Tired Election Strategies

A party desperately clutching at straws.
An election gimmick that didn't quite work the first time round.
The same election gimmick used yet again this year.

Gentle readers, I refer not to the "by-election" strategy in this post, but the Whiteshirt "lifting of the whip" strategy.

This year, Mr Peanut Goh has promised to allow Messrs Eric Low and Seetoh Yih Pin, the challengers in the opposition-held Hougang and Potong Pasir ridings, freedom from the party whip in the next Parliament if voters deliver these two long-time oppo wards to the Whiteshirts.

Never mind that some political experts in the Channelnewsasia article see Peanut Goh's move as inconsistent, unprincipled, and damaging Whiteshirt credibility and party discipline - we've been here before. Cue to the previous general election, where Mr Peanut Goh promised to select new MPs to form a Shadow Cabinet to keep policymakers on their toes.

When criticised during the recent General Elections of a lack of checks and balances on the Government, PM Goh Chok Tong had this response - the People's Action Forum. The group, described by the PM as a Shadow Cabinet, is to ensure more debate in parliament. However, unlike other countries where the Shadow Cabinet is formed by the Opposition, Singapore's Shadow Cabinet will be drawn from the ruling party, with 20 PAP MPs and Ministers serving a 2-year run. The Party whip will be lifted so they don't have to toe the party line and can even vote against party decisions.

Whither Peanut Goh's Shadow Cabinet today?

Tales from Earthsea: trailer

The ST's latest brickbat

My tuition kid and I love to read the Straits Times. So far we've learnt that:

1. Forum letters all seem to say "I so angry/stupid at X, will the relevant authorities please comment."

2. Straits Times photographers in the Home crimes page assign varying degrees of guilt depending on how closely cropped the mug of the suspect is. Clearest sign of guilt: when ST crops off the top part of the hair, takes away the neck and collar, and squishes just the face into a small box.

3. Most nonpolitical articles in the Home section seem to be written to provoke an immediate response by the reader: "What a stupid/evil/lame/unfortunate/boh liao etc. person". I call this the Incitement to Kneejerk JudgeMentality.

The Smoking Gun

And a BG is Born!

Minilee's son recently passed out from basic military training at Tekong with a marksmanship medal. Chibilee's achievement? Getting 42 out of a possible 36 points at the rifle range. This kid is going places. Today, marksman... Tomorrow, BG? (And 20 years later, the THIRD member of the Lee emperors?)

No Links Between Grassroots and PAP

Branch and local chairmen of assorted grassroots committees and the Citizens Consultative Committee (CCC) have been writing furious letters to the ST forums this week, after the paper reported allegations/complaints at a NUS politics forum on the links between grassroots organisations and the Whiteshirts.

Their denials are pretty fun to read. It's almost as though no one remembers a certain article, published in page 26 of the 5 June 2005 edition of the Straits Times, on the retirement of one Mr S Phyaindran, top grassroots activist from the CCC.

The caption of the photo says: Mr S Phyaindran (left), describing a time drug addicts loitered in Marine Parade void decks. If you look at the photo, you'll realise that Mr S Phyaindran is supposedly posing outside the entrance of the Marine Parade CCC. Its signboard displays the PAP lightning bolt in circle logo and slogans in 4 languages. The chinese one is clearly visible, and reads: 全民一心

So will the grassroots leaders and members of the CCC still be able to say honestly that their organisations are not linked to the Whiteshirts?

Lessons on Constructive Criticism

Singapore's leaders are a bunch of creative people who repackage every possible concept in Democracy 101 into Orwell 1984.

Civil society is now civic society.
Bourdieu's cultural capital is now a show-me-your-money concept, thanks to Khaw Boon Wan's very short stint at the Ministry of Culture.
Welfare is now workfare (despite the fact that our workfare has nothing in common with how the rest of the world understands it).
In order to deny that 4 straight years of economic doldrums could create a Generation X, then-PM Goh popularised the term Generation M in his speeches.

And now constructive criticism is rebranded as "constructive suggestions", according to the Feedback Unit's "Feedback Pursuit" online game to teach Singaporeans how to engage with the System. This, of course, is another move to defang the increasingly bold mentality that's sprung up lately in the populace since the NKF debacle broke.

Agagooga has stronger nerves of steel than me, which explains why he's visited the site already. Great findings from him on the hidden messages of the Feedback Pursuit game:

...instead of using Critical Thinking skills so important to the New Economy in writing their Op-Eds, Catherine Lim and Cherian George should have gone to more tea sessions and participated in more feedback dialogues and written more letters to the Straits Times Forum with suggestions to the relevant authorities.

Given that the Feedback Unit is part of the Civil Service, it is exceedingly odd for the people to engage with it, rather than with the political process proper by voicing their opinions to their elected representatives; the Civil Service deals with implementation of policies, while the political process formulates them - thus, working through the civil service would presumably only tweak the implementation of said policies, rather than resulting in substantive change.

Our leaders prefer that there is no politics in Singapore; hence their happy subjects are only allowed administrative participation and not political participation, tweaking policies rather than questioning policies.

Well-meaning persons will do well to understand this next time they insist that critics of the Whiteshirts should take bigger part in the feedback process. There is no substitute for political participation, no substitute for open and free questioning of policies, no substitute for accountability of politicians to their electorates. The feedback process provides none of that.

Arab-American Lays the Smackdown on Radical Clerics

Via Edward,

This 5'27" video capture from Al Jazeera's news programme on 21 Feb shows an Arab-American psychologist berating her fellow studio guests, a group of radical imams, and the rightwing presentors, on the state of Muslim society and the Danish cartoon affair.

I, for one, am impressed at how she manages to stare down and plow through the furious cleric who kept shouting "Heretic!" at her during her presentation.

You can view the video, or read the transcript here. Her sheer force of personality comes through more in the video, though.

Excerpts:

Wafa Sultan: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century...

Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?

Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.

[...]

Host: Who came up with the concept of a clash of civilizations? Was it not Samuel Huntington? It was not Bin Laden. I would like to discuss this issue, if you don't mind...

Wafa Sultan: The Muslims are the ones who began using this expression. The Muslims are the ones who began the clash of civilizations... When the Muslims divided the people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war.

The Substation Loves White Elephants

It has been 4 months since the Substation launched its monthly online magazine ("The Substation Magazine"). While it does mostly performance and visual arts reviews, the magazine editor Cyril Wong seems to be steering it towards some social commentary as well as metacriticism of Singapore's art and artists.

Hopefully the Substation Magazine will shape up to be a more assessable and frequent counterpart to Focas.

(Disclosure: I wrote the top feature article for the March issue of the Substation Magazine.)
Updated 5 Sep 2007: Full text of article released here as the archives of the Substation Magazine is down, perhaps for good)

White Elephants in Singapore Art

The artist, unfettered?

Singapore’s artists have deep-set beliefs of themselves and their work. They often find it necessary to defend the value of art in a technocratic state like Singapore, especially at public forums, seminars, or even Q&A sessions at arts events. As if artists are somehow emotionally alien and distinct from the rest of humanity and completely incomprehensible:

“Why (or how) do you struggle with making art, instead of just following the rat race?”
“Is it worth it, being a round peg in a universe of square holes?”
And occasionally, even: How do artists here operate, given the restrictions of the state?

These are predictable questions that are perennially raised in almost every public forum. Of interest to us is the artist’s reply to the final question: There is freedom of speech, and we have to be very creative in putting certain politically-sensitive points across, and we occasionally have to exercise some self-censorship. So as an artist, I do not feel the heavy hand of the state.

The artist’s answer is, of course, as predictable and obligatory as the questions of of the public audience. An obligatory question meets with an obligatory reply: such is the nature of the social ritual, a liturgy of art, that establishes a kind of truth. Through each re-enactment, that truth is restated and reaffirmed as a timeless fact in itself. The coolness of the answer drowns out the doubts raised in the initial question, and re-establishes the primal state of innocence of the uncompromised artist ? a state of innocence natural, undisputed, commonsensical, and eternally so.

For all the qualities of a 10-year series answer, I hope audiences at the next public forum or Q&A session with an artist ask this question: Why was last year’s most important public art installation not done by an artist?

White elephants as art

Instead, the white elephants installation piece was created by a local businessman and minor grassroots activist from the Punggol South constituency. One August morning, eight white cardboard elephants stood outside the expensive, unopened Buangkok train station, a stunning reminder of the contest between the residents of the estate and the mandarins at the Land Transport Authority that may have shamed vacillating authorities, intent on postponing the opening of the train station in the due ripeness of time, into actually opening the station.

Even though they were exhibited for less than an hour (the grassroots activist feared reprisals and a genuine embarrassment to the visiting politician), these white elephants provide the wider audience in Singapore the idea of public art.

Good public art is:
1.Site specific art that speaks directly to the public. The work was integrated in the Buangkok MRT locale. At the same time, its installation raised the problematics of locality ? for instance, the residents campaign and the Land Transport Authority contested over the number and location of residents who would have used the station.
2.Relevant to area residents. There wasn’t any need to contemplate too deeply about what the installation meant, at its primary level. Yet, it provided much food for thought and public discussion.
3.Strong, clear social and political commentary. To call into question the judgement of technocratic mandarins, to contrast between the residents, who needed the station for their transport, and the white-collared mandarins, who did not see their need as sufficient for providing public transport. To call train station that cannot be opened a white elephant...
4.Controversial, yet humorous and cheeky. Despite its radical nature, the installation was well-liked and brought smiles to the fortunate spectators who saw it in person. Compared to other legitimate public art installations in Singapore during the same period, the public will have an enduring memory of the white elephants.
5.Safe and almost legal. The police could find no grounds to prosecute the activists involved, as the installations did not cause public annoyance or nuisance (notwithstanding the ire of the patriotic citizen who made the police report), even though the installation had not been approved within the Public Entertainment and Meetings Act.

The question, reprised

Why was the installation not done by an artist? Or, as a typical audience member in a forum might put it: Does the artist wish they had done this instead?

Let us assume first that the mythos of the unfettered artist is true. Then, there is something deficient about the white elephant installation.

Perhaps the idea of using white elephant cut-outs as an installation piece for Buangkok MRT was not creative and subtle enough? Was it too crude, the imagery not polysemic enough? If so, there wouldn’t have been a public debate or controversy over the installation. Or perhaps, was the installation socially relevant, but not art? An installation wouldn’t be real installation art if no reader disputed its status, and to remark that something is more social than artistic betrays the speaker’s ideas of what acceptable art should be...

Or, perhaps, it is time to admit that the artist has become removed, even alienated from entire types of art, through his creativity, prudent sensitivity, good taste, and self-censorship. In the oeuvre of the typical Singaporean artist, there is a lacuna that becomes the more conspicuous each time the artist insists on keeping the image of their self-censorship not affecting their creative work.

Installation art with Singaporean characteristics

Conceptual, aesthetic, avowedly non-confrontational, even to the point of avoiding biting socio-political commentary. Interred in formalised spaces within galleries; if public, curiously uninterrogative of public discourse. Perhaps the public aren’t that naive when they ask: “How do (can) artists here operate, given the restrictions of the state?” The internalisation of legal and political strictures creates a commonsensical second nature of the artist to instinctively reject certain tropes as beyond artistic markers, while maintaining protestations of his unsullied creativity.

What sort of installation art is missing in Singapore? More ephemeral pieces that last less than an hour, and only survive immaterial, in the minds of the public and their popular discourse; pieces which, in an age of mechanical reproduction, can be sold by some enterprising students on T-shirts; whose continued secondary existence point towards the multiplicity of meanings and contestations of meanings between orthodoxy and the public?

Perhaps it is time for someone to wrap the Supreme Court with a kilometre of yellow ribbon. Or plant cut-outs of a politician on a soapbox giving a speech to a large crowd in the Speaker’s Corner. Or cut-outs of picnickers, skateboarders, children flying kites ? at the wide open grass spaces prohibiting any sort of activity (State Land: No trespassing). The aim of public installation art should alert the public to alternative imaginings of public spaces; but first, practitioners should be alerted to alternative imaginings of public art.

On Workfare

The Curious Incident of the Workfare Budget in Parliament

On 1 March, Minilee announced in Parliament, near the end of the Budget debates, that the much-hyped workfare component is not meant to be a permanent fixture; having it every year will lead to welfarism, which is bad for Singapore. To clarify, the workfare component in this year's Budget should be viewed as a one-off, infrequent, occasional bonus.

Contrary to Straits Times headline of Minilee conclusively refuting opposition criticisms, the declaration that the workfare idea is just a one-off only serves to highlight the fact that since it's not permanent, it's not a shift, then it has to be an election goodie.

I do not begrudge the fact that Singapore's current Parliamentary acts as a rubberstamp for whatever policy directions and final decisions its Prime Minister ("the Princeps") decides upon. Ministers and backbenchers debate the Budget for 2 weeks, then regardless of the criticisms and points raised, vote to pass the same Budget in a ritual vote afterwards. Outwardly, the forms of democratic rule are observed.

Real transparency and open government, however, depends not on the destination that Minilee selects, but the journey and the process by which he arrives at his decisions. On the 17 Feb, on the opening of the Budget debate, Minilee unveiled the workfare component as a major shift in thinking, to focus more on the poor and the elderly in the long term.

Workfare, he declared, is not welfare. It will not lead to welfare. Minilee even made the same declaration during last year's National Day Rally Speech. Throughout the month of January, in the runup to the Budget session of Parliament, Minilee had continually played up the role of workfare and promising a permanent shift in Budget.

Even the Straits Times, on 25 February, after the first week of the Budget session, issued a 6-page feature in its Insight pages, proclaiming that "Budget 06 marks shift in thinking" with its new workfare component. Its top political operative, Chua Mui Hoong (the Maureen Dowd of Singapore), cheered on the creation of a "Kinder, gentler rat race". The efficient press regulatory framework ensures a tight coordination between the state and the news media, especially for major features analysing political events like these Budget reports.

At this moment, for example, in March 2006 (if it is March 2006), workfare will lead to welfare. In no public or private utterance will it ever be admitted that the two concepts had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as everyone well knows, it was only 1 week ago that workfare was not welfare, would never lead to welfare, and had the backing of Minilee, who introduced the idea himself. But this is merely a piece of furtive knowledge which we happen to possess because our memories are not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of relations had never happened. Workfare will lead to welfare: therefore Workfare had always led to Welfare...

That Minilee made the reversal in such short notice that it took the Straits Times in surprise isn't as shocking as the blase acceptance of the new state of events by his 80+ colleagues in Parliament. No one took a minute to address the plothole or request the Princeps to account for the sudden and complete demolition of an ideological point he built up so painstakingly since last year.

Minilee first unveiled the workfare idea last August. His million-dollar ministers and elite backbenchers have had more than 6 months to do their homework on workfare. It appears they didn't, or didn't bother to. At no time during the Budget session did any minister or backbencher actually do a presentation of the implementation and philosophy of workfare as it exists in other countries. Perhaps if they had done so, we would come to the embarrassing realisation that workfare:

1. Is not an original invention of Minilee
The media kept putting quotation marks on workfare last August, to make it seem this was new term coined on the spot by Minilee.

2. Actually exists in other countries
Google is your best friend.

3. Is a full-fledged, theoretically sound (although widely criticised) concept

4. As it exists in Singapore, has completely zero relation to workfare as it exists in other countries, and as it exists as a theoretical concept.

Appropriation and bastardisation of existing concepts has long being the modus operandi of the new crop of ministers; see Khaw Boon Wan's excreable appropriation, reinvention, and bastardisation of Bourdieu's "cultural capital", but surely, one expects better from the Prime Minister of Singapore.

All of the people, all of the time

In Parliament on Wednesday, Minilee solemnly declares the workfare bonus is a one-off bonus; having it every year will lead to welfarism, which is bad for Singapore!

Any self-respecting journalist would've pointed out immediately that Minilee spent the entire past 2 weeks in Parliament selling workfare as an alternative to welfare, that it is NOT welfare and can never be welfare.

Yet Minilee now does a turnaround and say workfare will lead to welfare.

The Straits Times wrote a feature article over the weekend predicting that the workfare bonus scheme heralded a change in the Budget paradigm . Knowing the cosy partnership between state and media, and the tremendous coordination to get the message out, one wonders how Minilee's flipflop caught the Straits Times unaware.

Minilee keeps claiming that the workfare bonus is not an election sweetener. Now that we know the workfare bonus is neither a permanent reworking of the labour market, nor a shift in the Budget paradigm, and just a one-off event, what else can it be aside from an election sweetener?

How is it that Minilee and his lieutenants have once again appropriated an existing word (the workfare concept has been in existence for a long time), bastardised its meaning, and claimed it as their very own smart idea? (Shades of "cultural capital"!)

Let's not forget the million-dollar ministers and their elite backbenchers paid absolutely no attention, did no homework, and discussed nothing about existing implementations of 'workfare' in other countries during budget debate week.

Minilee also claims that increasing employers' share of CPF contributions cannot be done because that would drive up labour costs, making Singapore uncompetitive. Let's see, didn't he claim when he cut employers' contribution that it was a drastic but necessary, and therefore temporary move?

To top this all off, Minilee has his own Marie Antoinette moment. Rejecting opposition calls for unemployment insurance, Minilee says most Singaporeans have some form of retirement benefits anyway.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is either a fool or a liar. Impeach him, impeach him NOWWWW!

On Rajaratnam

What pomp, what ceremony! Rajaratnam's funeral is a full-dress rehearsal for papalee's great requiem mass!

How does one plan for the Great Leader's death spectacle? By setting precedents, by letting the state media machine work itself into pious breastbeating and tearing of sackcloths on the death of a member of the Old Guard.

Rajaratnam may have been a decent man, but he was no great man. One has to wonder about what went on in the vast expanse between the ears of the man who wrote the national pledge: "One united people, regardless of race, language or religion" but silent on the issue of sex and gender, class and political belief, this man is no thinker and no humanist.

The creeping SumikoTanning of the Straits Times

Attention! A mutant strain of the SumikoTan virus, under development in the top secret labs of ST's Toa Payoh labs, has broken out and infected other journalists!

Seen in a recent edition of the Urban ST section, otherwise respectable fashion reporter and Urban art director Dylan Boey writing a full-page article on how and why he got his braces.

According to unnamed sources in the virological research unit of the Straits Times, this outbreak may be less unintended and accidental than let on. "This virus has been perfected through months of testing on bloggers. We've already succeeded in the Bantustanisation of the blogosphere, and with that, do you think they'd let this weapon sit around, with so many rebellious ST journalists inserting subtle barbs at the establishment?"

Expect a SumikoTan pandemic, and even more inane, chewed curd writing from ST soon.

UPDATE

It appears fashion reporter Dylan Boey has proved to be a superspreader of the SumikoTan virus. At the Toa Payoh interchange/MRT station/mall, scores of ST journalists were observed wandering aimlessly, whining piteously about their singlehood, their failed relationships, and the trials and tribulations of 30somethings. Dear readers, if you come across one of these journos, please do not breathe in the air around them!!

UPDATE

Intrepid reporter Aki spent the day yesterday connecting the dots and tracing the history of the anomalous pathogen! Did you know that a previous outbreak was contained in 1999? We speak of none other than Richard Lim!

The former chief editor of the Life section, he with the fey mannerisms, overweening ego, and a desperate habit of namedropping literary greats, was a former victim of the SumikoTan virus. His rivalry with his eventual successor is the best-kept secret among journo circles, but even he succumbed to a rare fit of narcissistic introspection, when he wrote an entire series of articles about his travel experiences, which include lamentations of lost opportunites for relationships with exotic Japanese ladies, and being hit on by an elderly but debonair English gentleman.

Apparently the antidote that brought Richard Lim back to the reality-based universe was his retirement and his work on the biography of Papalee. That's a cure that might be much worse than the ailment, but there are troubling signs that the virus has had time to gain resistance to this antidote...

Brokeback Mountain eBay bidding

(seen and heard on eBay)

Jack's Shirts used in the filming of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

Item Value: Priceless!

The two shirts that Jack's mother gave to Ennis for him to remember Jack by. This is more than just a costume; this prop is an integral part of the story.

These are the men's shirts, originally selected by BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN costume designer Marit Allen and director Ang Lee, that have become iconic pieces of film history in the most Academy Award-nominated film of the year. The 2 (two) shirts are worn early in the film by Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), in the portion of the story set in 1963, and then are seen again as the epic love story nears closure many years later.

(Hmmm. I'd buy the jeans Jack used in the filming of Brokeback Mountain instead)

Crackpots, Damn Crackpots, and PLU Activists

Kelvin Wong is the secretary of PLU, the local gay rights lobby group. Even though he's based in Japan, the gentleman continues to take a firm interest in happenings in Singapore - he has chimed in at the 11th hour on Singabloodypore to lay the smackdown on me for casting aspersions on the sanity, incompetence of the policies and PR of the lobby group. He plans to send some letters to the ST forums to keep the Christian fundie school sex ed issue in public consciousness.

I definitely agree that the public should be further informed about how Christian fundamentalist groups are somehow getting invited to give fairly misleading and unfactual sex ed talks in Singapore's state-funded schools. I also believe that the public should be further informed about how PLU's leadership has a equally non-reality-based hangup on Christianity.

Kelvin Wong says so himself:

The japanese are quite unabashed about their bodies or being naked, unlike the hangups that Singpaoreans have, most of which comes from conservative Christian values. Whatever hangups the japanese have about being naked probably comes from the American christian and other Jesuits Priest when they landed in Japan.

I believe in freedom of speech. And I also believe the forthcoming Christian crackpot vs PLU crackpot ST forum deathmatch will be very, very entertaining.

Ministry of Manpower non-reply

When bureaucrats are caught red-handed massaging figures...

"MOM refutes FT report on jobless rate" [Buried on page 5 of the Home section!]
by Leslie Koh

The Manpower Ministry (MOM) has refuted a Financial TImes report that suggested it had changed statistical methods to lower Singapore's jobless rate. The four-year low of 3.2 per cent last year was due to a record number of jobs created, it stressed, and not because of a change in how the ministry measured unemployment. The methodology was revised last year to match international standards, MOM said, adding that it had been issuing employment data using the new method since last June.

The Ministry was reacting to a Feb 1 article by writer Jim Burton, which said that Singapore's latest jobles rate "was flattered by a recent change in how the data was measured". It noted that the SIngapore Government had last year decided to include foreign workers with temporary work permits when measuring unemployment. This effectively reduces the overall jobless rate because unemployment among foreign workers is much lower than among SIngapore residents.

Utter mendacity, malevolence, incompetence, and sheer disconnection from reality!

Somehow MOM has forgotten that government mouthpieces ST and Channelnewsasia reported the unemployment rate as 2.5% - and not 3.2%.

Somehow MOM has forgotten that the 3.2 per cent figure was flattered flattened into 2.5 per cent because it included the foreign workers.

Somehow MOM tries to play a non sequitur argument, misreading that the FT took issue with the 3.3% unemployment rate was 'flattered' into a 3.2% rate.

Somehow MOM insists that the Singaporean rate of unemployment benefitted more from a 'record increase in jobs' - without showing that these jobs actually went to Singaporeans more than they went to foreign workers.

Impeach Ng Eng Hen. Impeach him now!

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Ng Eng Hen's Ministry of Manpower clearly knows the difference between lies, damn lies, and statistics. Consider the recent release of Q4 figures by his ministry: the unemployment rate fell to a 5-year low of 2.5%!

Let's hold back the picture of Ng in a coverall on a factory floor, with a giant banner proclaiming MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, okay?

A look at Channelnewsasia's and ST's versions of the story will reveal the standard message: Record employment in 2005 (2.3 million serfs), 32,800 jobs created in December (No metion if they're just holiday-specific jobs), and expectations by unnamed economic experts of moderate wage increases (tell me if any economic recovery since 2001 has been accompanied by wage or even job increases?).

Then take a look at the Financial Times coverage of the same story (archived on SBP).

Singapore said on Wednesday its unemployment rate last year fell to a provisional 3.2 per cent, the lowest since 2001, although the figure was flattered by a recent change in how the data was measured. The government decided last year to revise the measurement of unemployment to include foreign workers who have temporary work permits, including construction workers living on site and those who commute to Singapore from Malaysia.

"The revision has the effect of reducing the overall unemployment rate as...(the) total labour force is now larger, taking into account full coverage of the foreign workforce," said the ministry of manpower, which compiles the statistics. Unemployment rates for foreign workers are lower since they normally lose their work permits and can no longer stay in Singapore if they become jobless.

Such an important point got conveniently left out of ST and CNA's press reports. Why are our national press run by these fools?

This is blatant statistical massaging that puts several question marks on all the figures quoted in the reports.

How much of the 32,800 jobs created last December, for example, went to Singaporeans and not temporary foreign workers? How much of Singapore's record-high of 2.3 million workers were Singaporean workers? How much is the SINGAPOREAN rate of unemployment?

Okay. Apparently Financial Times does have the figure, which it got from the Min. of Manpower: 3.3% in Q4. Is this a reason to pop out the champagne? The 2005 Q1 unemployment rate was 3.5% (2005 figures, of course, did not include foreign workers), so we have 3.3% unemployment in Q4 2005 vs 3.5% in Q1 2005. This, contrary to what FT's reporter says, is not a cause for celebration, nor a worthy achievement, nor a harbinger of more good things to come.

Why this insistence on the Singaporean rate of unemployment? Well, apparently during the Budget debate in 2005, Minister Ng Eng Hen vowed to "re-take jobs for Singaporeans".
1. Has he?
2. Why does his ministry now deprive us of even finding that out, with the "new and improved" method of calculating unemployment?

NTU Blogging Survey: Redirect

Q: What role do you see blogs playing in society and politics in Singapore in the future?

I'll take this question (and 'blogs') to refer to generally blogs devoted to social, political, or cultural commentary or analysis.

Researchers need to understand the density of bloggers with respect to their readership, and then to the population in Singapore. Then, they need to compare how blogs play a part in society and politics elsewhere.

There are a few models available, which I'll categorise according to how they're organised.

a. original commentary and analysis by varying degrees of experts. You'll need the participation of academics and professionals whose work or field of interest are related to policymaking. Singapore doesn't have much going for it, aside from Cherian George...

b. groupblogs. Often, posting on complicated topics takes time, research, self-questioning, informal peer review (and so on), and hence individual blogs aren't updated so often. Groupblogs get around this problem by having a roster of writers who double as commentors - ensuring a deep discussion on any post.

c. social mobilisation. There's not much original commentary in their posts, which seem to be just cut and paste jobs of current news. The key is these blogs function more to mobilise and provide a forum for ordinary citizens to discuss their responses to the current events. File Joe Trippi's Deanforamerica blog, Atrios and Daily Kos under this category. Does any Singaporean blog remind you of this category?

d. minionblogging. Not a judgemental term, actually. It's quite normal for the RNC's campaign heads to decide on a message of the week (on say, a policy issue) and disseminate the stand to political pundit shows on tv, select Republican bloggers, and watch the message of the week multiply in diverse variations in ordinary blogs all over the place.

We're already seeing this happening in here. How and why did PLU's media release get picked up by the blogosphere? How did the bloggers reproduce, modify, reject, co-opt the message?

e. viral. The shorter, simpler, and more self-evident the message, the less problematic its defense, until none is expected. You'll even have traditionally non-political bloggers replicating these messages on their sites.

That's why there was an overwhelming response to the Acidflask affair. Or why the NKF peanuts comment spread like a wildfire. Or why every blogger commented on the white elephants. Or how many poked fun of yet another (s)Elected President.

No matter how they are organised, blogs are engaged in the reframing of political and social issues. Depending on their reach and how they incorporate discussions, I see them as a new extension of civil society. Whether or not blogs have any impact on politics and society has to do (again) with their role in social framing, and their dominated position within the mainstream media: often, blogs have a direct impact only with cooperation by decision makers in the MSM.

Do you see that happening here?

2005 Birth Rates Released

Minilee Baby Bonus Failure!

Today, the Straits Times reports the official birth rate for 2005 in Singapore. Almost 15 months after Minilee's upsizing of the baby bonus in August 2004, the country's official bean counters report a staggering 1.13% increase in birth rates.

No doubt Minilee and Vivian Balakrishnan will stage a photo op at some hospital, with both of them in maternity dresses in a room full of newborns, and a huge banner overhead proclaiming MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Let me just disabuse them of the notion.

1. Over the past 20 years, annual increase in births ranged from 15% (Dragon year effect) to 2%. Minilee's 1.13% certainly sets a new record, for lowest birth increase!

2. The release by Vivian Balakrishnan, of a 3% increase in birth rate for the period of May to July 2005, was designed to be a 'teaser' of the immediate effect of Minilee's new baby bonus plans (i.e. couples who conceived immediately after the bonus was unveiled in August 2004). For the average figure for the entire 2005 year to whittle down to 1.13%, it means no one else was fooled into reproducing - aside from the few stupid Singaporeans who bred in that short period.

3. Our national propaganda press has been at it since last August, reporting anecdotes of couples giving it a go after Minilee's 2004 NDRS, to surges in hospital visits by expecting parents. As with all Leninist states, reports of good news to the Dear Leader may be are indeed slightly exaggerated.

4. Note the figure for 2000. Mr Goh's baby bonus plan was unveiled in 1999, causing an 8% spike in births. Minilee has failed to beat his predecessor's plan, despite increased gifts to conceiving couples!

5. Gavin Jones of the National University of Singapore apparently believes that Minilee's baby bonus might take time to work, and looks forward to better figures next year. How very droll. I suppose he hasn't consulted the statistical records on the aftermath of Mr Goh's 8% spike: Birth rates have fallen steadily and continuously after 2000.

6. However, I'm waiting to see if Minilee will defend himself by saying Mr Goh had an unfair advantage (2000 was a dragon year!). This, of course, will invite questions from the public, such as: Why on earth did Mr Goh throw money at couples who were already going to conceive en masse anyway?

This will be very interesting, and I'll want to see how Minilee keeps the baby bonus failure out of national discourse.

Miscellaneous musings: What has happened to Singaporeans' will to live? Survival and reproduction being irrational urges that plague all living creatures, something has tipped Singaporeans to deny this Will, to seek permanent relief.

Is it life in industrial society? Or have our leaders failed to socialise Singaporeans, that they have become conscious of social reality, and hence rationally refuse to reproduce society by their refusal to reproduce?

Reason #1,846,778,387 why the gay movement in Singapore is infantile

Blogger requested in email to cease criticisms of PLU

Yesterday evening, pleinelune, who speaks for gay lobby group PLU on Singabloodypore, emailed me, requesting that "for the sake of community image" and the image of PLU, I should not expose the public to further criticisms of PLU's modus operandi and public statements. Somehow, the image of PLU and the community is threatened every time I comment that I do not agree with their policies or actions. Newsflash: PLU does not have a mandate for sole representation of the community. Newsflash: Even in a one-party state, people are allowed to openly raise disagreements with party policy. Newsflash: Wong Kan Seng, Minilee, and Papalee have NOT said that criticisms by Singaporeans will lead to a diminishing of the public image of Singapore.

Most recently, Alex Au issued a statement that the NVPC is not a real NGO, because it gets funding from the government. His usual spokespersons on Singabloodypore also maintained that as the offices of NVPC are located in a ministry building, NVPC is not an independent organisation.

I have taken pains to point out this line of argument is untenable. Alex Au, with more than 10 years in activism and what his defenders call "constructive engagement" with the government, wouldn't know an NGO if it came up and slapped him with a trout. I pointed out several NGOs which receive substantial proportions of their budgets from governments:

1. A quarter of the US$162 million income in 1998 of the famine-relief organization Oxfam was donated by the British government and the EU. Applying Alex Au's logic, Oxfam is not independent!
2. The Christian relief and development organization World Vision US collected US$55 million worth of goods in 1998 from the American government. Therefore they are run by the government!
3. Médecins Sans Frontières gets 46% of its income from government sources. It's a stooge of the French government! It's NOT an NGO!

Gentle bloggers, these are facts that one can easily look up on the internets. Did Alex Au conduct due diligence before he accused NVPC of being non-independent due to government funding?

I have also commented that PLU's second press release "Behind the Liberty League Scandal", was a strategic failure. When the Ministry pulled a reporter's news story off the papers at the last minute, PLU went ballistic and accused the government of censorship, of poor governance of NVPC, and said "the hole is being dug deeper and deeper".

PLU's defenders then went on to say that MCYS and NVFP ganged up on the lobby group. Presumably, that's why the news article was pulled off. And presumably that's why PLU has issued a statement that preemptively cuts any lines of communication and goodwill it has with the bureaucracy.

1. NVPC is an NGO. It is not a "government body", as PLU's statement erroneously claims. Did PLU do any research before typing out its statement? The ministry provides the funds, but it is up to NVPC to spend it, as it wishes. There is no issue of governance here, merely an issue of poor judgement: NVPC foolishly funded a sex ed quack.

That Liberty League is a Pte Ltd is irrelevant. As long as it declares itself a non-profit to NVPC, it is obliged to provide full and regular accounts. That it has only $10 in startup capital is irrelevant. It will find the rest of the money elsewhere, in order to match NVPC's funding, dollar for dollar.

2. I don't know if there was a secret agreement by MCYS and NVFP to oppress gay people. Certainly it's nice to think so, and even to speculate on the basis of insufficient information. I don't know if MCYS called off the news story because it supports NVFP, or whether it needed time to conduct investigations with NVFP on the Liberty League, or whether it needed time to spin an appropriate response. Certainly it's nice to think of the possibilities, and even to speculate on the basis of insufficient information. Or even to blog about it.

It would be prudent, if one wanted to do more than blog about it (like say, issue a press statement), to make inquiries about the status of the investigation by MCYS and NVFP. PLU did not do so, and instead chose to issue its statement. For all we know, MCYS and NVFP could be doing background checks on Liberty League; making Leslie Lung conform to the rules; finding a way to drop the Liberty League quietly; anything. In fact, there is insufficient evidence for myself or PLU to guess what is going on.

Yet PLU has chosen to interpret the removal of the press story as outright censorship, whereas it could be a media blackout. One would assume that as PLU had cooperated with the reporter to write her story, it would've contained all the errors I have pointed out, like the insistence that NVFP is a government body, or that in effect the Ministry has sanctioned Liberty League for schools as a semi-official sex ed course, for example.

3. It's very nice to preemptively tag the issue as a "scandal" and frame it as a scandal, even before the public gets to know about it and get all worked up over it. Along with the insinuations of a ministry pulling the strings of an NGO, and the claims of press censorship, this is a particularly nice and constructive way to engage the issue with the government, and to persuade the bureaucrats to listen to your lobby group in the future.

By pointing out these flaws in PLU's statements and operations, I have once again undermined the image of PLU, an image so precious to them, they're asking me - through their proxies - very nicely to keep quiet. I'm sure the very possibility that mistakes should be pointed out when they're made doesn't matter. Or perhaps we're witnessing the doctrine of PLU exceptionalism - it is free to criticise the government, but for the sake of 'unity', no one is allowed to criticise them in public.

PLU is too weak to stand up to public scrutiny! The Government has always been hostile to PLU! Don't give PLU any more trouble by criticising it! I fail to understand how by pointing out the flaws in PLU's very open actions, that I'm washing its dirty linen in public. Or that it's a very bad thing.

As a blogger and contributor to Singabloodypore I take this request to stop talking about PLU as an insult to myself and to the ideals of SBP. They suggest I voice out my dissention privately to their organisation in the future, instead of subjecting it to public scrutiny. Actually, I find their suggestion very humorous.

I concede your point about PLU having to be open to criticism. Every organisation, every society has to be. However, the issue of washing our dirty linen in public comes into question. Yes, PLU has made mistakes, but it is ineffective to publicly denounce PLU in front of anti-gay people. We are only penalising ourselves.

No. I hold that the more mollycoddled PLU is, the less its mistakes are pointed out as such, the more its defenders penalise it. I don't wish to see PLU as a monolithic party that is more interested in party unity than an open marketplace of ideas. I would hate to think of PLU as having a monoculture, and dominated by groupthink, where no one dares to tell its leaders that what they're doing might be not quite right.

See also:
More reasons why the gay rights movement in Singapore is infantile.

Design methodology

You may notice a longish period of absence from posting. I have developed carpal tunnel syndrome. Updates will be fleeting while I attempt to recover.

Meanwhile, here's a fun quiz for everyone who likes to bitch about badly designed quizzes.

Do it. I'm not going to put any spoilers here. And do discuss about it.

The Artist's Pledge

The social ritual establishes a kind of truth; through each re-enactment, that truth is restated, reaffirmed as a timeless fact in itself. The speaker reads from an ancient score, his voice and part, an obliggato which drowns out the initial question, and reestablishes that primal state of innocence of his endeavor in the eternal silence of the natural, undisputed, commonsensical state of always-now.

Question: How do artists here operate, given the restrictions of the state?
Artist's ritual answer: There is freedom of speech, and we have to be very creative in putting certain politically-sensitive points across, and we occasionally have to exercise some self-censorship. So as an artist, I do not feel the heavy hand of the state.

So why is it the most important piece of art here in 2005 was created by a local businessman and PAP minion grassroots activist? I refer to the 1-day display of 8 white elephant cardboard sculptures at the unopened Buangkok train station last August, organised by Mr Leow, a grassroots activist of Punggol South and other leaders minions.



The white elephants installation epitomise the best of public art:
1. Site-specific art accessible to the public
2. Relevant to area residents
3. Strong, clear social and political criticism commentary that speaks on a national level
4. Controversial, yet humourous and cheeky
5. Safe and almost legal

Question: How do the grassroots minions leaders of Punggol South operate, given the state's testiness and control of public art and politics?

Surprisingly, their answer involves none of the 10-year series model artist's answer that we've heard far too often in arts forums. No, they did NOT have to tread carefully and censor themselves in order to put up the white elephant installation. No, they were not creative enough to avoid such a sensitive issue and an entanglement with the police and the incestuous transport authority-business complex. But they were bold enough to see a good idea and to see it through.

When will local artists make socially relevant public art instead of safe, state-sponsored, high concept, sterile public art?