18 September 2006

Tell the people that others are singing our praises

The Straits Times tells us that many journalists and delegates to the World Bank/IMF meetings appreciate the good things in Singapore. But are we deluding ourselves about what a wonderful and efficient place this is? Full essay.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Once again ST editors and writers are out to mislead. But that is to be expected of the 140th. I suspect the ranking will go down further this year.

Monkey said...

yb! did something happen to your main site? I cannot access!

Yawning Bread Sampler said...

Monkey, please try again. At peak hour, such things can happen for technical reasons.

Anonymous said...

I guess efficiency means being able to suppress all demonstrations. While i may not be in sg, from the pictures i see, this is certainly an overkill. AT the very very least, they should have given the NGOs a much larger larger indoor protest space or set aside Speakers corner for it.


Kai Khiun

Anonymous said...

Very funny. I have left Singapore and I'm not coming back. Thank goodness I was able to escape such a hell hole. But I will do my part to generate negative press about Singapore in my new country, safely out of reach of the Lee minions. My new home. Tokyo. Good riddance to the first "home", the hell-hole.

Anonymous said...

looking at the photos, one would think it was Guantanamo Bay!
Insane performance by PAP! It is just a lousy meeting. Is this what Singapore has become?
PAP justs churns out FEAR to its OWN PEOPLE?

Anonymous said...

Woah! What an article. I agree with you, which is why I read the National papers as a joke and not for serious reporting of news.

It seems to me that the government likes to pat themselves on the back and serve propaganda through our national papers. such tyranny...

Anonymous said...

Strangely, though I disagree with countless things the government does, just a thought:

If something DID happen during the IMF talks...?

(This shouldn't be easily dismissed, I feel. I had utter fear instilled in me when my paranoid cousin kept emphasizing the fact that it was the 5th year anniversary of 9/11 and unlike other terrorist acts where you had to target a nation, here you can whack many many kinds of birds with one bomb.)

Ultimately, thank God nothing happened, and thus we can criticize the govt abt how tyrannical it all is.

But I think, better be safe than sorry la.

At least they never ask all people to only carry things in transparent plastic bags (no water bottles, please) or fine us if we don't smile. :p

Anonymous said...

The comment by pbysshelley shows that Singaporeans are happy that there are no terrorist attacks, and we have the government to thank for that. I'm sure the North Koreans are also very thankful to their government, as they can rest assured that there shall be no terrorist attacks in North Korea. In fact, authoritarian dictatorships tend not to have terrorist attacks. We can be thankful that we also live in an authoritarian dictatorship. Better be safe than sorry lah.

Anonymous said...

Quote:
"A record number of 23,695 delegates are registered to attend the eight-day International Monetary Fund-World Bank meetings here."

Are my eyes playing tricks? I watched last night's news and saw an empty hall when IMF Chief and World Bank Chief gave their speeches. The number of empty seats is staggering!

Alex: if you want a screen shot or a videoclip of last night's news, give a halloo here and I'll send an email to you.

Robert L

Anonymous said...

disagree there. North Koreans are not happy with their country because they have no food to eat. (Thus they smuggle themselves via all kinds of precarious means to greener pastures.) I think many Singaporeans are placidly happy because we have bread on the table.

Seriously, liberty is overrated.

And who said S'pore govt not authoritarian. It is what. And no need to be ashamed of it too.

I think I can perfectly understand when the older generations of Chinese and Russians think back on the Mao and Stalin days in misty nostalgia.

oops. Closet fascist appearing.

Hail the enlightened one-party dictatorship. :)