in credulity

i had dinner with my dad yesterday, and i brought up my plan to migrate to Australia. It slipped my mind that I had never mentioned it to him before, though i've discussed it with almost everyone else in my family. So when his response to me was a hearty, "But Singapore is the best country in the world! What do you want to migrate for?" I don't know what got to me that very split-second when I abruptly burst forth in a hale of laughter. he must have been taken aback, and so was i, because when he looked at me in that sincere quizzical look and asked me what i was laughing about, i was stupefied i didn't know what to say. for all my rantings about my frustrations of this country and it's rude, vain, vulgar, loud, crass, stupid people, i had taken for granted that my dad knew this contrarian side of me.

and what is wrong with this country? really, with it's world class first class first world blahblahblahs; really, what can be wrong?

with our first-class propaganda and indoctrination, what can be wrong, really?

but really, what can be real?

just read the straits times daily and i'd be hard pressed not to come away convulsing in embarrassment and frothing in vomit. i hope you would too.

take one of yesterday's articles “Squeeze on Everyman's wallet: Issue tackled in subdued way” for example - a piece of drivel written by a 'senior correspondent' relaying some happenings in parliament. it provided for a fantastic read, with rich renditions of the ‘debate’; MP’s potential ‘fire-power’; madam halimah yacob being a ‘reliable, folksy heroine’; mr tharman ‘always a study in calm and lucid authority’.

these gratuitous descriptions aside, since when has debate come to reference an exercise resembling a docile press conference more than a sustained discussion and critique of differing opinions? madam halimah’s ‘probing’ question to mr tharman was whether more levels of assistance would be forthcoming. mr tharman’s reply: an iteration of the existing range of welfare avenues, did not address her question! one would have thought an inquiring and courageous madam halimah would’ve pointed this out to the minister, given that her enquiry in the first place implied a current inadequacy of assistance, or at the very least, the possibility that more might be preferable.

perhaps for a reporter to highlight this in her writing would be asking for too much. that the local media lack objectivity and are hamstrung in providing searing analyses, are quite doubtless. but they needn’t come at the expense of intelligence. partisan, pro-establishment opinions can nevertheless be formulated and conveyed with acumen. but one hopes.

How did the reporter come to conclude that the GIC and Temasek Holdings are independent, are a powerful symbol of Singapore financial and economic decision-making at its best, are strategic, responsible and generally masterful in profiteering? Because the minister said so.

one does hope too, that one day our parliamentary sessions can be rightful, respectable houses of lively, genuine debates of the highest intellectual rigour, rather than this embarrassing soiree of puerile antics and vacuous Q&A. We do not expect any less from our illustrious cavalcade of scholar-mandarins, do we?

until then, when national policies can be earnestly and substantively debated – perhaps about adequacy and type of government assistance, perhaps about the ostensible prudence behind our global investments, or perhaps even about the wisdom of engineering a naïve, gullible citizenry via a cloying, fawning press – I reckon singapore’s aims to true development and maturity would remain a fantasy, in fact rather like that reporter's unbelievable piece of composition. and what an insult and a shame.

when our beloved LKY declaimed that singapore will never be a gracious society in his lifetime, everyone agreed, naturally, including myself. and predictably, out came the straits times' craven parrot (see “Singaporeans’ lack of social graces a social disgrace” ST 14 Jan 08), pretending to analyse our boorish problems and to sound the death knell (these grave peals of bells somewhat a regular recurrence in our country innit?).

but rather than cite a few instances of anti-social behaviour, as the reporter did, many of which have been well-washed in the daily press, even well-understood among the culpable themselves, (it would be interesting to ask why they do not do the right thing) it would have been more useful to examine the root causes, and galvanise thereupon, for positive change. perhaps, for all our vaunting of a ‘world class’ society, education, infrastructure, they indeed do not effectuate genuine manners and refinement. perhaps our ‘world class-ness’ is a myth we have blindly purchased.

i wonder if it's correct to establish distinctions of politeness, civility, and graciousness. (can I be one without being another? more importantly, can I consciously choose to be one without being another?)

that reporter then concluded that singapore amidst increased inward migration would well find in its 'best interests' to be civil or gracious, ignores the point that civility and graciousness are virtues in themselves. in coercing them toward utilitarian ends - as one is wont to in Singapore for almost any other endeavour - i wonder if our penchant for pragmatism isn't a major cause of our sad little predicament.