EVIL WORDS
When the bloggers were jailed for being rascist, I thought it was a rather severe punishment for such an infantile crime. And it was somewhat insulting to have half the nation suddenly turn their attention to bloggers in general and start tirades in newspaper forums about how bloggers produce nothing but EVIL WORDS and are exhibitionist fetishists wasting their time blogging instead of productively watching mandarin drama serials.
I'd hoped the newspapers would publish some of the EVIL WORDS - if I'm going to be warned against producing EVIL WORDS it would be nice to have an example what to avoid. Unfortunately no sign of the EVIL WORDS appeared, resulting in a polarization of ideals - one side possibly imagining the worst and arguing for all rascists to be severely punished, and the other thinking no comments could possibly be that bad and that we should be a little more maganimous. Singapore played safe, as usual, in case anyone reading them should suddenly be mistakenly influenced by the EVIL WORDS.
I managed to net myself a short excerpt of some of the stuff written, thankfully (I wonder if Google has cached, or if the Singapore government managed to get them to remove it?) and after reading it... well, it's not so bad. It's insulting, I guess, and absolutely untrue, but then again Singaporeans should be pretty used to being insulted. I think what got the bloggers stuffed was the call-to-arms. Yes, folks, they encouraged others to join in their little Malay bash and I think that was what our government was trying to say was a BAD THING.
I wonder, if the police had said that they could not charge the bloggers under a public offence, and required an actual Malay to stand up and sue them for libel (which is really a sure-win case), if it would have ended up such a huge affair. What I mean to say is, if the prosecuting party hadn't been the Singapore Government and had instead been that Malay girl who blew the whistle, would Singaporeans have cared as much?
I'm not so sure they might have, though of course, I can't be sure (Singaporeans' concerns are sometimes a little surprising). Which then begs the question - has the government become our moral compass, instead of representing our moral values?
Posted by Unknown at 9:11 PM || Permalink ||
Comments(6) ||
6 Comments:
there is no other country in the world I can think of that would have the government rather than the individual sue on charges of racism. usually it's the perogative of the victim to stand up for their rights. So what i think is more surprising here, if you consider the rest of the world, is that the government actively sued the bloggers without the victims coming forth. Also, I think the Malay organisations of singapore do not spend as much time patroling the coridors of the internet as the government does so it may not have been a case of no victims coming forth, but the government rushing forward before the Malays could take action, therefore stemming the possible perception of one race suing the other.
However, I think the idea of a moral compass is a slight hasty generalization, since the government's morals are hardly the people's morals (as evidenced by the very existence of the bloggers in question) and even if the government influences the morals of it's people (directly or otherwise) couldn't the same be said of any governed society?
I suppose you're right about most States influencing moral values, but in this case, I'd be hard pressed to say that the views of the people were taken into consideration at all before action was taken. If state interference is relative, then Singapore is at the end of the scale closer to tyrannical and totalitarian regimes, no?
Not to say this is a bad thing, unless you have exceedingly liberal ideals or you happen to be in one of the minority groups the PAP disapproves of.
If I composed something particularly vehement, BUT against my own race (Chinese people are money grubbing, squinty-eyed bastards with whores for mothers), am I liable under the venerable Sedition Act?
P.S. I looked up "sedition" online, and found 5 definitions given by google, and another 5 given by dictionary.com. All were paraphrases of "conduct inciting rebellion against established authority." IANAL, but racist comments on a blog hardly seems seditious.
P.P.S. I would like to have a look at those blog entries. do you still have them? Please email them to me... Oh, wait. This is Singapore. My PGP key is here: http://www.neverforever.net/downloads/gary_koh.asc
You missed the point - the government prosecuted the "rascists" I think not because they spewed derogatory remarks but because they encouraged people to do so as well.
So rascist comments without any call for action would be liable for libel, I guess, but not seditious.
I think. I'm no lawyer, though.
They instigated other people to do the same? i was unaware...
if you are part of the group that you are hurling abuse at, I suppose the effect would be somewhat different than if you weren't part of the group.
and i think it is infinitely harder to get a group to persecute itself than to persecute another group. not that it isn't possible, (comedians do it all the time) just that it isn't likely to be taken very seriously.
and singapore has never scored very high on Amnesty International's gradebook. so yeah, i think our little-red-dot-no-larger-than-a-taiwanese-politician's-booger defintely has totalitarian tendencies.
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