Kiddie Rides -- The Missing Rally Speech

I am XenoBoy. I am the Political Savant

In housing estates, lying at the corners of old and decrepit coffee-shops or candy stores, are these ancient kiddie rides. Twenty cents for a ride. Children still clamour for them, it is the magical sensation of rocking and swaying, coupled with the blaring of invariably Chinese kiddie songs. The kid is transported into an alternate changed environment. When the machine stops, the sensation of change stops. The illusion of the ride fades and the machine is stationary again. The child will always scream for more. The parent will always say no. It is not the twenty cents. It is the discipline of the child that matter. The conditioning.

The missing in this year's NDP Rally Speech is the political. The fact that politics was silenced in the Rally is deliberate. Last year's Rally speech welcomed politics as a Logos in Singapore. The welcome spurred the production of the Political in Singapore to an extent which became highly problematic for the incumbent regime. A political film is produced which cannot be screened in a cinema but becomes screened in our homes. A gay festival for expression which cannot gain the expression and than re-invents itself as an indignation and expresses itself nonetheless. An anticipated election lapses into a tortuous re-definition of competition and selection rather than election. A protest that is not a protest but expressed as a protest. Small change, loose change but change still.

I am XenoBoy. I am the Political Savant.

It is always problematic when oxymorons are translated into Fact. Last year's speech sought to produce a Fact of political participation in Singapore riddled with the contradictions of political conditioning. In so doing, the instruments of governing power became paralysed in response to political expression. When the forms of political expression lodged themselves in the interstitial crannies of juridico-legal power, adopting a political posture that escapes definition, a film that is not a film, a festival that is not a festival, a election that is not an election, a protest that is not a protest, the juridico-legal power of calibrated coercion (ref Cherian George) meets its match of elaborated expression.

The thermostat has not kicked into action. The degrees of expression remain. Remember that this year's speech is a silencing not a re-covering. Yet.

This year's Speech is calling for change without the Political. Change is good for the child. A calibrated and conditioned change of mindsets to alter Singapore. Embedded in this call for change is a contradiction of epic proportions. Singapore and the PAP are entwined inextricably. Hence, the change is a kiddie ride change. It is a change to train a child. The foundations of the machine remain, collecting your sense.

The Chinese epic novel, 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms', begins with the line "The empire long united must divide" and ends with the line :The empire long divided must unite". Nestled between division and unity is change. Massive political change. The Rally speech is envisioning change. Small change, loose change and still change.

Fight this.

I am XenoBoy. I am the Political Savant.

Quote of the Day : "Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate: his keys were rusty, and the lock was dull, so little trouble had been given of late ... The angels were singing out of tune, and hoarse with having little else to do, except to wind up the sun and moon, or curb a runaway young star or two" -- Lord Byron, The Vision of Judgment