I dont like Trump. But voters know what they are getting. No deception. No hypocrisy.
Against LKY who wooed my community by subterfuge, wears the ‘songkok’ and visited the mosques and championing meritocracy but acted against it.
Cozened a whole generation into believing equality for everyone. So in this aspect, Trump anytime. Better the devil we know than the devil we dont.
Source: Khan Osman Sulaiman
The Republic’s founding Prime Minister, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, will be conferred one of Japan’s highest awards in recognition of his contributions towards ties between the two country.
The conferment of the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers will be backdated to Mar 23 last year, the date of Mr Lee’s death.
In reply to media queries on Wednesday (Feb 3), the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said they were “deeply honoured and appreciate the Japanese Government’s decision to confer the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers to the late first Prime Minister of Singapore Mr Lee Kuan Yew”.
Established in 1888, the Order is usually conferred upon eminent statesmen, former prime ministers and senior cabinet ministers, diplomats and judges. It may be also be conferred posthumously, and is the highest regularly conferred honour in the Japanese honours system.
The Order is in recognition of Mr Lee’s contributions “to the development of relations between Singapore and Japan over several decades”, said the MFA.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
Dressed in a black T-shirt and khaki shorts, Amos Yee cut an unassuming figure when he showed up at the Singapore State Courts on 17 April.
The 16-year-old was facing serious criminal charges – some of which he would be convicted of on 12 May. They were of wounding religious feelings, harassment and posting obscenities. But the teenager breezed past reporters, munching a banana.
This is Amos, the enfant terrible who has fascinated and infuriated Singaporeans ever since he was arrested in March over a Youtube video.
To his mother, he is just “different”, a child born in the wrong place. But to many others he is seen as the boy who dared to insult Lee Kuan Yew.
On 23 March Singapore lost Lee Kuan Yew, the deeply respected former prime minister seen as the country’s founding father.
Days later, Yee posted his video, titled Lee Kuan Yew is Finally Dead! – becoming one of the few Singaporean voices openly criticising Lee’s legacy.
He likened Lee to Jesus Christ, and criticised Christians in general, a serious crime in a country which has seen race riots in the past and takes a zero-tolerance approach towards insults of race and religion.
Later, he posted a crude cartoon depicting Lee having sex with Margaret Thatcher, a personal and political ally of Lee’s.
At least 30 people lodged police reports; he was swiftly arrested and charged.
Since then, Yee has attracted insults and death threats.
But he has also earned praise and support from those who see him as a free speech advocate.
Several strangers stepped up to act as his defence lawyers and post bail. A local humorist started a campaign calling for leniency with a blog post titled Je Suis Amos.
Another blog detailing his quirky outfits went viral, as did jokes about “Famous Amos”, referencing the US cookie brand. Dozens held a vigil on the eve of the verdict.
Sociologist Tan Ern Ser said some may have agreed with him but disapproved of his “show of disrespect”, while others marginalised by Lee’s policies were “inclined to see someone who dares to openly speak up against the system as a kind of folk hero, and worthy of praise”.
Yee’s mother, Mary, told the BBC that her son was “a fantastic child, perhaps born in the wrong country”.
She described him as a precocious boy who loved reading and making videos. He won awards in a short film contest and acted in a local movie.
But he cut short his studies, and in a blog described how he struggled to fit in at school, where he had few friends.
The media has seized upon the fact that Mrs Yee took her son to see a psychiatrist after he posted his video. But his mother insisted that it was just a health check, and that the test results were “fine”.
Perhaps one reason Yee has become the object of deep fascination is his utter lack of remorse.
In recent years, Singapore has seen several people torn apart online for offensive posts. Faced with public fury, these people without exception have apologised,gone into hiding, or even left the country.
In contrast Yee broke bail spectacularly by not only reposting his material but also unleashing a torrent of Facebook and blog posts criticising his bail conditions. He pleaded not guilty to his charges during his trial.
Such unrepentant insouciance, and the fact that he insulted a founding father, may have tapped into a recurrent anxiety among Singaporeans that a younger generation, having known only prosperity, takes the country’s stability for granted.
This may be why the slapping of Yee on 30 April by a stranger, as he arrived at court, drew not just shock but also approval in some quarters.
Many denounced it as vigilantism, and the attacker jailed for three weeks, also being publicly condemned by the law minister.
But Singapore remains a place where corporal punishment is still seen by some – including the state itself, which sentences people to caning – as an acceptable form of discipline.
The 49-year-old attacker argued in court that he only slapped Yee because as an elder, he wanted to teach him a lesson.
There were those who thought “it’s about time the boy got his comeuppance”, while some did not condone the violence “but they’re still gleeful that [the attacker] did what they have an urge to do themselves if they could or had the guts to”, noted one blogger.
The state made it clear that it was prosecuting Yee for his remarks about Christians, not his criticism of Lee – a harassment charge for his anti-Lee comments was dropped.
But it was those Lee comments which sparked the most public anger.
Many Singaporeans accept Lee was a controversial figure, and comments criticising him are not new. At any other time, an anti-Lee rant by a teenager may have at most caused weary eye-rolling or jokes.
But when Lee died, the city state saw an unprecedented wave of emotion overcome its normally stoic citizens, as they lost the man seen as their anchor.
“Sensitivities were high after Mr Lee’s passing and also, I don’t think the vast majority of Singaporeans have a nuanced grasp of the discourse of free speech… or about the proportionality of criminal sentencing,” said Colin Goh, the humorist behind the campaign for Yee’s release.
Youth counsellor Vincent Law, who treated Yee and posted bail for him, said he did so because he wanted to show that as a Christian he was not offended by the video.
He said Yee was “like any 16-year-old rebellious kid”, who is “challenging authority, feeling he has to fit in a mould and conform to society’s norms”.
“He’s very intelligent, bright, pleasant and courteous… But he lacks a sense of boundaries and empathy for other people. He says he has to be honest and cannot compromise.”
Mr Goh sees Amos Yee as “a true litmus test for Singapore’s maturity in a post-Lee Kuan Yew world”.
“During [Lee’s] funeral, I thought Singaporeans behaved in a very mature fashion – calm, reflective, thoughtful, forgiving. There is some irony that Amos’s case has perhaps revealed quite the opposite.”
Still others believe it is a sign of a changing Singapore, whose strict hate speech laws have been criticised for muting critical discussion on such topics.
“We have a new generation that needs the space to be themselves, to express divergent views,” said Mr Law. “As a society, we need to give them that space and not stifle them.”
Source: www.bbc.com
It’s been 40 days since Amos Yee was arrested and he has spent some 15 days in remand since then. Following the 2-day trial which ended yesterday, this 16-year-old boy is currently languishing in a Changi Prison cell awaiting the court verdict which is expected next Tuesday. One can only imagine how he must be feeling and how surprised he must be that his 8-min video rant against Lee Kuan Yew has exploded in such an unimaginable way that has brought out the worst and the best in Singaporeans and even drawn international attention to how intolerant a society we have become and how insensitive our system is in the treatment of a child.
Yes, lest some forget, he is still a child not an adult according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which defines child as persons under age 18. If any adult disagrees, please ask yourself if you truly felt like an adult when you were 16.
Over the past month we have witnessed a shocking level of intolerance and vindictiveness in the overblown response to the video. Yes the timing of his video soon after LKY died was bad, yes he did say things that were rude in his rant against LKY and this offended SOME fervent fans of LKY and SOME Christians. But many, including Christians and Catholics, have also spoken up to say they were not offended. Yet, for this one short video, which he did to get people thinking about political issues, Amos and his family have been subjected to all sorts of indignities and sufferings including online abuse by adults who should know better.
Ironically, Amos had said in an opening line in his video that “Lee Kuan Yew is a horrible person because everyone is scared, everyone is afraid that if they say something like that they will get into trouble which, to give Lee Kuan Yew his credit, that was primarily the impact of his legacy”. All that has happened to Amos since then is reinforcing this view as zealous supporters of LKY seem hellbent on continuing this oppressive legacy.
Let me now list the trials and tribulations that the kid and his family have suffered since he his video posting on March 29:
1) Amos has been mob-lynched online by numerous adults with many making inappropriate filthy sexual threats including some wishing that he gets buttxxxx (raped) in prison and a PAP grassroots leader even wrote that he wants to cut Amos dick and stuff it into his mouth.
2) Thirty two, yes 32, police reports were filed against him including by well-known diehard grassroots supporters of the PAP. None of these people have appeared as witnesses in court.
3) Amos was arrested on March 30 within a day of his video posting and was handcuffed and shackled in the presence of his grandparents. At least 8 police officers went to his house to arrest this boy. Why so many? Why was he treated like a felon?
4) He was given what his lawyers have argued as unreasonable and disproportionate bail terms which include a total ban on him posting anything on social media (though the AGC sniped that he can still shop online) and an initial bail amount of $20,000 (which btw is half of the bail amount imposed on Filipino Ello who had made seditious insults against Singaporeans). The amount was upped to $30,000 after Amos broke bail terms by posting comments online protesting against the bail conditions
5) He was assaulted by an adult male outside of court with a heavy strike to his face which caused his eye to be swollen. Despite being arrested a week ago, the assailant’s identity and photo has NOT been publicly disclosed. Shockingly, many Singaporeans cheered the repulsive attack including establishment types like grassroots leaders and well-known bloggers. Their rationale for cheering? He deserved it. Yet, would any of these people allow strangers to slap or hit their child even if their child had misbehaved obnoxiously in public? Not at all.
6) And at the public court hearing over the past two days (May 7 and 8), a pale and skinny Amos shuffled in with hands cuffed, legs shackled in heavy chains while wearing a shirt with the word PRISONER emblazoned on the back, shocking those seated in the public gallery. The shackling and cuffing, I understand, is a police protocol for all those held in prison even if in remand. Isn’t it time to review this SOP for children and the frail elderly?
7) To add insult to injury, the media including The Straits Times have misreported several facts and tried to paint Amos’ mum as uncaring and the boy as a psychopath with mischievous and misleading headlines that screamed “Loonie!” just because the court had wanted him to undergo psychiatric counselling in exchange for reviewing the bail terms. For the record, Amos’ mum Mdm Toh said she had taken Amos for counselling to understand why he seemed “too daring” and feared nothing, and not to find out if he was insane. The boy is brilliant and cocky but he is no psychopath. As his lawyer Alfred Dowell reminded the public – he is just a boy, don’t demonise him!
8) Just yesterday, TODAY newspaper ran a terribly misleading and wrong headline that added to the family’s humiliation when it claimed falsely that Amos was asked by his church to leave. The truth is he gave up practising his faith as a Catholic when he chose to be an atheist.
9)Since he was charged on March 31, Amos would have spent a total of 18 days in jail by the time he is brought out in chains again to hear the court verdict next Tuesday. This includes the time he spent in prison before he was bailed out by the kind soul Vincent Law (who said he had absolutely no regrets doing so) and the time that he went back to remand after breaking the bail terms by posting comments online.
Yes all the above, and more, has happened to Amos. And he is just a 16-year-old boy.
Amos has been charged with making offensive remarks about Christians and circulating an obscene image. He has pleaded not guilty to both charges against him. Initially, he faced a third charge for making comments about the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew that were deemed likely to cause distress to Singaporeans, but this was stood down although the prosecution can still charge him for it in future if they so decide.
I understand that some people were upset by the video made by Amos. But as his defence lawyers argued in court, there is no proof that Christians were hurt by what Amos said. Some were upset but many more were not.
As for the supposedly obscene line drawing of LKY and Margaret Thatcher, Amos’ lawyersraised the point that one must consider if there was an intent to deprave and corrupt such as causing titillation for the image to be considered obscene. IMHO, no one looking at that drawing will be titillated.
Everything that has happened to Amos would be very considered traumatising even for adults so what more for a child? Even though his lawyer has claimed Amos is in high spirits, even though many people admire the boy’s seeming resilience in the face of such adversity, no one knows how he really feels beneath the stoic facade. There may be major longer-term repercussions as this draining saga may affect Amos’ mental development and physical health, destroy his future in Singapore and wreck his family and social relations.
The crux here is – there has been a dramatic overkill in response to what Amos did. Why should Amos and his family be traumatised in such a manner? Did he something that was so terrible and evil to warrant all that has happened to him? Online lynching, cheering when he was assaulted, 32 police reports, jail time? Seriously??! Would any of his haters feel the same way if all this happened to their child?
Yes, he was disrespectful in his comments on LKY and on Christianity but surely any rational person can see that such comments from a child will not wreak LKY’s reputation nor destroy the strong religious harmony which has been built over many decades in Singapore? There are many much, much worse comments made online about LKY and religion over the years and yet both survived unscathed.
While I am saddened by the pettiness and vindictiveness, I am also heartened to see many people speaking up for Amos. Many have expressed shock at the lynching and jeering. I too was taken aback when some friends, who are normally compassionate and kind, rejoiced gleefully when Amos was assaulted. Whatever happened to their compassionate and understanding heart? Where is the universal principle of love, forgiveness and kindness preached by their religions? Isn’t their reaction completely at odds with what they preach?
If one teenager’s online rant can draw this kind of rabid response, and if nothing is done to temper the mindset of such people, Amos’ case could well set a precedence. It may embolden the ultra conservative and ultra sensitive to take even more atrocious actions against any and every person/website/blog who/that posts anything that may be deemed offensive to them. Some may want to take personal/political/religious advantage of the very grey and broad Protection from Harassment Act and sedition laws.
Having drawn blood from getting Amos arrested and charged, will the self-righteous group become even more intolerant? Is this the kind of Singapore we want? Is this the kind of intolerant and uncompromising society we desire for us and our children? Will this not fracture our fragile harmony as one people?
So much has been said by our Government about the need to be a kind, tolerant and gracious society. We are exhorted to be gracious and accepting of all different races, religions and nationalities. Yet, how are we treating a child who is somewhat different from the norm here? What are we seeing in the treatment of Amos?
I worry for our country if this sort of mob mentality and intolerance takes root. I hope good sense will prevail and that our Government leaders will do the right thing to rein in any zealous and unjustified mob lynching and work on building a more tolerant and open-minded society.
Let’s now put things in context. Amos is not a bad kid, not by a long shot. He did well in his studies, he has won awards for his creative work, he does not smoke, drink or do drugs and he has never committed a crime. His only “sin” that seems to offend some people is that he is very different from the norm as defined by society here. He speaks his mind bluntly, he has an unusually deep interest on socio-political issues for one so young and he has an exceptional brilliance and an ability to think critically that could make some adults uncomfortable. What he lacks for now is maturity and the ability to think strategically to survive in this world.
Amos and his family have already paid a heavy price for his one video rant. The boy needs time to grow up and understand life. He needs guidance and counselling to become wiser and to learn how to navigate this complex world in a mature way. What he does not need is vindictive abuse and immature jeering from adults who should know better. He also does not deserve to be broken and destroyed all because he made one video that pissed off some overly sensitive people.
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than in the way which it treats its children.” – Nelson Mandela
Published by Jentrified Citizen, 9 May 2015
Source: https://jentrifiedcitizen.wordpress.com
And so it’s happened…he’s gone.
That’s the news Singapore will wake up to this morning. Mr Lee Kuan Yew died at 3.18am. He was 91.
I’m looking at the PMO website done up in black. At other times, I might have appreciated the artistic effort. Instead, I just feel terrible. It was my mother who rang me at 5am to give me the news – when I was in the middle of brushing my teeth. She was already awake and had turned on the television. She sounded terrible too.
I’ve been wondering what I would feel when the “wait’’ was finally over. Now I know. It’s like a kind of choked-up release of emotions.
We’ve all been keeping some kind of death watch haven’t we, although there were those who thought a recovery was possible. I had been wondering how his family felt having to talk to well-wishers and the well-meaning as they made their way into the hospital ward these past few days. If it were me, I would like to be left alone and not have to pose for wefies…
But this was not just any old man, but Singapore’s grand old man. People read every word of every PMO statement about Mr Lee’s condition. They wished for more info, and wondered if he was conscious or not. And whether being on a mechanical ventilator is the same as being on life-support. People asked why his family didn’t just pull the plug on him and stop any pain he might be feeling. People prayed for a miracle recovery; they brought flowers, cards. To think that we were once labelled the world’s most unemotional people.
And, of course, some unkind people made stupid jokes.
There was a certain tightness in the air, of a collective breath being held, especially on Wednesday when the country was told his condition had “taken a turn for the worse’’. Then, it was him remaining “critically ill’’ before he “worsened’’ on Saturday and “weakened further’’ on Sunday. Then the final bulletin came while Singapore was sleeping.
I don’t want to think of Mr Lee as lying on a hospital hooked up to some machines. I want to think of him as the man who held the stage, who strode rather than walked and had eyes that bore through you. The media had tried to protect him, declining to publish or broadcast signs of his frailty, such as him seated in a wheelchair. But nobody was fooled. The grand old man was withering away in front of our eyes.
What now?
Life for the rest of us will, of course, go on. We’ll be hearing a lot of “death is inevitable’’ comments by those puzzled or embarrassed by displays of sentiment. Callous young ones will say “but he’s already so old what…’’
I think the older folk will feel a sense of loss. He was the man who would “come out’’ to set things right. Like it or not, they listened and followed. He was a bulldozer, true, but it was so that he could build a house, the Singapore house. They can forgive a lot of things he did, because they too believed in building the Singapore house. After that, we started furnishing the house with better and better things, and started quarreling about what to buy. Now? We want to upgrade but can’t decide what sort of house to move into…
People like my mother are worried. He might not have been on the national stage for years, but we all knew he was around. And if he was around, we’ll be all right, which is how people like my mother think. To think that when he became Senior Minister, Minister Mentor and later, former Prime Minister, she wondered why he just didn’t get out of the way so that his successor and later, his son, can work independently. You know the analogy, the banyan tree under which nothing grows. We forget that it also gives shade.
Some people think that the outpouring of emotion is overdone, and that there were plenty of other people/individuals involved in the establishment of Singapore as a successful city-state. Of course. They are members of the pioneer generation. And the grand old man was their leader. There is no shame in grieving for a man who gave his life to this country. Yes, he was powerful. Yes, he was autocratic. But he was often more right than wrong. In fact, the qualities that people dislike about him might just be the qualities that brought us to today.
The State, I’m sure, will honour him fully. Obituaries will appear. The media will be full of tributes. International figures will have some words for him. The citizens? I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can summon up a smile today. The best thing we can do now is to wish his family well in their time of grief. And to thank them for sharing him with us while he lived.