The (Un)freedom of Speech

I’ve been talking to some of my acquaintances recently about the issue of censorship in Singapore. Supposedly we have implicit OB (out-of-bound) markers that we adhere to for imagined or real fear of being punished by law or worse, sued to bankruptcy. (Of course, there’s always the long-standing joke that bankruptcy is not enough – ‘destroyed totally’ would be a much better term to describe the consequences).

Honestly speaking, I think we deserve the amount of freedom of speech we have currently. Now, I know some of you might immediately jump to the indignant rebuttal that I’m either deluded or blind or politically-biased. In truth I’m strongly non-partisan because personally speaking, there’s much left to be desired about the political development here. But that’s an issue I’m not going to deal about today, so let’s cast it aside.

Now, back to the issue at hand. Why do I say that we deserve the ‘limited’ amount of freedom of speech we possess currently? By freedom of speech, I mean the ability to express our opinions, sentiments, expressions without recourse. The answer is simple: we are just not prepared for it. I foresee more parangs coming to the fore, but please just read on first.

‘Limited’ Freedom of Speech?

Maybe it’s true our conventional outlets for speech is, well, restricted. Some hidden, implicit censorship laws are in place, and we rightly fear being tracked down and heaven forbid, be fined, sued or driven to bankruptcy unnecessarily. I’m not going to be a hypocrite and deny having such fears: I did, and to some extent I still do. I think as human beings we all fear for our survival as well as our loved ones in some form or another. Which is why I perfectly understand why we love the Internet: it’s our 95% anonymous playground. We can post whatever we like, write whatever we want to without fear of impunity. At least until someone comes across your supposedly private online presence, finds your writing offensive and report it. I’m sure we all know which incidents I’m alluding to, so there’s no need to talk at length about them. But in essence, to say that we don’t have freedom of speech is a bit of an overstatement. We do; we just don’t do it openly by personalizing our online presence because we are afraid.

So why are we afraid?

By this point in time I’m sure I’m being labelled as a moron for not understanding the basic reason behind the fear. So I shall rephrase the question: why do we have to be so afraid if what we’d like to express is a) not seditious b) phrased maturely and civilly, free from bigotry c) not a blind personal attack and d) our hopes for our country?

Let’s address (a) not seditious. I think most of us fulfil this criterion. I doubt any of us has a suppressed, strong desire to overthrow the government and land us in anarchy. We don’t. All of us appreciate and enjoy the relative stability and order thus far, and we want to keep it going. Maybe we like to criticize the government for fun or out of frustration, but we’re not seditious in any manner. So we’re one criterion ahead as to why we have no right to be so afraid about expressing your views.

Moving on to (b) views that are phrased maturely and in a civil manner, free from bigotry. I think the recent “religiousist” online postings incidents demonstrated this well. While I think it’s rather unnecessary for us to go on witch-hunt for similar postings after that, generally most of us are appalled at the audacity of these people in posting such photos. I think quite a fair number of us are more appalled that such racist/religiousist sentiment still exist in our society, and an equally fair number of us are willing to admit to the presence of such sentiments. Crass humour or harsh comments apart, most of us addressed it rather maturely, without resorting to retaliatory verbal abuse. To be honest, it’s a good sign. It’s a sign that our society has an ideal, our society rejects having to deal with these racist or bigot comments and posts at ground level, our society wants racial equality at ALL levels – we have already defined what we want Singapore to be. We need to continue to stand up for these ideals, and I’m confident we’ll continue to do so conscientiously. So that’s another criterion we have down as to why we have no need to be so fearful.

(c) is about not making blind personal attacks. Don’t tell me we don’t do it because I know it’s our favourite thing to do every time elections or policy announcements are round the corner, and we do a fine job at making it comic funny. But I think if we are really to demonstrate to the Powers Up There that we deserve having looser restrictions in our freedom of speech, then we need to stop this. Maybe unhappiness and problem arises from an individual and his or her decisions. But throwing personal attacks will not solve anything. So what if someone Up There messed things up? Playing the blame game won’t solve a thing. If we have an issue (and normally issues plague us citizens much more than any other group in a society), then focus on it and how we can try to solve it. If we are able to do it, then we have already fulfilled (d) as well.

So you see, it’s not that freedom of speech is something that’s unimaginable for us. We CAN get it, and we’re just two steps away from it. We just need to demonstrate that we know what constitutes as right or wrong if we are given the freedom of speech that we long for. So leave the personal attacks behind; they don’t help with anything apart from gratifying us with short-lived satisfaction. If we have issues we’re unhappy with, focus on them. Issues are issues - they're not racially hereditary or so forth. At the base of it, we're all Singaporeans.

And because we're Singaporeans, this makes it our country, right? Our lives and our future kids’ lives and society? So let’s take ownership of it - in the right, mature and civil manner, and help our society progress further.

The writer is an undergraduate, who is non-partisan and strongly believes in the goodness of her fellow Singaporeans.

Why so racist, Singapore?

There's recently been a spate of racism online. While people are busy making police reports and making a big hoo-ha out of this and how we should all shut up and know our limits online, I'm just sitting and wondering.

Is censorship really the way to go?

I think censorship is making things worse, actually. The more people report, the more people would think that the reaction is unnecessary. They will feel that a certain group of people just can't be offended. Why? All the more this group will be scrutinised and be under attack either in private and in public.

Racist posts may reflect a lack of understanding on the ground. We should not just ignore this and let the police handle the individuals. We definitely need to do something to educate. I mean, there are racist jokes all around that just reflects stereotypes.

Do we really want another new stereotype? That a certain racial/religious group is untouchable? Or would you rather see what happens when you bother talking to these people and find out their concerns. Maybe some concerns that they have are genuine, you know. Are we just going to shut them up and leave these concerns unaddressed? It's not up to me, you know. It's up to everyone.

If it were up to me, though, I say the best way to go about this is to just.. be friends with everyone! It's only with being close to friends of a different culture that we truly understand what the culture is about :) Yes, it sounds very childish but think about your own experiences. Doesn't this ring true?

I suggest we stop hunting down every single person who says something offensive. It's a never-ending cycle. I know our country is tolerant of other religions/races/cultures. Let us not stop there. Tolerance will not hold up. The thing about tolerance is that it's a very fragile thing. People can only tolerate things to a certain point before they break. We need racial/religious/cultural understanding amongst us to ensure that we are able to live harmoniously. Understanding, at least, is more lasting.

The writer is a 19 year old Malay/Muslim undergraduate. She believes that Singapore needs to go beyond tolerance and move towards genuine understanding towards others of different races.

Who opened the floodgates?

I'm sure we've all seen this article. It's a pretty good article and I will not substantiate on the facts and whatnot that the article brings across.

What I can say, though, is that I have had the opportunity to talk to ESM about the influx of foreigners. I don't have any mindblowing nuggets from his speech about why exactly the floodgates have been opened. I did not even take down notes. All I could remember was him asking "what ratio would be comfortable, then?" when we brought up that the number of foreigners vs Singaporeans was getting uncomfortable and he asked us all individually how many kids we were planning to have when I highlighted a MAJOR long-term issue we'll be having.

What issue, you ask? I just highlighted the main concern of the growth rate. If we were really getting foreigners in solely because of the declining birthrate, we must be quite daft. You see, from what I know, the birthrate of FTs is not that high. Our overall birth rate is still atrociously low. Getting lower even. You see, with this decline in birth rate, we also have to keep in mind that the FTs that have been 'imported' will grow old too. As the entire population ages, what then? Get more FTs in? Isn't this a vicious cycle? What can we do about it?

After mentioning it and looking on hoping to get an answer from the ESM (I've asked this before to another MP and did not get a proper answer so, really, I was hoping for something) and he looked toward a younger MP beside him and basically told him it was his responsibility now. ESM has stepped down and now the onus is on the new generation to tackle any issues Singapore may face.

Now, my fellow Singaporeans, do not scoff (much, at least). He has a point. What we should be doing now is to figure out ways to address the situations right in front of us instead of pinpointing the blame to a single person. Yes, mistakes have been done so what now? A witch hunt will not make things better. What will make things better is to have people advocating for certain changes to be made. We need strong enough voices that will make change. My dear friends, you decide how we are going to do that. I have tried raising possibilities (I don't know if they have bee heard, though) such as temporary passes (concerning medical workers) until we have had enough time to train more people in a field where professionals are needed rather than just readily giving PR status to foreigners. I urge everyone to try to contribute to change. Do not be afraid to speak out.

*names of MPs omitted as they don not have anything to do with the matter at hand

The writer is a 19 year old social work undergrad who genuinely wants to strive for a better Singapore. She is non-partisan and bears no ill-intention towards members of parliament, including ESM Goh.

Never mess with our food.

Oh McDonald's... you just don't mess with Singaporeans and their food!

we are NOT xenophobic.

Xenophobia- the concern that will be discussed in the maiden post.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. You see, I've always been involved in politics and I've a special interest in opposition politics and social concerns of Singaporeans. One issue that stands out, to me, is the huge inflow of foreign immigrants to our soil.

I know some people might have labelled us as xenophobic, simply because we had a reaction to the 'sudden' overcrowding of the tiny island. We see our trains and buses getting more crowded, more foreign slangs being spoken, even more foreign-sounding greetings when we shop. I beg of these people to please, please, NOT oversimplify things.

Being a first year student at a university, I do have a number of foreign friends and classmates. I see them getting along very well with our local students. I have great discussions with my friends from other countries too! The exchange of ideas is simply refreshing and I am really thankful that I have such experiences. I have pretty close friends who are not Singaporean too and we get along pretty well. I'm sure this applies to many out there, so, in what way are we xenophobic?

If you think our complaints of jobs being taken away on an unfair basis are illegitimate, I really think you should think again. I feel handicapped not being able to speak in Chinese sometimes. I can't even order a basic order of tauhuey mixed with soymilk without having a puzzled face look back at me wondering what I'm saying. Or even having to gesture when asking for one more plastic knife for my macchiato because the person does not understand it when i say "could i have one more knife?" Of course now i know i could just say "我要多一个可以吗？" with my limited Chinese knowledge but that's beside the point. The point is, I am sure we feel that such jobs could be filled by locals who are able to speak at least basic English to serve us. Why do we have people with such low qualifications there? Service industry jobs are NOT jobs that Singaporeans shun. I am VERY sure of it.

Building up on the examples above, I can understand why there have been slurs lately saying Singapore is becoming "Chinapore". Before taking up Chinese 1 i felt seriously handicapped to the max. I think the whole issue is not so much of shunning the Chinese nationality, it's about the non-integration of immigrants. Basic English is very important here. We are a multi-racial society and English is our lingua franca. It just cannot be compromised. Remember the whole curry incident? Before anyone labels it as xenophobic, they should understand why we reacted. How can anyone just DEMAND that something that is so culturally embedded be stopped just for them? If you choose to stay in Singapore, you better integrate into society. We will welcome you. The hostility towards curry sparked off a movement, which, btw, made me VERY proud to be Singaporean, and there have been criticism that it was a xenophobic move.

It could just be me, but, I feel that sometimes, it is difficult to express dissatisfaction because our woes are just being oversimplified. My plea is that we should identify exactly what we are unhappy with. The more we direct our anger towards foreigners in general, the more our concerns will be dismissed. Voice out how we feel foreign in our own land. How they should be integrating with us, not the other way around. How quality control has to be tightened up when it comes to issuing work permits or even PR status or citizenship. We are NOT daft, xenophobic, Singaporeans. We have genuine concerns and we should NOT be dismissed so easily.

The writer is a 19 year old Singaporean undergrad who genuinely wants the best for her country. She is pursuing a degree in social work and hopes to help as many as she can in the community.