Response to Guardian's Article on Singapore Elections | the kent ridge common - 0 views
kentridgecommon.com/?p=11639&page=2
Orientalism News media bias Ethnocentrism Singapore Post-Colonialism
shared by Weiye Loh on 07 May 11
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Further, grumblings on Facebook accounts are hardly ‘anonymous’. Lastly, how anonymous can bloggers be, when every now and then a racist blogger gets arrested by the state? Think about it. These sorts of cases prove that the state does screen, survey and monitor the online community, and as all of us know there are many vehement anti-PAP comments and articles, much of which are outright slander and defamation.
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Yet at the end of the day, it is the racist blogger, not the anti-government or anti-PAP blogger that gets arrested. The Singaporean model is a much more complex and sophisticated phenomenon than this Guardian writer gives it credit.
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Why did this Guardian writer, anyway, pander to a favourite Western stereotype of that “far-off Asian undemocratic, repressive regime”? Is she really in Singapore as the Guardian claims? (“Kate Hodal in Singapore” is written at the top) Can the Guardian be anymore predictable and trite?
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Can any Singaporean honestly say the she/he can conceive of a fellow Singaporean setting himself or herself on fire along Orchard Road or Shenton Way, as a result of desperate economic pressures or financial constraints? Can we even fathom the social and economic pressures that mobilized a whole people to protest and overthrow a corrupt, US-backed regime? (that is, not during elections time) Singapore has real problems, the People’s Action Party has its real problems, and there is indeed much room for improvement. Yet such irresponsible reporting by one of the esteemed newspapers from the UK is utterly disappointing, not constructive in the least sense, and utterly misrepresents our political situation (and may potentially provoke more irrationality in our society, leading people to ‘believe’ their affinity with their Arab peers which leads to more radicalism).
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Further, grumblings on Facebook accounts are hardly 'anonymous'. Lastly, how anonymous can bloggers be, when every now and then a racist blogger gets arrested by the state? Think about it. These sorts of cases prove that the state does screen, survey and monitor the online community, and as all of us know there are many vehement anti-PAP comments and articles, much of which are outright slander and defamation. Yet at the end of the day, it is the racist blogger, not the anti-government or anti-PAP blogger that gets arrested. The Singaporean model is a much more complex and sophisticated phenomenon than this Guardian writer gives it credit.