SG presidential elections: considering Mark's observations

 (The following is eds consideration of Mark's earlier article - thoughts on SG presidential elections - due to the ‘chong hei’(long-winded) nature of this response, i decided to publish it as an article instead of a ‘comment’)

Hey ho Mark,

Very astute and empathetic observations Mark.  I'm glad to have your observations that can only add more value to this largely unexplored (by local 'democrats', 'socialists', bloggers, 'opposition') issue.  Your concrete examples of what this or that Tan said or didn’t say is certainly helpful as my own focus is on the meaning of the overarching affair.  Hence, your input is certainly invaluable.

Thoughts on SG presidential elections, by Mark

The following are thoughts by a (exceptionally atypical) singaporean Chinese friend of mine, Mark (pseudonym), on the racial bias of the SG presidential elections. Read on. Learn from.

Hey bro,

Thanks for the article (a2ed: No to a Chinese President for Singapore). You're quite right that the president is going to be quite empowered given that the candidates have been discussing about local issues. However, it isn't surprising that they have not discussed about issues pertaining to the minority ethnic groups in details. Tan Jee Say promised that he'd speak up for the Malay rights, but he did not talk about what he was going to do to fulfill his promise. Like Tan Jee Say, Tan Cheng Bock promised that he'd promote multiculturalism without saying much on how he was going about doing it. As usual, this is the oversight that the "opposition" groups have not been aware of. This itself is good enough for me to cast a spoilt vote on the ballot paper, like what I did yesterday. What I did was to write a "No" on every box on the ballot paper. I almost wanted to write a statement above the bold line saying that "I would not validate elected presidency system as this would potentially undermine the essence of democracy".

No to a Chinese President for Singapore

(The following is a comment in response to my chinese friend, Mark, in a previous post.  It has been elaborated upon below.)
Hey Mark,

I think i ought to make a correction to my earlier statement - about the president just being a figurehead.  Well, it seems from what i've been reading on some SG blogs - I told you earlier that they were informative didn't i;) - that they have already ceased to be figureheads.  The fact that they can debate issues that are quite controversial shows that the presidency, from hereon, or at least for now, is going to be pretty empowered.  Even if they aren't able to make much changes, the fact that they can debate as they do at least indicates that they can potentially be at loggerheads with the government, and, most importantly, influence public opinion.  So that's a good thing, democratically speaking.

Why ed supports Gaddafi

We talk about the colonial period as if it was in the past.  And at the end, the more astute and non-self absorbed amongst us will realise that the amount of wealth and power accumulated through the colonial period of the past through the pillage and plunder of the world by the western elite simply enabled them to upgrade to a new phase of colonialism.  You can say that administration and exploitation has been ‘outsourced’ to the elite amongst the natives of ‘previously’ colonised lands. 

in brief, why ed is not bothered with the ‘singapore’ presidential elections

comment, as posted on ‘sgpolitics : A Tan Jee Say presidency would benefit singapore’

ed:

Another chinaman.  No thank you.  What next? "Singapore is not ready for a non-Chinese president"?  All that this does is to further reinforce the self-absorption amongst the 'we are majority what!'  Before we say 'race shouldn't matter', we have to have a truly mutlicultural state.  If the latter is not true, the former just reinforces the notion, 'other races and cultures don't matter.  Not surprisingly, you don't realise that either.

postscript: by 'chinaman', i refer not to the chinese, but to those who do not deem anything besides as relevant. Hence, i paint them with one brush because they use nothing but calligraphic ones to appreciate reality.

Before we say 'race shouldn't matter', we have to have a truly mutlicultural state. If the latter is not true, the former just reinforces the notion, 'other races and cultures don't matter.  And in that, a 'Tan Jee Say' or any of the above presidency, benefits only those who've learnt to appreciate advantage as the right of the majority.

related article : wherefore art thou Malay President?


ed

Wherefore art thou Malay President?

racist curry case: Sg Chinese support of Indian family hypocritical

I was chatting with ‘V’ (sg Chinese girl working in the UK) over a cup of Mocha this morning in town, and the topic of the perspectival affray between MPs, Viswa and Shanmugam, and local chinese support of the Indian family, with regards to the ‘curry case’ came up.

V herself immediately stated that the chinese are just attempting to drum up local all-race support for the xenophobic tendencies of many chinese bloggers and ‘netizens’.  To this, I had to add, “given the host of policies and popular tendencies that have severely affected the interests of the non-Chinese, and the silence of both ‘netizens’ and bloggers alike, their support for the Indian family is nothing short of gross hypocrisy.”

Why ‘Singlish’ is actually Chinglish

'Singlish'

It is an amalgam of words from various languages.  Yes.  But what is ignored is that most of the non-Chinese words in the language was included in the past - 70s, 80s, and not the present. 

The Singlish of today has a greater Chinese-English mix than Malay-indian-Chinese mix.

The Singlish that is supposed to be evidence of a fusion between cultures is actually an accommodation of Chinese styles of thought and speech even though it contains words from different languages.

The cost of getting rid of Corruption...India, Singapore, America, etc

Whilst tens of thousands are coming out across India in support of anti-corruption activist Hazare, I couldn’t help but wondering about the nature of 'corruption'.  (bbc: India Corruption)

One thing I have to give credit to the Chinese elite, i.e China and Singapore, is in how they come up with innovative ways to legalise corruption and extortion.  What do i mean by ‘legalising’ corruption?

The experience behind the Beatles’, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’

I looked at the comments on Youtube, and they ranged from George Harrison 'looking like Jesus’, to ‘what a great song this is’.

The causes of the UK riots, in a nutshell

It’s not just poverty that caused the UK riots.  It’s a system that breeds greed, the desire for immediate gratification, consumerism, gaining at the expense of others, and mutual alienation that is responsible.

Within such a system, the further down the class hierarchy you are, the less opportunity you’d have to legally loot and deprive others of their intellectual and tangible property in order to make a ‘success of yourself’. 

Singapore racist ‘curry case’ ‘mediation...and are the local chinese really singaporean?

todayonline:

Case 1: A family, who had just moved here from China, had resorted to mediation because they could not stand the smell of curry that their Singaporean Indian neighbours would often cook. The Indian family, who were mindful of their neighbour's aversion, had already taken to closing their doors and windows whenever they cooked the dish, but this was not enough.

"They said: 'Can you please do something? Can you don't cook curry? Can you don't eat curry?'," said Madam Marcellina Giam, a Community Mediation Centre mediator. But the Indian family stood firm. In the end, Mdm Giam got the Indian family to agree to cook curry only when the Chinese family was not home. In return, they wanted their Chinese neighbours to at least give their dish a try.

uk riots: Starkey, ‘whites have become black’. ed, ‘thank god for that!’

So this historian, David Starkey, told BBC’s ‘Newsnight’ that ‘the whites have become black’ and hit out at ‘the destructive, nihilistic gangster culture’ that has influenced the whites, and thus contributed to the rioting in the UK. 



So have the ‘whites’ become ‘black’, or ‘more black’.  Yes.  Quite.  But where this silly bloke Starkey thinks its a bad thing, ed knows its a good thing. 

video, ITV interviews London rioters

<

comment on youtube

Singapore Heart Centre jumps on the bandwagon persecuting Beguia

source: asiaone

And as is the case amongst most chinese, they have taken it out of context.

To all foreigners, please note, the confucianised chinese are a ‘face value’ people.  Metaphors, double entendres, etc, is lost on them - and which is most evident in daily conversations, and in their 'witty' productions.  If it can’t be made sense of immediately, they’ll either just ignore it, or take the most obvious of what you said - an information-processing tendency that further reinforces racist and xenophobic inclinations.

Filipina gets trashed by dim-witted confucian gits in singapore

ed’s comment on the fascist-scum site, Temasek Review, goes,

You dimwitted xenophobic twats have a lot to say about what Beguia said, but just about bugger all to say about the racist and xenophobic shite posted by the other commenters on facebook.  Is it any wonder that she takes on the tone she does.  What she said wasn't right, but what the other commenters said wasn't either.  All you xenophobic twits ought to be shipped back to china, regardless of race, or 'native born' status.  They love 'same same' over there.  What sort of parents do you people have man. 

Oi Beguia, you shouldn't be apologising given the racist, xenophobic shite you had cast on you as a result.  If they took issue with your points and nothing besides, then yes.  Apologise.  But if not, your irrational comments serves to simply allow the illustration of the racism-xenophobic-apathetic nature of the rest of these confucianised singaporean gits. - TR

‘Axe rioters benefits’?! Further victimising victims.

“The most signed e-petition on the No 10 website is one calling for convicted rioters to lose benefit payments.

"No taxpayer should have to contribute to those who have destroyed property, stolen from their community and shown a disregard for the country that provides for them," the petition argues.
It had more than 90,000 signatures at 6am and will be referred to the backbench business committee of MPs if it gets 100,000 signatures. - bbc”

If Willy boy, or ‘prince’ william to lesser minds, was to be involved in the rioting and looting, i’d say, yes, axe the git’s benefits. 

London’s Burning

Comment, as posted on the BBC:

“I wonder why ‘Prince’ William and his bro, etc, aren’t joining in the rioting and looting” - ed

Racism and Xenophobia in the BBC...and Ed’s Law

I was surprised to see the comment above given the ‘Editor’s Pick’.

Mr Bean Goes to Hospital....yawwwwn

"Actor Rowan Atkinson is taken to hospital with a suspected shoulder injury following a crash involving his McLaren F1 super car." - bbc

Most might be focused on poor Rowan and his suspected shoulder injury. Suspected? And that's news?

My focus, unlike the mindless celeb-worshippers out there, was not on his 'suspected shoulder injury', but his 'McLaren F1 super car'.

UK legalising 'dvd-ripping'

'Not very good law'

Millions of people regularly convert movies on DVDs and music on CDs into a format that they can move around more easily, although most do not realise that it is technically illegal.
"The review pointed out that if you have a situation where 90% of your population is doing something, then it's not really a very good law," said Simon Levine, head of the intellectual property and technology group at DLA Piper.

Business Secretary, Vince Cable: "We've got to bring law in line with reality"

Legalising non-commercial copying for private use would bring the UK into line with many other nations and also meet the "reasonable expectations" of consumers, said the government.
- bbc

Is backing up Dvds right?

points to ponder....

Is it right to backup your Dvds?

points to ponder....

With the introduction of digital media players like WDTV, it would be space-saving to store dvds without the dvds wouldn't it.