policy was designed to keep black people poor and while slavery had been officially been abolished a century or so ago, the laws were designed to keep the black population down. Kentucky was one of the places where segregation was not just law but culture. So, when you look at this era of American history, in which he grew up, the first great sign of hope was the fact that the man who got him into boxing was a white policeman called Joe Marten. Mr. Martin, who had a sideline as a boxing coach. As Mrs. Ali said the funeral, “Something is going on when a cop from the South gets along with an inner-city black kid.” The main point here is that goodness is possible in culture that is racist and small acts of kindness can make a bigger difference than brute force. The comparison that comes to mind is the American military campaign in Vietnam, which involved lots of bombing and the British campaign against the Malayan Communist, which involved a hearts and minds campaign. Superior force only united the local population against the Americans. The hearts and minds campaign brought the locals onto the side of the British. In the current situation, the cities that have managed the riots best are places where the cops put down their batons and hugged the protesters. The places where the situation that got inflamed were places where the cops treated the protesters like they were part of the battlefield. The next point from the life of Muhammad Ali was the fact that he was associated with the Nation of Islam, an organization that is effectively promoted black supremacy (the other extreme). His first political mentor was Malcolm X and in between Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali, he was Cassius X. As he grew in his boxing career, the man known as Muhammad Ali was particularly sensitive about his name. As far as he was concerned, his name was “Muhammad Ali,” and “Cassius Clay” was his “slave name,” which was thrust upon him by white slave owners (the original Cassius Marcellus Clay was a 19th Century Republican Abolitionist). One of the most vicious beatings he gave anyone in the ring was to an opponent who called him “Cassius Clay.” Legend has it that with each beating he gave, he’d yell “say my name.” Eventually, like his political mentor, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali moved away from the Nation of Islam’s more extremist ideology, towards mainstream Islam. He embraced people of all colours and faiths and was loved for it. There is a scene in the movie Ali, when his second wife tells him “Those brothers Xs and Ys are only there when you’re the champ and no longer there now you have no use to them.” What does that say? I believe that this point of Muhammad Ali’s life shows us that going to the opposite extreme is not the answer. Extremist groups are only interested in themselves and you gain so much more when you cross lines of race and religion. At Muhammad Ali’s funeral, there was a point that religious leaders from all faiths would be present and acknowledged. Muhammad Ali was not a saint. He was a philanderer (four wives and nine kids) and his “trash talking” which promoted fights did hurt. His rival, Joe Frazier, who had helped him out financially in the period where he was not allowed to box because of his opposition to the Vietnam War, grew very bitter towards him because Ali did insult him (called him a gorilla – didn’t help that Ali by contrast was very good looking in his youth). However, he was a man of great courage, who overcame the circumstances of his birth and rose above the racism of his era. He gave back to the world. In an age where brutality towards the underclass and racist undertones are encouraged at an official level, his life story should inspire us to make a world of what it should be instead of what it is.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →

Why are some (many?) people sceptical about the TraceTogether app and token? Perhaps it is because in recent years, the authorities - including MOH which will oversee the TraceTogether app and token - have been laxed in protecting personal information of members of the public. From Mindef in 2017 to Singhealth in 2018 (the worst data security breach in Singapore), from 2019's HIV data leak to personal particulars of blood donors in the same year being leaked, and even several years prior in 2014 where 1,560 SingPass accounts were accessed illegally. The govt should and must do more to convince Singaporeans that the TraceTogether token which it plans to distribute and perhaps make compulsory for everyone to carry with them, that the token is safe, and that personal information is protected. It takes more than a minister giving us verbal assurances. But from my understanding (from friends who are pretty good with these sort of stuff) the token is much safer than the app, in terms of protecting your privacy. To be clear, the token has to be physically handed over to the authorities (namely, MOH) if the authorities need to access the information in there. The data is not stored in any server elsewhere, but only in the token. What will help people agree to use the token is to make it explicitly clear that it is the person, and not the authorities, who will have final say in whether the data is handed over to the authorities, and to have the final say in when the data can be erased or deleted.   Andrew Loh      Read More →