I guess housing prices and foreign workers/talent.
affordable housing, health, how to make singaporean upgrade and earn more money
flood, welcome ft, new citizen with open arm
issues
workers must be
better, cheaper, faster
more productive
now better. betterer, betterest
Flood,HDB price,flood of >9000 foreigners,YOG budget miscalculation,Mas Selamat escape, TH 's losses in investments, train graffiti. But for those freak events, emphasis must be placed on how irresponsible our ministers are for it to be effective (no apologies and tachi responsiblities).
PAP will always use character as an argument for some reason singaproean always buy into that...!!
is never about issue in Singapore.
Originally posted by Arapahoe:
is never about issue in Singapore.
I think that is due to media control by PAP. They use it to set the agenda and manipulate, dumb down and brainwash the masses.
Book sheds light on Lee's media control
In my opinion, Francis Seow is Singapore's -- and Lee Kuan Yew's -- most perceptive public critic (many others are perceptive only in private), and Media Enthralled lives up to the reputation he has established. It sheds bright light on the methods Lee Kuan Yew has used vis-a-vis the media to make Singapore the political straitjacket nation it now is, and is the only media study I know with insights applicable to Asian countries struggling to establish open societies. Media Enthralled makes an authoritative contribution to the understanding of not only a Singaporean, but also an Asian and global problem, and, it is hoped, to its eventual alleviation.
In 1956 Lee Kuan Yew referred, with apparent humour, to the desirability of "an intimidated press and the government-controlled radio [that] can regularly sing your praises" so that "slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the evil things that have already been done, or if these things are referred to again they're conveniently distorted and distorted with impunity because there will be no opposition to contradict." Media Enthralled addresses with encyclopaedic detail the implementation of the "joke" into Singapore reality.
Seow's exhaustive research exposes the lengths to which Lee Kuan Yew went in order to muzzle vigorously independent-minded media such as newspapers Nanyang Siang Pau and Singapore Herald.
Journalists were arrested, "problematical" newspapers closed, remaining newspaper shares held largely in indirect government control, government-issued press and printing licences required, critical foreign commentators refused work permits, lawsuits brought against and circulation restrictions imposed on foreign media -- all these measures, and many more, brought the desired result: an "intimidated press" and, with similar ruthlessness applied in the political arena, "no opposition to contradict."
Critical comment of government policies quickly became almost non-existent. Crucial issues such as the abolition of the jury system, the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council, the ban on political comment by the Law Society (except on government request), under-reporting of opposition campaigning and defamation lawsuits against government critics, all have been reported almost exclusively as if by the ruling People's Action Party. Self-censorship arrived. David Saul Marshall, a former Chief Minister, was quoted as commenting in 1994, "Today, Singapore's censorship is worse, broader and more strict than any time under British imperial rule."
I have read Media Enthralled with the eyes of a human rights campaigner seeking enlightenment on the context of Amnesty International's concerns during the past three decades, on which the crackdown on the media has a direct bearing.
I have found a thorough and enlightening examination of the circumstances surrounding media-related detentions as well as media complicity in reporting on prisoners of conscience, ill-treatment, torture, executions and the use of amended legislation to threaten or punish political critics.
Francis Seow documents with exactness the gradual tightening of the noose around the media even to the extent that journalists have been co-opted into government service by conducting staged "interviews" of untried and unconvicted prisoners of conscience making public "confessions" of guilt.
Many of the all-too-familiar names and events of concern to Amnesty International since the early sixties are addressed within that context: Chia Thye Poh, Teo Soh Lung, Vincent Cheng, Lee Eu Seng, Operation Cold Store, the 1987 arrests, the Internal Security Act and misuse of the courts to punish critics (through defamation suits, for example) and many others.
In the vast range of human rights concerns he addresses and through his careful attention to detail, Francis Seow makes a fascinating and essential contribution to truth and justice.
Media Enthralled is published at a notable time in the development of human rights. It is the fiftieth anniversary of the historic United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the year in which the Asian Charter of Human Rights has been formulated by over 200 Asian non-governmental organizations and countless individuals.
This expression of the people of Asia directly contradicts the claim by some Asian leaders -- notably Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew -- that universal human rights are alien to Asia. Further, the Charter reflects Asians aspirations for an end to the circumstances in which human rights violations are committed.
Government control of the media is one of those circumstances. Asians will therefore seek the book out and attempt to use its lessons to press for the open, co-operative and harmonious Asia for which they strive. Their hope will be that Francis Seow applies the same assiduousness to studies on government control of economic, judicial and religious contexts.
Media Enthralled will also, not surprisingly, be seized on by the media in Singapore and elsewhere, whatever their public or private political views, for information on their Singaporean (and other) colleagues and for a chilling analysis of media control by a sophisticated government.
Francis Seow offers no comforting or inspirational conclusion. He quotes Professor Tommy Koh, Director of the Institute of Policy Studies, as making the point at a 1991 forum on the future role of the press that journalists "must constantly work under a cloud of fear."
Media Enthralled hammers this main message right to the last pages of the book: the People's Action Party, led still in all but name by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, ruthlessly and efficiently crushed the media knowing that "the hand that rules the press ... rules the country."
Worse, Francis Seow foresees a post-Lee government will not lossen but rather strengthen its control through trusted influential media appointments.
This sober study impresses for its comprehensiveness, thoroughness and analytical shrewdness. More than that, Francis Seow writes out of a sense of conscience: he is deeply troubled about the country in which he was born and lived for six decades.
Media Enthralled is a timely book, written as Asians' determination to enjoy freedom of expression, democracy, concord and partnership becomes more pronounced. Its most important contribution is its relevance to such resolution.
BY Margaret John: Cordinator for Singapore and Malaysia Amnesty International Canadian Section (English Speaking)
Thanks for the responses.
whether PAP won by 66.6% or 76.6% or 100%