17 April 2009
Reinforcing containment
The Films Act has been tightened despite government claims to the contrary and the new Public Order Act gives police powers to stop even one-man protests. It's the government's response to the SDP's recent tactics and the rising use of video among increasing numbers of Singaporeans. Full essay.
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4 comments:
Is civil disobedience as a strategy blunted?
In fact, it's the only way - after Singaporeans are finally awaken from their "elections to change the govt" dream.
On the contrary, these new laws are evident of the success of the SDP and others associated with civil disobedience in Singapore in forcing the government to bare its fangs behind the smiling faces of the PAP.
Effectively, these measures are not just squashing a mosquito with a bulldozer, but also makes the messages of openness a hypocritical.
I do prefer the old lky days whereby the state was brutally honest and honest brutal, rather than our current leaders who pretend to be approachable by the red shirts and cargo pants.
Kai Khiun
How The PAP Massacres Singapore's Lawbooks
They PAP follows a three-step procedure to criminalize all political expression that is not in perfect alignment with theirs, or that threatens their ability to stay on in power. This is detailed account of the process of"killing the chicken to frighten the monkeys".
Step 1. Identify the person (or group or entity) that presents a threat to their stranglehole on power.
Example: The SDP
Step 2. Identify the acts that the person (or group or entity) engages in.
Example: Conduct lawful protests, often in small groups as provided for by the Miscellaneous Offences Act, and in defiance of police discrimination in the non-issuance of permits.
Filming some of the encounters with the police, and posting those on the net.
Argue in court on constitutional grounds to a dumbfounded judge.
Step 3. Devise ways and means to contain, inhibit or worst of all criminalize the activity in #2.
Example: The new Public Order Act. What was previously legal is now criminal.
For good measure, they round up with a fabricated and inconcrete justification for #3, and never ever based on any prevailing socio-political conditions in Singapore.
Example: Events in Thailand. (The government had previously explicitly said that they were drawing up new laws to deal with civil disobedience; that's the true rationale for this particular legislation.
These are what I call Singapore's suka suka laws.
Such sound legal principles!
All over the blogosphere, netizens are decrying the new Public Order Act.
Well, coming from some quarters - the Gerald Giams, the Scroobals, and the lockeliberals, TOC - I find this hypocritical and so sorely lacking in political acumen.
The three step routine I wrote up in the first post here should be familiar to Singaporeans.
But the knowledge that netizens I speak about don't have is their specific role in bringing this new Act about.
Every time SDP members held a protest or was involved in some other unorthodox event - unorthodox only by Singapore's warped standards - the same netizens, avowed opposition supporters at that or so they claim, don't waste a moment to join in the denouncements typically initiated by the PAP IB.
They become the PAP, and they signal very strongly to the PAP's internet 'information gatherers' that since even the supporters of opposition parties are bitterly divided on this, the PAP can take full confidence and carry on in their campaign of the brutal suppression of all Singaporeans.
To her credit, Sylvia Lim's speech - no debate, mind you - in Parliament was impressive. However, take note that the arguments were presented on constitutional grounds: the substance of the SDP's political discourse, in other words.
Sylvia Lim was indeed paying tribute to the SDP.
Too little, too late.
While all these people busied themselves with the all important business of engendering disunity among the parties that are not in government - one in particular - they couldn't see how they were emboldening the PAP at the very same time.
They are masters at quoting the well known poem which ends with "And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak for me".
But they don't really know what it means, do they?
Well the POA is with us now, and the blogosphere is hypocritically lamenting that these laws were designed with the SDP in mind.
But it is they who are now feeling the effects of brutal suppression. The law applies to all Singaporeans now.
But not after those claiming 'opposition' credentials invited the PAP do this to all of us.
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