The Anti Neo-Democracy Theorist

As more Singaporeans work, live and study abroad (and if the right to vote will be extended to all overseas Singaporeans), will the phenomena of political leaders, like that of the Polish opposition leader campaigning overseas, appear?

BBC News

Polish opposition campaigns in UK

The leader of Poland’s main opposition party, Donald Tusk, is campaigning in the UK and the Irish Republic ahead of a election in Poland in October.

Three years after Poland’s 2004 accession to the European Union, it is estimated that more than one million Poles now live in Britain.

Their votes could be crucial in what is expected to be a close general poll.

Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, called the vote after his conservative coalition government collapsed.

Mr Tusk, who heads the pro-business Civic Platform (PO), has been canvassing in a supermarket in London, where he met Polish workers and picked out Polish products from the shelves.

(more…)

The last few days have been interesting. Talking to Burmese student and a professor on campus has led me to understand more fully on what is happening in Burma the last few days.  For example, I learn that if you observe the videos carefully, you will notice that “soldiers” who are shooting are wearing slippers while the police are wearing boots. This shows that these soldiers may not be professional soldiers but hired thugs. I also learn that some of the soldiers don’t even speak Burmese - reminiscence of how China brought in soldiers from Inner Mongolia to quell the dissent in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

In addition, I learn that many members of the bureaucracy are accelerating their “work-slow” strategies to resist the state. Also, there might be a possible split in the military ranks, precipitating talks with Aung San Suu Kyi for a peaceful solution to the problem.

Talks of a split in the military ranks, military generals willing to speak to Aung San Suu Kyi as well as greater action by regional bodies have provided some hope in this most grisly affair.

I applaud Foreign Minister Yeo for speaking up against the regime in the capacity as the chair of ASEAN. It is nice that the most liberal minister in our cabinet is getting his way on the issue.

The fact is, people are dying in Burma, monasteries are being demolished, bullets are being fired at ordinary people and in a sociological sense, the cosmology has been completely inverted.

I wonder if the Singapore government would ever had the guts to impose sanctions on Burma. The government should be more clear on its involvement with Burma and take appropriate decent action.

 But in life, is the little people, the ordinary citizens, the average worker that is trampled upon.

Although S. Korea, Philippines, Taiwan  and Indonesian transition to democracy also provides a positive inspiration for this situation.

Is this reported in the English press?

12年来最高　上月通胀率达

我国8月的通货膨胀率升至12年来最高，统计局的最新数据显示，8月的消费价格指数（CPI）与7月相比增长减缓到0.3％，但和去年同期相比则增长高达2.9％，7月份为2.6％。

花旗集团经济师蔡学敏表示，这个年比的涨幅比预测高出0.1％。他认为，今年7月消费税（GST）的上调仍是涨幅背后的主要原因，除了服装和教育与文具外，其他消费品价格指数的年比增长都较月比增长来得高。

在消费价格指数中所占比重最大的食品价格较7月上涨了0.4％，比去年同期则增长了3.3％，这主要是由于熟食、鲜鱼、蔬菜和猪肉的起价。

比重居第二位的交通与通讯的价格指数比7月上升0.5％，年比增长达3.4％，油价和车价的上涨一起造成了指数的上升。

房价指数则基本与7月持平，略增0.2％，较去年同期上升1.1％。家庭耐用品价格和租金的上涨带动了指数的上升。

消闲与其他和保健的价格指数分别比7月略增0.3％和0.2％，年比增长则分别为4.4％和6％。教育与文具成本则因为个人电脑的跌价而较7月略降0.1％，不过年比仍增长1.7％。服装与鞋类成本增加1.5％，年比略增0.8％。

今年前8个月的平均消费价格通货膨胀率为1.3％。金管局已于上月27日把今年的通货膨胀率预测从0.5％至1.5％调高为1％至2％。

蔡学敏表示，随着租金和电费的攀升，预计房价指数会继续上涨；另外巴士车费的起价和油价的上升将推动交通价格指数的增长。他指出，明年金融管理局缩紧政策的可能性会增加。

(more…)

Is the silence from Singapore officials and even ordinary Singaporeans deafening?

ASEAN under pressure to act as Myanmar protests mount

19 hours ago

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Southeast Asian nations have long been reluctant to confront their reviled neighbour Myanmar, but as protests mount in Yangon, observers say they risk losing credibility if they fail to act.

In the 10 years since it joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Myanmar has proved a major headache for the budding democracies of the region, who have been admonished by the west for failing to press for reforms.

“By any normal global international standards, ASEAN hasn’t done much. I suspect many of the policymakers in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore or Jakarta or Manila will admit to that,” said Hiro Katsumata from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

“But this is not surprising because ASEAN needs Myanmar more than Myanmar needs ASEAN,” he said, adding that the region feared the resource-rich nation could turn its back on the grouping in favour of closer ties with China.

In the face of the bravery of more than 100,000 people who stood alongside Buddhist monks in the streets of Myanmar’s biggest city on Monday, regional governments are now facing loud calls to show their support.

“ASEAN can obviously do a lot more — it’s just a question of whether they want to. And with this internal protest and defiance of the people, it would be shameful if they kept quiet,” said Malaysian lawmaker Zaid Ibrahim.

“They should use all their diplomacy and power and influence to pressure the regime,” said Zaid, president of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Caucus, which was formed in 2004 to push for democratic reform in Myanmar.

Zaid said he was sure that although the ruling generals had not yet done anything to halt a week of street protests led by the revered monks, they would eventually “hit back” and that lives would be lost.

“I would expect some severe reprisals and crackdowns and more brutality from the regime. I think this is inevitable and I think the people of Burma know this and I hope they will not be deterred by it.”

So far there has been little response from regional governments except the Philippines, which said Monday it wants to see democracy flourish in Myanmar.

(more…)

It is interesting that the ASEAN secretary general, who is a Singaporean and former aide to SM Goh, urging the Burmese government not to crack down on the protests in Rangoon.

BBC News

Burma march largest in 20 years

Burma’s largest anti-government protest in nearly two decades has taken place in the former capital Rangoon, led by Buddhist monks and nuns. Up to 20,000 people took to the streets on the seventh day of protests calling for an end to the “evil dictatorship”.

Unlike a day earlier, police barred a group of monks from entering the road that leads to the home of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The rallies began last month when the government doubled fuel prices.

BBC South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head says every day the protests are growing in size - the campaign the monks began just six days ago is now openly challenging the military, urging all citizens to join in.

A huge column of demonstrators made its way through the heart of the city, following an identical route to that used during the failed anti-military uprising in 1988.

There are no exact figures but the rally was estimated to be 20,000 strong.

Our correspondent says the mood was relaxed, even euphoric, with thousands of civilians joining Buddhist monks and nuns, and chanting the key demands of this campaign - reconciliation with the opposition, the release of political prisoners and lower prices.

Apparently unsure what to do, the security forces appear to be standing back for the moment and the next act in the drama is impossible to predict, says our correspondent.

Speaking on the sidelines of a UN meeting, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said America was “watching very carefully” the protests and denounced Burma’s “brutal regime”.

“The Burmese people deserve better. They deserve the right to be able to live in freedom, just as everyone does.”

The head of regional grouping Asean, Ong Keng Yong said he hoped the Burmese authorities would not take any strong action “and turn the protests into a big confrontation”.

(more…)

Interesting article from TODAY - My questions; what exactly constitute a civil society in Singapore today? Does dependence and co-mingling with state powers necessarily create less credible “intellectuals”? Is the process of civil consultation just as important as obtaining the results from a civil society action? What about the decline of certain civil society organizations in Singapore?

But dialogue with public is crucial, says think-tank researcher
Sheralyn Tay
sheralyn@mediacorp.com.sg

PUBLIC protests in Singapore are rare, but this particular one held last month was rarer still: A hodgepodge of toy robots, superheroes and aliens, together with a handful of anime fans assembled at the Youth Park, to protest against anime distributor Odex.

The police turned up, with four anti-riot vans, but nobody was arrested, although names and videos of the protest were taken.

In a way, the event is a microcosm of the state of civil society in Singapore, according to Dr Gillian Koh, senior research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies.

Ordinary citizens seem to get away with more than political party members.

Citing another example, Dr Koh pointed to the elections period last year, during which the Singapore Democratic Party was made to remove its audio files and podcasts on the web.

“(But) ordinary citizens … got away with whatever they put up (online) — civil society discussing politics,” she said at a forum last week on leadership transitions in South-east Asia and the impact on civil society.

Civil society groups in Singapore are also making their mark. Extra-territorial laws to target sex offenders, rest days in the employment contracts for maids and amendments to the law for spousal rape are some examples of their success.

Although, noted Dr Koh, these are also areas where international scrutiny and pressure is greatest.

So, is this the vibrant civil society Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke about during his swearing-in speech, posed Dr Koh, or a “carefully-managed civic society”?

There have been instances where she thinks the “light touch” approach has not been so light, for example, the Martyn See film Zahari’s 17 Years, which was banned, and forums like ‘Sexual Orientation in the International Law: The Case in Asia’, which was refused a licence. But some leeway has been given, she said, a view echoed by former Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts director and Member of Parliament Baey Yam Kheng.

“Certainly it has moved on … with regards to the arts scene, it’s more progressive now,” he said, and cited recent theatre performances that have explored a number of sexually-orientated plays such as 251 and Asian Boys.

In a way, said Mr Baey, allowing limited explorations of some “so-called undesirable” subjects points to the growing maturity of society.

(more…)

Update:  USA TODAY had a Sept 12 article on the Changing USA in which the census shows that 15 million American drivers go to work by 6 a.m., 18.9 million Americans are considered “house poor” and the “globalized/booming/divergent” economy is taking a significant toll on family life in the United States.  Will Singapore become like that? Or have we already cross such a threshold? How can we call ourself a functional society then? Or is functional merely a function of dollars and cents? How about “dollars and sense” instead? 

This survey below confirms not only the upswing of the Singapore economy for knowledge-holders, aka university graduates in Singapore, but also represent an increasing overt interest of young Singaporeans towards purchasing opportunities to purchase even more. In a sense, the increasing participation of these graduates directly into the financial sector might also augmented the power base of political elites in Singapore - the deep alliance between foreign, local banks and powerholders in our polity.

What are the consequences of so many of our young man and women joining the banking and finance industry. Let’s do a thought experiment here.

1) Banking and Finance requires enormous amount of time from its participants. It is not unheard of for people to work 18 hours in Singapore. Some work American or European times.

2) Will the lack of time mean lesser quality time with family and friends - posing deep challenges to the fundemental fabric of Singapore society?

3) Will it also mean the lowering of marriage and birth rates correspondingly?

4) Moving to a “civic/civil society” discourse, how many of these university graduates - articulate, wordly and let’s say “liberal” as they may be - participate in some form of public discourse on the future of Singapore? Any time for public service, even if you throw millions of dollars at them?

5) Is a society that is based on digits and efficiency going to move more into such a direction that prides itself on extreme figures analysis? Will the debate between humanism and economic efficiency have less resonance among graduates in Singapore in the future? Will finocrats replace technocrats?

6) Will the gulf between the elites and ordinary people widen as the minimal interactions that they will have with each other cause future misunderstandings?

7) Will religious and societal organizations become even more money-minded?

Isn’t there a consideration among young Singaporeans in understanding the trade off between money, personal time and job satisfaction in Singapore?

Most university graduates prefer to work in banking, finance sector: survey
By Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 12 September 2007 1654 hrs

SINGAPORE : Most entry-level university graduates in Singapore prefer to look for jobs in the banking and finance sector.

They include even those doing engineering and other non-business studies.

This is according to an online survey of 2,835 entry-level graduates across the three main local universities.

The 2007 JobsFactory Employers of Choice Survey found that seven out of the top 10 preferred employers were financial institutions.

The most popular private sector employer was Citibank, followed by Credit Suisse First Boston, with Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan & Chase tied in third position.

Barclays Capital Global Services came in at 6th position, Merrill Lynch at 7th and Goldman Sachs at 10th spot.

Local banks were not rated as highly as their foreign counterparts. DBS Bank was at the 14th position, UOB 29th, and OCBC 43rd.

Last year’s top employer, Singapore Airlines, lost to the banks to take 5th position.

Meanwhile, oil companies ExxonMobil and Shell were placed 8th and 9th respectively in the overall rankings.

When asked what makes an employer of choice, the respondents cited “good career growth and opportunities” and “values its people” as the top two criteria.

This was followed by “attractive pay, bonuses and other monetary compensation”.

(more…)

 Some People Can Cycle, while others can’t

Some people can be Singaporeans, while others are second class blue citizens

Some people think they are white, but in a country like Singapore, what is white and black anymore? 

200 cyclists, bladers raise S$400,000 for charity
By Dominique Loh, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 09 September 2007 2112 hrs

SINGAPORE: More than 200 cyclists and bladers helped to raise about S$400,000 for charity over a 400-kilometre stretch from Malaysia to Singapore.

The journey, which began in Singapore, took the participants to Mersing and Desaru.

Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan joined in the return leg back to Singapore on Sunday.

Several Members of Parliament also participated in the final lap from Changi to the HarbourFront Centre.

(more…)

Martin Luther King Jr.

- In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

 

(more…)

Dr Yap of IPS had a great article in TODAY on the recent changes to legislation by the government for the aged in society.