Analects 4:5

子曰：富與貴，是人之所欲也，不以其道得之，不處也；貧與賤，是人之惡也，不以其道得之，不去也。君子去仁，惡乎成名？君子無終食之間違仁，造次必於是，顛沛必於是。

Confucius said: Men aspire to wealth and status; when these cannot be attained along the path of righteousness, the gentleman forsakes them. Men shun poverty and lowliness; when these cannot be evaded along the path of righteousness, the gentleman welcomes and suffers them.

Should a gentleman depart from righteousness, can he still shine a light on his name? A gentleman never swerves from the path of righteousness even in the sitting of a meal; it leads him in pressing moments and in times of tribulation.

- Analects 4:5, my translation

What can Singapore do about its dormitory population?

Are guest workers a hidden and permanent underclass in Singapore?

"S11", a dormitory or worker camp in Singapore
Photographer: Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images

The segregation of COVID-19 numbers in Singapore's daily reporting is a misguided attempt to boost domestic morale through window dressing and impression management. Don't panic at these high numbers; guest workers living in dormitories are not part of the community, they're not local, they're not permanent residents! This intrusion of politics into technocratic competency in Singapore's effort to manage the coronavirus pandemic is now affecting key policy. The minister heading the coronavirus task force announced yesterday in parliament that our goal is to end the lockdown when new daily community cases are at low single digits. One can only infer this will be achieved by simultaneously discounting new daily numbers in the ongoing outbreak in the dormitories.

This attempt to handwave away more than 90% of SARS-COv-2 infections in Singapore is not supported by medical science. From an epidemiology standpoint, what's happening in Singapore's guest worker dormitories is a classic community outbreak. Contact tracing has established early on that guest workers living in dormitories were infected through a cluster at Mustafa Centre, a megamall popular with Singaporeans, permanent residents, guest workers, as well as tourists from all over the world.

Is Singapore's welfare system failing its poor?

Yes, democracy classrooms are still taking place despite the New Narratif ban

Kirsten Han is organising "democracy classrooms" in Singapore in her personal capacity. This surely is a courageous and principled decision, given the Singapore government's proscription of New Narratif's workshop arm and its bizarre declaration that such activities, especially when funded by George Soros, are "political in nature" and "contrary to Singapore's national interests".

While everyone else including ministers can organise and participate in public forums, talks, and feedback sessions in educational institutions to discuss, question and even criticise aspects of Singapore's public policy, Kirsten's New Narratif is barred from doing so.

That Ms Han remains a free woman in Singapore is testament to the common sense of its civil service; the Singapore government's proscription of New Narratif/OSEA and apparent grudge match against George Soros may be political in nature, but democracy classrooms and questioning of public policy are legitimate activities that cannot be proscribed.

Charity, welfare, social spending, and the deserving poor

The latest democracy classroom was about poverty in Singapore. Social workers from welfare organisations shared, in their personal capacity, their experience working within Singapore's social welfare sector. To wit: As external vendors directly funded by Singapore's social spending budget, these welfare organisations are obliged, when helping the poor, to apply the state's criteria and checklists, which define who are eligible and deserving of handouts.

The consensus within the industry, or at least between the professionals in the democracy classroom, is that the rules as drawn up by the state often disenfranchise the poor further. The professionals in the industry feel that the very poor seem to be excluded from qualifying for welfare in Singapore, as a direct result of certain discriminatory criteria. As a whole, the state agencies seem unsympathetic to the conditions of poverty. Onerous and inflexible criteria that are put in place to prevent the very poor gaming the welfare system instead cause humiliation and additional misery and hardship to the petitioners.

Plot twist: Singapore is an invisible welfare state

From the perspective of professional social workers, every instance of a poor client who must be turned away and prevented from dipping into welfare handouts is an indictment of the system. From a sociological viewpoint however, we need to ask if this is a feature in the system and not a bug.

Frequent government critic Chua Beng-huat has noted that Singapore, while authoritarian, is a liberal state-socialist polity. The political compact between the ruling People's Action Party and Singapore citizens is underpinned by 3 key public policies: public housing, universal education, and universal healthcare insurance.

You get handouts, everyone gets handouts!

Singaporeans may not know it but their housing, education, and healthcare are highly subsidised by the state, to an extent that would make most affluent western nations blush (save for the Scandinavians). Since independence, the middle class in Singapore has been the main beneficiary of state welfare.

It's a form of state welfare that doesn't require people to approach the civil service with hat in hand. The state knows when you are eligible for handouts, how much handouts you should get, and all of it is done without legwork, casework, or pure hard work. Education is automatically subsidised: all school-going children get vouchers that they can use while adults receive free money every year to go for courses and skills upgrading. Most of Singapore's housing grants and subsidies are automatic and worked into the property bill. Concessions for hospital bills and healthcare premiums are automatically applied.

Which begs the question: why don't the very poor get automatic vouchers? Everyone gets automatic vouchers. Singapore's largest, universal automatic handout this year is for DIGITAL TV. Yes, that's right. Every household gets a free voucher for digital television, whether or not they already have one and whether or not they want one, and whether or not they might just use the voucher and get one more on top of what they already have. And policymakers talk about how it's important not to let the poor get away with gaming the system!

Plot twist: It's not about the poor

What is the difference between Daniel Yap, celebrity state welfare recipient of the month, and the social worker's dirt-poor client whose application for welfare grants keep getting rejected? [Full disclosure: I have previously written a healthcare article for The Middle Ground, which was co-founded by Daniel.]

Policy preferences.

Daniel Yap is an economically productive member of society. Gainfully employed. Long term employed. The problem cases? Long term unemployed, itinerant workers in the informal economy, have a debt sheet, married to unnaturalised spouses.

From a social work perspective, such a policy is discriminatory and ironic: the very poor tend to have lower employment opportunities, causing them to participate in the informal economy if at all. It's hard to build up savings if you're an itinerant worker. And marrying out seems to be a universal solution if someone is too poor to participate in the local marriage market.

From a sociological perspective, welfare policy is not about defining the poor, helping them, or punishing them for being poor. Welfare policy is about defining the middle class and its habits as the norm that potential recipients should aspire towards, i.e. economically productive, gainfully employed, savings-positive but members of an industrial, consumerist economy.

It is no surprise that Singapore's criteria for welfare handouts is not much different from most of the industrial west, minus the socialist Scandinavian states who are finally regretting their experiments with universal basic income, aka "living wage".

Can Singapore live with its welfare system?

Singapore's welfare system may be discriminatory. It may indeed benefit the middle class far more than the poor. But it is a coherent, consistent policy that reflects the values and preferences of its policymakers. And piloted by Singapore's bureaucracy, it is a remarkably competent policy that delivers the same outcome, day in and day out.

Bleeding heart arguments will be ineffective against this.

Very ineffective.

We at Illusio posit an alternative argument that may have more traction. Namely, Singapore's current administration of welfare handouts is unsustainable. It is due for policy failure, and should be reworked - preferably to an automatic voucher system that cuts down the unwieldy welfare state bureaucracy and the VWO ecosystem to a manageable size to reduce unproductive busy-work.

We note that Singapore's welfare system (and its inculcation of middle class habits and norms) was tailor-made for an expansionary, industrialising economy between 1965 to the early 1990s. In such an expansionary, industrialising climate brimming with employment opportunities and massive trickle-down effects, it was correct to assume that the poor could lift themselves out of poverty easily so long as they participated in the economy.

Singapore today is a mature economy with sub 2% GDP growth. Ministers are increasingly aware of the entrenchment of poverty. Its success in creating a stable and large middle class has resulted in a situation where social capital is throwing a spanner into meritocracy and mobility. Its prime minister made a speech acknowledging the evolution of Singapore into a class society.

The assumptions and foundations behind the administration of welfare handouts no longer hold true. There is no expansionary economy today, no massive and easy trickle-down effect to lift the poor. Failure to realise that circumstances have changed will result in policy failure: an entrenched, permanent underclass. Let's assume that future bureaucrats continue their hostility towards the very poor. Then we will have an angry, entrenched, permanent underclass.

Sociology tells us that any entrenched, permanent underclass will pursue success by any other means necessary, and that an angry, entrenched, permanent underclass will create social and legal problems. In the words of Papalee: riots will break out and blood will flow in the streets.

The policy failure point is not that far-fetched or distant: Yishun, Singapore's most criminal suburb, is on its way to becoming a Parisian banlieue.

Singapore cannot afford to run its welfare system like this, not if it wants to keep its reputation as a wealthy, crime-free global city.

Keppel and Lava Jato corruption: Is there a cover-up in Singapore?

News of Keppel Offshore & Marine's (Keppel O&M) decade-long bribery in Brazil has filtered slowly into Singapore. The initial announcements in 2014 happened in a country far away. The denials by Keppel's chairman, a former cabinet minister, were robust enough. What really did happen? Investigations were taking place and Singaporeans were willing to give the benefit of the doubt, hoping that all would be revealed in due course.

It is only after investigations have been complete, record regulatory fines paid to anti-corruption agencies in Brazil and the United States that Singaporeans are beginning to realise the enormity of the situation (the enormity being Keppel's fine ranks number 7 in FCPA penalties, historically!)

Lava Jato involved international companies paying bribes to Petrobas,
kickbacks moved down the economic chain, and to also the ruling party and its coalition

But the response from Singapore's government has been most disappointing and a cause for concern.

Is corruption part of Singapore's foreign policy?

Singapore tolerates no corruption internally, especially within the ranks of its public service. Officials who are accused face thorough investigations by the Corruption Practices Investigation Bureau. Officials who are caught face fierce prosecution and lengthy jail sentences. Even the prime minister himself had to be exonerated by his fellow parliamentarians last year when his relations alleged he misused his power and state agencies to settle a personal dispute.

It is a fine set of principles to live by, garnering accolades for the tiny, resourceless island nation. Transparency International ranks Singapore 7th least corrupt in the world. Its intolerance of corruption makes it one of the most friendly places to do business as well.

Yet the recent corruption scandal involving Keppel Offshore & Marine in Brazil (a subsidiary of Keppel Corporation) raises questions about whether Singapore's intolerance of corruption overseas, despite the declarations by its prime minister that "the actions of Singaporean citizens overseas are treated the same as actions committed in Singapore, regardless of whether such corrupt acts have consequences for Singapore", and despite signing and ratifying a global anti-corruption agreement.

The corruption monster!

Why funny things happen in the National Archives

Pay attention to state press releases during the holidays and long weekends. It is an ideal period to release embarrassing or inconvenient news that must be released, in the hopes that it will escape the public eye, if not the eye of journalists. This Christmas, the UK National Archives announced that thousands of declassified government papers had gone missing. To be more precise, "misplaced while being on loan to government department."

Was this incompetence on the part of the archives, or a pattern of mendacity and obfuscation on the part of the government?

What should Singapore do about Operation Spectrum?

We at Illusio disagree with Jolovan Wham's train protest, on the grounds that even activists and protesters in the liberal West know better than to stage a protest inside a train.

Assuming Wham had staged the protest to highlight the issue of Singapore's Internal Security Act and the infamy of 1987's Operation Spectrum, it is disappointing that after getting the book thrown at him, the coordinated response from his circle of activists has been to highlight his "veteran advocacy" for domestic workers and put him up as a poster boy for free speech and assembly.

You know, do everything but highlight the issue of Singapore's Internal Security Act and the infamy of Operation Spectrum? As though it was a useful pretext that once raised, is never mentioned again?

Beware the FAS scandal offside trap!

FIFA's 2015 reform package to improve transparency and accountability in the sport includes a call to remove government appointees from leadership of its regional and national administrative bodies. The reformation has seen a fallout in various countries, with political appointees exiting most unwillingly the national administration of their sport. In squeaky clean, corruption-free Singapore, the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) has to comply with FIFA and hold an unprecedented and contentious election for its leadership.

Following accusations of a "compulsory donation" to the FAS that was funnelled to the ASEAN Football Association (AFF), the FAS and three football clubs have been raided by Singapore's Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), the clubs' chief, the former political appointee president and his right-hand man have been called in for interviews.

Instead of reading sensationalist reportage and hack pieces attacking Bill Ng and questioning how his profitable clubs have so many jackpot machines, we invite you to try our serious analysis on the real issues surrounding this case. Clue: It has nothing to do with legalised, highly regulated, ubiquitous jackpot machines in Singapore's football clubs.

Hard Talk with the Prime Minister: Singapore loses the plot

HARDTalk interviews are hardly a fireside chat

Did prime minister Lee Hsien Loong "do us proud" yesterday, or did he stutter, freeze, and turn all defensive? It is unlikely that PM Lee thought his BBC HARDTalk interview with Stephen Sackur would be a walk in the park, much less a fireside chat. His father had appeared on the same show several years ago and turned in a feisty performance.

It is far likely that Lee's media team is aware of the performative aspects of an international interview, given the pre-approved trailer showing Lee throw out a combative line: "I would not presume to tell you how your press council should operate, why would you presume to tell me my country should run?"

But if we are to judge if that's a winning line or a defensive cover, we cannot take that line out of context.

Memories, Official Secrets, and the National Archives: A matter of governmental judgment or archival discretion?

In the case of Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang vs Attorney-General, the honorable Tay Yong Kwan has ruled that the transcripts of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew's interviews with the National Archives are:

1. covered by the Official Secrets Act;

2. copyrighted by Mr Lee's estate, but only to the extent of "ensuring the Government's compliance with the Interview Agreement"; and

3. in custody of the Cabinet Secretary [our note: till 2020, when the Government may exercise the discretion to hand them over to the National Archives then, at a later date, or never, or indefinitely delay that decision].

Both the Estate and the Attorney-General appear to have disregarded the consideration and interests of the Archives itself when they argued their cases. Neither the National Archives of Singapore, any of its fellow SARBICA member associations, or even the International Council of Archives were called by either side to submit an affidavit for the case. It thus falls on us at Illusio to illustrate how an archival institution or a community of archival experts may possibly view the case. Or at least, weigh in on whether and when archival interviews should be official secrets, and who typically has copyright, and explain why.

Conversation with the Prime Minister: Just a conversation?

How Minilee thought he'd appear on TV last night:
as an FDR conducting a folksy fireside chat

The PAP Clown Council procedural show

Like experts on corporate governance who weighed in officially on the issue after Minilee's decree for an investigation into the clown council by the Ministry of National Development gave them the much-needed spine, we at Illusio are convinced that there is a pressing and obvious question of conflict of interests, non-transparency, and inappropriate procedures surrounding Teo Ho Pin's sale, as 'coordinating chairman', of municipal-level management software of 14 town councils to Action Information Management Pte Ltd.

In our last post, we established that very strictly speaking, the questions of conflict of interests, non-transparency, and inappropriate procedures do not lie on Chandra Das and the other directors of AIM. In addition, we proposed that the conflict of interests involved in this case are not legally actionable but fall under the wider issue of the ethics of corporate governance and also, appropriate procedures and full disclosure.

From the point of view of process auditing, at the very minimum, these two questions should be asked in any subsequent investigation by any appointed authorities and regulators as an automatic trigger for the conflict of interests issues surrounding the town council sale.

1. Was the conflict of interest disclosed by AIM to the town council during the bidding process? Note this is despite the fact that legally speaking, AIM Is not legally bound to disclose its PAP-ownership to the public via its accounts or company statements. Legal requirements are not the same as auditing or corporate governance requirements.

2. Was the conflict of interest disclosed by the town councils in their annual reports submitted to the Ministry of National Development and the Auditor-General of Singapore?

In many cases of conflicts of interest that are non-actionable by law, the issue is of an issuer and issuee who are affiliated entering a contract. That is to say, the issuer or issuer are not shareholders, directors, or employees of each other but possess other corporate, social, political, or personal affiliations. For example, both parties could be separate subsidiaries of the same conglomerate, or have known each other for 20 years as members of the local Toastmasters, or are related by marriage or blood.

Yes, it's not legally actionable. But no, that doesn't mean the conflict of interest doesn't exist. What it means is you're supposed to, for the sake of your auditors and the regulatory body, declare this conflict of interests during the process as well as the audit, to say, "Yes, we are both affiliated but the contract was awarded due to the bidder's superior offer, track record, etc." Failure to do so? Not illegal per se but just plain ugly.

Unlike certain conspiracy theories, we therefore do not predict that the MND investigation will lay the blame on the auditors; they simply didn't know and wouldn't know there's a conflict of interest since AIM's political ownership structure is still legally non-transparent and an object of speculation, even ours.


Next, the regulators or investigators will need to consider the following:


3. Was the contract one which was economically, financially, operationally justifiable? Was AIM's PAP affiliation a necessary and sufficient factor for its winning the contract?

It stands that if there are no takers for the contract Teo Ho Pin offered, then from the market point of view, the work entailed in the contract for the sum offered did not make financial, operational, or economic sense. Note that The New Paper has canvassed procurement and software experts who have said just as much.

Now, we consider Teo Ho Pin's statement on 2 January 2013. We note his statement that having considered AIM's sole bid to indicate that the town council offer was reasonable and made market sense, "...we were confident that AIM, backed by the PAP, would honour its commitments."

We suggest that if procurement and software experts may still be found to testify to the Ministry of National Development's investigation (and that the MND would field the question in the first place) that the town councils' contract was not one that any profit-making software company would enter into, then it might follow that AIM was mistakenly awarded the contract by Teo Ho Pin purely out of the fact that he knew it was PAP-backed. If the contract is not economically or financially justifiable, then it is impossible to win it on any merits.

Next. Depending on the investigator, a case might even be made that AIM accrued political benefits from its affiliation in this contract.

4. When and how did Teo Ho Pin know about the PAP affiliation of AIM?

As noted by too many other commentators, there is no publicly available information to corroborate Teo's assertion that AIM is "PAP-backed" or Chandra Das's claim that AIM is PAP-owned.

We at Illusio look forward to the Ministry of National Development to investigate just when and how Dr Teo knew about AIM's nature. It could very well turn out that not only did Teo mistakenly award the town council contract to AIM solely because of its PAP affiliation but also that he made the decision while being privy to its secret ownership. This would be properly speaking, a prime example of improper procedure in corporate governance where the issuee awards the contract for reasons only available to the issuee and not the general public, not even the regulatory body.

Now if our previously-mentioned investigator has taken to inquire if AIM had accrued political benefits from its affiliation, backing, or ownership by the PAP, this investigator may well be swayed by the fact that Dr Teo, being a PAP member having very specialised and restricted knowledge of AIM's affiliation with the PAP, did not in fact declare this to the town council and excuse himself from the awarding of the contract - but instead used it as a prime reason for awarding the contract when the tender should have been called off.

5. So will the investigation by the Ministry of National Development investigate where the money AIM earns from these town council contracts end up? Is this line of inquiry mandated by Minilee's assumption of the investigation committee?

The PAP Clown Council conflict of interests show

In my previous analysis of the PAP town council affair, we established that the real issues surrounding Teo Ho Pin's awarding, as "coordinating chairman of 14 PAP town councils", of a contract to Action Information Management Pte Ltd (AIM), were conflict of interests, non-transparency, and inappropriate procedures. All questions and analyses of municipal management issues of a similar nature will eventually ask a final question - was there sufficient evidence of procurement corruption, whether intentional or non-intentional?

I never quite answered that question, much less broached it last week. Instead, I ended with a series of questions that weren't even directed at Chandra Das, Teo Ho Pin, or even the PAP. Those questions, dear readers, were for you to mull over, to appreciate the wider implications (beyond conflict of interests, etc) raised by this issue, and to prepare yourselves to handle the response by Minilee as well as Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC). And hopefully you have thought over them and are ready for me today.

There is conflict of interests, and then there is conflict of interests

Here were my first 3 questions from Sunday, which we will now take on together.

1. How does a company registered under the names of 3 former PAP MPs become a PAP-backed company (according to MP Dr Teo), a PAP-OWNED company (according to former MP Chandra Das)?

2. Is there any reflection in ACRA records that AIM is a PAP-owned company?

3. Do Chandra Das and his other 2 directors have a legal duty to declare that AIM is a PAP-owned company in its official records?

You will note in The Straits Times report on Minilee's call for an investigation into the town council matter, that it is not even a matter of debate whether there is a conflict of interests or not. The overwhelming consensus of corporate governance experts, as reported by ST, is there were obvious conflict of interests, non-transparency, and procedural issues with Teo Ho Pin's sale of software rights and award of contract to AIM.

But on a finer scale, there are conflict of interests that are legally actionable and conflict of interests that are merely questionable in a corporate governance framework. Our conjecture is Teo Ho Pin's defense of his decision as fully legal and within the boundaries of corporate governance frameworks comes from a narrow, legalist interpretation of what constitutes conflict of interests.

What type of conflict of interests are legally actionable? It turns out in this case, only when Teo Ho Pin is also a director, shareholder, or employee of AIM, or when Chandra Das or his fellow shareholders and directors are also directors, employees, or shareholders of any of the 14 PAP town councils of which Teo was a "coordinating chairman".

Now, we will turn to our trio. It is quite possible for the PAP to "own" AIM via several legal instruments with ACRA still reflecting correctly that the firm belongs to Das et al. We suggest a letter of guarantee where the PAP underwrites AIM and its operations to the tune of say, $1 million. Or say, a sum of $999,998. We offer these two figures due to the fact that AIM was supposed to have a paid up capitalisation of $1 million in its incorporation, and the $2 eventually capital that the company was set up with. In other words, PAP "owns" AIM via holding its "debt".

As a private limited company, AIM is indeed not required to open its books to the public or divulge its true ownership. Auditing and accounting-wise, there is nothing illegal about this arrangement.

From the point of view of the companies act and modern auditing and accounting standards, the questions of (legal) conflict of interests and (legal) non-transparency are not for AIM or Chandra Das to answer, but for Dr Teo Ho Pin and the People's action party to clarify.

And now for something completely different: AHTC Clown Show
We turn now to the Aljunied Hougang Town Council Clown Show. Again, we will use the legal definition of conflict of interests vs corporate governance definition.

If you need a refresher of the AHTC Clown Show, please read here. We'd like to point your attention to the fact that of the 4 new directors found their way into FMSS, a certain How Weng Fan also happens to be a former secretary of HTC, the direct precursor of AHTC.

Recall our earlier statement on legally actionable conflict of interests: it is when the town council has awarded a contract to a company whose shareholders are its former employees and managers.

But when did How Weng Fan stop being a secretary of HTC? Was that before or after the formation of FMSS? How many other directors of FMSS have rendered services for HTC in the past? How many of them have rendered exclusive services for HTC?

It is sad to see that unlike Teo Ho Pin, Chandra Das, and the PAP, it is the Workers Party, AHTC, and FMSS that have far less wriggle room.

Minilee's keyboard kommandos - exposed!

In 2007, ministers in the PAP government were tasked to set up a 'counter-insurgency' against their online critics. No one paid them attention. No one bothered to read them. If anyone knew which websites they were operating, no one bothered to publicise their writings.

An Aside: What we've learnt from our 2 years on Facebook

That's all changed in the past few years thanks to a more social media and in particular, the rise of Facebook. I'll admit here that like a few other, better-known bloggers, I made the decision to move my commentary online.

Over the months, I discovered that there is a price for giving up anonymity, of having your multiple online personalities and networks all collapse into one. But more importantly, I discovered that Facebook just isn't a natural space for writing long analyses and getting a true public to read them and participate in commentary.

You could write a long, thoughtful post exposing a policy failure. But for reasons of privacy, you're not going to place your profile on public mode. Yet you wrote this precisely so the public could read it, right? You could count on your friends to share your note, so slowly it goes out into the Facebook public. Great. Now there will be some discussion. Most of which will be one-liner comments thanks to Facebook's social engineering constraints. How many of your friends shared that post? There will be that many fragmented discussions to your piece. And how many of their friends in turn bother to share it? Well.

When it comes down to the line, we're not exactly sure if we have that much of a wider reach by moving to Facebook. We're not even sure if moving to Facebook actually promotes greater discussion than posting direct to blogs. We certainly don't believe that Facebook is a medium that encourages deep and sustained discussion in one consolidated place that blogging does. So we're back.

PAP's Facebook Counter-insurgency

What we did notice straight away was how the counter-insurgency on Facebook as its battlefield of choice. As identified by Singapore Hall of Shame, groups like Fabrications Against the PAP are prominent in disseminating their propaganda against public accusations of the PAP's policy failures.

As much as I'd like to protect their rights to free speech, I am not impressed by how often they would resort to going on the offensive against opposition politicians using the odious tools of misinformation, misdirection, and non sequitur. And since this was a feature of Facebook that when you 'subscribe' to your favourite politicians' pages, you can see every post where they're tagged, you could see how often FAAP tagged Chee Soon Juan, Kenneth Jeyaratnam, Low Thia Kiang, Tan Jee Say, and others in posts that had nothing to do with them, just so FAPP could spam your Facebook feed. It's frankly obnoxious and borderline passive-aggressive.

They seem to be doing very well. In 2007, the Straits Times reported that this online counter-insurgency numbered around 20. Reports by Singapore Hall of Shame and Littlespeck put the current count in October 2012 at over 260.

I suppose we should expect that kind of low-down behaviour from a PAP counter-insurgency. But did any of us predict that these Keyboard Kommandos would be so brazen as to offer to buy Internet user IDs from account holders?

Questions for PAP's counter-insurgency ministers and MPs

TO: Messrs. Dr Ng Eng Hen (Minister for Defence, MP-Bishan Toa Payoh), Lui Tuck Yew (Minister for Transport, MP-Jalan Besar), Zaqy Mohamad (PAP-Choa Chu Kang), Baey Yam Kam (MP-Tampines), and Ms Josephine Teo (MP-Bishan Toa Payoh).

1. Please clarify if you are still chairing the PAP New Media committee, and its media strategies and new media capabilities subgroups.

2. Please clarify if your New Media committee has had any hand in organising, funding, briefing, training, advising, or otherwise providing material support to the groups on Facebook identified as New Compass and Fabrications Against the PAP or persons who are its members.

3. In light of their clearly partisan, well-organised activities and a burgeoning membership that suggests strong funding and professional organisation, would you recommend to Minilee to gazette these groups as political associations?

4. In light of their scheme to solicit Facebook accounts for the purpose of identity impersonation, we appreciate if you offer to condemn this scheme as criminal and unethical in light of your own party's sincere efforts to engage in a real Singapore Conversation with all citizens.

5. In light of an actually existing Singapore Conversation as started by your own government, we appreciate if you additionally disband your "quiet online counterinsurgency". Its raison d'etre and modus operandi are incompatible with the goals of your Singapore Conversation.

I love quoting myself from 2007

"But there's only one meaning of insurgent that is implied when you use "counter-insurgent", really. The member of an irregular armed force one... And how one takes action against insurgents (i.e. guerrillas) is simple: you dispense with all rules of war and adopt a black ops manual. Adopting unconventional warfare is a must. Against the Vietcong, napalm their forests. Execute them. Against local bloggers, take on anonymous identities and destroy the blogosphere through disinformation and ghostwritten propaganda."

Singapore's wayang model of religious consultation

Imperial overreach redux, or: haven't we been here before?

In the light of a second cycle of official statements coming from various churches and religious groups on the long aftermath of the Aware issue, it is clear that the matter is not closed, and will not be closed for some time. Despite their authority and positions, statements issued by various quarters more than a week ago lack the finality that was expected of them - hence forcing another wave of clarifications.

The church-state wayang

As a modus operandi, faith organisations have never played an active role in political and public commentary in the years of the Republic; one may cite certain remarks a political leader issued shortly after Operation Spectrum, or the general consensus on the church-state divide already existing in the entire region after 1960.

It is then highly out of the ordinary that faith organisations in Singapore have been issuing on a regular basis, official statements on all matters of public policy and social discourse in the recent years. We trace this torrent of statements to their zero point: a decision in 2001 by the Goh Chok Tong government to obtain the consent from various faith leaders before embarking on its life sciences and stem cell research industry.

Out of this need to have religious leaders to speak for their faith communities as part of a "look, I asked them, they didn't object strongly enough" consultation process, certain questionable innovations have arisen, erroneous impressions cultivated, and ambitions stoked.

Like a good old wayang, a series of legal and social fictions (in the sense that corporate personhood is a fiction) must be maintained in this 'consultative' mode of government.

1. Religions have a major say in public consultation (when the government decides they should be consulted, or be made to speak up on certain issues)

2. Religions must receive special legal protection against certain speech (to the point where observers have the impression that religious organisations have a veto over public discourse and public policy)

3. Religious leaders have authority to speak for and dictate the beliefs and attitudes of their faith communities

These fictions, especially the final one, don't seem to be immediately illogical; we expect Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (aka MUIS) to issue religious rulings that orthodox Muslims in Singapore would consider binding.

But does the President of NCCS have the authority to speak for, dictate the doctrinal stand, and issue commands to Christians in Singapore?

And moving further away from the religions of the book... do the statements from the President of a Buddhist Federation or a Taoist Society have any doctrinal, legal, or even institutional authority on self-professed Buddhists and Taoists in Singapore? To what extent do the Presidents of these societies receive the acknowledged leadership and authority from the members of their faith, which they fictionally 'speak for' and 'represent' in Singapore's wayang system of church-state relations?

The Aware saga has shown that certain consultative bodies may not be content with their mere consultative role, and aren't afraid of being seen by the larger polity as muscling their way into public policy and setting the terms of public discourse either publicly, through their 'individual' proxies, or through inaction to control these proxies.

Go to part 2 of this post

The gay agenda

Yesterday, Aware. Today: the United Nations! Dun dun dunnnnn!

Full story here

Kampala - Ugandan Ethics Minister James Nsaba Buturo alleged on Friday that some United Nations member states were engaged in a covert campaign to spread homosexuality around the world.

"At the United Nations there are attempts by some nations to impose homosexuality on the rest of us," he told reporters. "We have learned that they want to smuggle in provisions on homosexuality."

He said he was particularly concerned about an ongoing UN conference on population.

"We got to learn from our sources that there are interests that want to use that conference to bring in issues that will protect homosexuals," he said.

Buturo spoke on Thursday to Uganda's UN ambassador and reminded him of the country's position that homosexuality is "unnatural, abnormal, illegal, dangerous, and dirty".

Disclaimer: This blog post is not meant as a commentary on Thio Su Mien, her takeover attempt of Aware through her G9, or the rhetoric the Thio camp has employed throughout the Aware affair.

Ladies and gentlemen, the homophobic playbook:

1. When members of an organisation plan to introduce provisions on homosexuality that do not outright condemn it as a sin, an abomination, or a practice out of line with the majority: There is a covert agenda to spread homosexuality.

2. An organisation planning to introduce provisions for non-discrimination on homosexuality = an organisation planning to protect homosexuals.

3. An organisation planning to comment, not unfavourably, on homosexuality/homosexuals: clearly acting under the influence of external interests.

Defending the right of Christians to discuss

Do Christians have the right to engage in public discussion and national policy-making?

In what manner, under what circumstances and rules of conduct should Christians engage in public discussion and national policy-making?

Discuss.

The following comes from the bulletin board of a church that shall not be named. Please note this denomination is considered to be socially liberal and theologically quiet in relation to the rest of the mainline denominations in Singapore.

In recent years, there have been many developments in our social landscape that have affected our lives as Singapore citizens and more importantly, as Christian Singaporeans. Jesus calls us to live by kingdom values and to be the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16), as His witnesses, influencing and impacting our society for good, to the glory of God. This mandate, however, is very often privatized, confining to personal religious piety. As a result, many Singaporean Christians are shying away from engaging themselves in the discussion and decision-making process on social issues in the public arena. The recent controversy on sexuality education in our public schools has highlighted the apathy Christians share with the rest of society.

The Leadership Team believes that our call to Christian discipleship goes beyond engagement with Sunday worship and ministry activities. We believe that we need to connect our Sunday proclamation of faith with our practice of faith in the marketplace and public arena.

Therefore, we hereby invite all like-minded Christians, who have a burden or are burdened by the developments in our public policies and social landscape, to come and join us for an informal dialogue session for this purpose.

Update: No, the church from which this bulletin originated is not COOS. It is not a megachurch either. It's not a fundamentalist church either.

An issue of statements I

A statement on the point at issue

I would like to congratulate Constance Singam, new President Dana Lim and her executive committee for their success in retaking Aware.

Thank you, old guard, for remaining steadfast to your principles, for calmly and clearly telling and showing what you stand for.

Thank you, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, Catholics, agnostics and atheists, for showing this was never an issue of faith, for telling us this had all to do with ethics, transparency, respect and diversity.

Thank you, old media, for showing there are some principles that we can all agree to care about.

Thank you, women of every social class and profession, for showing that you care enough about airy fairy ideals like ethics and transparency.

Thank you, mothers, sisters, and daughters, for transcending beyond conservative and liberal labels on Saturday. Thank you for showing that Feminist Mentor and her G9 are more of a religious splinter group than representative of any 'conservative Singapore society'.

Thank you.

Now that you've won, let me point out the road ahead of you.

I understand that Constance Singam and President Dana Lim intend to change the constitution of Aware. For good reason too: the illiberal, unprincipled and surreptitious takeover must never be allowed to happen again. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..."

Please don't declare the war is not over; it's barely begun.

The G9 has resigned, their supporters outnumbered. They remain on the membership rolls of Aware even now. All 762 to 755 of them, which by the way constitutes more than 1/3 of the organisation.

My understanding is that it takes a 2/3 majority to push through a change in your constitution. You do not have the numbers, should Feminist Mentor and her G9 regroup and play the role of "principled opposition". More alarmingly, should Feminist Mentor and her G9 decide to to play it by the book, they have more than the 1/10 membership to push for another EGM. And another EGM. And yet another EGM.

You have won with the support of 1411 members. Please cherish the numbers. Please make an effort to engage them, to sustain their interest in feminism, in helping other women in need.

The price of your victory is eternal vigilance.

If you and your supporters fall asleep, know that the 762 to 755 sleepers will be activated once more. If civil society falls asleep, we know there will be more than 755 sleepers, skilled letter writers, proxies and other minions available to take over their next NGO, push their next not-quite-transparent agenda, raise their next protest.

Remember, remember, the 2nd of May.

Aware's new events management company

Sometime between a week and a month ago, the new Aware exco engaged the services of advertising agency Ape Communications as the event manager of its EGM for today.

From the New Paper:

Aware was informed yesterday afternoon of Singapore Expo's decision to withdraw the venue through its event management company, Ape Communications, and no reasons were given until this afternoon.

'Aware understands that its meeting cannot be held at the Singapore Expo for 'law-and-order' reasons.'

When pressed for more answers, Aware was not forthcoming.

Ape Communications too, declined comment.

So far, no one knows the conditions under which Ape Communications was hired, and how much its services cost.

Several questions arise, because Ape Communications is not an events management company; it's an advertising and branding consultant. Its subsidiary, Ape Productions, was only set up this January as an events company, and headed by one Caine Teo.

Ethics, client confidentiality, and the need to know basis

Though Ape Communications/Productions has been tight-lipped to the press on its role in the Aware saga, Caine Teo's girlfriend hasn't.



From Caine Teo's girlfriend's blog (screencap courtesy of Diodati):

Anyway, because of Caine, I've obtained new and unpublished insight to the whole issue. And all I can say is: "Don't judge until you've got all the facts right. The media is not always neutral."

I pray Saturday goes well.

Implications:

Ape Communications/Productions may have breached a serious code of client confidentiality if Caine Teo has indeed been passing on "new and unpublished insights" to his girlfriend on the Aware issue.

Further questions arise, such as why the new exco appears to have made Caine Teo its confidante and providing insights beyond his scope as an events manager for the organisation.

I welcome the explanations of Caine Teo, Ape Communications, and the new Aware exco on this matter.

Civil society in a secular society

1. Lessons from Aware

Like a pebble thrown into a stagnant pond, the takeover of Aware continues to create ripples in Singapore society. If Aware's previous leaders were caught off-guard, Singaporeans too were caught flat-footed and intellectually unprepared to grasp the real issues at hand.

This has been a learning journey for all of us. If anything, we're learning the value of civil society. By examining our personal moral outrage provoked by the negative example of Feminist Mentor's takeover, we are all rediscovering the unspoken behaviour and fundamentals that nurture civil society and make for a healthy polity.

We are encouraged by the near-unanimous agreement between the blogosphere and the senior editors of the Straits Times on the value of civil society, and how the takeover offends every sensibility we hold about civil society to the point of threatening its very concept, if not its existence.

2. Anger and its solutions

The seething anger on the ground is fed by the realisation that despite breaking every tenet of civil society, Feminist Mentor and her G9 may walk away with the organisation scot-free, unaccountable to its stakeholders, avoiding all sanctions from any legal, state, or even clerical jurisdiction.

Operation Leper prefers to approach the issue this way: As this group of people refuse to play by the rules of civil society, they shouldn't be invited to play the game at all. Operation Leper urges you instead to work towards preventing their appointment to future leadership roles in politics, voluntary/social welfare groups, and NGOs.

Operation Leper does not support efforts to remove these people from their day jobs, intimidate them, or to send threats to them.

If you are angry, do write to them civilly to express your disappointment with their stealth takeover, their unilateral purges during the communications lockdown of Aware, or their short circuiting of civil discussion. Please do not send mail to their personal addresses. Please communicate with them directly, and not with their employers.

Operation Leper has to date issued a total of one boycott call, that of Lois Ng's Studio You Pte Ltd. Sam Ho rightly grasps our intentions: Studio You Pte Ltd is a company owned by Lois Ng. We object on moral grounds to the participation of this entrepreneur's participation in the takeover of Aware, and therefore call for the boycott of this entrepreneur's company and products.

3. That religious issue

Here at Illusio, a decision was taken not to allow discussions about the religious aspect of the takeover; recent developments and revelations have confirmed some of the theories and speculation floating around the rumour vines. The ban is now lifted.

One thing we note with unease is a growing discourse on the blogosphere arguing that religion has no place in pluralistic secular/civil society.

Let's look at what civil society entails again: it is the conglomeration of free, uncoerced human association and its set of relational networks. In a theocratic state, faith-based affiliation would not be an uncoerced human association, and hence not be part of civil society - whereas it will be, in a multi-faith secular society. Similarly in a modern state, the forces of capital are so totalising that they would not be considered part of civil society - whereas the various guilds and free trading cities of the Hanseatic League would be during their day.

Like it or not, religion is part of Singapore's multi-confessional secular society. People have the right to voice their opinions and beliefs, even if these are rooted in religious conviction. Civil and honest public discussion must be encouraged, even if certain speakers in the polity's discussions make their stand through a prism of their personal conviction.

The takeover of Aware and ensuing allegations of churches engaging in an Aware mass recruitment effort may suggest that certain religious considerations and affiliations are on the verge of becoming a totalising force, one that undermines the uncoerced associations and networks of civil society.

Currently, Singapore is a multi-confessional secular state. Its secularism should not be confused with the laïcité system practised in France or Turkey. A trend of the totalisation of religion may push the state to impose laïcité in the polity, to preserve its secular nature. And let me warn secularists and atheists that the experience of laïcité in France and Turkey has not been a happy one at all.