TR EMERITUS

By Ooi Kee Beng Once upon a time, before the Internet became as common as the television in Malaysian homes, public figures made local speeches that were tailored to suit the audience that was physically present. This worked well for politicians wishing to entertain the parochial tendencies of the audience of the day without jeopardising their prospects of becoming nationally relevant. Today, however, such speeches quickly leak into the wired world of the Internet, putting things into a different context, and revealing the speakers' supposed real values to the world. Playing local politics with the awareness that the audience is always the whole wide world is no easy task, especially for those who have been in politics and in power long before the Internet changed everything. The dominant Umno learned this the hard way three years ago when it decided to telecast "live" its national assembly. The parochialism and racism expressed by its candidates on that occasion for the nation to hear soon forced it to backtrack. Defensive arrogance does grow out of the inability to evolve. The attempt to block access to Raja Petra Kamarudin's controversial Malaysia Today website last year managed to stop traffic going to that site, but did not stop access to its contents. Mirror sites sprung up immediately to nullify the censorship. The police decision in September 2008 to use the Internal Security Act to jail Raja Petra, along with prominent opposition politician Teresa Kok and journalist Tan Hoon Cheng, merely backfired. The de facto minister of law, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, soon resigned in protest. Publicly calling female bloggers liars, as then Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor did in March 2007, is also not a very smart thing to do. The negative reaction on the web on that occasion was tremendous. Opinions expressed for local consumption becoming national news is part and parcel of a revolution in information technology which carries enormous consequences for the near future. Some are positive, and some will certainly not be. Through the Net, you can sell old useless books you have under the stairs on the world market; you can get to know strangers on the other half of the world merely by being on chat sites; and you can arrange an entire holiday to the south of France without talking to any salesperson at all. In Malaysian politics, we have witnessed how SMSes, videos and phone cameras have come into play. While these can uncover abuse of power, as in the case of the woman forced to do ear-squats naked while detained by the police in December 2005; reveal dubious practices, as in the case of the Lingam Tapes released in 2007 showing a prominent lawyer boasting about his ability to fix top judge appointments through political connections; and contribute to court cases, as in SMSes supposedly sent by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to a lawyer, discussing the detention of a close associate then charged with involvement in the murder of a Mongolian woman. The latest political incident involving IT innovations concerns the circulation of nude pictures of prominent opposition politician Elizabeth Wong, secretly taken on a phone camera. The case of Wong (also a blogger), who has offered to resign from her position as state assemblywoman for the opposition-held Selangor, adds worrying dimensions to the political use of modern IT. First, it is not only the line between the local and the national that is being erased. The line between the private and the public is fading fast as well. That is worrying indeed. Most urbanites in Malaysia of all races, especially in the Klang Valley where Wong lives, would undoubtedly consider Wong the victim. Mass media attempts to class the case as a "sex scandal" — and this happened on both sides of the Causeway — smack of shameless sensationalism, journalistic amateurism and political opportunism. In the sanctity of her home, surely she is allowed to walk scantily dressed, sleep half-naked, even shower nude, and yes, have sex without clothes on. The culprits deserving punishment are those who facilitated the publicising of those pictures, regardless of whether they were taken with her permission or not. The fact that she is an unmarried woman, and not a man, has had a serious impact on how the incident is being interpreted. Should a male politician, married or not, such as former Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Khir Toyo, for example, have been photographed in the nude while asleep, the fallout would have been minimal, even comical. The Wong case also shows the disturbing shrinkage of moral space when the private and the local are technologically subsumed under the public and the national. Moral values do differ geographically, individually, culturally and according to lifestyle. This diversity is denied when such a case gets politicised, and here, the supposed sensitivities of the vocally most religious, most parochial, most traditional and most rural are allowed to define the national public norm. Wong is being sacrificed to appease illiberal elements within the opposition. Surely, this is not what the Pakatan Rakyat is fighting for. A political cyber war has started in Malaysia. While we thought that the old would be at the mercy of the new in such a showdown, it is time to realise that, in truth, the more desperate and more immoral has the edge. The writer is a Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. His latest book is "March 8: Eclipsing May 13" (with Johan Saravanamuttu and Lee Hock Guan, ISEAS). Source: The Malaysian Insider  Read More →

SINGAPORE — The Government of Singapore Investment Corp. saw an investment loss of around 50 billion Singapore dollars (US$33 billion) in 2008 as a result of tumbling asset prices around the world, two people familiar with the situation said. “The loss on the investment portfolio last year is estimated at around S$45 billion to S$50 billion,” one of the people said. “But GIC has no thoughts to sell down any of its major investments. They’ll wait until they recover.” A second person said GIC’s investment loss last year was “recently estimated to be similar to Temasek’s.” Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., Singapore’s other sovereign wealth fund, saw its investment portfolio fall 31%, or S$58 billion, to S$127 billion in the eight-month period ended Nov. 30, Senior Minister of State for Finance Lim Hwee Hua said last week. GIC spokeswoman Jennifer Lewis said the sovereign wealth fund won’t comment on individual investments. Read rest of article here  Read More →

By Fang Zhi Yuan For far too long, the autocratic regime and its sycophantic mouthpiece have dominated political discourse in Singapore. They have been the ones to set the agenda for the populace to believe in with no questions asked. In the face of the worst economic recession Singapore has ever experienced, let us revisit the myths which has been propagated and perpetuated about the necessity and merits of the "PAP system" of governance in order for them to maintain their political hegemony. The 5 myths below have been often repeated ad nauseaum till they are deeply etched in the collective consciousness of Singaporeans: 1. Singaporeans owe a debt to Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP from transforming Singapore from a third to first world country. 2. Singapore needs to open its doors to the global economy in order to enjoy years of uninterrupted economic growth. 3. Singapore cannot afford to spend more to help needy Singaporeans to prevent going down the slippery slope of welfare. 4. Singapore needs a strong one-party state to ensure social stability and economic progress. 5. Only the PAP knows how to govern the nation. The opposition is irresponsible and will fritter away our precious reserves by the billions if they were to come to power one day. Now let us dissect and dismantle the myths one by one. 1. With due respect to Mr Lee Kuan Yew, he has put together a capable and formidable team in the early years of Singapore's independence to kickstart our economy, but he can hardly take the credit all by himself. The true architect of Singapore's success story is Albert Winsemius, a Dutch economist who was a long-term Chief economic adviser to Singapore from 1961 to 1984, playing a major role in the formulation of Singapore's national economic development strategy. With his help, Singapore attracted big oil companies like Shell and Esso to establish refineries here. In the 1970s, Singapore was upgrading its industrial capacity to use higher technological methods, including electronics. He personally went to persuade large Dutch electronics companies like Philips to set up production plants in Singapore. He also proposed that Singapore could be developed as a financial centre, as well as an international centre for air traffic and sea transport. Over the next twenty years, these predictions proved to be accurate. Singapore also owed its success to the PAP Old Guards like Mr Goh Keng Swee, Mr Toh Chin Chye, Mr E W Barker, Mr Ong Pang Boon and Mr Hon Sui Sen who were Lee's "lieutanents" in office and a docile, sensible, hardworking and thrifty citizenry willing to work hard and save up for the sake of the next generation. Under British colonial rule, Singapore is already a major trading entrepot in the region by virtue of its unbeatable strategic position at the tip of the Malay Peninsula thereby giving it leverage to control shipping traffic passing through the Straits of Malacca, one of the busiest sea lanes in the world. To attribute Singapore's success over the years solely to Mr Lee Kuan Kew is not only a travesty of truth and justice, but an insult to our pioneers and ordinary Singaporeans on the streets who have given their sweats, blood and tears to build our nation to where it is today. 2. As a small island with no natural resources, we are heavily dependent on external trade for our survival and prosperity. It is true especially in the early years when political stability, social cohesion and economic openness are key factors propelling us ahead of our competitors. However, our vulnerabilities become clearly exposed now in the current global economic turmoil when Singapore becomes the first country in Asia to slip into recession and is poised to be one of the worst performing economies in the near future. Singapore will be more resilient if we have a higher domestic consumption, a more diversified economy and vibrant home-grown enterprises to cushion the fallout from the loss in exports and trade. The deficiencies of our economic model are caused by the narrow mindset and myopic view adopted by the PAP to pursue growth at all costs in the shortest possible time. Our domestic consumption is low compared to other developed Asian economies because of high cost of public housing and ordinary living, a mandatory pension scheme requiring citizens to contribute 20% of their monthly salary to it and relatively low wages kept depressed by the influx of cheaper foreign workers. Our economy is heavily focused on a few "winners" like the manufacturing and electronics sectors in the past, the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry now and the gaming industry in the future. Gigantic state-linked companies such as DBS, Capitaland and NTUC are squeezing the life out of local startups and enterprises with their virtual monopoly over the economy rendering them both unimaginative and uncompetitive. We have already moved past the initial stages of developing our then labor-intensive fledging economy and we need to rethink our current economic blueprint now in order to compete on a different level with other developed countries where creativity, passion, entrepreneurship and a willingness to take calculated risks are essential and pivotal qualities for success in a new world order. 3. Under the combined propaganda machinery of the PAP and SPH, "welfare" has become a dirty word in official parlance. We have been told repeatedly to be self-reliant and not to depend on the government for cash handouts, but isn't it the responsibility of the incumbent government of the day to care for the people who voted for them into power in the first place ? The welfare system of Western countries have often been used by the regime to obsfuscate the issue. It is both irrational and unreasonable to equate "welfare" for Singaporeans to the promotion of a welfare state. Singaporeans do not expect the government to support them for the rest of their lives after retirement. All we ask for is for the government to make the present living conditions more bearable for us by reducing the cost of living and to be more generous with the distribution of aid to needy and vulnerable Singaporeans. We do not expect the regime to be as generous as the Hong Kong government to give its elderly citizens a monthly allowance amounting to 80% of their last drawn pay. Much more can be done to alleviate the hardship and suffering of our senior citizens who have contributed to the nation-building process during their productive years. The Singapore government is filthy rich by first world standards. It is not as if it is a pauper, why is it so stingy in rendering financial assistance to the poor ? Would it rather spend billion of dollars to bail out distressed banks which went eventually to lining the pockets of its rich executives or help its own citizens ? 4. In the early years of Singapore's nationhood, a strong government is crucial to bring about political stability and social harmony so that we can focus on developing the economy to uplift the lives of our people. The regime has conveniently corrupted the definition of a "strong" government with that of a one-party state. A strong government can exist in the presence of a sizable opposition in Parliament to check on the ruling party while a one-party state though appearing "strong" on the surface, has inherent deficiencies caused by the over-concentrating of power in the hands of a few. The only reason why the regime appears strong on the outside is that the key decision makers belong no more to an inner clique of a particular family of which even ordinary MPs without any portfolios are excluded. Only one center of power exists to give the orders, the rest simply follow behind like blind sheeps thereby giving the facade of a clear sense of direction and purpose in the formulation and implementation of policies. The Finance Minister Mr Tharman gave Singaporeans a glimpse of how the PAP system worked when he remarked in Parliament in response to an opposition MP's question that they work on a system based on "trust". What was not mentioned is how much trust he has in the system itself. Is it a 100% trust ? Ask yourself whether you ever trust anybody in your life including yourself completely without any doubts. A self-serving totalitarian state which do not hesitate to make use of the police and media to suppress dissenting voices from its own people is not a strong government. On the contrary, it is a weak government precisely because it is unable to stand up to external challenges and defeat them based on its own strengths and merits alone without resorting to foul play. A strong government is one which can face up to the challenge of any opposition without resorting to 'fixing' them. A strong government is one which is fully accountable to the people and is not afraid of being scrutinized. A strong government does not hide things from the people and is completely honest, transparent and above board. A strong government does not make use of state instruments like the police and media to suppress political dissent because it knows it owes its power to the people who voted for it. And lastly, a strong government does not sue its critics to silence them because it has faith in its own ability to win them over by their reasoning and argument. By these 5 counts, the PAP does not qualify to be a strong government. It is no more than a weak, pathetic and cowardly bully which makes use of its position as the incumbent to quash its political opponents. History have shown us that such "strong" states like the U.S.S.R and Nazi Germany did not last long while others like South Korea and Taiwan only manage to avert a similiar implosion like the former by making a peaceful transition to democracy. If a one party state has worked for Singapore in the past, that's because it has only benefitted a small of group of people with links to the regime. It is not going to work now and in the future where a rapid changing geo-political landscape will require a diversity of ideas and views to cope and tackle the problems which may surface . A one party state stifles creativity, innovation and passion in the population and will ruin us politically, socially and economically in the long run.  Can we expect the regime to check on itself ? Time and time again, we have been proven otherwise. There is a serious lack of accountability and transparency from the Singapore government in spite of its frequent lame attempts to ingratiate itself with these attributes as defining yardsticks for its rule. 5. As the present financial turmoil has shown us, we do not need a profligate opposition to fritter away our precious reserves. A substantial proportion of it is already missing. I guess most Singaporeans would prefer the sum of $58 billion lost by Temasek to be spent on helping the poor and needy rather than go to make a few hundred millionaires out of Merrill Lynch's employees. What we really need is not the empty promises made by the PAP to safeguard our reserves, but a proper calibrated system of checks and balances to guide the modus operandi of the government and a real opposition in Parliament to ensure accountability and transparency from the government. The regime's glaring deficiencies is exposed for all to see with its inept handling of the Temasek fiasco. We are talking about the loss of $58 billion dollars and more of our reserves and not a single question is asked in Parliament. The perpetuator of this disaster did not have to face the music and the state media even have the gall to suggest she ran for political office in the future ! In other developed countries, an independent Commission of Inquiry will be called immediately to probe into the loss. The regime will never risk eroding further whatever little public trust and confidence they have left by revealing the full extent of losses incurred by Temasek and GIC because it has been using the reserves all along to frighten Singaporeans from voting the opposition into power. The myths of the PAP system are fast being dismantled on a daily basis with alternative news sources from the internet. Even the mainstream media is finding hard to spin fairy tales on behalf of the regime without appearing ludicrous itself. The regime can continue to believe in its own propaganda, but less and less Singaporeans, especially the young are taken in by them. Eventually, Singaporeans will become so averse to the one-sided reports carried by the mainstream media that they will be completely switched off, preferring to read only what they want to read on the internet even though its factual accuracy cannot be independently verified and that will finally send the myths of the PAP system into their death throes.  Read More →