Group items tagged

Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman’s remarks in the Wall Street Journal Asia piece, “Leaked cable spooks some U.S. sources” dated 3 Dec 2010. The paragraph in question went like this: “Others laid blame not on working U.S. diplomats, but on Wikileaks. Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had “deep concerns about the damaging action of Wikileaks.” It added, ‘it is critical to protect the confidentiality of diplomatic and official correspondence.’” (emphasis my own)

on 25 Jan 2003, the then Singapore Minister of Foreign Affairs and current Senior Minister without portfolio, Professor S Jayakumar, in an unprecedented move, unilaterally released all diplomatic and official correspondence relating to confidential discussions on water negotiations between Singapore and Malaysia from the year 2000. In a parliamentary speech that would have had Julian Assange smiling from ear to ear, Jayakumar said, “We therefore have no choice but to set the record straight by releasing these documents for people to judge for themselves the truth of the matter.” The parliamentary reason for the unprecedented release of information was the misrepresentations made by Malaysia over the price of water, amongst others.

The then Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir’s response to Singapore’s pre-Wikileak wikileak was equally quote-worthy, “I don’t feel nice. You write a letter to your girlfriend. And your girlfriend circulates it to all her boyfriends. I don’t think I’ll get involved with that girl.”

What do educators in Singapore and China do? By their own internal accounts, they do a great deal of rote learning and "teaching to the test." Even if our sole goal was to produce students who would contribute maximally to national economic growth — the primary, avowed goal of education in Singapore and China — we should reject their strategies, just as they themselves have rejected them.

both nations have conducted major educational reforms, concluding that a successful economy requires nourishing analytical abilities, active problem-solving, and the imagination required for innovation.

Observers of current practices in both Singapore and China conclude that the reforms have not really been implemented. Teacher pay is still linked to test scores, and thus the incentive structure to effectuate real change is lacking. In general, it's a lot easier to move toward rote learning than to move away from it

Mark, who is now assistant professor of history at the University of Hong Kong, talks candidly about the censorship, both self-imposed and external, that guided his research and writing.

During my 6 years in the city, I definitely became ever more acutely aware of "political sensitivities". Thus, there were comments that came up in interviews with some of Singapore's former political detainees (interviews which are cited in the book) that were not included because they would have possibly resulted in libel actions. There were other things, such as the deviousness of LKY's political negotiations with the British in the late 50s and early 60s, which we could have gone into further (the details have been published) rather than just pointing to them in the footnotes. Was this the result of a subconscious self-censorship or a desire to move the story on? I'm still thinking about that one. But I do recall that, as a foreign academic working at the National Univ. of Singapore, you inevitably became careful about what sort of public criticism you directed at your paymasters. No doubt, this carefulness ultimately seeps into you (though I think good work can be done in Singapore, nevertheless, and many people in academia there continue to do it).

The decision to halt Singapore: a Biography in 1965, and in that sense narrow the narrative, was a very conscious one. I am still not comfortable tackling Singapore's political history after 1965, given the current political constraints in the Republic, and the official control of the archive. I have told publishers who have enquired about us extending the story or writing a sequel that this would involve a narrative far more critical of the ruling party. Repressive political measures that might have garnered a degree of popular support in the turbulent early-60s became, I believe, for many Singaporeans, less justifiable and more reprehensible in the 70s and 80s (culminating with the disgust that many people felt over the treatment of Catholic agitators involved in the so-called "Marxist conspiracy" of 1987).

I apologise for this long overdue article to highlight the erroneous insinuations by my fellow KRC writer’s post, UBS: Singapore has Third World Living Standards.

The Satay Club post’s title was “UBS: Singapore has Russian Standard of Living”. The Original UBS report was even less suggestive, and in fact hardly made any value judgment at all. The original UBS report just presented a whole list of statistics, according to whichever esoteric mathematical calculation they used

As my JC economics teacher quipped, “If you abuse the statistics long enough, it will confess.” On one hand, UBS has not suggested that Singapore has third world living standards. On the other hand, I think it is justified to question how my KRC writer has managed to conclude from these statistics that Singapore has “Third World Living Standards”.

Dozens of freshmen at Singapore Management University spent one evening last week learning how to "wiki," or use the software that lets large numbers of people write and edit class projects online. Though many said experiencing a public editing process similar to that of Wikipedia could prove valuable, some were wary of the collaborative tool, with its public nature and the ability to toss out or revise the work of their classmates.

It puts students in the awkward position of having to publicly correct a peer, which can cause the corrected person to lose face.

"You have to be more aware of others and have a sensitivity to others."

Singaporeans are the toughest critics I know when it comes to food; the same person who worries about too openly expressing dissatisfaction with the government will not think twice of berating a hawker for serving a bowl of fish porridge deemed substandard. We try our best to keep them honest—and this, perhaps, inspires them to greater heights.

Settlers from India, Europe, China, and Malaysia flocked to Singapore, and the country’s fusion-style cuisine was born, meshing flavors and cooking styles from the various far-flung lands. The sedate chicken rice from China’s Hainan Island was spiced up with garlic, pandan leaves, and chilies. Fried Roti John—named for the British soldiers, or Johns, as the locals called them—combined a Western baguette-style bread with minced mutton, beaten eggs, and a plethora of Indian spices.

I’d never questioned such devotion to food until I moved to Chicago in the 1990s and realized that these practices sounded more than a little peculiar to the American friends

If you think R21 is the strictest classification a movie in Singapore can receive, think again. The Oscar-nominated drama The Kids Are All Right has been rated R21 and has also had an additional condition imposed on it. The Board of Film Censors (BFC) says that it can only be released on one print. This is likely to be the first time an R21 film will be screened under such a condition outside of a film festival.

Further down the news article, it was explained that the Board of Film Censors issued a letter earlier this week to the film’s distributor, Festive Films: It stated: ‘The majority of the members [of the Committee of Appeal] agreed with the board that the film normalises a homosexual family unit and has exceeded the film classification guidelines which states that ‘Films that promote or normalise a homosexual lifestyle cannot be allowed’.’ In addition, the committee said the fact that the film is allowed for release in Singapore at all was already a concession. It said: ‘Imposing a condition of one-print serves as a signal to the public at large that such alternative lifestyles should not be encouraged.’ – ibid

Firstly, can/should the civil service create additional rules at whim? Secondly, why is the idea of two gay persons raising a family considered something to be defended against?

I refer to the article “Straits Times! Why you edit until like that?” (theonlinecitizen, Mar 24). In my view, the Straits Times Forum Editor was not wrong to edit the letter.

From a statistical pespective, the forum letter writer, Mr Samuel Wee, was quoting the wrong statistics.

For example, the Education Minister said “How children from the bottom one-third by socio-economic background fare: One in two scores in the top two-thirds at PSLE” - But, Mr Samuel Wee wrote “His statement is backed up with the statistic that 50% of children from the bottom third of the socio-economic ladder score in the bottom third of the Primary School Leaving Examination”. Another example is Mr Wee’s: “it is indeed heartwarming to learn that only 90% of children from one-to-three-room flats do not make it to university”, when the Straits Times article “New chapter in the Singapore Story”http://pdfcast.org/pdf/new-chapter-in-singapore-story of 8 March, on the Minister’s speech in Parliament, clearly showed in the graph “Progression to Unis and Polys” (Source: MOE  (Ministry of Eduction)), that the “percentage of P1 pupils who lived in 1- to 3-room HDB flats and subsequently progressed to tertiary education”, was about 50 per cent, and not the ’90 per cent who do not make it’ cited by Mr Samuel Wee.

The first reductive move made by the writer occurs here: “Singapore is known worldwide for censorship and corporal punishment.” This is the Western media’s favourite trope of our island-nation. A whole political context and dynamic society gets reduced to these two ‘dirty’ words, at least for a ‘Western’ world that prides itself on ‘freedom’ and believes itself to be on a moral high ground because of this veritable self-image. (One could argue that censorship in the ‘West’ exists but in a different form – there, capitalist hegemons control media companies which quite effectively draw the boundaries of public debate.)

The writer first makes the observation that lots of people have started to speak up and speak out against the “clan” that has ruled Singapore for almost 50 years. The People’s Action Party, is for Ms Hodal, not a political party, but a “clan” – which harks back to tribal societies, to tribalism.

Out of all these unsuitable candidates, the writer chose the Arab Spring as the comparative situation of choice for Singapore, despite the fact that the Arab Spring movements did not occur at a time of elections, that much of the physical ‘protesting’ in Singapore was witnessed at political rallies, that there was no bottom-up movement of ‘revolt’. It is the time of the elections; it is a nationally-licensed period of political behaviour and action, for society to perform a cathartic release, for the Bakhtinian carnavalesque to unfold.

Letter sent by by my good friend Samuel C. Wee to ST on the 8th of March, quoting statistics from their Page One infographic: (Read this closely!) I read with keen interest the news that social mobility in Singapore’s education system is still alive and well (“School system still ‘best way to move up’”; Monday). It is indeed heartwarming to learn that only 90% of children from one-to-three-room flats do not make it to university. I firmly agree with our Education Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen, who declared that “education remains the great social leveller in Singaporean society”. His statement is backed up with the statistic that 50% of children from the bottom third of the socio-economic ladder score in the bottom third of the Primary School Leaving Examination. In recent years, there has been much debate about elitism and the impact that a family’s financial background has on a child’s educational prospects. Therefore, it was greatly reassuring to read about Dr Ng’s great faith in our “unique, meritocratic Singapore system”, which ensures that good, able students from the middle-and-high income groups are not circumscribed or restricted in any way in the name of helping financially disadvantaged students. I would like to commend Ms Rachel Chang on her outstanding article. On behalf of the financially disadvantaged students of Singapore, I thank the fine journalists of the Straits Times for their tireless work in bringing to Singaporeans accurate and objective reporting.

What was actually published last Friday, March 18th 2011 A reassuring experience of meritocratic system I READ with keen interest the news that social mobility in Singapore’s education system is still alive and well (‘School system still ‘best way to move up”; March 8). It is indeed heartwarming to learn that almost 50 per cent of children from one- to three-room flats make it to university and polytechnics. I firmly agree with Education Minister Ng Eng Hen, who said that education remains the great social leveller in Singapore society. His statement is backed by the statistic that about 50 per cent of children from the bottom third of the socio-economic bracket score within the top two-thirds of their Primary School Leaving Examination cohort. There has been much debate about elitism and the impact that a family’s financial background has on a child’s educational prospects. Therefore, it was reassuring to read about Dr Ng’s own experience of the ‘unique, meritocratic Singapore system’: he grew up in a three-room flat with five other siblings, and his medical studies at the National University of Singapore were heavily subsidised; later, he trained as a cancer surgeon in the United States using a government scholarship. The system also ensures that good, able students from the middle- and high-income groups are not circumscribed or restricted in any way in the name of helping financially disadvantaged students.

To give me the byline would be an outrageous flattery and a gross injustice to the forum editors of ST, who took the liberty of taking my observations about the statistics and subtly replacing them with more politically correct (but significantly and essentially different) statistics.

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.

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?

Michael Hor noted that despite the vocal attempts to demonise gay people and paint homosexual orientation as injurious (including by some members of the ruling party) the government did not subscribe to such reasoning. Yet the government chose to keep the law.

The “key speech arguing for the retention of 377A” that Hor refers to was that made by Thio. Hor then goes on to discover that the government’s decision was bi-layered. The surface justification, going by the prime minister’s words, was that it would be symbolic — a “signpost of heterosexual orthodoxy”. Hor next asks what the motivation might be for wanting such a symbol. He examines the possibility that it could be to steer people towards heterosexual orientation, yet the government itself, from its own words, does not believe so.

As was well-known, the anti-gay movement was religiously inspired. The government however was neither dictated nor swayed by them, Hor said. In fact, the government “roundly rejected” the movement’s essential beliefs. Still, it appears that the government did not want to annoy them any further by leaving them empty-handed. That motivation alone made the government decide to retain 377A.

Second, the turnover of ministers in comparable countries is relatively much faster compared to Singapore, where a minister can be in the Cabinet for decades with no fixed term limit.

Third, the candidates who enter politics, as is often seen in countries like the United States, may have already made their fortune, as in the case of former US treasury secretary Hank Paulson, who was chief executive officer of premier investment house Goldman Sachs before he joined the White House Cabinet. Such holders of high office can afford to serve their country out of conviction alone.

Singapore does not offer such luxuries because we are a small country with a small pool of talent that can be considered for key government positions.

What is the truth regarding our local Animation industry, you ask? The truth is… our local industry… is dying. Dying from foreign competition from giants. Dying because our locals are not supportive of our native talents. Dying before we make an animation that is truly made in Singapore.

our education system has failed its citizens to make sure that we are up to the mark for the various requirements of the job market in whichever industry. This made us much more vulnerable to the influx of foreign animators, who can accept lower pay and produce higher quality work than the locals; effectively starving out the local animators and animation companies.

To make matters worse, the government managed to woo top foreign animation companies to set up shop in Singapore, effectively killing the local companies. Many of these foreign animation companies hire lesser locals and receive government funding while local companies are left to fend for themselves. If you think about it, with the billions of dollars it makes every year, does Lucasfilm Singapore require that government funding to set up shop in Singapore? My mentor’s studio once had courses that only costed $2K with government subsidy. But now with government funding cut, the courses now costs $10K. These put a lot of financial pressure on artists with the passion for the animation industry but are financially tight. I was one of the last batches who were under the $2K scheme. Many artists like myself have already been financially drained studying in tertiary education. What they need is a job to feed themselves or in some cases repay the bank! It is not helping given the fact that our locals are being out competed due to an incompetent education system.

On paper, Singaporean education is great. Our universities are in the Top 200 in the Times Higher Education list. We win Olympiads all the time. When it comes to knowing a basic inventory of facts, Singaporean education is just about the best you can get. And that is a fact.

So what’s missing?

Singapore is a true melting pot. In the past, as is today, and as will be tomorrow, many cultures came together into one. It has been lauded as one of Singapore’s big selling points – an eclectic fusion of Orient and Occident, a quaint East-meets-West mixture which happens to work. But have we taken this metaphor and looked at it from another perspective? Many cultures came together under the band of meritocracy – may the best rule, and may they rule with wisdom. And since they are the best, they are paid the best money one can get too. This is the fire which managed to melt, or should i say meld East and West into a functioning whole. And since we are such fans of meritocracy, society has been geared in that direction too. This melting pot which is Singapore has had certain repercussions, which the post I have linked to above shows. It seems that in developing the concept of meritocracy, what “The Best” is was artificially defined. And in artificially defining something, you create an artificial standard to compare everything against. In doing so, everything else becomes irrelevant. It creates a strong tendency towards conformity, which is the negative result of the melting pot. The individual loses his/her uniqueness and becomes part of this stew of uniformity. In school, you are told to study hard, you are told what you have to study, without any care as to what you actually think.

what is climate change? From a scientific point of view, it is simply a statistical change in atmospheric variables (temperature, precipitation, humidity etc). It has been occurring ever since the Earth came into existence, far before humans even set foot on the planet: our climate has been fluctuating between warm periods and ice ages, with further variations within. In fact, we are living in a warm interglacial period in the middle of an ice age.

Global warming has often been portrayed in apocalyptic tones, whether from the mouth of the media or environmental groups: the daily news tell of natural disasters happening at a frightening pace, of crop failures due to strange weather, of mass extinctions and coral die-outs. When the devastating tsunami struck Southeast Asia years ago, some said it was the wrath of God against human mistreatment of the environment; when hurricane Katrina dealt out a catastrophe, others said it was because of (America’s) failure to deal with climate change. Science gives the figures and trends, and people take these to extremes.

One immediate problem with blaming climate change for every weather-related disaster or phenomenon is that it reduces humans’ responsibility of mitigating or preventing it. If natural disasters are already, as their name suggests, natural, adding the tag ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ emphasizes the dominance of natural forces, and our inability to do anything about it. Surely, humans cannot undo climate change? Even at Cancun, amid the carbon cuts that have been promised, questions are being brought up on whether they are sufficient to reverse our actions and ‘save’ the planet.  Yet the talk about this remote, omnipotent force known as climate change obscures the fact that, we can, and have always been, thinking of ways to reduce the impact of natural hazards. Forecasting, building better infrastructure and coordinating more efficient responses – all these are far more desirable to wading in woe. For example, we will do better at preventing floods in Singapore at tackling the problems rather than singing in praise of God.