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.