ellis' island

It was a long process, but my name has since been changed to Ellis Ng.

I no longer update this page. Have fun reading the takes I once wrote!

other links:

It's perfectly normal for people your age.

(This is a reference to a joke in 2017, which can be found here.)

You're at the ripe young age of 58. Sometimes you get excited and it's horribly inconvenient - like when you get caught with your pants down, with a scandal or two. 

You've reached the age where you know something about elections and how to have them. Still, they're so embarrassing even though you know you have to have them, to maintain the apparatuses that define you, that make you more of a democracy.

It gets a bit annoying, just to have all your affairs hanging out there. Mortifying even, in an age of social media. It might even feel wrong, too - the hot-headedness of rallies, the heightened emotions and sensitivities, the desire to have one unifying pillar, all packed into a mere 8 days. 

It's a normal thing to have an election and not want one. There's, funnily enough, a little blue pill for that, for people your age, to get you to stop being so worked up.

You know, countries like you are also pretty tired of their elections. Take the grand old country of the United States for instance, who keeps yelling at their elections and saying they're fraudulent. Or Thailand, who just had an election that practically didn't matter. Or Israel, who's had several elections and still remains polarised. Or the United Kingdom, where one vote seven years ago just made things worse for the foreseeable future.

These guys all had elections that really didn't serve to change anything or even made things worse. I think you'd sympathise; it's too hard to go majulah right now. 

Ask your doctor for that little blue pill today!

(The blue pills pictured are estrogen.)

This article was first written on May 2, 2018.

“Do you want to be Opinions Editor?” 

It was half a year ago when that offer was dropped, in the middle of the Newsplex, by a senior who was leaving the campus newspaper. It was a nice gesture, albeit much expected — I had experience writing commentaries in my freshman year, and I continued writing arguments on this very blog, and it was natural that an offer like that would come up. 

It was tantalising. Sure, it would have added to my workload in school; but the title itself seemed like it was something that had to be on the resume of any good journalism fresh graduate. I was the competitive type, someone who just had to gain that edge over my peers.

But I turned it down. 

Crafting opinions is an art, as well as a science. It was something that I could never get a grasp of; the process of research is easy enough, but making a unique perspective is the hard part. 

As a 19-year-old seeking to change something here, it was something that I didn’t understand, as I wrote crappy perspective after crappy perspective, never knowing what my readers really wanted. 

The only thing I had with practice was simply a mastery of the language, something a random student could do by rigorously completing grammar workbooks.

With a blog, I had my own personal stage to perform; to write immaculate jokes about impotency, to complain about nagging aunties, to just be. But with this stage comes this inflated sense of self-worth; this sense that I could change the world.

There’s a cruel truth that comes to most bloggers, to most people who seek to change the world through their opinion, that to some, comes too late — nobody cares.

If that’s not apparent now, in a public mostly content with the status quo, in a public that’s polarised and only lives in their own echo chamber, and in a state that on occasion listens but pretends to do so most of the time, it will never be apparent to you. 

There’s another incident I remember, that happened in the Newsplex in my freshman year.

I had been on a streak of crappy writing in my first stint as an opinions writer. Bad opinions, terrible arguments, with shitty behaviour to boot — jumping the gun with copy editors, being overenthusiastic about my pieces. And I had seen my friends — talented, as they still are — learning to layout the paper and edit it. I wanted that, and told my direct editors about it.

They sat me down one day. One of them asked: “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

If there ever was a time where I felt that I didn’t belong, that my voice was being taken away, that was it. That encounter still ranks as the worst I’ve had in school after four years.

As I see it now, my seniors had a point. Without credibility, without skill, my pieces would just be atas versions of ST’s Facebook comments. 

I’ve slowly built a readership over the years promoting my work on Twitter and Facebook. It’s not that my influence is worthless now; nor that I no longer have the skill. I just think there are more important pursuits than winning arguments.

What truly changed me was the process of journalism; the process of discovering stories, seeking facts, of reporting. I learnt this while writing my final-year project, a longform piece about chronic pain — that what I think is truly the most unimportant thing, compared to the stories of people who have suffered. I learnt this while writing for Mashable, for Mothership. 

And then there’s the process of getting actual stuff done at the cat shelter. Getting your hands dirty, being involved in making change; having more responsibilities and being recognised for your work. I still have some room to grow at Love Kuching, but it has taught me that talk is less of a priority. 

This isn’t to say that personal perspectives and opinions are bad. It is important to win arguments. But I’m more suited to activism and journalism than winning arguments.

Hence this farewell, which is really long overdue. I’m overhauling this domain to better feature my portfolio, and I’m taking an indefinite break from blogging as I begin my new job. 

It’s perfectly normal for guys your age.

You’re at the ripe middle age of 52. Sometimes you get excited, and you get all worked up over various things, like a public holiday spent in the bedroom, but you just can’t get it up and going. 

You’ve reached the age where you know a thing or two, about elections and how to have them. You used to have them a lot when you were younger - by-elections, general elections, and sometimes presidential elections - but it seems that even though you’re incredibly excited to have them again, it just got a little bit too hard.

Maybe it’s the reserved election thing that stopped you in your tracks. You know, you shouldn’t let race be a factor in your elections and whether you have them or not.

It’s a normal thing to not have an election. There’s a little blue pill for that, for guys your age, to get you all worked up again. 

You know, fancy old countries can have elections too. Don’t just look at East Timor or Myanmar, compare yourself to the great grand country of Japan, or maybe France, or Norway.

These guys all have regular elections that don’t serve to destroy the very fabric of their own societies (unless you’re into that; I won’t judge).

Guys like you should really take a chance, so that the next time you get to stand, it won’t be too hard to go majulah.

Ask your doctor for that little blue pill today!

You can’t stop it. Fight for what?

The recent uproar over racist casting in the widely-beloved, Alamak! Award-nominated Ah Boys To Men franchise has gotten everybody’s goat.

The post by Singaporean Indian actor Shrey Bhargava detailed how casting directors for the film franchise about conscription in Singapore told him that they wanted someone who could be a “full blown Indian man.” 

Bhargava later protested, at which the casting director replied: “That’s what we want, and make it funny.”

The actor’s post — which has since gone viral — has sparked an immense debate about racial and identity politics. But not many of us have looked at why the franchise continues to persist, despite its occasionally racist and sexist undertones. 

To look at it proper — you have to see why the film was made. The soon to be four-part comedy franchise has been the dominant way Singaporeans see and perceive National Service.

In 2012, when the series first premiered, the Ministry of Defence was celebrating National Service’s 45th year. It came at a time where there was a huge discussion over what National Service meant to people — when there was a concerted effort to redefine National Service not as something that was necessary, but as something that was essentially a rite of passage. 

"NS has become a universal rite of passage for every male Singaporean, regardless of race, religion or social background,” PM Lee said in October 2012. “[We] have made NS a national institution and a defining part of the Singapore identity.” 

Ah Boys to Men managed to earn $6.18 million domestically — and became the widely-acclaimed franchise we all know and love today. And it’s continued to bring JTeam — Jack Neo’s production house — lots of cash: 

Now Mindef and the People’s Association doesn’t say much, but anecdotal evidence suggests that ABTM is being screened across the island in public viewings and in unit retreats. 

We don’t know if JTeam earns from these public viewings, but there’s one thing we know for sure: that the government, at the very least, approves of these public viewings, and actively promotes them. 

JTeam’s biggest customer in the Ah Boys to Men franchise isn’t really you, the movie-goer. 

It’s essentially Mindef and the People’s Association who are ensuring the long-standing survival of the series, even if you and I and everyone who’s part of this internet connected generation balks at the shitty slapstick comedy that it provides. 

It’s essentially the number of local brands who paid for a product placement spot in the widely-beloved franchise, that have ensured that JTeam, Neo’s production house, will at the very least earn some damn cash:

Bhargava’s complaint gives us insight into how, despite burgeoning complaints and an Alamak! Award nomination, the Ah Boys to Men franchise will continue to survive as it is — a perverse caricature of our multi-cultural and diverse societies. 

So there. I'm too tired. Screw this year.

Not all letters are stupid.

The Mid-Levels Escalators in Hong Kong.

The Straits Times’ readers seem to be on a roll, submitting seemingly outrageous letters to to the editor on a nearly weekly basis. People have been angry over tattoos on young people, Little India’s alleged ‘messiness’ and even dogs in flats. 

So this particular letter, published this morning (”Don't overburden escalators by walking on them”, Dec 21), piqued my interest.

There’s been a bunch of research supporting this particular point, that seems to be lost over the inanity of the 82 words published by Gan Kok Tiong. The ridiculousness over such a trivial topic aside, where you stand on an escalator seems to be a huge debate.

There’s a number of articles that have shown that the Keep Left (or Right) is terrible from an engineering standpoint, even though it is widely accepted escalator etiquette:

1) The engineering standpoint: an SMRT engineer - disgruntled over SMRT’s maintenance practices - writes that frequent escalator breakdowns have been due to the “Keep Left” courtesy campaign

In several expletive-laden quotes, a former SMRT engineer under the pseudonym Jack spoke to theonlinecitizen in July 2015, explaining that a 2003 incident in City Hall that injured three, including a pregnant woman, was the result of ‘uneven wear’. 

Jack claims that the official report was a cover-up, saying:

(The) step chain, the mechanism that moves the steps all became elongated on one side. This forced us to overtension (sic) one side to ensure that the steps remained straight. This caused severe loading and shear stress on the gear box. End result, the sprocket drive key sheared off, causing the escalator to slip backwards by gravity.

Graphic by Elevator World

The article cites trade publication Elevator World as saying that common escalator etiquette such as keeping on the left has resulted in uneven wear and tear on escalator step bands (emphasis added):

Authoritative policies and signage such as “Stand on the right” do not encourage uniform wear in the chains over the width of the machine, because one chain is subjected to a higher force and more wear than the other.

The chains in the step band enable the steps to maintain safe and practical clearances between each other, and between the steps and skirting.

The TOC article does have some flaws - in particular, it being the one-sided view of a disgruntled former SMRT engineer - but it has a few points: without switching escalator directions frequently, wear and tear will become more frequent, and it is incredibly difficult to change nearly 14 years of keeping left. 

2) The efficiency standpoint: A Transport for London trial found that standing on the right halves the capacity of the escalator and increases congestion

Escalators near Montane Mansion, Hong Kong

If you’ve taken the escalator on or off the MRT during peak hours, you’ll often experience the classic human jam towards the escalator - choke points that make for maddeningly slow human traffic. Why can’t people walk faster?

The Transport for London trial, held on November 2015, found that on long escalators, only 40% of commuters would even think about walking up or down an escalator. (People are lazy.) Letting people stand on both sides would allow nearly 28% more people to get on the escalator.

3) There’s also safety concerns - which has led several Japanese companies to make a stand.

East Japan Railway Co.

Even Japan is getting in on it. Over 51 railway operators and airport-related companies came together in August 2016 to encourage people to stand on both sides of the escalator. 

It’s counterintuitive in a country where etiquette is very, very important. The main reason behind the push has been safety. As the Washington Post reports (emphasis added): 

Supporters of walking on the escalator are often passionate about its efficiency. “I don’t have anything in common with people who stand on escalators,” billionaire and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg told the New York Times last year. “I always walk around them — why waste time? You have eternity to rest when you die.”

In Japan, however, the worry is that walking on the escalator could increase your chances of dying. Earlier this year, Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency warned that 3,865 people in Tokyo alone had required hospital treatment for injuries suffered on escalators from 2011 to 2013.

MTR Corporation

And Hong Kong has had the same idea - station announcements exhort people to stand still and don’t walk, and escalator safety reminders are everywhere. Nearly 382 escalator incidents happened in Hong Kong in the first seven months of 2015, according to the MTR. Nearly 43 percent were from people falling because they walked along the escalator. 

So next time you’re rushing - maybe to write a riposte to a silly letter in the Straits Times - remember: not all counterintuitive statements are stupid. 

An emergency media literacy lesson for those who thought ST would write such a thing

Eh you all very childish hor. 

There’s this link going around online that claims that President Tony Tan invited Thailand’s new king (inaugurated yesterday) to Singapore to eat KFC.

Here comes all the memes: 

I mean, seriously lah. how can you all believe that such a thing is true? It would be a good cost-saving measure, definitely, and frankly quite funny, but the joke is as old as Tony Tan’s presidency. 

Newsflash: you can fake headlines on Facebook. All you need is an unpublished page. 

I have one! Here’s a demonstration: 

tl;dr don't be stupid.

Edit: if you need more proof that it's a hoax:

FURTHER EDIT: It appears that the meme started from Sure Boh Singapore. Rude.

Not in front of a generation of prudes.

“You need a very small space to have sex.”

This was the answer to a question the Straits Times posed to Senior Minister of State Josephine Teo: Are young people getting their flats early enough to have children?

Just do it, she proclaims, echoing what the government (and various establishment-linked groups) have screamed at us for nearly two decades now. Stop whining, and just do it.

Of course, Singaporeans had a lot of opinions about that. Who would want to have sex in front of their parents? Besides, the sex wasn’t the problem (there’s always Hotel 81) - the problem was about raising the kid.

But let’s talk about the act itself, given how it hasn’t been widely debated here. (unlike where I am, in Hong Kong, where a LegCo lawmaker told a PolyU student audience that young people couldn’t afford a place to bang)

It’s naturally improbable for young couples to have sex mere metres away from our parents.

After all, our previous generation has been quite prudish - they were the ones who made nudity in public view illegal; the ones that frown upon pre-marital sex and insist on abstinence-only sex education (with a brief, traumatising exposure to STDs) and the ones who are very much deeply conservative.

Our previous generation banned pornography, and is still keeping gay sex illegal.

Our previous generation - which Josephine Teo is a part of - still stereotypes Western European culture as loose and fast (and dangerous), where man and woman can bang on first date. (Hasn’t she looked at Western cultures lately? Doesn’t she know of the three date rule?)

Our previous generation puts young couples in debt over expensive weddings all in the name of face.

My issue isn’t with conservatism in general - people should have the freedom to overly stifle their children with conservative Confucian or Christian values - but with the establishment’s idea that we can still have sex and raise a child in front of a generation of prudes.

Population is a difficult issue - and along with a lack of space and rising property values, it’s hard to imagine the challenges facing Teo’s National Population and Talent Division. But blaming young people - when Teo and her government has repeatedly embodied conservative moral values - shouldn’t be a solution.

In an already underfunded independent news sector, theonlinecitizen - the oldest socio-political alternative outlet, now a one-man show - has been attacked, because it was reporting the news to the best of its ability.

It’s not easy being an online news outlet in Singapore. On Monday (Mar 1) socio-political news site theonlinecitizen was alleged by Minister of Home Affairs K Shanmugam to have gone on an ‘orchestrated campaign’ to attack the Singapore Police Force. The site, which has published 25 articles on the death of 14-year-old Benjamin Lim, was accused of spreading falsehoods - inaccuracies that was taken as a basis of some articles and commentaries. 

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) even had a list of transgressions - published by The Middle Ground - that included the following:

Alleging that Benjamin Lim killed himself because of improper Police conduct;  

Asking questions that were in the public interest, despite an upcoming Coroner’s Inquiry; 

Stating that  Lim was taken to the station by 5 officers wearing Police shirts and interviewed for three hours, when in fact only one officer took Benjamin away; 

Alleging that the MHA was hiding facts. 

Shanmugam said in his speech to Parliament that he refrained from commenting out of respect for the family, to give them time and space to grieve; and because there would be a Coroner’s Inquiry.

The open letter by Benjamin Lim’s family was taken as fact by TOC- partly because the site had not received a official response, but also because those were the only facts available. There were other outlets that took the family’s account as fact as well - The New Paper, for instance, reported that five policemen in plainclothes arrived at the principal’s office to speak to Lim. 

What gives? Did TOC really do something wrong?

TOC opted to advocate.

In a footnote on TOC’s first article on Benjamin Lim, TOC opted to give its opinion

"If the authorities are concerned with protecting minors, the police should consider whether its policies related to the arrest of minors (below age of 16) are appropriate, and in compliance with the UN Convention to the Rights of the Child (CRC), Section 40, 2(b) that Singapore is a signatory to.”

Editorialising isn’t a new phenomenon. Many outlets do it - adding opinion to factual reports, and asking pertinent questions. But not many mix the two together - and this is where TOC is unique. TOC advocates. The site is clear on what it stands for, and is not embarrassed to say it.

Advocacy isn’t new to TOC - in fact, it has been an inherent part of the site, as it is deeply intertwined with independent civil society groups in Singapore. TOC was just continuing with its long-running mission to give the alternative a voice - in this case, the site gave the parents a voice to ask questions in the public interest.

Perhaps opining was the first red flag that the State saw; and perhaps they were unhappy with the opinions in a factual report. But advocacy is not wrong.

TOC opted to anonymise.

In the article highlighting the Facebook post where a parent - Mary Anne Pereira -  stated that her son witnessed Benjamin being taken away by police who were wearing police tee-shirts - TOC opted not to put her on record, even though the site spoke to the parent:

"Note that the comment made by the mother is also posted on the Singapore Police Force’s Facebook page and can be identified for authenticity if members of public are interested.”

TOC also anonymised comments on Facebook, and anonymised contributions from readers.  It is not sure if TOC opted to confirm their identities, but TOC put the burden on verification on the readers themselves.

Anonymity is a tool to protect people from rebuke, and I suppose TOC has its own reasons to continue its editorial policy of anonymity. It has its right to protect its contributors - but it should also opt to protect itself, by verifying anonymous contributions.

In the brief time I spent working as a contributor to TOC, I was told that it was editorial policy to verify anonymous contributors. Even if TOC opted to verify, it should not have put the burden on verification on readers themselves - the ‘ownself check lor’ sidenotes are… just odd, especially in a case where interest is this big.

But TOC is a one-man show.

This is a fact a lot of people have known for quite some time: the core team, who are now prominent in civil society - have left TOC, leaving Terry Xu (above) at the helm.

TOC - gazetted as a political association - had a holding company (The Opinion Collaborative) that cut ties with TOC last year. The holding company was asked to register under the Broadcasting Act by the MDA, so as to regulate TOC’s income.

TOC’s editors have either opted to join opposition politics (like Ravi Philemon, who is now at the Singapore People’s Party) or opted to join other news outlets (like Kumaran Pillai, who is now at The Independent Singapore).

If you ever tried doing everything by yourself - then you might empathise with Xu.

So what does the government want with TOC?

The government seeks to reinforce the idea of a state-building, compliant press, while not using heavy-handed tactics to ban the alternative altogether.

Shanmugam’s public rebuke of theonlinecitizen was in effect an attempt to rein in the growing online news portals that may rival the mainstream, and reinforce the State’s continuing belief that journalists should give deference to authority.

His public rebuke is just one out of many difficulties online media face. The Ministry of Communications and Information does not issue accreditation to most online media and access is rare,

We find ways to adapt. For instance, online media can gain access into courtrooms as members of the public; but we have to wait until the mainstream media gets a copy of official press releases and rulings from the court. When I was a contributor, we used to deliberate if we should ask former NCMP Lina Chiam to ask questions we wanted answered in Parliament.

Yet, the government continues to reinforce this idea of a compliant press. It knows that it cannot ban the alternative because this will happen:

We can have much competition between news sites and journalists, but once one of them acts as a Fourth Estate, the government flips out. This has happened before, to TOC and even the Straits Times. 

The systemic difficulties independent journalists face - on top of difficulties in finding commercial support - have often turned off many prospective writers. For some, advocacy journalism has become a hobby, not a day job - because it simply doesn’t pay for journalists to be adversarial.

We hold a deferent culture towards authority. Questioning authority is still not something Singaporeans do. This is probably why Shanmugam's message stuck.

The government has no need to return Singapore to a conservative, deferent culture - questioning our police is already seen as a bold move.

This is probably why the minister’s statement stuck in the public imagination; this was probably why the public’s attention shifted to TOC, instead of the dead 14-year-old. This is probably why the public has lost sight of the larger issue.

Deference should not be demanded, or bought. It should not be expected - and sites should not be scolded just because they did its job.

TOC did its job - it asked questions in the public interest, and when it was found to be inaccurate, it proceeded to issue corrections.

TOC might be wrong - it might have done better in its editorial policies, in verification, in getting the facts right. And the government might opt to press charges agains them for that, in an attempt to make TOC pay for asking questions, advocating and being adversarial.

The Association United in Eradicating Singlehood (AUNTIES) wanted us to tell you to have children so they won’t feel too alone.

Dear singles:

I am Wan Mun Kidd, the current chairperson of I Love Children, the non-profit that is responsible for the abomination you see above. 

We were planning our next fertility campaign in November last year when a representative from AUNTIES visited our offices. You know, AUNTIES is the group that consists of your nagging aunts, and they conducted a survey that suggested that 75% of your nagging aunts are tired of asking you when you will get married and have a child. They wanted us to remind you that when your aunt was your age, she had already given birth to your two cousins. 

I know, it has been so stressful to see these ads when you go to work. But the representative from AUNTIES was nagging at me and asking me if I was ever going to finish this campaign. She said that 52% of your nagging aunts have been nagging at her and asking ‘Girl ah, when you going to ask I Love Children to actually love children?’. The representatives even asked if members from AUNTIES could come down to our Serangoon office during Chinese New Year, which we had to even though we absolutely did not want them around when we lo hei. (The president of AUNTIES - Tua Gu - is the worst.)

The truth is that we have never really been able to escape from AUNTIES’ clutches. Representatives drop by now and then complaining that the nieces and nephews of AUNTIES are really not having children. It’s not just them, too - it’s the Ministry of Social and Family Development and the $1.4 million we got in 2012 and 2013.

We’re really sorry for the scaremongering. We know some of you are perfectly fine with being alone forever (shit there I was again with the scaremongering) - but our AUNTIES cannot. This is why every time AUNTIES gather with their family they ask you this one question - whether you’ll get a spouse and have children.

They’re also worried that you’re queer. 55% of AUNTIES members, according to the representatives they send to nag at us, are afraid that their niece or nephew is gay. While 10% is perfectly fine with your sexuality, 90% has been vehemently suggesting to the 10% that it is a sinful thing to be gay. Most of them have been led by some pastor. (Some ustaz has an influence on the Malay Aunts Key in Conceiving Kids - MAKCIK. I don’t know. I’m not allowed to comment on religion.)

So please forgive us for pressuring you. Your aunts are probably going to pressure you to have a spouse and children this Chinese New Year. Besides, stress is bad for fertility. (Sorry for the scaremongering again.)

Well, I have to go clean our Serangoon office so Tua Gu won’t nag at us when she comes over. Then I have to exercise so she won’t tell me I’m fat. (Why does she always come over? Does she have family, even?)

To put it simply - actual change does not start with guaranteeing opposition voices

Yay!

This might be the first reaction you’d have when you hear about Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s decision to expand the Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) scheme. 

If you didn’t know - 9 best ‘losers’ (assuming that every Opposition member loses the election) will get a seat in Parliament. The number is reduced by the number of elected Opposition members - we presently have 6, with Workers’ Party (WP) MPs in Aljunied GRC and Hougang SMC - meaning that we will have 3 NCMP seats for the opposition.

The number will be upped to 12 in a review of Singapore’s political system - which is just plain weird, with things like Nominated Members of Parliament and Group Representation Constituencies (which the PM also promised would become smaller when the electoral boundaries come into review).

Here are a few things the Singapore voter needs to take note of despite this change.

A guarantee of 12 opposition members doesn’t mean anything

It may seem enticing - and it will most probably be a line of argument for voting for the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP). But even if 12 opposition NCMPs had full voting rights, the ruling PAP will most definitely still be able to pass bills and change the Constitution (i.e. hold all the legislative power). 

Sure, the opposition will get to say more things and have their views represented, and perhaps get some political experience - but in the short term there will still be no real opposition to the PAP’s policies. To put it simply - opposition voices will not translate into actual change.

Supporters of the scheme would argue that this would allow the opposition to grow, and allow voters to gauge the competencies of the opposition. But as WP chief Low Thia Khiang puts it in an interview with Channel NewsAsia:

“(Even) if Non-Constituency Member of Parliaments had the same voting rights as elected MPs, they are “very different” due to their lack of a local electorate to serve. A party with an NCMP does not gain any advantage or “political muscle”. 

The only few moments I can think of where NCMP votes count would be when:

Ruling party MPs defy their Party Whip

The ruling party breaks apart mid-term and a coalition has to be formed (which would be even less likely than Dr Paul Tambyah’s not-so-secret wish for DPM Tharman to join the Opposition)

These things are virtually guaranteed never to happen.

In addition: the number of guaranteed opposition members won’t translate to power even if only one quarter of Parliament is present for a vote (and all of the opposition members are there):

Even if NCMPs tend to constituents in the seat they want to contest, their parties still won’t have enough power to beat the ruling party’s grassroots network

Some say that the power of the grassroots is what has enabled WP to grow. But the WP - like most opposition parties - still need more resources in order to match up to the ruling party’s grassroots machinery, which has the backing of the State. (The People’s Association is deeply intertwined with PAP grassroots.)

The common complaint that the PAP has - which a lot of the electorate probably subscribes to - is that opposition parties come and go - as former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong puts it: 

Opposition parties come and go like nomads. Nomads will not have an interest in the people's welfare.

Most of the opposition parties do not have the machinery to get their message out - primarily because of the difficulties in raising funds, and a lack of manpower to get the message out. 

In an analysis of the Singapore Democratic Party’s electoral defeat in GE2015 Matthias Ang and I wrote for Mothership.sg, I said that even though the SDP had the support of the alternative media, they could not get their message out to elderly voters - a strong voter base for the PAP. The SDP had began their campaign way earlier than everyone else - before election fever had truly began - and yet they were still probably caught off guard.

Even if opposition parties had the power - they would likely be at risk of ceding it to other parties in horse-trading deals. 

NCMPs don’t have a similar pay - but is expected by the electorate to do most - if not all - of the work that an MP does

A guaranteed 12 seats against a majority would not grow the Opposition - but is likely to show voters the difficulties of being in Parliament, which would be interpreted as incompetence by the ruling party come election time.

NCMPs are currently 15% of a regular MP’s salary, but they would be expected by the electorate to do most - if not all - of the work that an MP does, despite not having a constituency. 

Pay was arguably a factor in Lee Lilian’s rejection of her NCMP seat. “It will not be fair to my future employer to take leave from work every month,” she had wrote after her GE2015 defeat. 

She had earlier become a full-time MP when she was elected during the Punggol East by-election.

Your vote should still be about who should represent you at the national and constituency level

The system of first-past-the-post voting - that entrenches the current ruling party - will definitely stay. But the rules of democracy will still remain - you will still choose. It would be the candidates’ job to convince you to choose them as your representative - and the NCMP scheme should not detract from that. As the Chinese proverb goes: 鱼和熊掌不可兼得 - you can’t get both the fish and the bear’s paw, and you can’t get two MPs with one vote.

People have called the police on Amos Yee and Calvin Cheng for their inflammatory comments. Here’s why that contributes to an immature society.

You can call the police on me for publishing this image. Wait. I actually care. Please don’t.

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UPDATE on October 17, 2020: Amos Yee was charged in the U.S. for owning child pornography, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. I'm including this information at the top on every post (I think there has been up to 3 to 4 of them) that I have written about Amos Yee. With the benefit of hindsight, I think there has been a number of us who would not have defended him as much as we did in the past - and while Singaporean laws curbing and curtailing freedom of speech is still stifling and repressive, the fact that he was once hailed as a cause celebre makes me kinda sick.

After being granted asylum in the United States, Amos Yee has published pro-pedophilia opinions, and has had his Youtube, Patreon, Facebook, Wordpress and Discord server/pages/accounts shut down. He has constantly argued that there is nothing wrong with pedophilia. Free speech has its limits, and Amos Yee has constantly tried to ram through them. We're far beyond the point where we should stop heralding him as a hero that traverses our OB markers.

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Two inflammatory commentators have been on the news in the past week due to... police reports. 

First, came Amos Yee, who inadvertently insulted Islam in a blog post rebuking pro-establishment commentator Calvin Cheng, who also made comments saying that the children of ISIS fighters should die. On Dec 12, Yee was placed under investigation for his comment, which in a nutshell was him reinforcing his atheist beliefs while insulting Allah.

This obviously didn’t sit well with some (including me). Today (Dec 16) the organising secretary of newly-minted opposition People’s Power Party, Augustine Lee Tze Shih, filed a police report on Cheng’s comments.

This is odd.

It isn’t surprising - given the 20 or so police reports turned in after Amos Yee made his infamous comments about Lee Kuan Yew - it’s expected that a nation, who has shown itself to be fundamentally opposed and yet riveted to Yee’s controversy, would react after Yee crossed the same OB marker he had crossed with his anti-LKY comment.

It’s odd because the police has always been seen as the authority - and a last resort amongst disputes between grown-ups. You might hear parents using the authority of the police as a bogeyman (’you don’t behave, I call police!’), but rarely do you ever see people calling the police over people who litter or spit at a public venue; at most, the person will be shamed on STOMP.

In a sense, this culture has been reinforced by the successes angry citizens faced in trying to enforce discipline over Amos Yee. They think that the police is obligated to answer every report on speech that goes beyond the boundaries they uphold.

Granted, the power disparity and privilege enjoyed by Cheng is something we need to deal with. But resorting to authority - in this case, of the rule of law - is representative of an immature society; it means that we are unable to resolve an issue on our own. 

(To make a distinction: the initial appeal to fire Cheng by activists is one that sought to eject Cheng from his seat of power, so we can quintessentially ignore him from our political discourse.)

The same goes with the police report against Yee. It is essentially a request to censor him - perhaps because of the misguided belief that we can’t deal with what he says; perhaps because of a desire to punish him, again; and perhaps because some have tried in vain to ignore the boy and his following.

We need to learn from the lesson offered by Yee’s inadvertent popularity, that resorting to the rule of law often pushes inflammatory commentators into the spotlight. In fact, Yee is manipulating followers and news outlets right now, by giving the impression that he is fleeing from his investigation; while Cheng will probably soon rally his followers by slamming the opposition party member that filed the report. Either way, the spotlight is now on them. 

It’s not surprising there was a petition against Lambert’s performance in our annual countdown concert.

Another episode in the great grand culture war of Asian (or, Western conservative) values versus Western liberalism happened three days ago with a petition calling for Adam Lambert to be taken off our concert countdown lineup.

Lambert’s flamboyance (well documented, according to Mothership.sg) showed “disregard for the values of a majority of family-centric Singaporeans” who want western liberal ideas out of Singapore, according to the petitioners. The idea here was that Lambert’s actions on stage would display “a flagrant disregard for the sensitivities of his audience” - like the time he kissed his male keyboardist.

Of course, this led to several Christian organisations to weigh in - and this soon turned into yet another angry us vs. them war, a war that has had countless episodes dating back to quite long ago, to the time the Singapore Parliament was reviewing the Penal Code. 

It’s not surprising. Regardless of whether they were fundamentally opposed to Lambert’s flamboyance or Lambert’s sexuality, these were still, the same portion of Singaporeans that claims itself as a moral majority (with support from, um, polls).

They also did these things:

Protested sex education that affirmed homosexuality

In a petition/counter-petition similar to what has transpired with the opposition to Lambert’s performance in Singapore, conservative anti-LGBT blogger Aaron started a petition to bring down an FAQ about homosexuality, published on the Health Promotion Board’s website in Feb 2014, claiming that they were providing ‘made-up, non-clinical hypotheses’.

The Health Promotion Board (HPB), in a daring move, recently published an FAQ about sexuality - which received positive reviews online from the LGBT community over the Chinese New Year weekend. Lauded as forward thinking, ‘objective’ and ‘aligned with globally accepted scientific standards’, the FAQ served as “a one-stop resource to provide factual information on sexuality and STI/HIV prevention from a public health perspective” the HPB was reported by TODAY as saying.

The FAQs have also attracted its detractors - a petition asking the HPB to take down the FAQs was launched by Aaron (notably from Homosexuality and Science).

Attempted to set up an opposing movement to Pink Dot

In May 2014, a group of volunteer welfare organisations associated with  Faith Community Baptist Church pastor Lawrence Khong applied to stage a pro-family event at the Padang on 28 June 2014 - the same day Pink Dot 2014 will be held this year:

The event, #FamFest2014 - originally named Red Dot Family Moment 2014 - was cancelled after approval to use the Padang was rejected. TODAY reported a MSF spokesperson as saying that ‘MSF discussed with TOUCH and suggested alternative sites, but it declined.’ An application to the police to hold a permit for the event was withdrawn by the organiser.

#FamFest 2014 was intended to be a concert in the park event, to honour the Pioneer Generation, renew marriage vows and recite the National Family Pledge. The concert in the park concept seems eerily similar to that of Pink Dot, which has a concert component.

Lawrence Khong questioned the MSF’s move to reject the application for TOUCH to hold the event at Padang. “I am… confused by their (MSF’s) position on family,” he was reported as saying.

Eventually, it was a group of Muslims who succeeded in their protest, and they joined in:

Later in June, a group of Muslims, concerned that Pink Dot was being held on the first evening of the holy month of Ramadan, started the Wear White movement.

With 3,342 likes on its Facebook page, Wear White has had quite a number of followers, including Pastor Lawrence Khong of FCBC. 

“I’m so happy that Singapore’s Muslim community is making a vocal and visual stand for morality and Family,” Khong said in a statement. “I am pleased to partner with them in championing virtue and purity for the good of our nation.”

Successfully pulped And Tango Makes Three, a positive portrayal of same-sex parenting based on a true story - of penguins

A member of “We are against Pinkdot in Singapore” posted an email reply from the National Library Board, celebrating a little victory in their pro-family advocacy: 

The National Library Board decided to pulp And Tango Makes Three, amongst 5 others pulled for its not-so-pro-family nature. When questioned about their ‘pro-family’ stance, NLB only said that it was in accordance to MOE and MSF.

(...) I think, honestly, that most of them try to hide their religious agenda; one of the admins of the famed anti-queer facebook group ‘We are against Pinkdot in Singapore’ is FCBC pastor Lawrence Khong.

The books were eventually restored in the Adult section. As of the writing of this post, Khong is no longer admin of We are against Pinkdot In Singapore.

A group of them pledged to wear white until the pink is gone.

Wear White returned for its second year this year, with a sermon at FCBC, and a prayer gathering and talk at HCS Centre. From FCBC’s sermon:

“I want to pray that we will continue to wear white as long as there is pink, and we will wear white until the pink is gone, and even if the pink is gone we will continue to wear white,” Khong said.

Khong added: “My prayer, my dream is that the day will come where in this weekend half or three-quarters of Singapore’s population will be wearing white as a statement of commitment to the family.”

In his sermon, he decried the “homosexual act” as “the greatest blasphemy against the name of God” and said that “a union between a man and woman is the highest expression of the very image of God”.

Documenting the various bits of the culture war we’ve had seems like outlining a conspiracy, which isn’t the purpose of this article. These bits goes to show that this culture war will go on for quite a while, and that peaceful talk - something which I advocated for quite a while ago - will be impossible.

(Illustration derived from Fear, Ignorance mascots, Pink Dot)

Whether you believe that the petition was about Lambert’s flamboyance or something bigger, one thing is for certain: this thing won’t end, for quite a while.

Sure, there is a need for mutual understanding. But given the strong-willed opposition by both sides and the lack of discussion, the only way out for the LGBT community here seems to be one similar to the Supreme Court win over same-sex marriage in the U.S.

But we lost the constitutional fight against 377A:

The Court of Appeal had emphasised that taking on legislative functions would 'efface’ the separation of powers which accords the judiciary its legitimacy. ”(The appellants’) remedy, lies if at all, in the legislative sphere,“ the court was quoted as saying in a Straits Times report.

The petition against Lambert is a little statement that homophobic groups got behind quick - a show of force, to say that ‘you can’t get rid of us, we’re still here’. It’s proof that these arguments and heated tensions can occur not just over a gathering of advocates - but something as simple as artiste and singer choices.

All the LGBT community can do is to fight back - and they only have numbers on their side.

The beef with Calvin Cheng’s comment isn’t what was said - it’s who was saying it.

(illustration taken from Calvin Cheng’s facebook)

For a few days now there has been a war of letters against Calvin Cheng, the former NMP turned establishment socio-political blogger, over a Facebook comment - and a subsequent Facebook post - on killing children.

At least that’s what he titles his response to the controversy over the comment, made in the wake of the Paris attacks. The children in particular - Islamic State child soldiers, and the children of Islamic State soldiers.

The original comment, which Cheng later claimed was meant to be “seemingly provocative and outrageous”, was to a mini-essay by former civil servant Devadas Krishnadas - also in response to Paris.

For some context - Krishnadas was talking about the noticeable silence from liberals after the Paris attacks:

There has been a noticeable silence from liberals in the wake of the Paris massacre. We do not hear the usual cry to abolish the Internal Security Act and the concomitant State power to detain without trial, to abandon capital punishment and to champion freedom of expression.

Where have all the liberals gone? Gone to try quiet places with heads turned away from the nasty reality that there are bad people willing and capable of doing bad things. Really bad. And no amount of high flown rhetoric or rational debate will stay their hand.

To which Cheng commented:

The terrorists are not common criminals, it's not about crime punishment and deterrence. 

They are a mortal enemy intent on killing and destroying. 

So you kill them before they kill you. And their children too in case they grow up to take revenge. 

It's as simple as that. Please don't complicate matters.

It’s an odd stance to defend, but Cheng has gone on to claim a certain amount of logic in this:

From the standpoint of self-defense, I think few would argue that one does nothing when confronted with children (and women) trained and intent to kill.

This already moves the majority away from the morally absolute belief that one should never kill children. 

Cheng goes on to cite CNN reports that documented the child soldiers of the Islamic State:

An entire generation of children under ISIS including their own, have been ‘brainwashed’ to see anyone not subscribing to their ideology as enemies, and should be killed.  They fight like adults and replace the adults when they are KIA.  This leads to a 20 to 30 year problem, especially since “It takes a significant amount of time and money to rehabilitate child soldiers, experts say”.

In the aftermath, emails were sent to the Media Literacy Council, where Cheng is a member. The Council, ironically, was formed to oppose hate speech and cyber-bullying.

Cheng has since claimed that he was a victim of a hate campaign - and he has since turned it into a moral majority/conservative vs. liberal fight.

It’s odd, because he doesn’t see the complexities of terrorism in the Middle East. In short, ISIS is a problem that is too darn complex to talk about - and there’s a mistake in Cheng’s simple distillation that ‘bad guys - and their families - have to die’.

If Cheng was anybody else - the argument might have ended there. But Cheng holds a board membership on the Media Literacy Council.

And this is worrisome.

Not because we’re afraid that that Cheng would spread his ideology of killing the grass at its roots (斩草除根) to the rest of the MLC - but because Cheng is representative of an intolerant right in this country.

Cheng believes in keeping an echo chamber. He believes that freedom is only available through security, that if we are to survive we are to stand up against extremists that differ from him. Any liberal against his views, anyone that thinks differently from his conservative viewpoint, cannot be tolerated, even if his views aren’t exactly politically correct.

Cheng’s comments were offensive, provocative and outrageous. They were intolerant towards the idea that peace can be brokered without bloodshed.

Of course Cheng is free to say whatever he wants. But as a member of the establishment, someone who has made his presence in Parliament, people listen. This is a matter of political correctness; the reaction activists have had isn’t one of hysteria, but one that serves to eject him from the establishment that he has misrepresented.

Because when a man of that stature preaches intolerance, naturally, people won’t stand for it. 

(EDIT: This post was written before Calvin Cheng announced a radio interview on 938Live slated to air tomorrow at 0730 and 1430. It's unfortunate that the debate has now shifted into the a dichotomy of the liberal aggressor vs. the conservative victim, when Cheng was using his influence to push forward the idea of intolerance, simplifying the complexities that is the Middle East into 'kill everyone, children included. It's hoped that at the very least, the people whom Cheng attacked (for not being patriotic enough when Lee Kuan Yew passed) can get to debate him on air as well.

Some potential explanations as to why The Real Singapore, All Singapore Stuff and STOMP have remained popular, despite the things they spread online

A study by research firm Penn Schoen Berland (PSB) found that false rumours is the most annoying Internet habit of all.

47 out of 100 Singaporean respondents told PSB in a survey - commissioned by Norwegian telecom Telenor Group - that their top most annoying Internet habit was spreading false rumours. 

Which makes one wonder - why do we still see misinformation going up online, and why did pages like the now-defunct The Real Singapore (TRS), Straits Times Online Mobile Print (or STOMP) and All Singapore Stuff (ASS) thrive?

I’ve long documented the annoying things these sites do to gain traffic, get advertising and earn money - and long advocated for people to turn away from the scum. Here are some reasons why they’re still surviving:

They break real news, and provide user-generated content.

The Real Singapore and All Singapore Stuff are news aggregators - meaning they take and rephrase news articles from other news websites, often without credit. Along with STOMP, which gets its news from more legitimate sister sites like Straits Times and The New Paper, the sites provide a source of real news for readers.

ASS’ invisible staff writers - who often remain anonymous - have learnt to avoid charges of plagiarism by going into the grey zone that is paraphrasing, but it’s quite obvious that these sites do not have any journalists of their own. Their news updates are often short, and provide no quotes. Bylines are often non-existent. 

They also scour the internet for newsworthy social media posts - often by people who have seen these posts first-hand. Often, posts are sent to them by readers who have a grievance to air.

The ‘Dear TRS’ posts and ASS’ user submissions are a good example of this. The complaints are not fact-checked and often pejorative and racist terms in are allowed. The content is often unedited.

TRS’ successor, ASS, has only once apologised for their editorial mistakes - but only after others called them out on it.  

And though it may be run by anonymous amateurs, it makes some pretty questionable choices (like running a pornographic stereotype of nurses on an op-ed about Singaporeans refusing to be nurses) 

They break weird news

Weird seems to be STOMP’s primary tactic today, with the site moving away from anonymous user content from STOMPers. 

STOMP has cleaned up its work a bit after several controversies, and a widely-shared petition to shut it down. But it still engages in writing Daily Mail-like headlines and user-generated content. Unlike ASS, STOMP relies on journalists from the tabloids for news; these journalists often take the steps to investigate themselves.

For one, the site has its own Citizen Journalism Awards, which incentivises citizens who come across stories to report to them. Netizens vote on a poll on the website on the story they deem should receive the award.

Weird news is also often the staple of ASS’ work - though, as outlined above, it often relies on user-generated content to attract readers.

People simply can’t tell what rumours are

I hate suggesting that people are dumb, but this really seems to be the case, as the number of people who spread the rumour that Singapore will be on a national security lockdown suggests. 

Fact is - rumours don’t announce themselves as rumours; they sometimes package themselves as facts and quotes from believable sources. Take our viral misquote of Putin yesterday for example: people widely believed it due to Russian state media’s constant portrayal of their leader as strong and masculine, leading everyone to believe that he was that badass.

The national security lockdown rumour was also based on the fact that Singapore was on ISIS’ target list and that our security really was tightened after Paris. Thus it was believable that we would have a lockdown of sorts.

Misinformation is thus spread very easily. When theonlinecitizen reported in 2013 that prize-winning film Ilo Ilo had been refused MDA grants, people lapped up the misinformation, as most of TOC’s readers had a strong belief that the government was up to no good. Similarly, outrage from now-defunct TRS’ rumours about Filipinos starting a scuffle at this year’s Thaipusam led to the claim going viral. 

We only know after the rumour has been spread that we’ve been tricked. Perhaps this is why people hate rumours so much - we can’t tell if we’ve been tricked into sharing something false.

Well, what now?

It’s important to understand the reasons why sites spread rumours without checking. For ASS and TRS, the end-goal was often to make people outraged about what the government was doing, and to destabilise the current hegemony, as I wrote in a blog post this year:

Literary critic Gwee Li Sui - who fervently warned about The Real Singapore when it was alive - recounted an online conversation he had with a supporter of the Temasek Times.

“(…) A commenter soon responded by saying that I had misunderstood their goal. Hate, he pointed out, needed to be fanned so that the Gahmen would bother to listen to Singaporeans.

What he then went on to say was chilling. He argued that, to reach that end, some people would always need to be blamed and, for that blame to stick, lies would have to be told. He explained that, while he was no xenophobe, yet the end justified the means, and he was truly sorry to those he would scapegoat.”

STOMP’s reasons can be arguably simple - simple economics would suggest that outrage pays. This is something I understand as an online writer - outrage brings in the bacon, as people become so angry they have to say something about it.

We should harness our hatred of rumours - and rumour-mongers - by perhaps committing to unfollow and blog people who share trash, and educating readers to be more critical and discerning.