Torn and frayed in Manila

Singapore blogger Mr Brown

The Guardian has a story on the excellent Singapore blog, Mr Brown, and the protests that followed the author’s sacking from his job as a columnist on a newspaper. OK, so it’s not Tiananmen Square, but the fact that Singaporeans are prepared to stand up for freedom of speech, even in an anonymous blog comment, is encouraging, although the Singapore government is unlikely to see it that way.

Mr Brown, 34, whose real name is Lee Kin Mun, wrote a harsh, humourous and satirical attack on the government over the growing disparity in people's incomes, rising living costs and the fact that about a third of households had seen their incomes shrink since 2000.

He also had a dig at the government for not releasing the data on which his article was based before the May general election, in which the ruling People's Action party won 82 of the 84 seats and 66% of the votes cast.

"We are very thankful for the timing of all this good news, of course," Mr Brown wrote in his article titled "S'poreans are fed, up with progress!"

"Just after the elections, for instance. By that I mean that getting the important event out of the way means we can now concentrate on trying to pay our bills.

"It would have been too taxing on the brain if those price increases were announced during the election period, thereby affecting our ability to choose wisely."

The government did not take the criticism kindly. Three days later Today published a letter from Krishnasamy Bhavani, the press secretary of the minister for information, communication and the arts.
She branded the "diatribe" as "polemics dressed up as analysis" and said the "piece is calculated to encourage cynicism and despondency".

Her most stinging rebuke was left for last. "It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues, or campaign for or against the government," she wrote.

"If a columnist presents himself as a non-political observer, while exploiting his access to the mass media to undermine the government's standing with the electorate, then he is no longer a constructive critic, but a partisan player in politics."

Three days later Today "suspended indefinitely" Mr Brown's column. "No reason was given and he didn't ask for one”.

More on “Gomezgate”

"Democracy in Singapore? I can answer that one."

Fresh controversy surrounded Workers’ Party Candidate James Gomez Affair after he said he would not sue Lee Kuan Yew for calling him a liar.

“So Mr Gomez Affair doesn’t think the Singaporean court system will give him a fair hearing”, spluttered the Chief Justice. “This is definitely defamation of every single member of the judiciary” (if found guilty, Mr Gomez Affair would face up to 950 years in a heavily airconditioned prison cell).

Mr Gomez Affair stirred up further controversy when he said would spend time with his family before flying back to his researcher’s job in Sweden.

“So Mr Gomez Affair thinks ordinary Singaporeans aren’t good enough for him”, cried Foreign Minister George Yeo. “He is spitting in the face of every Singaporean!”

“James Gomez Affair is a skunk”, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

__________________

Just kidding folks—James Gomez was finally given his passport back on Friday after enduring three marathon grilling sessions at the hands of his interrogators, lasting from three to eight hours. Eight hours! (“What did you at work today, dear”, “oh I questioned this guy all day about a form that he thought he had handed in, but didn’t”). These minority race forms must be reeeeal important documents.

Reporting Singapore politics

Via Asia Pundit, I found this fascinating insight into reporting Singapore elections.

I had no illusions about the independence of the local media when I first started my job as a [——] in Singapore. I knew that my work would be edited, and possibly censored for political safety, and I was mostly fine with that - no media channel anywhere in the world is entirely free from some form of editorial trimming, after all.

What I didn’t bargain for was individual self-censorship, unspoken policies and rules, and the stoutness with which people swallowed their journalistic dignity and integrity (because it does exist, even strongly, in some places) to toe the party line. Incredible as it seems, reporters in Singapore do have the same fierce pride in their work as reporters anywhere else; I think this is especially evident in sections of the media that don’t touch on politics.

But when it comes to political news, particularly something as sensitive as the elections, many of us leave our brains and consciences at home and resign ourselves to doing what we’re told and writing what’s being dictated. To some extent I appreciate the rationale of this - there really is a very close watch being kept on the media and when we’re kept in line it’s largely for our own safety.

However, as someone still young and naive and idealistic, it’s hard for me to swallow the indignation I feel whenever I see the local media doggedly ignoring its otherwise sharply-honed news sense. Articles and TV programmes are edited to balance out pro-opposition views; awesome camera opportunities - like the opposition rallies - are studiously left out of media coverage; banal and unfair quotes and tactics are highlighted and headlined simply because they are tools of the ruling party.

The Australian also published a revealing look at the links between the Singapore press and the feared secret police:

There's Chua Lee Hoong, the ST's most prominent political columnist. She might be Singapore's Maureen Dowd, except The New York Times's Dowd didn't work with the secret police for nine years. There's Irene Ho on the foreign desk. She was also an "analyst" with Singapore's intelligence services. So, says Cheong, was Susan Sim, his Jakarta correspondent.

And there's Cheong's boss, Tjong Yik Min. From 1986 to 1993, Tjong was Singapore's most senior secret policeman, running the much feared Internal Security Department, a relic of colonial Britain's insecurities about communism in its Asian empire. Now Tjong is a media mogul, the executive president of SPH, Singapore's virtual print media giant, which controls all but one of the country's newspapers.

James Gomez and political intimidation in Singapore

It is quite disconcerting to open a paper and see that someone you know has been arrested for a political offence. This has happened to me twice, both in Singapore.

Two Sundays ago I was in transit in Singapore and was astonished picked up a paper with a worried looking photo of my old friend James Gomez on the cover. “PM: come clean. Gomez: I’m sorry” thundered the headline. The “facts” of this amazingly trivial incident are these. As a candidate in Singapore’s general election, James Gomez was supposed to have submitted a “minority race candidate form” (delicious name). He thought he had submitted the form to the elections department, but it turns out he was mistaken. And er … that’s it.

To give you an idea of what a full blooded democracy Singapore is, this “James Gomez affair” threatened to dominate the campaign, so much so that the prime minister had to ask a press conference to turn its attention to other issues “The big issues for the elections are even bigger than James Gomez.” He then added, rather ominously: “After the election, there will be time and opportunity for a proper public resolution.”.

This “proper public resolution” is now underway. The day after the election (in which James’s Workers’ Party performed creditably), he went to the airport to board a flight to Sweden, where he has a new job as a researcher. He was stopped at the airport, his passport was confiscated, and he was taken for six hours of “questioning” (for an insight in questioning techniques in Singapore, see next post).

He was released, but then taken in for a second round of questioning yesterday (Tuesday). His passport has not been returned to him and he has, at the very least, lost his non-refundable airline ticket to Stockholm. James must be very worried and of course his notoriety will have affected any chance of his working again in his country (“why take the risk of giving him a job lah?”). He’s a decent guy who wants the best for Singapore and I don’t think he deserves to be terrorized in this way.

I knew James when we were both postgraduate students in London in the mid-1990s. He’s a likeable and friendly sort of guy, who hardly fitted the stereotype of an exiled agitator. But then, as we know, it doesn’t take much to be a radical in the island republic.

I remember one story James told me that sums up his homeland quite well. He was president of the student union at the National University of Singapore (which is, by the way, quite one of the scariest tertiary institutions in the world – with hordes of fresh students all dressed exactly like little adults, wearing white shirts and black pants). James felt that such a huge university (it currently has over 30,000 students) should have at least one bar and set about persuading the university administration to let him establish one. After many lengthy meetings, the union finally wrung a concession out of the administrators: the cafeteria would serve beer for three hours on Fridays. The committee members of the student union traipsed down on the first Friday to witness the refreshment of their thirsty fellow students, as they were to do for the remaining Fridays that term. And do you know many of NUS’s tens of thousands of students took advantage of this new facility? Nada, wala, zilch. Fewer than 10 students dared to be seen associating with such a radical move. A better example of the famous Singapore “policeman in the head” it would be hard to find.

The greatest irony is that the “crime” James Gomez is accused of perpetrating is “criminal intimidation” of the election department. For the bullying Singapore government to accuse a single opposition candidate of “intimidation” – that’s just hilarious.

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Postscript I have just found out that James has a blog, which is being kept up despite his lengthy interrogations. There is also an online petition, calling for James's release. The latest entry on James's blog is as follows:

James Gomez is currently at the Police Cantonment Complex waiting to be questioned again by the police today, May 10.

This will be the third time. On May 7, he was detained at the airport, brought to the Police Cantonment Complex and questioned for 8 hours. On May 9, he was again questioned at the same location for another 5 hours. On both these occassions he was questioned by ASP Christopher Jacob of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

"Marxist conspiracy" in Singapore

Seeing James Gomez’s anxious face plastered all over the Singapore newspapers reminded me of the last time I saw friends of mine in a rogues’ gallery on the front page of the Straits Times.

In 1987, 22 young men and women were arrested and detained without trial for taking part in a so-called “Marxist conspiracy”. I was living in Singapore at the time and knew three of the detainees. Seeing people I knew giving subsequent TV confessions extremely unnerving. In fact the whole event was a major reason behind my decision to leave Singapore a couple of years later.

Here are the first three conclusions of a mission from the International Commission of Jurists that visited Singapore while the "conspirators” were in jail. You can read the rest of the report here, but this should give you a flavour of how Singapore’s justice system measures up to international standards of accepted behaviour.

1. The detention without charge or trial, 'brainwashing' interrogation techniques and other physical and psychological maltreatment by the Internal Security Department amount to clear and grave violations of the human rights of those detained and an abrogation of the rule of law. With only one hour's interval, detainees were interrogated continuously by relays of interrogators for 5 days and nights, with complete sleep deprivation. (This is a well-known torture practice).

2. The activities of the detainees were a legitimate exercise of their civil rights, which should be defended and applauded in a healthy democracy. There is no evidence which justifies their being labelled 'Marxists' or 'communists'.

3. There is no evidence of a Marxist conspiracy or that this informal network of community development groups and workers posed any imminent threat to the security of Singapore.

After they were released, several of the detainees, including some of my friends, issued a statement saying they had been tortured. They were promptly rearrested and released only on condition that they sign statutory declarations denying everything they had said in their earlier press statement.

Well I guess this grisly affair did achieve its main purpose, which was to intimidate a whole generation of young Singaporeans from involvement in any activity that could be termed “political”. I would guess that this is the same motive that lies behind the bizarre harassment of James Gomez at the moment.

Is democracy an appropriate form of government for Southeast Asia?

Political science students trying to define the term democracy this month would be well advised to look anywhere other than south-east Asia.

So says John Aglionby in the Guardian. His article has brought down the wrath of Eevil Midget, a Pinay in London:

I have decided to be riled by this article from The Guardian - By Any Means Necessary, which inadequately disputes that "the current anti-government campaigns in the Philippines is anything but democratic". … for my two pence worth: a. democracy is a farce anyway! as if the Western world is that much better, and b. I blame the meddling US government for ruining my lovely home country with their brand of this ideology.

If I get the Eevil’s point correctly, her beef with Aglionby is that the demonstrations in Manila were in fact democracy in action (in a comment she says “What is democratic if not 'of or for the people in general', i.e popular, hence subject to mob rule”). In other words “democracy” is something deeper and more fundamental than “democratic institutions”, which, as recent events in the Philippines and elsewhere in Southeast Asia have demonstrated, can easily be subverted (and thereby become “anti-democratic”).

That’s a good point, I think. In fact Athenian democracy was based on exactly the sort of direct action that we saw at the Edsa shrine and Ayala on 25 April 2006 and at Edsa and elsewhere 20 years ago. Aglionby’s interpretation (in common with that of Arroyo’s supporters) seems to rest on quite a narrow interpretation of representative democracy more suited to “mature” democracies than the more volatile polities of the developing world.

The next question is probably “OK. But are you saying that street demonstrations are a better expression of ‘the will of the people’ than elections – which are at least an honest attempt to discover the national mood in a rational way – even though that process is less than perfect in countries like the Philippines?”

My answer to that would be: in some cases, yes. I do think that the person who gets off his/her ass to stand on Ayala or Edsa has a greater right to political recognition than Johnny Stay-at-Home who is prepared to put up with almost anything (of course I am not talking about a hakot crowd here). If you are not prepared to participate, should we really heed you?

Anyone wedded to one person one vote is obviously going to dispute that interpretation. The vote actually gives more power to Johnny Stay-at-Home (obviously the majority) than to Pia Protester. In the bureaucratized West that might work – it seems a bit different here.

Of course, one could go on about these matters all night...

Postscript: Amartya Sen has written a lot about the relevance of democracy outside Europe (e.g., “Democracy as a universal value”) . Sen’s views are quite nicely summarized in a review of his latest book, The Argumentative Indian:

It is often assumed that democracy is simply about a public that votes. Sen argues that for democracy to thrive, society needs to do more than simply cast the ballot. There must be a free-flowing exchange of intellectual views and public debate in society. The author argues that democracy in any society can endure only when local styles of public interaction and discussion are allowed to play a role.

Nonentity Thailand is not in the same political disaster league as the mighty Philippines

One of my tutors used to talk up the comparisons between Thailand and the Philippines. Countries of a similar size, they both have an entrenched military used to playing an active political role, a dominant state religion, unstable polities, and a bunch of other features in common that I can’t remember right now.

Some commentators have been quick to point up resemblances between the political crises currently facing the two countries. In both, the prime minister faces accusations of corruption, street demonstrations, and predictions that the government will fall.

However, (i) even Thaksin’s opponents admit that he won the election in 2005 by an “overwhelming” majority (Gloria’s supporters on the other hand fall back on the ridiculous “well even if she cheated, it’s for the good of the country” argument), (ii) he has an active support base prepared to rally for him (whereas Gloria’s backers are almost entirely passive, driven primarily by the absence of any alternative), and (iii) Thaksin has the confidence to attempt to resolve his crisis by going to the country in an election (something Gloria would never do).

Frankly, I think its outrageous that upstart Thailand should to seek to usurp the Philippines from its rightful place as Southeast Asia’s crisis capital. The problems facing Thaksin rank as a quiet day at the office for Macapagal-Arroyo. Go back to the beaches Thailand and leave the role of Calamity Jane to the experts.

The executioner's song: “I know the real way”

I was completely wrong about hanging being an excessively cruel method of execution (next post). In fact, if done by an expert, it’s almost kind!

"Mr Singh, 74, is Singapore's chief executioner and has hanged more than 800 prisoners over 45 years. It has not been announced whether Mr Singh will be the hangman at the execution in Changi Prison at 6am local time tomorrow.

But he said if he did, Nguyen would not suffer unduly.

"With me they don't struggle, I know the real way," Mr Singh said this week.

Anyone wavering on whether to endorse hanging as a civilized response to crime should consider whether the ghoulish ritual that marked out Nguyen’s last hours is really appropriate for one of the most developed countries in the world at the beginning of the 21st century.

The executioner would visit Nguyen's solitary confinement cell at Singapore's Changi Prison today to weigh him and measure the exact length of rope required to hang Nguyen.

The length of rope would be calculated in part on the size of Nguyen's neck.

A sandbag the same weight as Nguyen's body would test the operation of the gallows.

At dawn tomorrow Nguyen would be cloaked with a white hood and led from his cell.

Nguyen's body would be left hanging for 30 minutes after the trapdoors open.

Ideally, Nguyen's neck would dislocate or snap immediately and he would be asphyxiated.

“Ideally” —Jesus wept. And if not "ideally"? Please don't answer that.

The hanging of Van Tuong Nguyen

Knowing that I am opposed to the death penalty, a friend suggested that I write about the execution of Van Tuong Nguyen in Singapore. A post by “Imagethief”, who, despite also opposing capital punishment, fairly and even-handedly explains the Singapore government’s position, does the job far better than I ever could so I’ll direct you here.

I will add one thing though. Although the whole notion of capital punishment seems quite barbarous to me, some methods are more cruel and primitive than others. Hanging is surely one of the most inhuman ways of carrying out a judicial killing. I think it is legitimate to ask why the Singapore government persists with such a pre-modern method of execution, when death by lethal injection is available?

Anyway, here is Imagethief:

The Australian protests over Van's execution yesterday arguably played right into Singapore's hands on two fronts. It not only let them communicate their penalty globally, which the Singapore government has no qualms about, but it also let them publicly demonstrate the credibility of the deterrent by refusing to entertain pleas of clemency. The message was quite clear and effective: We are willing to execute a citizen of a first-world ally despite repeated, public pleas from his government and tearful mother. So you'd better believe we will damn-sure hang your narrow, friendless Burmese/Thai/Malay/Indonesian/Lao smuggler ass without a second thought.

From the Singaporean government's point of view, the consistent application of the death penalty is the lynchpin of the credibility that must be communicated. Any visible erosion of that credibility is dangerous. You can think of this a bit like you would think of negotiation with kidnappers or terrorists. You can never be publicly seen to give in as that sends a message to others that they might succeed at the same thing. If you do negotiate, you will do it only in quiet situations where there is little risk of public disclosure. If there was to be any hope for Van at all (and that hope was never more than gossamer), it would have come from sotto voce diplomatic communication out of the public view, accompanied by restrained and dignified public silence. Candlelight vigils make nice photo-ops and public remonstrations generate good copy for Aussie politicians. But they essentially guarantee that the Singapore government will follow-through with the execution, because to do anything else would undermine the entire communication strategy around their deterrent.

Thanks to Madame Chiang for the link.

The beating of Lu Banglie

Lu Banglie
Two days ago the Guardian’s China correspondent was driving near the Chinese town of Taishi with Chinese dissident Lu Banglie, when his car was stopped at a road block. Lu Banglie was dragged out of the car and beaten senseless. Tuesday’s Guardian story (the front-page lead) speculated that he might have died, but it seems from today’s paper that he survived.

It’s important that incidents like this are well publicized. The least that brave people like Lu Banglie and Wei Jingshen, incarcerated for nearly 18 years for his book “The Fifth Modernization” and his support for the Democracy Wall movement in 1979, deserve is to have their heroism noticed, rather than being brushed aside like awkward leaves on the road to the Chinese century.

"Dissent may not always be pleasant to listen to, and it is inevitable that it will sometimes be misguided. But it is everyone's sovereign right. Indeed, when government is seen as defective or unreasonable, criticizing it is an unshirkable duty." -- Wei Jingshen