Some stuff to ponder about:


Exercise 9: Application Question
Which of the two viewpoints do you support? In your answer, refer to arguments in the passages and include your own thoughts and examples.


I disagree with Michael Backman’s viewpoint. However, I don’t really agree to Ms Bhavani’s article as it is biased and extreme.


As mentioned by Backman, one of the most influential factors that shaped our media freedom was that we being a multi-racial country, had to ensure that the media does not produce any religiously-sensitive issues that could possibly endanger our peaceful society. He says that we have nothing to hide as Singapore is mature enough. I disagree with Backman. An example would be that in dealing with the Tudong Issue that surfaced a few years ago, the media dealed with it very carefully, as racial issues would stir up a commotion. Even so, the following day, an uproar was created in the questioning of equality of people allowing only racial groups to wear “special” clothing. This shows that the Singapore is still not matured enough to handle such issues and that the media should practice censorship. This also pretty much suggest the failure of Singapore’s National Education to educate the people to be racially incorrupt. Issues of racial conflicts are seen everywhere in the news on a almost weekly basis in Singapore.


In addition, I disagree with Backman that the Singaporean government has got nothing to hide from the public. It is true that our government is transparent and would announce policy changes and stuff, but it is only AFTER that all these have been implemented that they announce it. What is the use? Nothing can change the policie already and the failure of the speaker’s corner, the censorship in the FORUMS section in Straits Times have been sufficient evidence to show the lack in receptivity and the “I -Don’t-Want-to-Listen-to-Your-Views” attitude. Another example would be the blogging issue involving Mr. Brown. Personally I have listened to his podcast regarding the Singapore government, all they reflected IS really the truth about the lack of competency and etc. of our government. However, what our government did was to silence them. This reflects what I did in Exercise 5 about the weaknesses of Singapore’s management. It is ironic that the Minister of Education himself identified the flaws of Singaporeans in the workplace forgetting that they themselves are too Singaporeans. The point mentioned about the lack of change, and the resistance to change in Singaporeans are also shown here in the government itself. This is why our media has always been contrained and rotten.


Furthermore, I disagree with Backman’s views although he was able to make a balanced viewpoint by acknowledging the fact that the government has indeed made efforts to open up the media. By allowing bar-top dancing means having more freedom? It is total rubbish. The government should be focussing on more serious issues and liberalising the latter instead of wasting time liberalising insignificant bar-top dancing issues. The government is sure clever enough to priortise the education system to morph it into something that now totally produces heaps of untreated waste in the higher levels of education- no freedom of selection of subject combinations and tied down by rote-learning, but unable to apply their divine skills of priorising to the media itself. More pertinent and prominent issues of censorship are just dealt with closing one eye, and worse issues of racial conflicts are dealt with closing both eyes. The government just merely submit a report on the issue itself and how they have deemed to have “resolved” it and close the case without allowing more freedom of speech. What the government is tackling is the symptom and not the problem itself, this is why that Singapore’s media has never been able to open up at all. Bar-top dancing, Tudong issue, maid beating, all these issues are symptons of a bigger problem. The government lacks the skills to identify such problems and solve them, or perhaps they actually know the problem but are too lazy to solve it. The Mr. Brown issue where more and more racist or politically-biased and extreme ideas are brought up resulted in dire consequences and the government issued warnings to reduce such incidents and now they carry out censors of blogs and hold individuals responsible for whatever they write on the blogs. This has also created an uproar. However, is this the real problem? That people are posting such stuff in blogs? No I don’t think so. The issue of blogging racists topics and views always gather the greatest hits and views, this is because that every human has a subconscious part of them. A newspaper article have carried out research and suggested that even though WOW Singapore is a multiracial society and have no racial riots etc., but actually there is a subconscious mind that hold such racists ideas. A simple experiment was conducted where heartbeats were measured when a particular person meets people of different races and note that their heart beats increases as the skin colour gets darker. The person being experimented is a highly revered professor who has absolutely no past records of being racist at all, but check out the cool results. Results aside, psychologists have also determined that most normal people although looking rather calm upfront a person of an opposite ethnic race, but frantic in their hearts and mind itself. So actually, after so much examples, this only proves one simple point that the problem is the people itself. The government are also people, and undoubtedly they would also have a positive result after taking the test. So what they are doing now are only handling and tackling the symptoms. They should therefore allow media to be open as the more you disallow a person to do a thing, the nature of him is that the more he wants to do it. Such a feeling about racist ideals and stuff would only amalgamate and accumulate as a dormant nuclear bomb until it really errupts. Also, the Phua Chu Kang incident is also very significant in this discussion. The government has talked so much about national identity and stuff, whether singlish should be allowed and stuff, but they are resistant to change themselves to censor PCK the serial until recently. They took a very long time to make a simple decision ( about 2 years ) and not sure how much viewership they took away. Definitely they have made efforts to open up the media, but the steps are too slow and by the time the changes are made, Singapore would be left behind already. Hence, the Singapore’s media should really open up and not be constricted.


On the other hand, Bhavani’s article states indirectly that Singapore’s media is simply to report local and global news, and to educate the public. I disagree with Bravni. She mentions that the media in Singapore plays a “constructive and valuable role, reporting the news accurately and fully, informing and educating the public and helping to form the national consensus that enables Singaporeans to respond cohesively and rationally to challenges”. Bhavani either failed english or she got her facts wrong basically. The part of reporting the news accurately and fully have already many arguments. Simple weather reports always reflect the wrong forecast of the day’s weather, this has happened many times already. Censorship or private organisations “bribery” to hide certain facts they want to hide about their flaws are present but not reported. The news in Singapore are evidently inaccurate and not reported fully. Neither does the news help to form national consensus that enables Singaporeans to respond cohesively rationally to challenges. Perhaps, the only part that is true is the rational part. Well, indeed during the times of economic depression, Singapore sure had many citizens migrating cohesively out of Singapore. Also, when China first “woke up” from her long economic slumber, many citizens left the country to explore greener pastures. What the government did was to deem them as quitters. Well, firstly I would like to commend on the media and government for not censorring this portion. Well basically, once again by tagging quitters the government is trying to persuade people to stay in Singapore via a very crude method. What the government is doing is solving a sympton once again. People migrate to China or other countries during economic downturns or not, the issue that the government solved was the moving of people out of Singapore, however the issue is that Singapore is not providing job opportunities that are more attractive than other countries (this answers the problem of outflow of skilled workers). The rally speech is propaganda to a certain extent other than shedding light of Singapore’s achievements and etc. Therefore, I disagree with Bhvani to a certain extent.

I disagree with both writers.